CFS: Recent/Upcoming Activity

1. Sep/Oct (2016), Bidalur: A symposium titled A Dialog across traditions: Modern Science and Ancient Insights on Reality with about 20--30 participants, extended over 3 days. Funded through a grant from ICPR (Indian Council for Philosophical Research).
   Co-investigators: Prof. Sisir Roy (NIAS) and Prof. Debjyoti Gangapadhyay (VBU, Hazaribag).

2. Dec 8 (2015), Bidalur: "Science Meets Oriental Philosophy 2015" (SMOPh-2015) brought together researchers from 5 nations. Two themes were discussed:
   -- Concept of reality, knowledge and identity: historical, philosophical and physics perspectives:
   -- Concept of reality, knowledge and causality: physics and neuroscience perspectives.

   Key issues discussed include:
   -- What is knowledge, from a neurobiological/entropic perspective?
   -- Is individual identity ontic or epistemic?
   -- Are quantum uncertainty and disturbance related to uncomputability?
   -- What determines causal laws in Nature-- cosmic free will or some statistical inevitability?

Past Activity (Nalanda Dialogs)

Activity at CFS continues in spirit as one strand of science-philosophy dialog initiated by the Nalanda Dialog Forum, started in 2005 by Prof. Debajyoti Gangopadhyay. A brief listing of past Nalanda Dialogs is as follows:

1. Nalanda Dialog 2013 at Nava Nalanda Mahavihara:
   Theme: Name and Form (Nam rup).
   Issues discussed:
   -- Is Individuality ontological (something which Nature forces on us), or is it epistemic (attributed to Nature by our mind)?
   -- What are the Laws of Physics actually about?
   -- What Constitutes one of a particular kind in the quantum mechanical domain ?
   -- Does Quantum Mechanics need a special Logic of its own?
   -- Is it possible to understand Free Logic much as a modern variant of the Logic of Empty Subject Term discussed extensively by the late medieval Buddhist Logicians?

2. Nalanda Dialog 2012 (Nava Nalanda Mahavihara):
   Theme: Perception in physics, philosophy and neuroscience

3. Nalanda Dialog 2011 (Nava Nalanda Mahavihara):
   Theme: Identity and individuation
   Issues discussed include:
   -- Choice between ontic vagueness vs semantic indecision.
   -- Self and identity in neuroscience and neuropsychiatry

4. Nalanda Dialog 2009 (Nava Nalanda Mahavihara):
   Theme: The Concept of Reality in Modern Physics, Buddism and Vedanta
   Issues discussed include:
   -- Archetype of permanance in Western theoretical tradition.
   -- Archetype of permanance: doubted in Buddhist philosophical tradition
   -- Archetype of phenomenal impermanance in Vedantic philosophical tradition.

5. Nalanda Dialog 2008 (Nava Nalanda Mahavihara):
   Theme: The Concept of Ultimate Irreducibility
   Issues discussed include:
   -- Logico-philosophical significance of accepting ultimate irreducibility.
   -- Is this irreducibility is ontological or this is epistemic?
   -- Viability of the mathematical model based on this
   -- Russell-type logical paradoxes lurking within the framework of Infinite divisibility?

6. Nalanda Dialog 2007 (Nava Nalanda Mahavihara):
   Theme: Matter and Motion in Buddhism and Science
   Issues discussed include:
   
   -- Overview of Boi-Raymond's idea of Impossibility
   -- Mach's attack on Newtonian metaphysics within a Neo-Kantian Framework of doubt; Macheans debate with the contemporary Realists (among the Physicists) like Boltzmann.

7. Nalanda Dialog 2006 (National Institute of Scientific Studies):
   Theme: Space, time and causality.
   Issues discussed include:
   -- How does something ( for example , a person ) change and remain the same Thing ?
   -- What is the nature of causal relation?
   -- What is it to Exist?

8. Nalanda Dialog 2005 (Nava Nalanda Mahavihara): Theme: Shunyata
   Issues discussed include:
   -- Whether the concept of Shunyata in Madhyamik Buddhism implies a physical Emptiness or it is about some fundamental limitations of predication, or a fundamental epistemic limitation intrinsic to Human cognitive process?
   -- What is the exact point of departure for a Physicist to get into the question of epistemic limitation mostly talked about by the Philosophers?