Abstract
This study compares the Theravāda Buddhist Abhidhamma with two discrete approaches to quantum gravity, causal set theory and loop quantum gravity, as formal structures, on three axes: order, adjacency and ratio. No row predicts a measurement, and none says that a Buddhist text anticipated a theory of quantum gravity. On order, the twenty-four conditioning relations of the Paṭṭhāna, taken whole, are not a partial order. The condition-modes that always run from earlier-arising to later-arising form an acyclic typed relation over which a strict order can be read: acyclic by selection, not yet a causal set, and ordering some moments of different mental streams, which share no clock. On adjacency, the strongest row, a spin-network link is the face two neighboring grains of space share and carries a quantized area, while a Theravāda sub-commentary defines space as the non-mixing of touching neighboring material clusters (kalāpa). Both put the unit of spatial boundary at the adjacency between minimal units, and neither makes it one of the units. The features specific to loop quantum gravity, a quantized magnitude and a volume derived from it, are the ones that fail, and the shape that holds is generic to any cellular picture. On ratio, most material phenomena last seventeen mind-moments in the commentary and the manual, and only the generic part survives: a duration stated as a count of steps. A per-kalāpa count taken as the same in every frame would conflict with muon time dilation, but the texts state no such count.
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Recommended Citation
Ly, Thon, "Discreteness, Adjacency and Order: A Structural Comparison of the Theravāda Abhidhamma with Causal Sets and Loop Quantum Gravity — Partial Orders, Spin-Network Boundaries and Discrete Time in Buddhist Philosophy of Matter", Technical Disclosure Commons, ()
https://www.tdcommons.org/dpubs_series/12057