My guest today is the brilliant multidimensional thinker Michel Bitbol, a rare mind that is as well versed in medicine and physics as it is in Buddhist philosophy and micro-phenomenology. Michel is Emeritus Director of Research at the CNRS, in Paris, France. He is presently based at the Archives Husserl, a center of research in phenomenology. He received successively his M.D., his Ph.D. in physics, and his “Habilitation” in philosophy in Paris.
As you’ll see in the show notes, his copious bibliography traces the evolution of his interlocking interests and his thinking about the role of phenomenology in theories of consciousness, the parallels between Buddhist dependent arising and certain Western theories of knowledge, and most relevantly for our conversation today, quantum philosophy and the common blind spots in the work of a scientist. His two most recent works, which you might want to check out are: Philosophie quantique. Le monde est-il extérieur? (Editions Mimésis) and Mettre fin aux controverses (Editions du cerf), a translation and scholarly commentary of Nagarjuna.
In this second part of my conversation with Michel, we get into the nitty gritty, as it were, of the work he is most well-known for: we discuss the circulation between 1st-person and 3rd-person perspectives, between agent and environment; his encounter with the work of physicist Chrisopher Fuchs and his entry into understanding quantum physics; quantum mechanics as a participatory, (im)mersive epistemology, somewhat akin to participatory sense-making; the slipperiness of language when we talk about 1st- and 3rd-person perspectives; the primordial importance of including the 1st-person standpoint in scientific investigation; Michel’s progressive discovery of nondual epistemologies and ways of living in Buddhism; and, finally, the possible congeniality between Western science and frameworks proposed by Buddhism. We hope you enjoy and will stay with us for the third and final part of the conversation, where we’ll discuss the role of contemplation in the life of a scientist and the nature of experience itself.
Christopher Fuchs and a brief intro to Quantum Bayesianism (Q-bism)
Two contemporary French phenomenologists mentioned: Renaud Barbaras and Bruce Bégout
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