Is Buddhist cosmology disproved by science?

A discussion on all aspects of Theravāda Buddhism
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BlueLotus
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Is Buddhist cosmology disproved by science?

Post by BlueLotus »

I have been thinking.... The Buddha said that the universe expands creating different worlds and then it contracts and be destroyed. Then it will expand again and so on... This is pretty weirdly similar to the earlier big bang theory.

But, recently, scientists are having doubts that the universe will contract at all. They assume that it will keep expanding and either be ripped to pieces or completely freeze and die out as the distance between stars and planets gets ever so long.

Does this later scientific finding dispute the Buddha?
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Mkoll
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Re: Is Buddhist cosmology disproved by science?

Post by Mkoll »

BlueLotus wrote:I have been thinking.... The Buddha said that the universe expands creating different worlds and then it contracts and be destroyed. Then it will expand again and so on... This is pretty weirdly similar to the earlier big bang theory.

But, recently, scientists are having doubts that the universe will contract at all. They assume that it will keep expanding and either be ripped to pieces or completely freeze and die out as the distance between stars and planets gets ever so long.

Does this later scientific finding dispute the Buddha?
AFAIK, all of the theories you've described are still open to debate. There is no scientific consensus regarding the fate of the universe.
Namo tassa bhagavato arahato samma sambuddhassa
Namo tassa bhagavato arahato samma sambuddhassa
Namo tassa bhagavato arahato samma sambuddhassa
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BlueLotus
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Re: Is Buddhist cosmology disproved by science?

Post by BlueLotus »

Mkoll wrote:
BlueLotus wrote:I have been thinking.... The Buddha said that the universe expands creating different worlds and then it contracts and be destroyed. Then it will expand again and so on... This is pretty weirdly similar to the earlier big bang theory.

But, recently, scientists are having doubts that the universe will contract at all. They assume that it will keep expanding and either be ripped to pieces or completely freeze and die out as the distance between stars and planets gets ever so long.

Does this later scientific finding dispute the Buddha?
AFAIK, all of the theories you've described are still open to debate. There is no scientific consensus regarding the fate of the universe.
That's true. But NASA scientists are saying that 90% of the glaring evidence is now for an ever-expanding universe. The expansion rate has in fact sped up over the last million years. They say there are two forces- dark matte and dark energy and the latter keeps it expanding and the former makes it contract and the latter takes up 75% of the universe at the moment.
culaavuso
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Re: Is Buddhist cosmology disproved by science?

Post by culaavuso »

BlueLotus wrote: That's true. But NASA scientists are saying that 90% of the glaring evidence is now for an ever-expanding universe. The expansion rate has in fact sped up over the last million years. They say there are two forces- dark matte and dark energy and the latter keeps it expanding and the former makes it contract and the latter takes up 75% of the universe at the moment.
An ever-expanding universe is not necessarily in conflict with the idea of an eventual destruction followed by another expansion. As an example of a model of this type, see conformal cyclic cosmology as developed by Roger Penrose. Consensus has not been reached regarding such theories.
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BlueLotus
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Re: Is Buddhist cosmology disproved by science?

Post by BlueLotus »

Interesting.... Anyway, when I first read the sutta about a contracting and expanding world, I was pretty amazed by how close it is to the actual scientific findings...
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Re: Is Buddhist cosmology disproved by science?

Post by culaavuso »

BlueLotus wrote:Interesting.... Anyway, when I first read the sutta about a contracting and expanding world, I was pretty amazed by how close it is to the actual scientific findings...
The thread Dhamma Aboard Evolution may be of interest, as the paper linked there discusses DN 27 with comparison to scientific understanding.
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Mkoll
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Re: Is Buddhist cosmology disproved by science?

Post by Mkoll »

BlueLotus wrote:
Mkoll wrote:
BlueLotus wrote:I have been thinking.... The Buddha said that the universe expands creating different worlds and then it contracts and be destroyed. Then it will expand again and so on... This is pretty weirdly similar to the earlier big bang theory.

But, recently, scientists are having doubts that the universe will contract at all. They assume that it will keep expanding and either be ripped to pieces or completely freeze and die out as the distance between stars and planets gets ever so long.

Does this later scientific finding dispute the Buddha?
AFAIK, all of the theories you've described are still open to debate. There is no scientific consensus regarding the fate of the universe.
That's true. But NASA scientists are saying that 90% of the glaring evidence is now for an ever-expanding universe. The expansion rate has in fact sped up over the last million years. They say there are two forces- dark matte and dark energy and the latter keeps it expanding and the former makes it contract and the latter takes up 75% of the universe at the moment.
Do you have a reference for that 90% number?

It should be noted that we don't even know what dark matter and dark energy are. But that doesn't stop us from coming up with theories based on them. It should also be noted that we're looking at this from a very limited perspective. We're not even a Type 1 civilization yet (we may never get there), we launched our first satellite only 57 years ago, and modern humans have only been around for about 0.00137931% of the universe's calculated age. There's a lot we don't know and some things we may never know.

Being hubristic regarding our knowledge tends to come natural to human beings. And that hubris is amplified many times when we're in an agreeable group.
Namo tassa bhagavato arahato samma sambuddhassa
Namo tassa bhagavato arahato samma sambuddhassa
Namo tassa bhagavato arahato samma sambuddhassa
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BlueLotus
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Re: Is Buddhist cosmology disproved by science?

Post by BlueLotus »

90% is a general number. No specific statistics.... At least I can't be bothered to look them up. I just said that scientists say "most of the evidence" is for an expanding universe. You can read about that in NASA site. The reason why it is called dark energy is precisely because they don't know what it is. :smile: But that doesn't disapprove its existence. Scientists know that some force exists but they still have no evidence to decide what it is. I agree that there is more that we don't know than we do.
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Re: Is Buddhist cosmology disproved by science?

Post by Kusala »

BlueLotus wrote:Interesting.... Anyway, when I first read the sutta about a contracting and expanding world, I was pretty amazed by how close it is to the actual scientific findings...


And this was 2500 years ago... :o
"He, the Blessed One, is indeed the Noble Lord, the Perfectly Enlightened One;
He is impeccable in conduct and understanding, the Serene One, the Knower of the Worlds;
He trains perfectly those who wish to be trained; he is Teacher of gods and men; he is Awake and Holy. "

--------------------------------------------
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Apparent here and now, timeless, encouraging investigation,
Leading to liberation, to be experienced individually by the wise. "
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BlueLotus
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Re: Is Buddhist cosmology disproved by science?

Post by BlueLotus »

Yes. Isn't it in Iron age India? Pretty amazing if you think about it... He was an amazing man
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Zom
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Re: Is Buddhist cosmology disproved by science?

Post by Zom »

Quite interesting on BBC:

"Billions of dark matter particles pass through us every second. "They are in your office, in your room, everywhere," says Frenk. "They are crossing through your bodies at a rate of billions per second and you feel nothing.

It's a humbling reminder of how far we still have to go before we really understand our Universe. We may understand all sorts of things, from the beginning of the Universe to the evolution of life on Earth. But most of our Universe is still a black box, its secrets waiting to be unlocked."

http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20150824 ... se-made-of" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; :reading:
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Keith
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Re: Is Buddhist cosmology disproved by science?

Post by Keith »

Observational bias.

I'd be wary when looking for links between science and Buddhism. Buddhism doesn't need to be scientifically correct to be useful and affective, and certainly it would be madness to disregard something from science because it contradicts something in the Pali Canon, so does it really matter how scientifically accurate the Pali Canon is?
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Re: Is Buddhist cosmology disproved by science?

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Last edited by dhammacoustic on Thu Oct 15, 2015 4:42 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Vanda
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Re: Is Buddhist cosmology disproved by science?

Post by Vanda »

“Don’t go by reports, by legends, by traditions, by scripture, by logical conjecture, by inference, by analogies, by agreement through pondering views, by probability, or by the thought, ‘This contemplative is our teacher.’ When you know for yourselves that, ‘These qualities are skillful; these qualities are blameless; these qualities are praised by the wise; these qualities, when adopted and carried out, lead to welfare and to happiness’ — then you should enter and remain in them.”
- Kalama Sutta, Anguttara Nikaya
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Re: Is Buddhist cosmology disproved by science?

Post by No_Mind »

Hinduism (or the religion that later came to be known as Hinduism) provides a model of cosmology closest to modern understanding. The entire universe is created and then destroyed and that there is a cycle of creation and destruction.

The time scales match at least to some extent that of modern science. Hindu cosmology estimated life of universe at 8.64 billion years. That is far less than the actual time scale - universe is 13 billion years old and will last another 6 billion years but at least way closer than other religions.
BlueLotus wrote:Pretty amazing if you think about it... He was an amazing man


This was a general idea floating around at that time in the Indian subcontinent and not unique to Buddhism. Hindu Cosmology or Kalpa

I am not saying Buddhist cosmology is wrong (or right). Like Karma is a shared concept in Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and no one can say this particular religion discovered concept of Karma .. same in this case.

But since his philosophy is amazing, Buddha was an amazing teacher. No doubt about that.
"The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.”― Albert Camus
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