Science elucidates reality... or does it?

[CosmicJoghurt]

Reality is reality. That's the only real way to define it. Everything else is just a perception of it - i.e pseudo-reality. What science does is try and get us closer to understanding reality. However this is never achieved.

 

[Kelly Jones]

CosmicJoghurt, according to your statement, science accesses only "pseudo-reality". Therefore, it cannot possibly provide any understanding of what it cannot access.

Anyway, you did not use science to try to define reality, but philosophy. Using science to try to define reality is like a person who tries to answer the question "what is the numerical value of 2?" by counting observable phenomena.

 

[CosmicJoghurt]

CosmicJoghurt, according to your statement, science accesses only "pseudo-reality". Therefore, it cannot possibly provide any understanding of what it cannot access.

Anyway, you did not use science to try to define reality, but philosophy. Using science to try to define reality is like a person who tries to answer the question "what is the numerical value of 2?" by counting observable phenomena.

No, I meant science tries to get us closer to understanding what reality really is. However our perception of reality results in a deformation of reality. Science tries to fix that by using empirical data to draw conclusions. So my point is that science can never reach true pure, raw, 100% reliable truth. That's not to say it's useless. Much the contrary. And it's also just a commentary, I don't really think it matters that we can't reach ultimate truth. We're close enough.

 

[Kelly Jones]

You're still not getting to the root of the matter. You have provided no definition for "Ultimate Reality" - what is ultimately real.

Until you clarify that, there's no information distinguishing reality from non-reality, and no rationale to explain why Ultimate Reality is deformed by perception.

I suggest you give properly reasoned arguments.

 

[Dean]

While I too must resist the urge to quibble over definitions, I must say: Science is defined as the uncovering and discovery of laws and properties in external physical reality, and in addition, science is NOT technology, which is defined as the leverage of laws and properties discovered by science. So the PEARL [Physical Evidence - Reasoned Logic] acronym fails at its core. Science doesn't constitute some authority on technological advances though, or anything for that matter.

And, yes, atoms manifestly might exist; although I personally dislike radical atomism (a.k.a Mereological Nihilism)

 

[Dean]

As for the central topic, I have but this to say:

@hackenslash

[. . .]Do atoms exist?[. . .]

That might seem like a "simple" question by the way...in fact, it's nothing of the sort, in my opinion. :lol:

Here's another question: Do electrons [components of atoms] -- "really" exist...?

If electrons (and by extension, atoms), like energy, are unable to be observed except as effects, then they can be said to be non-existent (and have been done so, by instrumentalists.) And so can an external world independent of phenomena as perception. It would not be the first time the principle has been applied in physics, of which I'm sure you are aware. Where manifest image has become inadequate and (even though required to communicate scientific developments) analogies fail, highly effectual instances have yet been demonstrated and established of physics by fiat.

 

[devilsadvocate]

If electrons (and by extension, atoms), like energy, are unable to be observed except as effects, then they can be said to be non-existent (and have been done so, by instrumentalists.)

I'm curious about why instrumentalist would claim electrons are non-existent. Instrumentalism is distinctly agnostic or non-realist (as opposed to anti-realist) of the underlying reality, that's the whole point. Instrumentalism claims theories are only instrumental to the goal, to predict phenomena. Electrons may or may not exist, who cares? As long as the theory has predictive power, shut up and calculate.

 

[Dean]

@devilsadvocate

I'm curious about why instrumentalist would claim electrons are non-existent. Instrumentalism is distinctly agnostic or non-realist (as opposed to anti-realist) of the underlying reality, that's the whole point. Instrumentalism claims theories are only instrumental to the goal, to predict phenomena. Electrons may or may not exist, who cares? As long as the theory has predictive power, shut up and calculate.

Yes, nevertheless, I think you're missing the point. I have little doubt that this topic will continue down the lines of reason vs. experience (hence, Radical Empiricism/Rationalism).

A real life example of these models at work: Grab both ends of a 240 volt circuit with wet hands, and you will experience the ferocious power of physics by fiat. I guarantee it. :lol:

However: It works like this because the model reliably predicts the effects, not describe the cause. For all we know, it is how perceptible reality itself behaves under the imposition of measurements rather than how imperceptible reality behaves. The existence of atoms is comparably as meaningless as realities below Planck scales or any of the other conjectures rejected by fiat in modern physics. Fiat is part of the attitudinal repertoire employed in the logic of modern physics, the current correspondence to the principle of parsimony. The atomic wall is the limit of reality for all intents and purposes, everything else being effective mathematical expressions, pending some ingenious 'scientific revolution'.

 

[australopithecus]

Here's another question: Do electrons [components of atoms] -- "really" exist...?

http://www.insidescience.org/research/1.917

 

[Dean]

@australopithecus
(image reduced to avoid overt-space consumption).

Here's another question: Do electrons [components of atoms] -- "really" exist...?

"http://www.insidescience.org/polopoly_fs/1.918!/image/671260397.jpg_gen/derivatives/landscape_490/671260397.jpg"

http://www.insidescience.org/research/1.917

Thank you. An interesting article. I'm obviously not explicitly condoning the view that electrons don't exist. Merely stating the metaphysical facts of instrumentality. I welcome this new scientific finding, so to speak...

 

[Kelly Jones]

While I too must resist the urge to quibble over definitions, I must say: Science is defined as the uncovering and discovery of laws and properties in external physical reality,

It's obvious how important definitions are. Why call it quibbling?

Your definition leaves something to be desired. Namely:

- it implies that all the phenomena a person experiences privately are unreal
- it implies that science is never used by an individual unless there are others to demonstrate those expereiences to
- it implies that the line between internal and external or physical and non-physical are determined by consensus
- it pretends that science can determine what is real before defining "real"

 

[Dean]

While I too must resist the urge to quibble over definitions, I must say: Science is defined as the uncovering and discovery of laws and properties in external physical reality,

It's obvious how important definitions are. Why call it quibbling?

Your definition leaves something to be desired. Namely:

- it implies that all the phenomena a person experiences privately are unreal
- it implies that science is never used by an individual unless there are others to demonstrate those expereiences to
- it implies that the line between internal and external or physical and non-physical are determined by consensus
- it pretends that science can determine what is real before defining "real"

Notice that I subscribe to no dualism as I expunged in my ontological schema, but rather, a monism. That of idealism, I affirm the view that reality is fundamentally mental in an imminent, informational sense.

As for our previous discussion: I can't really see any significant difference in what we assert except that I choose to adopt the radical scepticism of an Instrumentalist, while devilsadvocate seems to adopt the provisional faculty of a pragmatist. It's nearly the same, really. One step away...

Ultimately, the question of what is reality is more a question of metaphysics than physics.

 

[Kelly Jones]

Notice that I subscribe to no dualism as I expunged in my ontological schema,

Okay, thanks for the further information about your definition for "real". I'll need more information yet, however. There is still no firm definition for "real" that I can see... Taking a passage from the link for starters:

I claim that objects only "exist" as phenomena (and are meaningless apart from such),

What do you mean by "phenomena"? I'm guessing by the next-but-one quote that you mean: Sensory data of any conscious entity, such that anything that is not sensory data doesn't exist. Is that guess right?

that cause is imputed (but causality is lawful)

Could you define what you mean by causality? I've come across many different interpretations, and I think causality is a very important concept to clarify, if not the most important one in discussing what is real.

and that perception is properly reality (not divorced from it.)

Well, are you saying that what is not perceived, and hidden from consciousness, is not real? But things "pop" into consciousness and out of it, moment-by-moment. It doesn't make sense to me that this popping into and out of consciousness makes one's experiences real or unreal.

I would also assert that reality is real (no pun intended),

No information there.

perception relates to real events correlated with the brain depending on the mappings of brain states to the environment

But don't the scientists observing the instruments mapping the brain states and their correlations to the perceiving subject's experiences (and how are those determined?) need also to have their own brain mappings observed by other scientists whose brain mappings need to be observed by other scientists..... ad infinitum? Who guards the guards? Who is the final determinant of what is real?

and that lawful relationships among perception as events can be comprehended.

Who is the person saying which relationships are lawful?

Ultimately, the question of what is reality is more a question of metaphysics than physics.

Yes.


To summarise, your definition of "real" seems to boil down to: whatever is perceived by an individual that any number of other individuals have decided is real, is real. In other words, there's still no definition of "real".

Also, just going off my hunch that for you, "real" means "what is definitely existing and not an illusion or delusion", your consensus approach presents problems. For instance, it means that an individual's own private thoughts, experiences, dreams, emotions, and so forth, are not definitely existing at all but probably delusional or illusions. This rather makes a laughing stock of reason if you regard any reasoning you have, that no one else confirms, as delusional or illusions - let alone not even happening.

It is also an anthropocentric kind of definition, because it implies that anything not perceivable by (presumably) human beings is either not real or a delusion, which is pretty illogical on the face of it.


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[Dean]

@Kelly Jones

[. . .]

that cause is imputed (but causality is lawful)

Could you define what you mean by causality? I've come across many different interpretations, and I think causality is a very important concept to clarify,[. . .]

As one example of causality in the sense intended here, you will observe from reading my post signature that I would be the first to reconcile my position of idealism with metaphysical naturalism, and there are problems with theories of naturalism that need be explained in terms of our understanding of cause/effect. Namely, transcendentalism and infinite causal regression. The causal logic that was imputed by physics in the past, and with correspondence to our intuitions, seems to tell us that the buck must stop somewhere, and if you are an astute religious person, you might well invoke God. However, that is to say... Unfortunately, naturalistic evidence and explanations is not sufficient to render intelligible the causal world without a prime mover any better than the theistic claim. Causal logic dictates the road must come to an end eventually but doesn't ... or can't.


@Kelly Jones

and that lawful relationships among perception as events can be comprehended.

Who is the person saying which relationships are lawful?

"Who"?

@Kelly Jones

Ultimately, the question of what is reality is more a question of metaphysics than physics.

[. . .]

To summarise, your definition of "real" seems to boil down to: whatever is perceived by an individual that any number of other individuals have decided is real, is real. In other words, there's still no definition of "real".

Also, just going off my hunch that for you, "real" means "what is definitely existing and not an illusion or delusion"[. . .]

I can offer the explanation that objective reality is that which everyone agrees can be interacted with by others, if that answers your question. But there's still that problem of its subjective aspect, as Russel points out, as did Nietzsche in his perspectivism. One may go as far as to suggest that empiricism is the subjective aspect of objectivity.

Let me tell you, we have no clue what we're dealing with when it comes to the true nature of reality, despite all the comforts we take refuge by using language like "approximations". No amount of quantitative patterning is going to explain qualitative subjective states that happens to pervade and comprise the very manifest images we interact with. Experience of the world remains polyvalent, multiply complex and vicissitudinous. All we have are adequate models and behaviours arbitrarily associated with phenomenal mechanisms on account of properties and laws are derived but cannot be deduced from any of their parts.

 

[Dean]

I guess this is where we get to the chase. Using parsimony, which remains practical, as I pointed out, it is reasonable to conclude that mental phenomena exists out of nothing, just as the notions about the origin of the universe tends towards this view. Hume recognised how unnecessary causality is. Sense-data can't apprehended as anything but its intrinsic qualia. In an appeal to Nietzsche, his will to power explains the transformational "urging" of phenomena, divorced of any ontological subject-object relationship, such that not even the "I" or ego of Descartes exists as self-evident (I'll post more on this in another topic.) Like evolution, it is "blind." Reflexive, it acts on itself: self-existent phenomena imbued with an activating process of shifting loci, which we term "mind." This locus of sense-data is subject to transformation as more qualia are elicit in its field (better regarded as a field of consciousness in conventional parlance.)

Does this reduce to a solipsism, that there is only one mind and all else is its phenomenal field of consciousness? This does not follow, since it can be reconciled in variant ways, such as that employed by Berkeley or Leibnitz. Berkeley fails Occam's razor since it is to complicated for being exactly the objective world held together by a supermind, such that it is better to resort to notion of an objective world. Leibnitz is better in that his monads can be a colony of solipsisms, one for each mind with its own exclusive reality, mirroring or in synch with each other (for want of a better description of this mirroring or synchronisation.) At any rate, for sentience, reality, and the associations therein, remain perfectly normal or familiar. This continuity of epistemological framework is amenable to scientific approaches, because the rules of the game remain the same, from a perceptual viewpoint.

Why is this not subject to Occam's razor, like Berkeley's supermind or scientistic objective reality? Simply because objects "out there" that cannot be directly apprehended are as ineffable as the concept of the noumenon. On the other hand, unlike objectivity, a "colony" of minds is entirely consistent in addressing the question of empiricism, as contemplated by Russel. Of course, this does not mean that the mode of Leibnitz's organisation of monads is the way things are arranged. Leibnitz's system is used for comparative or metaphorical purposes. Since we can't ever step outside ourselves, we are not expected to know the real structure of existence. Suffice to say that it would likely make objectivity seem like a common-sense approximation, as Eculidean mathematics is to modern maths, or as classical physics up to Einstein distends to quantum physics.

 

[Kelly Jones]

Could you define what you mean by causality?

As one example of causality in the sense intended here, you will observe from reading my post signature that I would be the first to reconcile my position of idealism with metaphysical naturalism, and there are problems with theories of naturalism that need be explained in terms of our understanding of cause/effect. Namely, transcendentalism and infinite causal regression. The causal logic that was imputed by physics in the past, and with correspondence to our intuitions, seems to tell us that the buck must stop somewhere, and if you are an astute religious person, you might well invoke God. However, that is to say... Unfortunately, naturalistic evidence and explanations is not sufficient to render intelligible the causal world without a prime mover any better than the theistic claim. Causal logic dictates the road must come to an end eventually but doesn't ... or can't.

I don't think this is logical, actually. Causality can't begin somewhere. Otherwise, something other than causality would cause. That is totally illogical. So the problem you mentioned isn't there. Causality is infinite, because it can't begin or end.

Dean: and that lawful relationships among perception as events can be comprehended.

Kelly: Who is the person saying which relationships are lawful?

Dean: "Who"?

Sorry for any confusion. I'm trying to find out how you are determining what you think is true. Presumably that's what you mean by "lawful" (i.e. valid, logical, etc.) I don't like it when people forget they're the ones uttering their views, as if there are absolutes determined by some sky daddy. It was a little prod to see how you are determining valid laws for nature/reality. I have no deist or theist values or speculations.

Dean: Ultimately, the question of what is reality is more a question of metaphysics than physics.

Kelly: To summarise, your definition of "real" seems to boil down to: whatever is perceived by an individual that any number of other individuals have decided is real, is real. In other words, there's still no definition of "real". Also, just going off my hunch that for you, "real" means "what is definitely existing and not an illusion or delusion"

Dean: I can offer the explanation that objective reality is that which everyone agrees can be interacted with by others, if that answers your question.

If you mean absolutely everyone, then you've got a concept in which the people of the past, people who can't communicate, people who aren't born, "people" of other species, etc. are able to have a massive conference where they all simultaneously "link" into everyone else's views on the matter and simultaneously agree. Do you start to see the essential problem of relying on consensus? When one comes down to the nitty-gritty of this very imaginative speculative idea, we still have a single individual's own consciousness determining the worth of the views of all the other "Borg" members he or she or it links into. In other words, it's quite possible this single individual is a complete looney. So this mode of defining reality is not only logistically impossible, but it's still falling a-cropper on the single individual's capacity to determine what is real or not. In fact, it smacks of a universal omniscient consciousness. And you know I can't go with that!

So, defining ultimate reality as something known by an universal omniscient consciousness is not the way to go. Logical problems with that path.

Let me tell you, we have no clue what we're dealing with when it comes to the true nature of reality, despite all the comforts we take refuge by using language like "approximations". No amount of quantitative patterning is going to explain qualitative subjective states that happens to pervade and comprise the very manifest images we interact with. Experience of the world remains polyvalent, multiply complex and vicissitudinous. All we have are adequate models and behaviours arbitrarily associated with phenomenal mechanisms on account of properties and laws are derived but cannot be deduced from any of their parts.

Well, you can skip all that if you rely on pure logic instead of trying to rely on phenomena.

It's quite obvious when you think about it.


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[Kelly Jones]

I guess this is where we get to the chase.

Hurrah!

Using parsimony, which remains practical, as I pointed out, it is reasonable to conclude that mental phenomena exists out of nothing,

Nope. I don't think stuff (whether it's mental or not - and how are you determining that, anyway?) exists out of nothing. Nothingness is a logical impossibility, since something is happening right now.

Hume recognised how unnecessary causality is.

No, in the chapter dealing with cause and effect in An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Hume rightly concluded it was impossible to determine causal relationships between empirical phenomena, which he called "experience". But he wrongly concluded that the law of cause and effect is discovered by experience, and not reason. He assumed that because no causal relationships can be absolutely determined using science, that therefore causality is not valid. His approach was mistaken, since it is a wholly logical law that things are finite and bounded by what they are not, on which they depend to exist. It's a priori knowledge, not a posteriori. And that is essentially what causality boils down to.

Sense-data can't apprehended as anything but its intrinsic qualia. In an appeal to Nietzsche, his will to power explains the transformational "urging" of phenomena, divorced of any ontological subject-object relationship, such that not even the "I" or ego of Descartes exists as self-evident (I'll post more on this in another topic.) Like evolution, it is "blind." Reflexive, it acts on itself: self-existent phenomena imbued with an activating process of shifting loci, which we term "mind." This locus of sense-data is subject to transformation as more qualia are elicit in its field (better regarded as a field of consciousness in conventional parlance.)

Does this reduce to a solipsism, that there is only one mind and all else is its phenomenal field of consciousness? This does not follow, since it can be reconciled in variant ways, such as that employed by Berkeley or Leibnitz. Berkeley fails Occam's razor since it is to complicated for being exactly the objective world held together by a supermind, such that it is better to resort to notion of an objective world. Leibnitz is better in that his monads can be a colony of solipsisms, one for each mind with its own exclusive reality, mirroring or in synch with each other (for want of a better description of this mirroring or synchronisation.) At any rate, for sentience, reality, and the associations therein, remain perfectly normal or familiar. This continuity of epistemological framework is amenable to scientific approaches, because the rules of the game remain the same, from a perceptual viewpoint.

Why is this not subject to Occam's razor, like Berkeley's supermind or scientistic objective reality? Simply because objects "out there" that cannot be directly apprehended are as ineffable as the concept of the noumenon. On the other hand, unlike objectivity, a "colony" of minds is entirely consistent in addressing the question of empiricism, as contemplated by Russel. Of course, this does not mean that the mode of Leibnitz's organisation of monads is the way things are arranged. Leibnitz's system is used for comparative or metaphorical purposes. Since we can't ever step outside ourselves, we are not expected to know the real structure of existence. Suffice to say that it would likely make objectivity seem like a common-sense approximation, as Eculidean mathematics is to modern maths, or as classical physics up to Einstein distends to quantum physics.

Your approach to understanding or defining the ultimate nature of existence or reality is still relying basically on science, and I think it's mistaken. I don't think it's at all relevant to look at sense data as the means for apprehending what is real. That's basically what you're doing in talking about "supermind" or "mental colonies" and the reality each consciousness experiences.

Instead, all one need do is - using one's own powers of pure logic, and a priori premises - consider the nature of the totality of all realities. I completely desert the scientific approach of trying to find the nature of reality using the senses. It's a purely logical endeavour based on conceptualising what is true for all realities. That's why the concept of causality is important, because it too is a purely logical concept.


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[Dean]

@Kelly Jones

I guess this is where we get to the chase.

Hurrah!

Talley-Ho!! :lol:

@Kelly Jones

Hume recognised how unnecessary causality is.

[. . .] Hume rightly concluded it was impossible to determine causal relationships between empirical phenomena, which he called "experience".[. . .] He assumed that because no causal relationships can be absolutely determined using science, that therefore causality is not valid. His approach was mistaken, since it is a wholly logical law that things are finite and bounded by what they are not, on which they depend to exist. It's a priori knowledge, not a posteriori. [. . .]

You seem to be stuck in classical assumptions like some Neo-Epicurean "Eternal Universe". Regardless, the buck must stop somewhere, else causality would go on ad infinitum, which leads to inherent contradictions. This is not the same as a first mover proposition (yeah, religious proponents might well attempt to sneak in 'God') because it does not involve a chain of causality but a changing self-existent substratum. The case can be made that mathematical logic of infinite progression supports infinite progression (or regression) of cause. But that would leave us equally mystified. In such a case, I would choose ontology over teleology. Plain sense. Why do you suppose mathematicians skip over infinity as "undefined"?

The same principle applies to my ex nihilo proposition of which you attempted to refute earlier...

@Kelly Jones

Your approach to understanding or defining the ultimate nature of existence or reality is still relying basically on science, and I think it's mistaken. [. . .]

I happen to be leery of scientism myself, and efforts to totalize science in the realm of philosophy... However, I think at one point I did remark that the philosophy of idealism is neither here nor there. As it pertains to the discipline of the sciences. This is because idealism in no way interferes with science or any other practice, but merely asserts that all is mind or consciouness by virtue of the primacy and exclusivity that perception presents for us. In my argument, I have shown that the idealist paradigm is compelling, in light of deficiencies of positivistic objectivity, of which there are no good reasons to take seriously. One must always be careful to make distinctions between the conceptual frameworks of science [or Scientism] and the context of my argument. I do not use science in an explicit fashion in my defense of these arguments, at least not in discussions of idealism. Also, there is a distinction between science and "empirical" observation. In fact, I will be exploring this in a new topic, sometime later. I believe this strange pseudo-dilemma has been touched upon before, if that's of any help.

@Kelly Jones

Instead, all one need do is - using one's own powers of pure logic, and a priori premises - consider the nature of the totality of all realities. I completely desert the scientific approach of trying to find the nature of reality using the senses. [. . .] the concept of causality is important, because it too is a purely logical concept.

Empiricism = / Science. These terms are not interchangeable, and a proposition pertaining to one does not equate to the other. By the way, there is no ontological hierarchy in nature. Everything works and operates at the same level. So-called hierarchies are conceptual abstractions into which elements of phenomena are grouped and organised. There really is no well-defined boundary to be considered from, which you seem to keep alluding to. This contributes directly into the issue of instrumentalism versus realism in science.

Also, it might be worth noting that you're talking to a Nominalist as well as an Idealist, who doesn't believe in abstract realities, and therefore does/can not take "factual" (approximate) assertions of those realities as such. :!:

 

[Dean]

@Kelly Jones

[. . .] I think it's mistaken. I don't think it's at all relevant to look at sense data as the means for apprehending what is real. That's basically what you're doing in talking about "supermind" or "mental colonies" and the reality each consciousness experiences. [. . .]

We start by observing that all is perception, which denotes that all objects within our reference are percepts. In assuming that there is an alterior or "outside" world, it can be wondered what things could mean apart from their being perceived. If the mind is simply an agent that an entity uses to apprehend things, then how does stimulus translate to perception?

Certainly a world of objects with no existing mind around can logically interact but, given consideration, this is a meaningless proposition, since there is nothing that can be known about it. So from whence does the epiphenomena that consist in sensory data come? If it is phyically emergent entity that arises out of complexity, then it obeys the same blind laws of physics, as the wet neurons and electric pulses do not explain mind. We are dealing with a qualitatively disparate substance that gives rise to the "ghost in a machine" problem inherent in Cartesian dualism. So we see that a world of positivist objects is unintelligible, while a mind-and-matter dualism is a weak conjecture.

Things fare better if we consider a mental world, since it makes "sense" of sensible phenomena. It runs into a serious problem, also faced by positivism, concerning silopsism, since the existence of alterior entities cannot be verified in the least. Certainly they may exist as an ontological verity, but it is a logical non-sequitur to assert this. Hence we can only go on inference about their existence. We have already seen that an object world is fraught with problems about its unintelligibility and interations with mind.

Now, inspired by Leibnitz and his colony of minds, if we substitute positivist objects for mental objects replete with sentience, we come closer to a workable integration of entities. Essentially, each mental entity is essentially a field of consciousness that might complement the fields of other entities to constitute a holistic sense of the world, if imagined or considered from all perspectives. However, each are can only know its own reality and do not interact. Each field of consciousness elicits its own perceptual reality. This schema only serves to account for the possibility of plural realities, one for each entity, which may well not coordinate with others, their natures being radically separated or hermetic.

This is in no way distinguishable from the positivist conception, apart from the fact that they only obtain a sense or apparence of depth from the quality of percepts comprising them. All material laws can be derived from the patterns imputed from the relationships given to functions and behaviours organised in its existent and shifting qualia. This can conduce to the scientific regularity and consistencies of things as they can be known. Despite this, it can also take on a far greater scope of possibility than allowed by the scientific assumptions of constants. If ontological alterity exists, the natures of those alterior realities might never be guessed at, unless they manage to be shared with our percepts at any point.

Ever read "The Meme Machine" - by Susan Blackmore? Her conceptual framework of memetics could prove useful here. It's ALL a mindplex... :lol:

 

[Kelly Jones]

Yes, I've read the Meme Machine, and while it's obviously true that ideas spread, I don't think you can conclude from her ideas that the Totality (that being the totality of absolutely all realities) is a mindplex.

I reckon causality is an excellent tool for understanding the nature of Ultimate Reality. So, I'd like to prune the discussion back, just to causality. You say about causality:

the buck must stop somewhere, else causality would go on ad infinitum, which leads to inherent contradictions.

On the contrary, the internally contradictory argument is asserting that causality has to begin somewhere. The only way causality can begin is to be caused to begin by something other than causality.

Surely you can see that's illogical?

The case can be made that mathematical logic of infinite progression supports infinite progression (or regression) of cause. But that would leave us equally mystified.

Speak for yourself! I'm not mystified. The matter is scintillatingly clear for me.

Why do you suppose mathematicians skip over infinity as "undefined"?"

This is a superb key to the matter of the nature of Reality.....................


Now, bringing in your second post:

Certainly a world of objects with no existing mind around can logically interact but, given consideration, this is a meaningless proposition, since there is nothing that can be known about it.

There are four premises in that sentence, and all four are wrong. But I'll focus on the last two. There is knowable, meaningful, and useful philosophical information to be gleaned from the concept that "what lies beyond consciousness will always remain hidden", because:

(1) It helps sift the chaff from the wheat, by testing a person's faith in pure reason. Many people are unable to trust reason to the extent that they can deduce valid knowledge without relying on observations of sensory data. It's an important test for a philosopher.

(2) It disproves solipsism, that only one's own consciousness exists.

(3) It helps, by logical contrast, in constructing a meaningful concept for existence, in that one can't conceive of objects unless they present an appearance or form of some kind to one's consciousness. That is, to appear is to exist. To have form and substance is to have existence.

(4) It helps one to recognise that the concept of what is beyond consciousness is a construct formed in consciousness, such that the content for that concept is a "hidden void", empty of any distinctions.

(5) Even though there is no distinct information assigned to the "hidden void", it is still a logical and valid notion, and it obviously has some kind of very real existence. It is simply what is always beyond the reach of any mind.

(6) It shows that that which "exists" beyond consciousness isn't inherently separate but logically tied to what appears to mind. By being logically the only thing that is not-consciousness, it must therefore be the cause of consciousness.

(7) (flowing on from [6]......) it is knowledge that has tremendous ramifications for thinking about the nature of Reality, since people tend always to try first to conceive of Ultimate Reality by constructing some form or appearance or substance. But one recognising that it is consciousness that constructs this dichotomy of "form and appearance vs. hidden and formless", an important insight can arise. This harks back to the nature of the "undefined" infinity of mathematics.



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