My impression is that Buddhism has a focus on "inner life" rather than the material world. So their pragmatism would naturally be employed on spiritual attainment, rather than science. After all, large factions within Buddhism believe that the reality around us, is mere illusion.
> There is a lot more complexity and nuance to this then your comment may lead one to believe
There's nothing in your link that contradicts my assertion. On top of which, you haven't offered an alternate explanation as to why Buddhism has produced so much more deep contemplation, than practical technology. If it is truly equal to the pragmatism that was elucidated in the article, the technological revolution would have been much further along 2000 years ago.
> There's nothing in your link that contradicts my assertion.
I was pointing to your assertion that "large factions within Buddhism believe that the reality around us, is mere illusion" is not quite right. The wikipedia page is really good in elaborating the nuances.
The phrase "Reality is mere Illusion" is the worst translated from Sanskrit/Pali into English. In the original texts "Illusion" does not mean "it does not exist" but that "it does not exist independent of a more fundamental substratum". The common analogy given is that of waves in a ocean of water. The waves are dependent on the water for their manifestation and come and go. The other point is that we only "Perceive Reality" and not as it truly is. All together we get a picture of Reality which is very simplistically called a "Illusion".
>you haven't offered an alternate explanation as to why Buddhism has produced so much more deep contemplation, than practical technology. If it is truly equal to the pragmatism that was elucidated in the article, the technological revolution would have been much further along 2000 years ago.
This is easily explained. If by various internal practices we can modulate our understanding of "Reality" (a subjective viewpoint) then the motivation to explain the "workings" of the Universe independent of us becomes no longer important. That is the reason Hindu philosophies (Buddhism/Jainism/Sikhism are all derivatives) focus exclusively on the "Mind" and understanding "our true nature".
In a sense it's kind of tautological: if someone genuinely experiences something, if "reality" is the only existent realm or category they have knowledge of (as opposed to Maya for example), then it basically has to "be" reality.
Another good analogy would be how people used to talk about the physical world before science arrived on the scene: crude approximations, that "everyone knows".
Hindu/Buddhist Philosophy is mainly experiential and explicitly says "the true self" (Purusha/Atman etc.) cannot be described in words. It can only be experienced by "dissolving" ("Laya" in Sanskrit) your self-identity (aka Ahamkara) as something different from the "whole" (Brahman etc). Different schools come at this from different angles thus complicating the matter even further.
I suppose it depends on which branch of Buddhism people are talking about. There are obviously some which practice extreme idealism, but almost all branches believe that reality (as we commonly define it) DOES exist, but merely that it's a changing reality, rather than a truth that remains forever true, thus unchanging.
