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Wednesday, November 26, 2025

Creator in Buddhism

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creator_in_Buddhism

Generally speaking, Buddhism is a religion that does not include the belief in a monotheistic creator deity. As such, it has often been described as either (non-materialistic) atheism or as nontheism. However, other scholars have challenged these descriptions since some forms of Buddhism do posit different kinds of transcendent, unborn, and unconditioned ultimate realities (e.g., Buddha-nature).

Buddhist teachings state that there are divine beings called devas (sometimes translated as 'gods') and other Buddhist deities, heavens, and rebirths in its doctrine of saṃsāra, or cyclical rebirth. Buddhism teaches that none of these gods are creators or eternal beings. However, they can live very long lives. In Buddhism, the devas are also trapped in the cycle of rebirth and are not necessarily virtuous. Thus, while Buddhism includes multiple "gods", its main focus is not on them. Peter Harvey calls this "trans-polytheism".

Buddhist texts also posit that mundane deities, such as Mahabrahma, are misconstrued to be creators. Buddhist ontology follows the doctrine of dependent origination, whereby all phenomena arise in dependence on other phenomena, hence no primal unmoved mover could be acknowledged or discerned. Gautama Buddha, in the early Buddhist texts, is also shown as stating that he saw no single beginning to the universe.

During the medieval period, Buddhist philosophers like Vasubandhu developed extensive refutations of creationism and Hindu theism. Because of this, some modern scholars, such as Matthew Kapstein, have described this later stage of Buddhism as anti-theistic. Buddhist anti-theistic writings were also common during the modern era, in response to the presence of Christian missionaries and their critiques of Buddhism.

Despite this, some writers, such as B. Alan Wallace and Douglas Duckworth, have noted that certain doctrines in Vajrayana Buddhism can be seen as being similar to certain theistic doctrines like Neoplatonic theology and pantheism. Various scholars have also compared East Asian Buddhist doctrines regarding the supreme and eternal Buddhas like Vairocana or Amitabha with certain forms of theism, such as pantheism and process theism.

Early Buddhist texts

Damien Keown notes that in the Saṃyutta Nikāya, the Buddha sees the cycle of rebirths as stretching back "many hundreds of thousands of aeons without discernible beginning." Saṃyutta Nikāya 15:1 and 15:2 states: "This samsara is without discoverable beginning. A first point is not discerned of beings roaming and wandering on hindered by ignorance and fettered by craving."

According to Buddhologist Richard Hayes, the early Buddhist Nikaya literature treats the question of the existence of a creator god "primarily from either an epistemological point of view or a moral point of view". In these texts, the Buddha is portrayed not as a creator-denying atheist who claims to be able to prove such a god's nonexistence, but rather his focus is other teachers' claims that their teachings lead to the highest good.

According to Hayes, in the Tevijja Sutta (DN 13), there is an account of a dispute between two brahmins about how best to reach union with Brahma (Brahmasahavyata), who is seen as the highest god over whom no other being has mastery and who sees all. However, after being questioned by the Buddha, it is revealed that they do not have any direct experience of this Brahma. The Buddha calls their religious goal laughable, vain, and empty.

Hayes also notes that in the early texts, the Buddha is not depicted as an atheist, but more as a sceptic who is against religious speculations, including speculations about a creator god. Citing the Devadaha Sutta (Majjhima Nikaya 101), Hayes states, "while the reader is left to conclude that it is attachment rather than God, actions in past lives, fate, type of birth or efforts in this life that is responsible for our experiences of sorrow, no systematic argument is given in an attempt to disprove the existence of God."

Narada Thera also notes that the Buddha specifically calls out the doctrine of creation by a supreme deity (termed Ishvara) for criticism in the Aṅguttara Nikāya. This doctrine of creation by a supreme lord is defined as follows: "Whatever happiness or pain or neutral feeling this person experiences, all that is due to the creation of a supreme deity (issaranimmāṇahetu)." The Buddha criticized this view because he saw it as a fatalistic teaching that would lead to inaction or laziness:

"So, then, owing to the creation of a supreme deity, men will become murderers, thieves, unchaste, liars, slanderers, abusive, babblers, covetous, malicious and perverse in view. Thus for those who fall back on the creation of a god as the essential reason, there is neither desire nor effort nor necessity to do this deed or abstain from that deed."

In another early sutta (Devadahasutta, Majjhima Nikāya 101), the Buddha sees the pain and suffering that is experienced by certain individuals as indicating that if they were created by a god, then this is likely to be an evil god:

"If the pleasure and pain that beings feel are caused by the creative act of a Supreme God, then the Nigaṇṭhas surely must have been created by an evil Supreme God, since they now feel such painful, racking, piercing feelings."

High gods who are mistaken as creator

According to Peter Harvey, Buddhism assumes that the universe has no ultimate beginning to it and thus sees no need for a creator god. In the early texts, the nearest term to this concept is "Great Brahma" (Maha Brahma), such as in Digha Nikaya 1.18. However, "[w]hile being kind and compassionate, none of the brahmās are world-creators."

In the Pali Canon, Buddhism includes the concept of reborn gods. According to this theory, periodically, the physical world system ends and beings of that world system are reborn as gods in lower heavens. This too ends, according to Buddhist cosmology, and god Mahabrahma is then born, who is alone. He longs for the presence of others, and the other gods are reborn as his ministers and companions. In Buddhist suttas, such as DN 1, Mahabrahma forgets his past lives and falsely believes himself to be the Creator, Maker, All-Seeing, Lord. This belief, state the Buddhist texts, is then shared by other gods. Eventually, however, one of the gods dies and is reborn as human, with the power to remember his previous life. He teaches what he remembers from his previous life in lower heaven, that Mahabrahma is the Creator. It is this that leads to the human belief in a creator, according to the Pali Canon.

A similar story of a high god (brahma) who mistakes himself as the all-powerful creator can be seen in the Brahma-nimantanika Sutta (MN 49). In this sutta, the Buddha displays his superior knowledge by explaining how a high god named Baka Brahma, who believes himself to be supremely powerful, actually does not know of certain spiritual realms. The Buddha also demonstrates his superior psychic power by disappearing from Baka Brahma's sight, to a realm that he cannot reach, and then challenges him to do the same. Baka Brahma fails in this, demonstrating the Buddha's superiority. The text also depicts Mara, an evil trickster figure, as attempting to support the Brahma's misconception of himself. As noted by Michael D. Nichols, MN 49 seems to show that "belief in an eternal creator figure is a devious ploy put forward by the Evil One to mislead humanity, and the implication is that Brahmins who believe in the power and permanence of Brahma have fallen for it."

The Problem of Evil in the Jatakas

Some stories in the Buddhist Jataka collections outline a critique of a Creator deity that is similar to the Problem of Evil.

One Jataka story (VI.208) states:

If Brahma is lord of the whole world and Creator of the multitude of beings, then why has he ordained misfortune in the world without making the whole world happy; or for what purpose has he made the world full of injustice, falsehood and conceit; or is the lord of beings evil in that he ordained injustice when there could have been justice?

The Pali Bhūridatta Jātaka (No. 543) has the bodhisattva (future Buddha) state:

"He who has eyes can see the sickening sight,

Why does not Brahmā set his creatures right?

If his wide power no limit can restrain,

Why is his hand so rarely spread to bless?

Why are his creatures all condemned to pain?

Why does he not to all give happiness?

Why do fraud, lies, and ignorance prevail?

Why triumphs falsehood—truth and justice fail?

I count you Brahmā one th'unjust among,

Who made a world in which to shelter wrong."

In the Pali Mahābodhi Jātaka (No. 528), the bodhisattva says:

"If there exists some Lord all powerful to fulfil

In every creature bliss or woe, and action good or ill;

That Lord is stained with sin.

Man does but work his will."

Medieval philosophers

While Early Buddhism was not as concerned with critiquing concepts of God or Īśvara (since theism was not as prominent in India until the medieval era), medieval Indian Buddhists engaged much more thoroughly with the emerging Hindu theisms (mainly by attempting to refute them). According to Matthew Kapstein, medieval Buddhist philosophers deployed a host of arguments, including the argument from evil and others that "stressed formal problems in the conception of a supreme deity". Kapstein outlines this second line of argumentation as follows:

God, the theists affirm, must be eternal, and an eternal entity must be supposed to be altogether free from corruption and change. That same eternal being is held to be the creator, that is, the causal basis, of this world of corruption and change. The changing state, however, of a thing that is caused implies there to be change also in its causal basis, for a changeless cause cannot explain alteration in the result. The hypothesis of a creator god, therefore, either fails to explain our changing world, or else God himself must be subject to change and corruption, and hence cannot be eternal. Creation, in other words, entails the impermanence of the creator. Theism, the Buddhist philosophers concluded, could not as a system of thought be saved from such contradictions.

Kapstein also notes that by this time, "Buddhism's earlier refusal of theism had indeed given way to a well-formed antitheism." However, Kapstein notes that these criticisms remained mostly philosophical, since Buddhist antitheism "was conceived primarily in terms of the logical requirements of Buddhist philosophical systems, for which the concept of a personal god violated the rational demands of an impersonal, moral and causal order".

Madhyamaka philosophers

In the Twelve Gate Treatise (十二門論, Shih-erh-men-lun), the Buddhist philosopher Nagarjuna (c. 1st–2nd century) works to refute the belief of certain Indian non-Buddhists in a god called Isvara, who is "the creator, ruler and destroyer of the world". Nagarjuna makes several arguments against a creator God, including the following:

"If all living beings are the sons of God, He should use happiness to cover suffering and should not give them suffering. And those who worship Him should not have suffering but should enjoy happiness. But this is not true in reality."
"If God is self-existent, He should need nothing. If He needs something, He should not be called self-existent. If He does not need anything, why did He [cause] change, like a small boy who plays a game, to make all creatures?"
"Again, if God created all living beings, who created Him? That God created Himself, cannot be true, for nothing can create itself. If He were created by another creator, He would not be self-existent."
"Again, if all living beings come from God, they should respect and love Him just as sons love their father. But actually this is not the case; some hate God and some love Him."
"Again, if God is the maker [of all things], why did He not create men all happy or all unhappy? Why did He make some happy and others unhappy? We would know that He acts out of hate and love, and hence is not self-existent. Since He is not self-existent, all things are not made by Him."

In his Hymn to the Inconceivable (Acintyastava), Nagarjuna attacks this belief in two verses:

33. Just as the work of a magician is empty of substance, all the rest of the world has been said by you to be empty of substance—including a creator deity. 34. If the creator is created by another, he cannot avoid being created and, consequently, is not permanent. Alternatively, if he creates himself, it implies that the creator is the agent of the activity affecting himself, which is absurd.

Nagarjuna also argues against a Creator in his Bodhicittavivaraṇa. Furthermore, in his Letter to a Friend, he also rejects the idea of a creator deity:

The aggregates (come) not from a triumph of wishing, not from (permanent) time, not from primal matter, not from an essential nature, not from the Powerful Creator Ishvara, and not from having no cause. Know that they arise from unawareness, karmic actions, and craving.

Bhāviveka (c. 500 – c. 578) also critiques the idea in his Madhyamakahṛdaya (Heart of the Middle Way, ch. III).

A later Madhyamaka philosopher, Candrakīrti, states in his Introduction to the Middle Way (6.114): "Because things (bhava) are not produced without a cause (hetu), from a creator god (isvara), from themselves, another or both, they are always produced in dependence [on conditions]."

Shantideva (c. 8th century), in the 9th chapter of his Bodhicaryāvatāra, states:

'God is the cause of the world.' Tell me, who is God? The elements? Then why all the trouble about a mere word? (119) Besides, the elements are manifold, impermanent, without intelligence or activity; without anything divine or venerable; impure. Also such elements as earth, etc., are not God.(120) Neither is space God; space lacks activity, nor is atman—that we have already excluded. Would you say that God is too great to conceive? An unthinkable creator is likewise unthinkable, so that nothing further can be said.

Vasubandhu

The 5th-century Buddhist philosopher Vasubandhu argued that a creator's singular identity is incompatible with creating the world in his Abhidharmakosha. He states (AKB, chapter 2):

The universe does not originate from one single cause (ekaṃ kāraṇam) which may be called God/Supreme Lord (Īśvara), Self (Puruṣa), Primal Source (Pradhāna) or any other name.

Vasubandhu then proceeds to outline various arguments for and against the existence of a creator deity or single cause. In the argument that follows, the Buddhist non-theist begins by stating that if the universe arose from a single cause, "things would arise all at the same time: but everyone sees that they arise successively". The theist responds that things arise in succession because of the power of God's wishes; he thus wills things to arise in succession. The Buddhist responds: "then things do not arise from a single cause, because the desires (of God) are multiple". Furthermore, these desires would have to be simultaneous, but since God is not multiple, things would all arise at the same time.

The theist now responds that God's desires are not simultaneous, "because God, in order to produce his desires, takes into account other causes". The Buddhist replies that if this is the case, then God is not the single cause of everything, and furthermore, he then relies on causes that are also dependent on other causes (and so on).

Then the question of why God creates the world is taken up. The theist states that it is for God's own joy. The Buddhist responds that in this case, God is not lord over his own joy since he cannot create it without an external mean, and "if he is not Sovereign with respect to his own joy, how can he be Sovereign with respect to the world?" Furthermore, the Buddhist also adds:

Besides, do you say that God finds joy in seeing the creatures which he has created in the prey of all the distress of existence, including the tortures of the hells? Homage to this kind of God! The profane stanza expresses it well: "One calls him Rudra because he burns, because he is sharp, fierce, redoubtable, an eater of flesh, blood and marrow.

Furthermore, the Buddhist states that the followers of God as a single cause deny observable cause and effect. If they modify their position to accept observable causes and effects as auxiliaries to their God, "this is nothing more than a pious affirmation, because we do not see the activity of a (Divine) Cause next to the activity of the causes called secondary".

The Buddhist also argues that since God did not have a beginning, the creation of the world by God would also not have a beginning (contrary to the claims of the theists). Vasubandhu states: "the Theist might say that the work of God is the [first] creation [of the world] (ādisarga): but it would follow that creation, dependent only on God, would never have a beginning, like God himself. This is a consequence which the Theist rejects."

Vasubandhu finishes this section of his commentary by stating that sentient beings wander from birth to birth doing various actions, experiencing the effects of their karma and "falsely thinking that God is the cause of this effect. We must explain the truth in order to put an end to this false conception."

Other Yogacara philosophers

The Chinese monk Xuanzang (fl. c. 602–664) studied Buddhism in India during the seventh century, staying at Nalanda. There, he studied the Yogacara teachings passed down from Asanga and Vasubandhu and taught to him by the abbot Śīlabhadra. In his work Cheng Weishi Lun (Skt. Vijñāptimātratāsiddhi śāstra), Xuanzang refutes a "Great Lord" or Great Brahmā doctrine:

According to one doctrine, there is a great, self-existent deity whose substance is real and who is all-pervading, eternal, and the producer of all phenomena. This doctrine is unreasonable. If something produces something, it is not eternal, the non-eternal is not all-pervading, and what is not all-pervading is not real. If the deity's substance is all-pervading and eternal, it must contain all powers and be able to produce all dharmas everywhere, at all times, and simultaneously. If he produces dharma when a desire arises, or according to conditions, this contradicts the doctrine of a single cause. Or else, desires and conditions would arise spontaneously since the cause is eternal. Other doctrines claim that there is a great Brahma, a Time, a Space, a Starting Point, a Nature, an Ether, a Self, etc., that is eternal and really exists, is endowed with all powers, and is able to produce all dharmas. We refute all these in the same way we did the concept of the Great Lord.

The 7th-century Buddhist scholar Dharmakīrti advances a number of arguments against the existence of a creator god in his Pramāṇavārtika, following in the footsteps of Vasubandhu.

Later Mahayana scholars, such as Śāntarakṣita, Kamalaśīla, Śaṅkaranandana (fl. c. 9th or 10th century), and Jñānaśrīmitra (fl. 975–1025), also continued to write and develop the Buddhist anti-theistic arguments.

The 11th-century Buddhist philosopher Ratnakīrti, at the former university at Vikramashila (now Bhagalpur, Bihar), criticized the arguments for the existence of a God-like being called Isvara that emerged in the Navya-Nyaya sub-school of Hinduism in his "Refutation of Arguments Establishing Īśvara" (Īśvara-sādhana-dūṣaṇa). These arguments are similar to those used by other sub-schools of Hinduism and Jainism that questioned the Navya-Nyaya theory of a dualistic creator.

Theravada Buddhists

The Theravada commentator Buddhaghosa also specifically denied the concept of a Creator. He wrote:

"For there is no god Brahma. The maker of the conditioned world of rebirths. Phenomena alone flow on. Conditioned by the coming together of causes." (Visuddhimagga 603).

Mahayana and theism

Mahayana Buddhist traditions have more complex Buddhologies, which often contain a figure variously termed the Eternal Buddha, Supreme Buddha, Original Buddha, or Adi-Buddha (primordial Buddha or first Buddha).

Mahayana buddhology and theism

Mahayana Buddhist interpretations of the Buddha as a supreme being, which is eternal, all-compassionate, and existing on a cosmic scale, have been compared to theism by various scholars. For example, Guang Xing describes the Mahayana Buddha as an omnipotent and almighty divinity "endowed with numerous supernatural attributes and qualities". In Mahayana, a fully awakened Buddha (such as Amitābha) is held to be omniscient as well as having other qualities, such as infinite wisdom, an immeasurable life, and boundless compassion. In East Asian Buddhism, Buddhas are often seen as also having eternal life. According to Paul Williams, in Mahayana, a Buddha is often seen as "a spiritual king, relating to and caring for the world".

Various authors, such as F. Sueki, Douglas Duckworth, and Fabio Rambelli, have described Mahayana Buddhist views using the term "pantheism" (the belief that God and the universe are identical). Similarly, Geoffrey Samuel has compared Tibetan Buddhist Buddhology with the related view of panentheism.

Duckworth draws on positive Mahayana conceptions of Buddha-nature, which he explains as a "positive foundation" and "a pure essence residing in temporarily obscured sentient beings". He compares various Mahayana interpretations of Buddha-nature (Tibetan and East Asian) with a pantheist view that sees all things as divine and that "undoes the duality between the divine and the world". In a similar fashion, Eva K. Neumaier compares Mahayana Buddha-nature teachings that point to a source of all things with the theology of Nicholas of Cusa (1401–1464), who described God as an essence and the world as a manifestation of God.

José Ignacio Cabezón notes that while Mahayana sources reject a universal creator God that stands apart from the world, as well as any single creation event for the entire universe, Mahayanists do accept "localized" creation of specific worlds by the Buddhas and bodhisattvas as well as the idea that any world is jointly created by the collective karmic forces of all the beings who reside in them. Buddha-created worlds are termed "Buddha-fields" (or "pure lands"), and their creation is seen as a key activity of the Buddhas and bodhisattvas.

Much comparative work has also been done on Mahayana Buddhist thought and Whiteheadian process theology. Scholars who have worked in this include Jay B. McDaniel, John B. Cobb, Jr., David R. Griffin, Vincent Shen, John S. Yokota, Steve Odin, and Linyin Gu. Some of these figures have also been involved in Buddhist–Christian dialogue.Cobb sees many affinities with the Buddhist ideas of emptiness and not-self and Whitehead's view of God. He has incorporated these into his own process theology. In a similar fashion, some Buddhist thinkers, like Dennis Hirota and John S. Yokota, have developed Buddhist theologies that draw on process theology.

East Asian Buddhism and theism

In Huayan Buddhism, the supreme Buddha Vairocana is seen as the "cosmic Buddha", with an infinite body that comprises the entire universe and whose light penetrates every particle in the cosmos. According to a religious pamphlet from Tōdai-ji temple in Japan (the headquarters of Japanese Huayan), "Vairocana Buddha exists everywhere and every time in the Universe, and the Universe itself is his body. At the same time, the songs of birds, the colors of flowers, the currents of streams, the figures of clouds—all these are the sermon of Buddha".^[However, Francis Cook argues that Vairocana is not a god, nor has the functions of a monotheistic god, since he is not a creator of the universe, nor a judge or father who governs the world.

Thích Nhất Hạnh, meanwhile, has written that the idea of the Buddha's "cosmic body", who is both the cosmos and its creator, "is very close to the idea of God in the theistic religions". Similarly, Lin Weiyu writes that the Huayan school interprets Vairocana as "omnipresent, omnipotent and identical to the universe itself". According to Lin, the Huayan commentator Fazang's conception of Vairocana contains "elements that approach Vairocana to the monotheistic God". However, Lin also notes that this Buddha is contained within a broader Buddhist metaphysics of emptiness, which tempers the reification of this Buddha as a monotheistic creator god.

The Shingon Buddhist view of the Supreme Buddha Mahāvairocana, whose body is seen as being the whole universe, has also been called "cosmotheism" (the idea that the cosmos is God) by scholars like Charles Eliot, Hajime Nakamura, and Masaharu Anesaki.^[67]^[68]^[69] Fabio Rambelli terms it a kind of pantheism, the main doctrine of which is that Mahāvairocana's Dharma body is co-substantial with the universe and is the very substance that the universe consists of. Furthermore, this cosmic Buddha is seen as making use of all the sounds, thoughts, and forms in the universe to preach the Buddha's teaching to others. Thus, all forms, thoughts, and sounds in the universe are seen as manifestations and teachings of the Buddha.

Tantric Adi-Buddha theory and theism

B. Alan Wallace writes on how the Tibetan Buddhist Vajrayana concept of the primordial Buddha (Adi-Buddha) is sometimes seen as forming the foundation of both saṃsāra (the world of suffering) and nirvana (liberation). This view, according to Wallace, holds that "the entire universe consists of nothing other than displays of this infinite, radiant, empty awareness."

Furthermore, Wallace notes similarities between these Vajrayana doctrines and notions of a divine creative "ground of being". He writes: "a careful analysis of Vajrayana Buddhist cosmogony, specifically as presented in the Atiyoga (Dzogchen) tradition of Indo-Tibetan Buddhism, which presents itself as the culmination of all Buddhist teachings, reveals a theory of a transcendent ground of being and a process of creation that bear remarkable similarities with views presented in Vedanta and Neoplatonic Western Christian theories of creation." He further comments that the three views "have so much in common that they could almost be regarded as varying interpretations of a single theory".

Douglas Duckworth sees Tibetan tantric Buddhism as "pantheist to the core", since "in its most profound expressions (e.g., highest Yoga tantra), all dualities between the divine and the world are radically undone". According to Duckworth, in Vajrayana, "the divine is seen within the world, and the infinite within the finite."

Eva K. Neumaier-Dargyay notes that the Dzogchen tantra called the Kunjed Gyalpo ("all-creating king") uses symbolic language for the Adi-Buddha Samantabhadra, which is reminiscent of theism. Neumaier-Dargyay considers the Kunjed Gyalpo to contain theistic-sounding language, such as positing a single "cause of all that exists" (including all Buddhas). However, she also writes that this language is symbolic and points to an impersonal "ground of all existence", or primordial basis, which is "the mind of perfect purity" that underlies all that exists.

Alexander Studholme also points to how the Kāraṇḍavyūhasūtra presents the great bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara as a kind of supreme lord of the cosmos and as the progenitor of various heavenly bodies and divinities (such as the Sun and Moon, the deities Shiva and Vishnu, etc.) Avalokiteśvara himself is seen, in the versified version of the sutra, to be an emanation of the first Buddha, the Adi-Buddha, who is called svayambhu (self-existent, not born from anything or anyone) and the "primordial lord" (Adinatha).

Adi-Buddha as non-theistic

The 14th Dalai Lama sees this deity (called Samantabhadra) as a symbol for ultimate reality, "the realm of the Dharmakaya – the space of emptiness". He is also quite clear that "the theory that God is the creator, is almighty, and permanent is in contradiction to Buddhist teachings... For Buddhists the universe has no first cause, and hence no creator, nor can there be such a thing as a permanent, primordially pure being."

Further discussing the doctrine of the Adi-Buddha, the Dalai Lama writes that the tantric Buddhist tradition explains ultimate reality in terms of "inherent clear light, the essential nature of the mind" and that this seems to imply "that all phenomena, samsara and nirvana, arise from this clear and luminous source".^[52] This doctrine of an "ultimate source", says the Dalai Lama, seems "close to the notion of a Creator, since all phenomena, whether they belong to samsara or nirvana, originate therein". However, he warns that we not think of this as a Creator God, since the clear light is not "a sort of collective clear light, analogous to the non-Buddhist concept of Brahman as a substratum. We must not be inclined to deify this luminous space. We must understand that when we speak of ultimate or inherent clear light, we are speaking on an individual level. When, in the tantric context, we say that all worlds appear out of clear light, we do not visualize this source as a unique entity, but as the ultimate clear light of each being... It would be a grave error to conceive of it as an independent and autonomous existence from beginningless time."

The Dzogchen master Namkhai Norbu also argued that this figure is not a Creator God but is a symbol for a state of consciousness and a personification of the ground or basis (ghzi) in Dzogchen thought. Norbu explains that the Dzogchen idea of the Adi-Buddha Samantabhadra "should be mainly understood as a metaphor to enable us to discover our real condition". He further adds that:

If we deem Samantabhadra an individual being, we are far from the true meaning. In reality, he denotes our potentiality that, even though at the present moment we are in samsara, has never been conditioned by dualism. From the beginning, the state of the individual has been pure and always remains pure: this is what Samantabhadra represents. But when we fall into conditioning, it is as if we are no longer Samantabhadra because we are ignorant of our true nature. So what is called the primordial Buddha, or Adibuddha, is only a metaphor for our true condition.

Regarding the term Adi-Buddha as used in the tantric Kalachakra tradition, Vesna Wallace notes:

when the Kalacakra tradition speaks of the Adibuddha in the sense of a beginningless and endless Buddha, it is referring to the innate gnosis that pervades the minds of all sentient beings and stands as the basis of both samsara and nirvana. Whereas, when it speaks of the Adibuddha as the one who first attained perfect enlightenment by means of imperishable bliss, and when it asserts the necessity of acquiring merit and knowledge in order to attain perfect Buddhahood, it is referring to the actual realization of one's own innate gnosis. Thus, one could say that in the Kalacakra tradition, Adibuddha refers to the ultimate nature of one's own mind and to the one who has realized the innate nature of one's own mind by means of purificatory practices.

Jim Valby notes that the "All-Creating King" (Kunjed Gyalpo, i.e., the primordial Buddha) of Dzogchen thought and its companion deities "are not gods, but are symbols for different aspects of our primordial enlightenment. Kunjed Gyalpo is our timeless Pure Perfect Presence beyond cause and effect. Sattvavajra is our ordinary, analytical, judgmental presence inside time that depends upon cause and effect."

Modern Buddhist anti-theism

Ouyi Zhixu, a Chinese Buddhist figure of the Ming dynasty

The modern era brought Buddhists into contact with the Abrahamic religions, especially Christianity. Attempts to convert Buddhist nations to Christianity through missionary work were countered by Buddhist attempts at refutations of Christian doctrine and led to the development of Buddhist Modernism. The earliest Christian attempts to refute Buddhism and criticize its teachings were those of Jesuits like Alessandro Valignano, Michele Ruggieri, and Matteo Ricci.

These attacks were answered by Asian Buddhists, who wrote critiques of Christianity, often centered on refuting Christian theism. Perhaps the earliest such attempt was that of the Chinese monk Zhu Hong (祩宏, 1535–1615), who authored Four Essays on Heaven (天說四端). Another influential Chinese Buddhist critic of Christian theism was Xu Dashou (許大受), who wrote a long and systematic refutation of Christianity, titled Zuopi (佐闢, "help to the refutation"), which attempts to refute Christianity from the point of view of three Chinese traditions (Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism).

The monk Ouyi Zhixu (蕅益智旭, 1599–1655) later wrote the Bixie ji ("Collected Essays Refuting Heterodoxy"), which specifically attacks Christianity on the grounds of theodicy as well as relying on classical Confucian ethics. According to Beverley Foulks, in his essays, Zhixu "objects to the way Jesuits invest God with qualities of love, hatred, and the power to punish. He criticizes the notion that God would create humans to be both good and evil, and finally he questions why God would allow Lucifer to tempt humans towards evil."

Modern Japanese Buddhists also wrote their own works to refute Christian theism. Fukansai Habian (1565–1621) is perhaps one of the best-known of these critics, especially because he was a convert to Christianity who then became an apostate and wrote an anti-Christian polemic, titled Deus Destroyed (Ha Daiusu), in 1620. The Zen monk Sessō Sōsai also wrote an important anti-Christian work, the Argument for the Extinction of Heresy (Taiji Jashū Ron), in which he argued that the Christian God is just the Vedic Brahma and that Christianity was a heretical form of Buddhism. His critiques were particularly influential on the leadership of the Tokugawa shogunate.

Later Japanese Buddhists continued to write anti-theist critiques, focusing on Christianity. These figures include Kiyū Dōjin (a.k.a. Ugai Tetsujō 1814–91, who was a head of Jōdo-shū), who wrote Laughing at Christianity (1869), and Inoue Enryō. According to Kiri Paramore, the 19th-century Japanese attacks on Christianity tended to rely on more rationalistic and philosophical critiques than the Tokugawa-era critiques (which tended to be more driven by nationalism and xenophobia).

Modern Theravada Buddhists have also written various critiques of a Creator God, which reference Christian and modern theories of God. These works include A.L. De Silva's Beyond Belief, Nyanaponika Thera's Buddhism and the God Idea (1985), and Gunapala Dharmasiri's A Buddhist critique of the Christian concept of God (1988).

Quantum neural network

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_neural_network

Quantum neural networks are computational neural network models which are based on the principles of quantum mechanics. The first ideas on quantum neural computation were published independently in 1995 by Subhash Kak and Ron Chrisley, engaging with the theory of quantum mind, which posits that quantum effects play a role in cognitive function. However, typical research in quantum neural networks involves combining classical artificial neural network models (which are widely used in machine learning for the important task of pattern recognition) with the advantages of quantum information in order to develop more efficient algorithms.One important motivation for these investigations is the difficulty to train classical neural networks, especially in big data applications. The hope is that features of quantum computing such as quantum parallelism or the effects of interference and entanglement can be used as resources. Since the technological implementation of a quantum computer is still in a premature stage, such quantum neural network models are mostly theoretical proposals that await their full implementation in physical experiments.

Most Quantum neural networks are developed as feed-forward networks. Similar to their classical counterparts, this structure intakes input from one layer of qubits, and passes that input onto another layer of qubits. This layer of qubits evaluates this information and passes on the output to the next layer. Eventually the path leads to the final layer of qubits. The layers do not have to be of the same width, meaning they don't have to have the same number of qubits as the layer before or after it. This structure is trained on which path to take similar to classical artificial neural networks. This is discussed in a lower section. Quantum neural networks refer to three different categories: Quantum computer with classical data, classical computer with quantum data, and quantum computer with quantum data.

Examples

Quantum neural network research is still in its infancy, and a conglomeration of proposals and ideas of varying scope and mathematical rigor have been put forward. Most of them are based on the idea of replacing classical binary or McCulloch-Pitts neurons with a qubit (which can be called a "quron"), resulting in neural units that can be in a superposition of the state 'firing' and 'resting'.

Quantum perceptrons

A lot of proposals attempt to find a quantum equivalent for the perceptron unit from which neural nets are constructed. A problem is that nonlinear activation functions do not immediately correspond to the mathematical structure of quantum theory, since a quantum evolution is described by linear operations and leads to probabilistic observation. Ideas to imitate the perceptron activation function with a quantum mechanical formalism reach from special measurements to postulating non-linear quantum operators (a mathematical framework that is disputed). A direct implementation of the activation function using the circuit-based model of quantum computation has recently been proposed by Schuld, Sinayskiy and Petruccione based on the quantum phase estimation algorithm.

Quantum networks

At a larger scale, researchers have attempted to generalize neural networks to the quantum setting. One way of constructing a quantum neuron is to first generalise classical neurons and then generalising them further to make unitary gates. Interactions between neurons can be controlled quantumly, with unitary gates, or classically, via measurement of the network states. This high-level theoretical technique can be applied broadly, by taking different types of networks and different implementations of quantum neurons, such as photonically implemented neurons and quantum reservoir processor (quantum version of reservoir computing). Most learning algorithms follow the classical model of training an artificial neural network to learn the input-output function of a given training set and use classical feedback loops to update parameters of the quantum system until they converge to an optimal configuration. Learning as a parameter optimisation problem has also been approached by adiabatic models of quantum computing.

Quantum neural networks can be applied to algorithmic design: given qubits with tunable mutual interactions, one can attempt to learn interactions following the classical backpropagation rule from a training set of desired input-output relations, taken to be the desired output algorithm's behavior.The quantum network thus 'learns' an algorithm.

Quantum associative memory

The first quantum associative memory algorithm was introduced by Dan Ventura and Tony Martinez in 1999. The authors do not attempt to translate the structure of artificial neural network models into quantum theory, but propose an algorithm for a circuit-based quantum computer that simulates associative memory. The memory states (in Hopfield neural networks saved in the weights of the neural connections) are written into a superposition, and a Grover-like quantum search algorithm retrieves the memory state closest to a given input. As such, this is not a fully content-addressable memory, since only incomplete patterns can be retrieved.

The first truly content-addressable quantum memory, which can retrieve patterns also from corrupted inputs, was proposed by Carlo A. Trugenberger. Both memories can store an exponential (in terms of n qubits) number of patterns but can be used only once due to the no-cloning theorem and their destruction upon measurement.

Trugenberger, however, has shown that his probabilistic model of quantum associative memory can be efficiently implemented and re-used multiples times for any polynomial number of stored patterns, a large advantage with respect to classical associative memories.

Classical neural networks inspired by quantum theory

A substantial amount of interest has been given to a "quantum-inspired" model that uses ideas from quantum theory to implement a neural network based on fuzzy logic.

Training

Quantum Neural Networks can be theoretically trained similarly to training classical/artificial neural networks. A key difference lies in communication between the layers of a neural networks. For classical neural networks, at the end of a given operation, the current perceptron copies its output to the next layer of perceptron(s) in the network. However, in a quantum neural network, where each perceptron is a qubit, this would violate the no-cloning theorem. A proposed generalized solution to this is to replace the classical fan-out method with an arbitrary unitary that spreads out, but does not copy, the output of one qubit to the next layer of qubits. Using this fan-out Unitary ( $U_{f}$ ) with a dummy state qubit in a known state (Ex. $| 0 ⟩$ in the computational basis), also known as an Ancilla bit, the information from the qubit can be transferred to the next layer of qubits. This process adheres to the quantum operation requirement of reversibility.

Using this quantum feed-forward network, deep neural networks can be executed and trained efficiently. A deep neural network is essentially a network with many hidden-layers, as seen in the sample model neural network above. Since the Quantum neural network being discussed uses fan-out Unitary operators, and each operator only acts on its respective input, only two layers are used at any given time. In other words, no Unitary operator is acting on the entire network at any given time, meaning the number of qubits required for a given step depends on the number of inputs in a given layer. Since Quantum Computers are notorious for their ability to run multiple iterations in a short period of time, the efficiency of a quantum neural network is solely dependent on the number of qubits in any given layer, and not on the depth of the network.

Cost functions

To determine the effectiveness of a neural network, a cost function is used, which essentially measures the proximity of the network's output to the expected or desired output. In a Classical Neural Network, the weights ( $w$ ) and biases ( $b$ ) at each step determine the outcome of the cost function $C (w, b)$ . When training a Classical Neural network, the weights and biases are adjusted after each iteration, and given equation 1 below, where $y (x)$ is the desired output and $a^{out} (x)$ is the actual output, the cost function is optimized when $C (w, b)$ = 0. For a quantum neural network, the cost function is determined by measuring the fidelity of the outcome state ( $ρ^{out}$ ) with the desired outcome state ( $ϕ^{out}$ ), seen in Equation 2 below. In this case, the Unitary operators are adjusted after each iteration, and the cost function is optimized when C = 1.

Equation 1  $C (w, b) = \frac{1}{N} \sum_{x} \frac{| | y (x) - a^{out} (x) | |}{2}$

Equation 2  $C = \frac{1}{N} \sum_{x}^{N} ⟨ ϕ^{out} | ρ^{out} | ϕ^{out} ⟩$

Barren plateaus

Gradient descent is widely used and successful in classical algorithms. However, although the simplified structure is very similar to neural networks such as CNNs, QNNs perform much worse.

Since the quantum space exponentially expands as the q-bit grows, the observations will concentrate around the mean value at an exponential rate, where also have exponentially small gradients.

This situation is known as Barren Plateaus, because most of the initial parameters are trapped on a "plateau" of almost zero gradient, which approximates random wandering rather than gradient descent. This makes the model untrainable.

In fact, not only QNN, but almost all deeper VQA algorithms have this problem. In the present NISQ era, this is one of the problems that have to be solved if more applications are to be made of the various VQA algorithms, including QNN.

Electromagnetic theories of consciousness

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_theories_of_consciousness

Electromagnetic theories of consciousness propose that consciousness can be understood as an electromagnetic phenomenon.

Overview

Theorists differ in how they relate consciousness to electromagnetism. Electromagnetic field theories (or "EM field theories") of consciousness propose that consciousness results when a brain produces an electromagnetic field with specific characteristics. Susan Pockett and Johnjoe McFadden have proposed EM field theories; William Uttal has criticized McFadden's and other field theories.

In general, quantum mind theories do not treat consciousness as an electromagnetic phenomenon, with a few exceptions.

AR Liboff has proposed that "incorporating EM field-mediated communication into models of brain function has the potential to reframe discussions surrounding consciousness".

Also related are E. Roy John's work and Andrew and Alexander Fingelkurts theory "Operational Architectonics framework of brain-mind functioning".

Cemi theory

The starting point for McFadden and Pockett's theory is the fact that every time a neuron fires to generate an action potential, and a postsynaptic potential in the next neuron down the line, it also generates a disturbance in the surrounding electromagnetic field. McFadden has proposed that the brain's electromagnetic field creates a representation of the information in the neurons. Studies undertaken towards the end of the 20th century are argued to have shown that conscious experience correlates not with the number of neurons firing, but with the synchrony of that firing. McFadden views the brain's electromagnetic field as arising from the induced EM field of neurons. The synchronous firing of neurons is, in this theory, argued to amplify the influence of the brain's EM field fluctuations to a much greater extent than would be possible with the unsynchronized firing of neurons.

McFadden thinks that the EM field could influence the brain in a number of ways. Redistribution of ions could modulate neuronal activity, given that voltage-gated ion channels are a key element in the progress of axon spikes. Neuronal firing is argued to be sensitive to the variation of as little as one millivolt across the cell membrane, or the involvement of a single extra ion channel. Transcranial magnetic stimulation is similarly argued to have demonstrated that weak EM fields can influence brain activity.

McFadden proposes that the digital information from neurons is integrated to form a conscious electromagnetic information (cemi) field in the brain. Consciousness is suggested to be the component of this field that is transmitted back to neurons, and communicates its state externally. Thoughts are viewed as electromagnetic representations of neuronal information, and the experience of free will in our choice of actions is argued to be our subjective experience of the cemi field acting on our neurons.

McFadden's view of free will is deterministic. Neurons generate patterns in the EM field, which in turn modulate the firing of particular neurons. There is only conscious agency in the sense that the field or its download to neurons is conscious, but the processes of the brain themselves are driven by deterministic electromagnetic interactions. The feel of subjective experience or qualia corresponds to a particular configuration of the cemi field. This field representation is in this theory argued to integrate parts into a whole that has meaning, so a face is not seen as a random collection of features, but as somebody's face. The integration of information in the field is also suggested to resolve the binding/combination problem.

In 2013, McFadden published two updates to the theory. In the first, 'The CEMI Field Theory: Closing the Loop' McFadden cites recent experiments in the laboratories of Christof Koch and David McCormick which demonstrate that external EM fields, that simulate the brain's endogenous EM fields, influence neuronal firing patterns within brain slices. The findings are consistent with a prediction of the cemi field theory that the brain's endogenous EM field - consciousness - influences brain function. In the second, 'The CEMI Field Theory Gestalt Information and the Meaning of Meaning', McFadden claims that the cemi field theory provides a solution to the binding problem of how complex information is unified within ideas to provide meaning: the brain's EM field unifies the information encoded in millions of disparate neurons.

Susan Pockett has advanced a theory, which has a similar physical basis to McFadden's, with consciousness seen as identical to certain spatiotemporal patterns of the EM field. However, whereas McFadden argues that his deterministic interpretation of the EM field is not out-of-line with mainstream thinking, Pockett suggests that the EM field comprises a universal consciousness that experiences the sensations, perceptions, thoughts and emotions of every conscious being in the universe. However, while McFadden thinks that the field is causal for actions, albeit deterministically, Pockett does not see the field as causal for our actions.

Quantum brain dynamics

The concepts underlying this theory derive from the physicists, Hiroomi Umezawa and Herbert Fröhlich in the 1960s. More recently, their ideas have been elaborated by Mari Jibu and Kunio Yasue. Water comprises 70% of the brain, and quantum brain dynamics (QBD) proposes that the electric dipoles of the water molecules constitute a quantum field, referred to as the cortical field, with corticons as the quanta of the field. This cortical field is postulated to interact with quantum coherent waves generated by the biomolecules in neurons, which are suggested to propagate along the neuronal network. The idea of quantum coherent waves in the neuronal network derives from Fröhlich. He viewed these waves as a means by which order could be maintained in living systems, and argued that the neuronal network could support long-range correlation of dipoles. This theory suggests that the cortical field not only interacts with the neuronal network, but also to a good extent controls it.

The proponents of QBD differ somewhat as to the way in which consciousness arises in this system. Jibu and Yasue suggest that the interaction between the energy quanta (corticons) of the quantum field and the biomolecular waves of the neuronal network produces consciousness. However, another theorist, Giuseppe Vitiello, proposes that the quantum states produce two poles, a subjective representation of the external world and also the internal self.

Advantages

Locating consciousness in the brain's EM field, rather than the neurons, has the advantage of neatly accounting for how information located in millions of neurons scattered through the brain can be unified into a single conscious experience (called the binding problem): the information is unified in the EM field. In this way, EM field consciousness can be considered to be "joined-up information". This theory accounts for several otherwise puzzling facts, such as the finding that attention and awareness tend to be correlated with the synchronous firing of multiple neurons rather than the firing of individual neurons. When neurons fire together, their EM fields generate stronger EM field disturbances; so synchronous neuron firing will tend to have a larger impact on the brain's EM field (and thereby consciousness) than the firing of individual neurons. However their generation by synchronous firing is not the only important characteristic of conscious electromagnetic fields—in Pockett's original theory, spatial pattern is the defining feature of a conscious (as opposed to a non-conscious) field.

Objections

In a circa-2002 publication of The Journal of Consciousness Studies, the electromagnetic theory of consciousness faced an uphill battle for acceptance among cognitive scientists.

"No serious researcher I know believes in an electromagnetic theory of consciousness", Bernard Baars wrote in an e-mail. Baars is a neurobiologist and co-editor of Consciousness and Cognition, another scientific journal in the field. "It's not really worth talking about scientifically", he was quoted as saying.

McFadden acknowledges that his theory, which he calls the "cemi field theory", is far from proven but he argues that it is certainly a legitimate line of scientific inquiry. His article underwent peer review before publication.

The field theories of consciousness do not appear to have been as widely discussed as other quantum consciousness theories, such as those of Penrose, Stapp or Bohm. However, David Chalmers argues against quantum consciousness. He instead discusses how quantum mechanics may relate to dualistic consciousness. Chalmers is skeptical that any new physics can resolve the hard problem of consciousness. He argues that quantum theories of consciousness suffer from the same weakness as more conventional theories. Just as he argues that there is no particular reason why particular macroscopic physical features in the brain should give rise to consciousness, he also thinks that there is no particular reason why a particular quantum feature, such as the EM field in the brain, should give rise to consciousness either. Despite the existence of transcranial magnetic stimulation with medical purposes, Y. H. Sohn, A. Kaelin-Lang and M. Hallett have denied it, and later Jeffrey Gray states in his book Consciousness: Creeping up on the Hard Problem, that tests looking for the influence of electromagnetic fields on brain function have been universally negative in their result. However, a number of studies have found clear neural effects from EM stimulation.

Dobson, et al. (2000): 1.8 millitesla = 18,000 mG
Thomas, et al. (2007): 400 microtesla = 4000 milligauss
Huesser, et al. (1997): 0.1 millitesla = 1000 mG
Bell, et al. (2007) 0.78 Gauss = 780 mG
Marino, et al. (2004): 1 Gauss = 1000 mG
Carrubba, et al. (2008): 1 Gauss = 1000 mG
Jacobson (1994): 5 picotesla = 0.00005 mG
Sandyk (1999): Picotesla range

In April 2022, the results of two related experiments at the University of Alberta and Princeton University were announced at The Science of Consciousness conference, providing further evidence to support quantum processes operating within microtubules. In a study Stuart Hameroff was part of, Jack Tuszyński of the University of Alberta demonstrated that anesthetics hasten the duration of a process called delayed luminescence, in which microtubules and tubulins re-emit trapped light. Tuszyński suspects that the phenomenon has a quantum origin, with superradiance being investigated as one possibility. In the second experiment, Gregory D. Scholes and Aarat Kalra of Princeton University used lasers to excite molecules within tubulins, causing a prolonged excitation to diffuse through microtubules further than expected, which did not occur when repeated under anesthesia.However, diffusion results have to be interpreted carefully, since even classical diffusion can be very complex due to the wide range of length scales in the fluid filled extracellular space. Nevertheless, University of Oxford quantum physicist Vlatko Vedral told that this connection with consciousness is a really long shot. In addition, the tests were performed on microtubules in tubo in a UV-Vis apparatus, with chemicals added that altered the electrical properties of the microtubules, without critical microtubule-associated proteins like ferritin that quench microtubule fluorescence, and with a number of other major substantive issues that render the tests inapplicable to neurons.

Also in 2022, a group of Italian physicists conducted several experiments that failed to provide evidence in support of a gravity-related quantum collapse model of consciousness, weakening the possibility of a quantum explanation for consciousness.

Influence on brain function

The different EM field theories disagree as to the role of the proposed conscious EM field on brain function. In McFadden's cemi field theory, as well as in Drs Fingelkurts' Brain-Mind Operational Architectonics theory, the brain's global EM field modifies the electric charges across neural membranes, and thereby influences the probability that particular neurons will fire, providing a feed-back loop that drives free will. However, in the theories of Susan Pockett and E. Roy John, there is no necessary causal link between the conscious EM field and our consciously willed actions.

References to "Mag Lag" also known as the subtle effect on cognitive processes of MRI machine operators who sometimes have to go into the scanner room to check the patients and deal with issues that occur during the scan could suggest a link between magnetic fields and consciousness. Memory loss and delays in information processing have been reported, in some cases several hours after exposure.

One hypothesis is that magnetic fields in the 0.5-9 Tesla range can affect the ion permeability of neural membranes, in fact this could account for a lot of the issues seen as this would affect many different brain functions. It is also noted that the bioelectric and biomagnetic properties of ferritin are influenced by both magnetic and electric fields. Endogenous ferritin provides magnetic resonance imaging contrast in the substantia nigra and red nucleus, the zona incerta and the subthalamic nucleus, and other nuclei, and could provide a signaling mechanism that is modulated by magnetic fields. Endogenous ferritin also releases iron when stimulated with RF energy, which results in calcium signaling in neurons. It is thus possible that there are a number of quantum biological effects that contribute to consciousness, and it is too early to dismiss quantum biology as many have done. Instead, what is needed is further investigation. As noted by Nobel Laureate Albert Szent-Györgyi, "[a] discovery must be, by definition, at variance with existing knowledge." Too many scientists are quick to dismiss or ignore evidence of discoveries that are at variance with existing knowledge (even the proponents of the various quantum biology hypotheses that relate to consciousness that are different from their own).

Implications for artificial intelligence

If true, the theory has major implications for efforts to design consciousness into artificial intelligence machines; current microprocessor technology is designed to transmit information linearly along electrical channels, and more general electromagnetic effects are seen as a nuisance and damped out; if this theory is right, however, this is directly counterproductive to creating an artificially conscious computer, which on some versions of the theory would instead have electromagnetic fields that synchronized its outputs—or in the original version of the theory would have spatially patterned electromagnetic fields.