Is there a world out there when nobody is looking? This is a question that medieval Buddhist scholiasts struggled with over many centuries, giving rise to a variety of competing positions. In this article, I identify a loop that runs through and structures seemingly antithetical positions—some realist, some antirealist—in these debates. My claim is that the loop is a feature of our lifeworld, and thus any serious reflection on the mind/world relationship is bound to get entangled in it. Even modern physics has come up against it, such that rival positions advanced by quantum theorists are structurally analogous to positions proffered in medieval Buddhist writings. I conclude by turning to the Chan Buddhist tradition, which is often mischaracterized as hostile to philosophical analysis. Chan is among the few Buddhist schools that recognize, foreground, and celebrate the manner in which mind and world enfold each other. As such, this paper foregrounds the decidedly philosophical insights of the Chan tradition.

中文翻译：

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佛教思想的循环结构（或，禅宗如何解决量子测量问题）

没有人在看的时候，外面有一个世界吗？这是一个中世纪的佛教经学家在几个世纪以来一直在努力解决的问题，从而产生了各种相互竞争的立场。在这篇文章中，我确定了一个循环，在这些辩论中贯穿并构建了看似对立的立场——一些现实主义者，一些反现实主义者。我的主张是，循环是我们生活世界的一个特征，因此任何对心灵/世界关系的认真思考都必然会纠缠于其中。甚至现代物理学也反对它，以至于量子理论家提出的对立立场在结构上类似于中世纪佛教著作中提出的立场。最后，我转向禅宗佛教传统，它经常被错误地描述为敌视哲学分析。禅宗是少数几个承认，前景，并庆祝思想和世界相互拥抱的方式。因此，本文突出了禅宗传统的明确哲学见解。