Reality is That

[Parameter]

Everybody seems to be a visionary except for me.



I'm inclined to think of it as a matter of epistemological access. Like so much of science, it's basically common-sense: When somebody states a view that we don't already agree with, we are inclined to ask -- How do you know that? The reason that science is naturalistic is because nature is the realm that human beings have objective and relatively non-controversial epistemological access to. Scientific knowledge isn't all dependent on particular people's unique personal experiences.

One of the reasons why reality is still inaccessible to science is because reality can contradict itself. For example, General relativity and Quantum mechanics. One person can experience something about reality while another would say "it's not real!". For instance, a person can be absolutely positive that God exists one moment and then the next they can lose that certainty or even contradict themselves by saying that God does not exist.

I'm not sure that I understand the how/why distinction. 'Why' questions usually seem to me to be asking for purposes or intentions. I don't think that those are really the right questions to ask about nature, unless we are inquiring about the actions of cognitive agents.



It sounds all deep and cosmic, but what do they mean by it? What are they actually saying?

I'm not 100% sure but I think they are saying that "That" is the "ultimate".

 

[IfIonlyhadabrain]

I'm not sure that I understand the how/why distinction. 'Why' questions usually seem to me to be asking for purposes or intentions. I don't think that those are really the right questions to ask about nature, unless we are inquiring about the actions of cognitive agents.

Aristotle defined four "causes," and each of these causes is used to answer the question "why" in every event. They are: Material Cause, Formal Cause, Efficient Cause, and Final Cause.

The material cause is the aspect of an event that is determined by what things are made of, such as wood, stone, polycarbonate, etc. An example of how this cause answers the question "why" is this:

"Why is that statue burning?"

"Because the statue is made of wood, and wood burns."

The formal cause is the particular circumstance that brought about the event. An example of how this cause answers the question "why" is this:

"Why is that wooden statue burning?"

"Because it was set on top of red hot coals."

The efficient cause is the agent that brings about the event. An example of how this cause answers the question "why" is this:

"Why is that wooden statue, which has been placed on red hot coals, burning?"

"Because Mr. Smith placed it there."

The final cause is the purpose or end to which the event has occurred. An example of how this cause answers the question "why" is this:

"Why is that wooden statue, which has been placed on red hot coals by Mr. Smith, burning?"

"Because the statue reminds him of his late wife Mrs. Smith, and it hurts whenever he thinks of her, so he's trying to get rid of everything in his life that reminds him of her."

Usually, when people say, "science answers the how, but not the why," what they really mean is that science answers all the "whys" that can be answered by the first three causes, but not the "why" that is answered by the final cause. That is, they mean that science can answer questions about material, arrangement, and agency, etc., but not purpose.

This is because purpose implies intention. Speaking with respect to any human, or even animal activity, the final cause can be answered scientifically, because intention can be determined, perhaps even measured. However, without positing a "greater mind" (universal? or godly?) to nature, the scientist would say there is no "purpose" in nature. It just is.

Classical philosophers would argue that this position is incorrect. They would agree with Aristotle that for every event, all four causes can be used to answer "why." Not just one or two causes, given the kind of event. Rather, all four causes can be found in each and every event. And this is the basis for the objection that science is limited in that it cannot answer the final cause, it can only answer the first three.

 

[Magical Realist]

I think we should keep in mind that there are other modes of epistemic access besides just the empirical methodology of science. Two of these are art and mathematics. Art isn't often seen as a way of getting in touch with reality. But I think it represents a very individualistic way of learning and knowing truths that provides a contrast to the purely quantitative and measurable domains of science. Art focuses itself on the subjective and the qualitative in the creative expression original and novel forms of the reality. When I experience a really profound object of art I feel like I am touch with a transcendental aspect of the world that wouldn't normally surface for me.

Mathematics also provides a bridge to reality taken it's most fundamental and ordered aspect. Great mathematicians typically experience profound feelings of mystical unity and elegant beauty in the equations they work on. While theoretical science relies on math alot nowadays, I think it is an epistemic approach entirely separate from empiricle knowledge. It relies on an inner intuitive and even a priori sense of what is true and real.

One more mode of epistemic access I just thought of is what we're doing right now--and that's philosophy. Philosophy is a mode of thought and logic that encounters the Real introspectively much as mathematics does. But instead of numbers it uses language as it's tool of probing the world. It is the art of posing really deep and relevant questions, creatively opening us to new modes of understanding reality we wouldn't otherwise have even imagined.

 

[Rav]

I think we should keep in mind that there are other modes of epistemic access besides just the empirical methodology of science. Two of these are art and mathematics. Art isn't often seen as a way of getting in touch with reality. But I think it represents a very individualistic way of learning and knowing truths that provides a contrast to the purely quantitative and measurable domains of science. Art focuses itself on the subjective and the qualitative in the creative expression original and novel forms of the reality. When I experience a really profound object of art I feel like I am touch with a transcendental aspect of the world that wouldn't normally surface for me.

Mathematics also provides a bridge to reality taken it's most fundamental and ordered aspect. Great mathematicians typically experience profound feelings of mystical unity and elegant beauty in the equations they work on. While theoretical science relies on math alot nowadays, I think it is an epistemic approach entirely separate from empiricle knowledge. It relies on an inner intuitive and even a priori sense of what is true and real.

One more mode of epistemic access I just thought of is what we're doing right now--and that's philosophy. Philosophy is a mode of thought and logic that encounters the Real introspectively much as mathematics does. But instead of numbers it uses language as it's tool of probing the world. It is the art of posing really deep and relevant questions, creatively opening us to new modes of understanding reality we wouldn't otherwise have even imagined.

You often seem like you fail to make a distinction between what goes on in the mind and what goes on outside of the mind. For example, suggesting that an imagined physical location is just as real as an actual physical location, by appealing to the fact that they can both seem equally real in the mind.

Or again here, where you suggest that the emotion that art might stir in ones mind actually puts them in touch with some transcendental aspect of reality, rather than simply putting them in touch with some particular aspect of human experience.

But perhaps, as suggested, it only seems that way. What is it that you believe? That when you imagine something, that it's actually there, beyond your own mind, accessible to others? Are you invoking incorporeal realms in which events play out, much as they do in the physical world? Or is it that you believe that everything is essentially incorporeal, and that physicality is merely a somewhat illusory subset of a grander, richer, whole?

 

[Magical Realist]

You often seem like you fail to make a distinction between what goes on in the mind and what goes on outside of the mind. For example, suggesting that an imagined physical location is just as real as an actual physical location, by appealing to the fact that they can both seem equally real in the mind.

Art is an expression of real experiences, thoughts, and ideas that provide insight into reality. Do you seriously claim that one's subjective experiences aren't real? That they are just sporadic firings of synapses in your brain?

Or again here, where you suggest that the emotion that art might stir in ones mind actually puts them in touch with some transcendental aspect of reality, rather than simply putting them in touch with some particular aspect of human experience.

Human experience is part of reality. When you are stirred by the transcendental as expressed in art you are experiencing the transcendental. And reality is inherently transcendental.

But perhaps, as suggested, it only seems that way. What is it that you believe? That when you imagine something, that it's actually there, beyond your own mind, accessible to others? Are you invoking incorporeal realms in which events play as out, much as they do in the physical world? Or is it that you believe that everything is essentially incorporeal, and that physicality is merely a somewhat illusory subset of a grander, richer, whole?

What is in our minds is as phenomenally real and expressive of a transcendent reality as what is in the world. It springs up from the same irreducible and transcending order. Physicality is merely a illusory representation of this fundamental underlying reality and NOT reality itself.

 

[Rav]

Do you seriously claim that one's subjective experiences aren't real?

Of course subjective experiences are real. They happen. But again, you often seem to suggest that the reality of subjectivity extends into the external world. In other words, that things that are happening in the mind also have an existence independently of it.

Human experience is part of reality. When you are stirred by the transcendental as expressed in art you are experiencing the transcendental. And reality is inherently transcendental.

Again, of course human experience is part of reality. It's a feature of reality. In fact its very existence says something (I would say a profound something) about the nature of the universe that is absent from our current scientific treatment of it since we lack the means to quantify it. But think about it this way: just because the substance of nature can manifest consciousness, and that consciousness can contain thoughts and feelings, doesn't mean that the whole of reality itself should be characterized in those terms. Wouldn't that just be anthropomorphism?

To put it another way, feelings of transcendence obviously exist, and you can be in touch with them. But you seem to want to go further than that. How much further, I'm not sure. That's what I'm inquiring about.

Physicality is merely a illusory representation of this fundamental underlying reality and NOT reality itself.

When you use the term physicality, what do you mean, exactly? You seem to be thinking of it merely in terms of what the current state of our scientific knowledge has to say about it. But that would be an error. The true scope of physicality, the phenomenality of it, is greater than what we currently understand it to be. We know this because science isn't finished, and will probably never be, not completely, anyway.

I'm not trying to determine whether or not you believe that scientific theories are typically approximations, to a greater or less degree. They are. I'm simply trying to determine whether or not you believe that the greater class of phenomena that science investigates (and has possibly only scratched the surface of) is, fundamentally, reality itself, or whether you feel that an entirely different class of phenomena (such as the incorporeal) is more fundamental.

 

[Magical Realist]

Of course subjective experiences are real. They happen. But again, you often seem to suggest that the reality of subjectivity extends into the external world. In other words, that things that are happening in the mind also have an existence independently of it.

Ofcourse the reality of thoughts and ideas and feelings extend into the external realm. We encounter a world completely intertwined with the subjective qualia of our own brains. Colors, sounds, textures, forms, patterns, etc. And these qualia are not reducible to the external world. They are mental in essence, and so are as irreducible as matter or space or time. Not independent from the external world. Co-substantial with it. I am a dualist afterall.

Again, of course human experience is part of reality. It's a feature of reality. In fact its very existence says something (I would say a profound something) about the nature of the universe that is absent from our current scientific treatment of it since we lack the means to quantify it. But think about it this way: just because the substance of nature can manifest consciousness, and that consciousness can contain thoughts and feelings, doesn't mean that the whole of reality itself should be characterized in those terms. Wouldn't that just be anthropomorphism?

That is what I mean by transcendent. That reality goes on beyond our projections upon it. Transcendence is the subsistence of reality independently of our pov. It is a fundamental assumption of consciousness-that our experience is only a very tiny fraction of what's out there.

To put it another way, feelings of transcendence obviously exist, and you can be in touch with them. But you seem to want to go further than that. How much further, I'm not sure. That's what I'm inquiring about.

I only go as far as the experience of transcendence permits me. IOW, I recognize the presence of a transcendental reality, but I refuse to define it or objectify as anything more than that. It IS, and that is all we know about it.

When you use the term physicality, what do you mean, exactly? You seem to be thinking of it merely in terms of what the current state of our scientific knowledge has to say about it. But that would be an error. The true scope of physicality, the phenomenality of it, is greater than what we currently understand it to be. We know this because science isn't finished, and will probably never be, not completely, anyway.

I take physical to be any object, event, or phenomena that is extended in spacetime and is a constituent of the universe. Reality is more than this. It includes numbers, laws, minds, dimensions, virtual particles, geometric shapes, persons, spacetime itself, and god knows what else. Is science's current ontology of physicality adequate to encompass these entities? No. They are non-physical and so are beyond the scope of it. But Tesla DID say this about non-physical phenomena:"The day science begins to study non-physical phenomena, it will make more progress in one decade than in all the previous centuries of its existence." – Nikola Tesla

I'm not trying to determine whether or not you believe that scientific theories are typically approximations, to a greater or less degree. They are. I'm simply trying to determine whether or not you believe that the greater class of phenomena that science investigates (and has possibly only scratched the surface of) is, fundamentally, reality itself, or whether you feel that an entirely different class of phenomena (such as the incorporeal) is more fundamental.

I believe physical phenomena are only a subset of reality. Reality includes the non-physical as well, and possibly infinitely more than that. That is what I believe based on my own experience.

 

[Rav]

Ofcourse the reality of thoughts and ideas and feelings extend into the external realm. We encounter a world completely intertwined with the subjective qualia of our own brains. Colors, sounds, textures, forms, patterns, etc.

Consider a tree. It's an object out there in the world. But when a person perceives it, they are bringing the tree into their consciousness, and overlaying experience, and memories and emotion. Most people would agree with this. But the way you're characterizing your position here leads me to believe that you would say that when a person encounters a tree, the tree itself takes on new properties that it didn't have before. Is that accurate?

I believe physical phenomena are only a subset of reality. Reality includes the non-physical as well, and possible infinitely more than that. That is what I believe based on my own experience.

How would you characterize a link in the chain between an unphysical cause and a physical effect, or a physical cause and an unphysical effect?

The problem for me, when it comes to pondering the possibility of the existence of unphysical realms, is compatibility. For something incorporeal, for example, to "touch" physical reality, it has to interface somehow. What often comes to mind for me is when the subway ghost was trying to teach Sam how to do it in the movie Ghost. I just don't see how it's possible at all unless all entities involved are indeed part of the same class of phenomena. To suggest otherwise requires that this interaction problem be addressed.

 

[Parameter]

How would you characterize a link in the chain between an unphysical cause and a physical effect, or a physical cause and an unphysical effect?

They are connected. We just don't know how yet. If we did we could duplicate consciousness in machines and God knows what else.

 

[Magical Realist]

Consider a tree. It's an object out there in the world. But when a person perceives it, they are bringing the tree into their consciousness, and overlaying experience, and memories and emotion. Most people would agree with this. But the way you're characterizing your position here leads me to believe that you would say that when a person encounters a tree, the tree itself takes on new properties that it didn't have before. Is that accurate?

The problem is in conceptualizing something like "the tree itself". Every quale the tree instantiates is a human physiological response. It's color. It's texture. Even it's solidity. All of these properties come together to create the experience of the tree. What is a tree withOUT these qualia? It's hard to imagine. Obviously it must exist in some sense independently of our projections. But as what? Perhaps as a gray field of probablistic energies? An "eigentree" consisting of superpositions of all possible quantum states? Kant calls it the noumenal as opposed to the phenomenal. Again, we reach an impasse here teetering on the brink of the transcendental. We sense the logical necessity of something that cannot be described. An intuitive grasp on the presence of the sublime sitting right under our noses!

How would you characterize a link in the chain between an unphysical cause and a physical effect, or a physical cause and an unphysical effect?

The problem for me, when it comes to pondering the possibility of the existence of unphysical realms, is compatibility. For something incorporeal, for example, to "touch" physical reality, it has to interface somehow. What often comes to mind for me is when the subway ghost was trying to teach Sam how to do it in the movie Ghost. I just don't see how it's possible at all unless all entities involved are indeed part of the same class of phenomena. To suggest otherwise requires that this interaction problem be addressed.

This is the famous interaction problem facing every dualist. How is it possible for physical and non-physical to interact and influence each other? My conclusion is that the interface between matter and mind, or matter and spirit in this case, is simply energy. By modulating energy our minds influence the matter of our bodies. By generating and matrixing more energy the matter of our bodies influences our minds. From what I know of paranormal phenomena, ghosts can only manifest effects on physical matter by drawing on energy sources (the ambient heat in the air, camera batteries, emf sources in the environment, and even our physical bodies.) That I believe is because energy is the medium of interaction between mind and matter. This requires a re-understanding of energy itself as a sort of a hybrid state between physical and mental. Or a third neutral state that is neither one nor the other. Energy always HAS had a kind of probablistic nature as well as a physical nature. Consider light, existing BOTH as a particle and a wave at the same time.

 

[Rav]

The problem is in conceptualizing something like "the tree itself". Every quale the tree instantiates is a human physiological response. It's color. It's texture. Even it's solidity. All of these properties come together to create the experience of the tree. What is a tree withOUT these qualia?

When I look at a particular tree, I might remember the time that I climbed it. Or the time that I got an awesome photograph of a bird perched on one of it's branches. I might also remember what it looked like in winter without it's leaves. These are examples of individual experiences that colour my perception of a tree, and there are always countless more. But these are all things that I project onto the tree, rather than being properties of the tree itself. If they were properties of the tree itself, when perceiving it you'd remember climbing it too, and taking that photo, and looking at it in winter, even if you'd never done those things.

Obviously it must exist in some sense independently of our projections.

Awesome. So we do have a foundation, then.

But as what? Perhaps as a gray field of probablistic energies? An "eigentree" consisting of superpositions of all possible quantum states?

Isn't it likely that the tree is simply a particular configuration of matter that persists for a time? What is it that prompts you to invoke more complex explanations?

How is it possible for physical and non-physical to interact and influence each other? My conclusion is that the interface between matter and mind, or matter and spirit in this case, is simply energy...

...This requires a re-understanding of energy itself as a sort of a hybrid state between physical and mental. Or a third neutral state that is neither one nor the other.

Conceptualizing it as a hybrid state isn't a solution, because the problem is essentially about how hybridization is even possible in the first place.

Think about it in terms of what the unphysical needs to do in order to touch the physical. This touching is necessarily going on if there is indeed a hybrid state, but how? It still has to occur when invoking a neutral intermediate state, too.

Again, the simpler explanation is substance monism. It doesn't even need to be physicalist either. Dualism seems to me to be a rejection of the idea that a single substance can be phenomenal enough to account for everything we see. But why? Isn't it clear that pretty much everything is more phenomenal than we currently understand it to be? Haven't we learned that lesson yet? God knows history should have given us enough perspective by now. Why not assume the same is true of the whole of reality itself? Why split it in two? It just seems artificial to me, not to mention logically and metaphysically problematic. An artifact of our present ignorance.

Why don't you stop messing around with dualism and embrace idealism? It gives you everything you want. It contextualizes physicality in a way that prevents it from asserting itself, leaving you free to concentrate on more wholesome endeavours.

 

[Magical Realist]

When I look at a particular tree, I might remember the time that I climbed it. Or the time that I got an awesome photograph of a bird perched on one of it's branches. I might also remember what it looked like in winter without it's leaves. These are examples of individual experiences that colour my perception of a tree, and there are always countless more. But these are all things that I project onto the tree, rather than being properties of the tree itself. If they were properties of the tree itself, when perceiving it you'd remember climbing it too, and taking that photo, and looking at it in winter, even if you'd never done those things.

So you are DENYING our perception of the tree is based on our projection of "virtual properties" or qualia like color, texture, and solidity, or accepting it? I don't see how the projection of emotional associations and memories upon the tree invalidates the projection of qualia upon the same tree. One occurs at the psychological level. The other at the perceptual level. They are not, iow, the same thing.

Isn't it likely that the tree is simply a particular configuration of matter that persists for a time? What is it that prompts you to invoke more complex explanations?

"A particular configuration of matter that persists for a time" doesn't characterize anything about the tree worth defining. I might as well be talking about a million other things in the universe.

Conceptualizing it as a hybrid state isn't a solution, because the problem is essentially about how hybridization is even possible in the first place.

Ofcourse it is. A phenomena that is both physical and non-physical can interact with both and thus provide the link in their interaction. The question of it's origin is not my concern.

Think about it in terms of what the unphysical needs to do in order to touch the physical. This touching is necessarily going on if there is indeed a hybrid state, but how? It still has to occur when invoking a neutral intermediate state, too.

Quantum physics demonstrates a direct effect of the non-physical on the physical in the form of the measurement problem in which the act of measurement collapses the wavefunction. This a linkage between the probablistic and the physical. I think energy is involved in this sort of contact between these two levels of reality. That's my conclusion.

Again, the simpler explanation is substance monism. It doesn't even need to be physicalist either. Dualism seems to me to be a rejection of the idea that a single substance can be phenomenal enough to account for everything we see. But why? Isn't it clear that pretty much everything is more phenomenal than we currently understand it to be? Haven't we learned that lesson yet? God knows history should have given us enough perspective by now. Why not assume the same is true of the whole of reality itself? Why split it in two? It just seems artificial to me, not to mention logically and metaphysically problematic. An artifact of our present ignorance.

Why don't you stop messing around with dualism and embrace idealism? It gives you everything you want. It contextualizes physicality in a way that prevents it from asserting itself, leaving you free to concentrate on more wholesome endeavours.

Why are you so worried about WHAT I believe? Does it threaten your worldview somehow that I am dualist?


The reason I am dualist is because AS given in my experience qualia and consciousness are as irreducible as physical matter is. They are BOTH essential and cosubstantial elements of reality, one never really being present without the other. Like outside and inside. To ontologically reduce one to the other is to trap oneself in a solipsistic mirage where nothing is real anymore. For the materialist it is in the form of consciousness being illusory because it is really just matter and physical processes. For the idealist it is also in the form of consciousness being illusory since without physical existence there wouldn't be anything to be conscious OF. Dualism preserves the reality of both the mental AND the physical as given datum of our experience. That is my view.

 

[river]

The thing we have to remember about reality is that we are MADE from it

Most fundamentally , minerals

So that when we see a tree , they are also from minerals

My point being that reality has a fundamental basis that from all living things derive

 

[river]

Now there is also a life energy , of course

BUT in order for the life energy to manifest life , it is clear that certain nutrients must be present as well as enviroment

And ALL are present , by necessity , BEFORE the life manifestation can occur

 

[river]

Further

Hence then we come to the point of , " do we perceive the WHOLE of reality , by our senses "

Of course not , we couldn't survive the information given to us by the outside world , our brains simply could not handle this influx of info.

Consciously or subconsciously

Imagine being able to see the full spectrum of light for example , rather than the narrow band that we see

 

[river]

Now carry that last post into the brain absorbing everything that we use technology to detect , from sound to light .....everything

Now evolve that to the study of the micro and the macro

Look concrete can never be an example of a tree anymore than a cell can be an example of space

So when you see a tree , and define the tree as having these properties , is because nothing else does

 

[river]

Now to Magical Realist post #50 , second statement

It is intriguing , that this gathering of energy in order to manifest an energy that effects us but we can not affect them in the same way

What I also find intriguing is that there is a purpose , a direction , a plan etc . By the entity

Yet this entity has no physical brain that we can detect , how does it think with no physical evidence of a brain ?

Evidence of a soul , seems so

 

[Rav]

So you are DENYING our perception of the tree is based on our projection of "virtual properties" or qualia like color, texture, and solidity, or accepting it?

I"m not denying it, I'm stating it. We do indeed project our subjective experience onto the tree, which is why and how we perceive it the way we do. But I would, of course, say that this is something that happens in the mind and not something that happens to the tree. You, on the other hand, seem to be suggesting that it's something that happens to the tree. So why is it, then, that when I encounter a tree after you have already perceived it, that the tree doesn't force your perception of it onto me? Or are there as many unique versions of this tree, out there in the world, as there are people who have perceived it?

What about Grand Canyons? Are there as many of them in Arizona as there are people who have ever visited?

"A particular configuration of matter that persists for a time" doesn't characterize anything about the tree worth defining. I might as well be talking about a million other things in the universe.

Of course it doesn't characterize the tree in a satisfying way. That's what we do, in our minds, when we look at it, or think about it. I was talking about the object itself. You accept that it must in some sense exist independently of our perception of it. But again, why invoke problematic ideas such as your "eigentree"? I mean, what happens when two people are perceiving it simultaneously? Does it then collapse into two definite states? Why dismiss the much simpler idea that the object we call a tree is simply a configuration of matter that persists for a time, and that the richer characterization only happens to a representation of the tree imported into our minds via our senses?

Ofcourse it is. A phenomena that is both physical and non-physical can interact with both and thus provide the link in their interaction. The question of it's origin is not my concern.

You can't solve the interaction problem simply by positing the existence of a compatible interface, because the interaction problem exists within the interface. I certainly understand why you may want to skip over it with mere pronouncements, but that does nothing to overcome the legitimacy of this objection to dualism.

Quantum physics demonstrates a direct effect of the non-physical on the physical in the form of the measurement problem in which the act of measurement collapses the wavefunction. This a linkage between the probablistic and the physical. I think energy is involved in this sort of contact between these two levels of reality. That's my conclusion.

This really is a huge leap on your part, because we are largely dealing with mathematical models of reality that may or may not (and if so, to varying degrees) accurately describe the way physical events actually play out. In other words, QM demonstrates nothing of the sort.

Why are you so worried about WHAT I believe? Does it threaten your worldview somehow that I am dualist?

Worried? Threatened? I don't get it. If you're not here to discuss your world-view, and be challenged on it, why do you spend so much time here discussing your world-view and defending it, as well as challenging that of others? Isn't that why we're all here?

The reason I am dualist is because AS given in my experience qualia and consciousness are as irreducible as physical matter is. They are BOTH essential and cosubstantial elements of reality, one never really being present without the other. Like outside and inside. To ontologically reduce one to the other is to trap oneself in a solipsistic mirage where nothing is real anymore. For the materialist it is in the form of consciousness being illusory because it is really just matter and physical processes. For the idealist it is also in the form of consciousness being illusory since without physical existence there wouldn't be anything to be conscious OF. Dualism preserves the reality of both the mental AND the physical as given datum of our experience. That is my view.

It is not necessary for a physicalist to view consciousness as illusory. I don't. In fact a physicalist has to believe that consciousness is something that matter can be, otherwise they'd be forced to admit that they wouldn't be here to think about it. Pretty obvious stuff, huh? That's why characterizing it as "just matter", as if it's nothing more than properties like spin, charge and mass, is inaccurate. It has to be more phenomenal than that. The seeds of the dimension of consciousness simply have to be present, or else how could a collection of it give rise to the richness of human experience? By waving a wand and pulling it out of a hat? Of course not.

But isn't endowing matter with such properties still dualism? Aren't I effectively saying that matter is part matter, and part something else? No. I'm talking about what matter itself actually is. When you're talking properties such as spin, charge and mass, you may be describing certain features, but you're not encapsulating the whole. I mean, what is a particle? What substance is there to it? String theorists would say that it's a string, or filament of energy. But what is energy? You may be able to talk about how it oscillates in multiple tiny dimensions, but what is it? I don't know. But whatever it is, it's phenomenal enough to become everything we see. One substance, all phenomena. Why not?

It only seems impossible when you impose artificial limitations, like you seem to be doing. But to be fair, I do realize that you are, to some extent, parroting some of the less imaginative, less inspired characterizations of physicalism (usually put forward by people who are so cautious that they wont publicly engage in any speculation or extrapolation at all, which is totally boring if you ask me).

To summarize, I don't see how any feature of the world forces one to adopt a dualist stance, and I still think it's a far more problematic way to go about trying to make sense of everything.

 

[Write4U]

Now to Magical Realist post #50 , second statement

It is intriguing , that this gathering of energy in order to manifest an energy that effects us but we can not affect them in the same way

What I also find intriguing is that there is a purpose , a direction , a plan etc . By the entity

Yet this entity has no physical brain that we can detect , how does it think with no physical evidence of a brain ?

Evidence of a soul , seems so

Well, seem that slime mold has purpose and it is a mindless amoeba.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=brainless-slime-molds

and on a quantum level an organization of particles wave functions may manifest itself as a holomovement (David Bohm), which then in a succession of conversions from potential to observable reality . It is magical, but not purposefully directed. It must what it does.

 

[Yazata]

Good post, Brain.

Aristotle defined four "causes," and each of these causes is used to answer the question "why" in every event. They are: Material Cause, Formal Cause, Efficient Cause, and Final Cause.

I think that you were right remind me of Aristotle's four causes when I was asking about the how/why distinction. (I like Aristotle's causes. They kind of summarize how we typically account for the existence of objects in the physical world.) It's a good way to think about this stuff.

Usually, when people say, "science answers the how, but not the why," what they really mean is that science answers all the "whys" that can be answered by the first three causes, but not the "why" that is answered by the final cause. That is, they mean that science can answer questions about material, arrangement, and agency, etc., but not purpose.

Yeah, that's basically what I was getting at when I opined that 'why' questions might not really apply to most of the objects and events in the universe. I was questioning the teleological aspect. I'm not convinced (as Aristotle may or may not have been) that all quantitative and/or qualitative change in the universe is headed somewhere, towards realizing some end, some perfection particular for whatever it is that happens to be changing and perhaps some grander ultimate perfection for the universe as a whole.

Human beings (and perhaps animals more generally) certainly have purposes for most of their actions. And biological theorizing has traditionally made use of teleological explanations. (Why do we have hearts? To pump blood.) Aristotle was a biologist, and that mode of thinking probably came naturally to him. It's clear that teleology isn't entirely out of place, leaving us with the question of determining when teleological explanations are and aren't appropriate. (That's an active topic of debate in the philosophy of biology.)

This is because purpose implies intention. Speaking with respect to any human, or even animal activity, the final cause can be answered scientifically, because intention can be determined, perhaps even measured. However, without positing a "greater mind" (universal? or godly?) to nature, the scientist would say there is no "purpose" in nature. It just is.

Yes. Though I'm not convinced that it's necessary to think that mind must always be the source of teleology. There's the traditional 'acorn growing into a tree' sort of example. I guess that it's possible for an Aristotelian to imagine the unfolding-of-essences idea (which I don't entirely understand) simply as a fundamental metaphysical process of some sort, a process that contributes a teleological aspect to all naturally occurring change without everything being the result of some conscious plan. But yeah, even if the Aristotelian doesn't posit a "greater mind", he/she would still be positing some final and ultimate state for the universe in which its potentialities have all finally been actualized. (Or something like that.) And that's (arguably) kind of a divine state, maybe.