Page "Dualism" Paragraph 13

During the classical era of Buddhist philosophy in India, philosophers such as Dharmakirti argue for a dualism between states of consciousness and Buddhist atoms ( the basic building blocks that make up reality ), according to " the standard interpretation " of Dharmakirti's Buddhist metaphysics.

Typically in Western philosophy, dualism is considered to be a dualism between mind ( nonphysical ) and brain ( physical ), which ultimately involves mind interacting with the physical brain, and therefore also interacting with the micro-particles ( basic building blocks ) that make up the brain tissue.

Buddhist dualism, in Dharmakirti ’ s sense, is different in that it is not a dualism between the mind and brain, but rather between states of consciousness ( nonphysical ) and basic building blocks ( according to the Buddhist atomism of Dharmakirti, Buddhist atoms are also nonphysical: they are unstructured points of energy ).

Like so many Buddhists from 600-1000 CE, Dharmakirti ’ s philosophy involved mereological nihilism, meaning that other than states of consciousness, the only things that exist are momentary quantum particles, much like the particles of quantum physics ( quarks, electrons, etc.

).