Buddha – Mind – Network
Levente Szabados
Nowadays, with the ever growing dominance of information technology, and it’s most eminent achievement, the Internet, the ways of life and thinking are changing rapidly. Thus, it is time to consider from the viewpoint of religious thinking the ways, in which the traditional metaphysical systems can be reinterpreted so that they can keep, or even broaden their significance for our everyday experience.
Considered from the viewpoint of Buddhism, there exist some significant aspects of the advance of network technology – and the quasi metaphysics of network theory – which deserve special attention, since they are in strong concordance with it’s teachings, and also because these principles can serve as a foundation for the progressive solutions of some key problems in theoretical and practical fields.
The goal of the presentation will be to outline basic aspects of interconnections between the traditional systems of Buddhist philosophy and some current streams of research: the cognitive approach of Varela, and the “networkology” of Barabasi and Csermely, and to point out the ways in which the concept of interdependent causation inherent in Buddhist thought can be integrated into the thinking processes trying to keep pace with the changes of our current life conditions.