What Do We Really Know?
Let’s imagine a discussion among people with very different views of existence: religious thinkers, philosophers and scientists. Their methods and questions differ, but for this little game I want them at the same table. Where do we come from? What gives life meaning? What happens when we die?
As moderator, you ask: Which way of thinking offers the highest principle for understanding our existence?
Someone speaking from a theistic tradition might answer: God, the creator and ground of everything. Another participant would immediately ask what the word “God” means, and whose account of God we are discussing.
For my part, I find the idea of salvation for some and eternal exclusion for others difficult to reconcile with a highest principle. What of someone who has never encountered the religion concerned? This is my objection within our imaginary conversation, rather than a description of what every religion teaches.
A scientist might respond that empirical methods have a special strength: claims can be tested, criticised and revised. That does not settle every question of meaning, but it is a substantial difference in how knowledge is established.
Quantum Physics and Zen
In June 2023, I read an interview with Anton Zeilinger, who shared the 2022 Nobel Prize in Physics. [2] I had been impressed by him years earlier—not because I understood quantum physics, but because I enjoy being confronted with an unfamiliar world. In the interview, his distinction between making measurements and explaining the essence of reality particularly interested me.
I have previously compared quantum physics and Zen. I would put that comparison more carefully now: the resemblance is a philosophical prompt for me, not experimental proof of Buddhism. What attracts me to Zen is its questioning of the concepts through which I organise experience. This should not be reduced to the claim that nothing exists, or that the world is simply invented by my thoughts. [1]
A Thought Experiment About Money
Another imaginary scene: Jane buys vegetables for $8.50, pays with a $10 note and receives $1.50 in change. At the next shop, the butcher insists that her note is worth only the paper and ink. Jane would understandably object. The material cost of the note and its accepted monetary value are different things.
Suppose she tells thousands of people online that the shop will accept only half its face value. The claim might provoke anxiety, but one shopkeeper’s assertion does not itself change the currency’s value. My point is narrower: shared expectations help make money work, and losing trust can have consequences. The high-denomination German notes and stamps below offer a historical reminder of instability; they date from the inflation of 1923.
Our God Is Money
“Money is our god” is a provocative way of putting it, but the metaphor appeals to me. We organise a great deal of life around shared confidence in it. Then, on the dollar note, we find the words “In God We Trust”.
Consider measurement as well. We agree on units so that we can compare distances. One metre is one hundred centimetres; a kilometre is one thousand metres. The choice of units is conventional, while measurements made with them can still be checked. The modern metre has a precise definition linked to the speed of light. [3] Changing the unit does not change the distance.
Belief, Convention and Reality
Does the Flying Spaghetti Monster exist? As a physical creature, that is a different question from whether the idea exists and has social effects. A joke, an image or a shared belief can influence people without establishing the literal truth of what it depicts. An encyclopedia entry shows that a subject is being discussed; it is not proof that the creature is real.
This is where the game becomes interesting to me. Some things depend on shared conventions; other claims need evidence that does not yield simply because enough people believe them. I still return to Zen when asking how tightly I should hold my own explanations. That is an attraction and a practice of questioning, rather than an objective award for the “highest” philosophy.
Looking back at earlier ways of thinking can make our own assumptions seem obvious by comparison. It is harder to notice the assumptions we inhabit now. Perhaps the better ending to our game is another question: which of my certainties would I be willing to examine next?
Footnotes
[1] For a fuller account of practice, nondual knowing and the meaning of “nothing” in Zen, see Japanese Zen Buddhist Philosophy in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
[2] The 2022 physics prize recognised Alain Aspect, John F. Clauser and Anton Zeilinger for experiments involving entangled photons and Bell inequalities, and their contribution to quantum information science. It did not establish a religious or philosophical doctrine.
[3] See the International Bureau of Weights and Measures’ definition of the metre. The example here distinguishes an agreed unit from the physical quantity being measured.
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