Is the material world the most absolute form of reality?
I raise the question as to whether the material world is the most absolute form of reality as it appears to be at the centre of most other debates within philosophy. It is essential to how we perceive the world. Certain philosophers, such as Kant and Plato, believed in transcendent ideas, beyond the material world. Others see reality in terms of the basis of physical reality, such as Sartre's belief that existence proceeds essence , which points to the material realm as the ultimate basis of our living reality.
I would say that the question is central to any philosophy ranging from those based on a belief in a transcendent order, the philosophy of hard determinism, existentialism and nihilism, as well as the philosophy of quantum physics. It is at the centre of the whole consideration of life and death and how we frame reality, so I see it as one of the most important philosophy questions. It is one which underlies so many other ones, but perhaps it
may get overlooked amidst the complexity of arguments . On this basis, I wish to highlight the question as one its own right, as it is often in the background as a subtle form of arguments and premises, and I wish to bring it into a more focus for fuller consideration.
I would say that the question is central to any philosophy ranging from those based on a belief in a transcendent order, the philosophy of hard determinism, existentialism and nihilism, as well as the philosophy of quantum physics. It is at the centre of the whole consideration of life and death and how we frame reality, so I see it as one of the most important philosophy questions. It is one which underlies so many other ones, but perhaps it
may get overlooked amidst the complexity of arguments . On this basis, I wish to highlight the question as one its own right, as it is often in the background as a subtle form of arguments and premises, and I wish to bring it into a more focus for fuller consideration.
Comments (114)
To what extent are mental and physical reality identical? Are we not confronted by the split between mind and body, as it appears in the thinking of Descartes? So, we are still left with the question, as to whether what is the most real?
I would say that I began this thread partly in response to what you were saying to @Gus Lamarch, with whom I have been discussing ideas relating to nihilism. Personally, I am influenced by systems theory, but I do have a whole interest in the the whole basis of the theory of knowledge, including the perspective of Kant. I also do aim for pluralistic considerations of truth, which would include thinking which goes outside the thinking of the Western philosophy tradition.
I would say that I see the material world, and the psychology and cultural aspects which arise from it as extremely important aspect of truth, but do not wish to rule out other aspects. I say this coming with a view to the realm of other dimensions, especially in the realm of quantum physics, the arts and a certain amount of critical appreciation of the various spiritual perspectives.
But physical reality, insofar as we can access it, must logically be part of mental reality. So there are two contradictory statements, both seem to be necessarily true. Historically, physical reality must precede mental reality. But epistemologically, mental reality must precede physical reality.
I agree with you but in some ways we are stuck in between the daily realities which we have and abstract arguments, such as those which we have in the writings of Kant and other important philosophers. How does this equate with the living reality of philosophy which we relate to?
I am not wishing to dismiss Kant or our own living perspective based on scientific premises and empirical observation. I am trying to it put together this realm of thinking alongside contemporary materialism. Please don't mistake me, I am not in favour of dismissing the ideas of Kant and other thinkers.
I believe that the perspective of materialistic philosophy is limited and I am just trying to think about ways in which the whole area needs careful thinking for progressing forwards.I am not opposed to materialism, but wishing to finding it and its benefits and limitations in the within whole the philosophy quest.
Nevertheless, unless someone comes up either a good argument or strong evidence that hints at an immaterial world out there somewhere, I'm not going to buy into what is, at this point, essentially daydreaming.
In a way I feel like a lot of what I am doing is just "learning a vocabulary," fleshing out mere signs with an ever-enriching field of lexical-syntactical content or meaning. We talk "around" concepts in order to develop (and create I guess) a richer understanding of them. Not so much finding an answer as...participating in discussion.
I am most certainly open to the perspective you present. If anything, I would advocate a more open minded perspective, in the quest of enquiry.
I believe in empirical speculation but do believe it has its limitations. Perhaps we are in danger of shutting off our philosophical quest if we remain too empirical and closed to other ways of perceiving the problems arising in philosophy.
It is questionable how we approach others points of view. How much is respect, and how much is about whether we think we know more than others. Who can say that they have the most absolute picture of truth and reality?
Does physical or mental reality precede one another, and how do we disentangle the two in a way which is meaningful to us?
Each individual perspective in the Phenomenological/Weltanschauung tradition has its own "truth", wherein "intuitions of essence are always dependent on the historical background of the subject." Moreover these phenomenological "essential inutitions" are the "Supra-temporally valid truths", such as the Kantian's hold. So, again, it is overlapping conceptual realms. Mannheim calls them "constellations". The historical-material, the ideal.
The problem with being non-empirical i.e. looking beyond the obvious material world is that we can't distinguish between the real and the unreal. What's unreal if we take the exclusively mental constructs to be real?
I appreciate your answer. I would just say that I think that the whole question is of so important, because so many philosophical views are dependent on metaphysical assumptions about reality. This is because philosophies are hinged on premises about the nature of the material world and how real it is.
You raise a good question too, in asking what is material. In particular, how does the emotional stand, and to what extent is this simply an expression of the material, or something more?
Why can it not just coincide with the material? When you have brainstate X you also simultaneously experience fear or joy or what have you.
Quoting Pantagruel
I would say that those are in our eyes not in the world. Practically no difference though.
Quoting Pantagruel
Who claimed otherwise?
There are a few distinctions people either don't acknowledge or consciously bear in mind when throwing around terms like absolute, reality, and the "material world". Our understanding of the material world has never been constant for long. A long time ago, all we saw were stars and heavenly bodies. It was not known with absolute certainty there was "a universe" beyond the ground upon which we walk. Before microscopes, it was unlikely the idea of anything smaller than a grain of sand existed. Numerous examples continue this theme.
I'm not intimately familiar with many philosophers beyond Socrates, and even what I am familiar with is just the stuff everybody knows. Transcendent ideas beyond the material world, that includes and encompasses the fact that we are in a constant state of ignorance as to its true nature evidenced by scientific innovation and discovery even at times in history where great progress was made and treated as such (first irrigation systems, early medicines, Industrial revolution, etc) would seem to be something a little metaphysical even spiritual. As in, even the (unproven) idea of ghosts and spirits are still.. physical as far as we would ever know or experience them. So it's hard to say. Where is the line between the material world and a transcendent reality beyond the material? Quantum mechanics and the idea of multiple universes? They are still physical and material... just not in a realm or plane we can access or experience. Right?
I would admit that I believe that there is a fine line between the material world and aspects beyond it, and it is from that angle that I raise the area for debate, because I believe that it is an underlying issue which is often ignored.
I would be interested to know what you think we are agreeing or disagreeing with, because I do wonder if the material world can or cannot be taken at face value.
Personally, I believe that there is is truth in this world we perceive but I do believe that there are many additional dimensions of perceptions. In that respect, I would not wish to dismiss the reality which we see on a day to basis, but would wish to be aware of subtle, other ways of perception which do not necessarily contradict but enhance our perception of reality.
I'll cast my vote for a material world, composed of matter which turns out to be quite resourceful, considering that we material creatures are discussing stuff that isn't material. Mind arose from matter, and it doesn't transcend matter. But that's just my opinion.
We greatly desire a spirit (lots of possible definitions for spirit) to inhabit material, and it does inasmuch as we think it does. As far as I can tell, animated matter eventually becomes inanimate matter, and our thoughts disappear forever. Cruel world or merciful transience?
I am certainly not wishing to deny the material world. We are living it daily, with all the horrors it entails, including Covid_19.
However, I do wonder about other perspectives, including the ideas of philosophers on the transcendent, the ideas of the Eastern philosophy and many other perspectives which do not see the material realm as the supreme sphere of experience. Some philosophies seem to be about narrowing rather than enhancing the scope of perception.
I realise that you were not trying to narrow any views. I believe that we were both logging into the same thread at some point. Personally, I think that it is possible that we are living in hard times, possibly the end of civilisation as we know it. I am inclined to think that there are not any easy solutions. I am not sure that materialistic or nonmaterialistic solutions can provide the answers. I believe that we are stepping into the unknown.
Edit: That's why, as I mentioned elsewhere, I'm a melioristic optimist. It seems to me most rational choice to prefer agreement.
Dualism is an old concept, and I would say it's "meaningful" in the sense that it does seem to capture an aspect of human existence - we do divide the world into deterministic nature and free individuals.
As I said, there seems to be a contradiction: Everything material must ultimately be mental, since we live inside our minds, and the world we interact with must therefore also be "in here" with us.
At the same time everything mental must ultimately be material, as since we experience things that are outside of us, there must be some shared reality that both our minds and whatever is not our minds are part of, which can then not itself be mental (at least not our mental).
We are living it daily, with all the joys it entails, as well.
What about our favorite foods; natural scenes of which we are fond (sunsets, birds, trees, flowers, mountains, rain, snow, all that); fine films (even TV shows we enjoy); poetry, music, or just familiar voices we like to hear; the joys of carnal pleasures; savage cartoons of stupid politicians; big planes taking off; our dogs keeping a watchful eyes on us; storms; big waves crashing on the shore; robot vehicles on mars. There is so much good that the material world entails--much of it for free!
Of course, the horrors tend to be free too. No down-payments are required for cancer, arthritis, heart disease, brain tumors, worms, flesh-eating streptococci, vehicle crashes (even 2 wheels foot powered ones), or the relentless drag of gravity.
From dust we have come, unto dust we shall return--the material reality of life. Nonetheless, we material beings spend a lot of time thinking about transcendence. It's a very compelling idea, seductive, lovely. Sometimes we find a teasing taste of transcendence. I am not sad that transcendence isn't on the menu. That we descendants of dust and ashes can imagine, even experience a moment of the sublime, is wonderful.
I'll rest my case there.
I don't think that the question is about the whole dualist debate alone but about the whole way in which we think about life and death, trying to figiure neat categories of body and mind, life and death. Perhaps the reality is more complex indeed.
I do not deny that we are living within the material dimensions of existence. I am raising the question as one which is underlying most philosophies of the world.
If you are using "absolute" in an empiricist way, where the "maximum to be reached would be the absolute of sensations" - aka the material world - and "reality" as "what is not imaginary" then yes, the material world is the most absolute form of what is "real".
However, if we take into account the complex and totally subjective human experience and existence, with its "wish" for the absolute other than the physical - metaphysical -, then the material world is not the most absolute form of "reality".
The point is that both scenarios lack something - their counterpart - because if you discuss a totality, it must necessarily contain all the probabilities and options. There cannot be just a metaphysical world and not just a materialistic world, because ideas without a projection mechanism do not exist, and matter without purpose and/or essence does not covet existence.
It is necessary that "reality" be idealized, contemplated, projected and expressed so that it is "real". The only force capable of being its own motivation, means and ends, without needing any stimulus, is the human ego. Egoism is the craving for craving - It "IS", therefore, "absolute" -.
Not even reality is capable of being real without the participation of third parties...
I don't know if anyone else had mentioned it, but this is reversed - Sartre's famous aphorism was that 'existence precedes essence'. That is a succinct rejection of traditional metaphysics, which holds that the essence is what most truly exists.
With respect to the general question, one point I would raise is the distinction made in most forms of classical philosophy between the conditioned and the unconditioned. Put very briefly, the domain of the conditioned is the domain of particulars and general laws. Individual particulars come into and go out of existence dependent on conditions, and all of their components are likewise composed of parts which come into and go out of existence.
The question in the classical tradition is, what it is that gives rise to all of the myriad of individual particulars that are forever coming to be and then passing away. The philosophical origin of the analysis is with Parmenides and the response to Parmenides by the Platonist tradition. But over the intervening centuries, the residue of this understanding became incorporated into Christan theology, which of course designated 'the unconditioned' as an aspect of the divine..
In any case, that is the background to the idea that the material world is at a low level in the grand hierarchy of being (a.k.a 'the great chain of being'). You still see remnants of this idea preserved in the great philosophers of the 17th century, including Liebniz, Spinoza and Descartes.
https://iep.utm.edu/substanc/#H1
In Spinoza, for example, what is truly real is that which is self-existent and self-created and so, not dependent on anything else for its reality. This is how Spinoza describes God, although his depiction of God was certainly not universally accepted. But, leaving that aside, it simply helps to frame the question of what it means to question the reality of the phenomenal domain or physical world in the context of traditional philosophy. In order for the question to be meaningful, there needs to be a conception of 'the unconditioned' as that which 'the conditioned' is dependent on.
Your response gives some useful points. In particular, I am glad that you noticed that I had written Sartre's idea back to front. I am surprised that no one had not commented on this before. Perhaps they were just familiar with his philosophy, so either did not mention or notice. I will go back and edit, so that the sentence reads as it should have done, so thank you for pointing it out.
It is also helpful to think about the views within traditional philosophy, including Parmenides. I am more familiar with Plato. I have read Liebniz and a bit of Spinoza. But, the only one of these who have really influenced me is Plato. I do believe that there may be archetypal forms, underlying the physical world. Really, I guess that my question does ask is there a God? Probably, I had not thought about the question in that way because I am inclined to understand God as the Tao described by Capra in 'The Tao of Physics'. I am also influenced by the Gnostic understanding of God.
As a result of my own reflections about the nature being based on views which are not traditional I often do not think about the existence of God in the framework that many do, but see God as an underlying source. However, in that view I am believing in some kind of underlying invisible force. But I would also argue in favour of what the physicist David Bohm argues, the idea of an implicate order within an explicate order. The implicate order is the invisible and the explicate is the outer. I do believe that these ideas which stem from quantum physics may sit comfortably alongside Plato's views.
You speak about shared experiences of people.In thinking about this aspect of the question, I would point to the idea of the collective unconscious. The collective unconscious is made up of the individuals but can be seen as objective too. So, I would say that what is happening to civilisation as a whole may emerge from within the collective unconscious itself.
I feel the same. I wrote an essay back in my undergrad years that 'God is not God', which was about the idea that 'God' often amounts an amalgam of ideas and conventions grounded in social history. I wanted to argue for something like 'the unknown God' which forever eludes definition but which is revealed through meditation.
As for Parmenides, I've come to realise that he is the real founder of westerm metaphysics. And of course metaphysics gets a bad rap in modern philosophy, for good reasons, as it has become ossified into verbal formulations which no longer convey anything truly vital. But I think that's because metaphysics proper demands a kind of cognitive shift, without which it is empty repetition and sterile argument. That is why in the Platonic tradition, metaphysics requires metanoia, nowadays misleadingly translated as 'repentance' but meaning something much deeper than that.
Like many, I encountered Bohm through his dialogues with Krishnamurti. I think I even own, or did own, his Wholeness and the Implicate Order. I feel a kind of intuitive affinity with it, but I'm wanting to understand the questions through the perspective of classical philosophy. I've recently discovered a classic textbook on Plato and Parmenides (Cornford) which I intend to try and study this year.
To go back to your question - I'm of the view that the phenomenal domain (sensory domain, physical domain) has no inherent reality. That is why I think materialism is a mistaken view - it takes the physical world as intrinsic or inherently real, independently of any judgement. Whereas, I say, whatever we assert to exist, relies upon judgement. So reality has an irreducible subjective pole, which is never disclosed to objective analysis, because it is always 'that which knows'. What 'the knower' is, is impossible to say, because we're never outside or, or apart from, that. This is something which is made much more clear in Upani?adic philosophy than in Greek philosophy.
The current culture however is overwhelmingly 'sensate' in its philosophy and view of life so naturally it invests the sensory domain with a reality which it doesn't have. Criticizing that or going against the mainstream in this matter, is an essentially subversive or couinter-cultural act.
I would say that consciousness and unconsciousness are probably interrelated in a very complex way. They cannot be separated and and consciousness is probably the outer manifestation of the unconscious. What do you think about this?
I am glad that someone on this site has read David Bohm and Krishnamurti, as I do believe that they are very important writers.
I think that I may go back to some of the traditional writers, including the Greek thinkers.I was thinking of the way in which our cultural perspective is very 'sensate'. This is especially true in philosophy. I am not sure how much is coming from philosophy itself. Certainly, I believe that materialism is an implicit assumption behind many perspectives of philosophy and that is why I wished to bring the idea of materialism to the forefront as an area for questioning and exploration. Personally, I do believe that materialism as starting point for seeing the world is a limited perspective, but, in saying this I am probably coming from a countercultural angle.
I've studied the unconscious from the Freudian superego-ego-id, eros-thanatos perspective and the Jungian perspective. Honestly, I don't know. I wonder if the unconscious is just a blanket term we employ for whatever hidden mechanisms we have trouble excavating?
An early iteration of my personal philosophy centered around cognitive biases, which could be lumped in with the unconscious inasmuch as they are unseen determinants of conscious thought. Much of that effort was focused on excavating and identifying hidden prejudices. I've read many times that our shared lifeworld consists of preconceptions that are so fundamental, they resist direct inspection or conceptualizaion.
I have to admit that I am not coming from an empirical perspective really. I cannot say that philosophies such as that of John Locke or the determininists have convinced me completely, because there seems to be something lacking.
One philosopher who I would agree with is Hegel. He draws upon oriental ideas, including Indian metaphysics. In 'The Philosophy of History' he speaks about dreams in the following way: 'For we have not the dreaming of an actual Individual, possessing distinct personality, and simply unfettering latter from limitation, but we have the dreaming of the unlimited absolute Spirit'.I would agree with the idea of Spirit, as adopted by Hegel.
However, I do believe that you are right to see the q for a 'counterpart' and do think that spirit or mind need a body. This is different from the idealist perspective, which seems to see the two as independent. That is one of the problems which I see arising in many systems of belief about life after death. The implication is that the mind can survive beyond death as an independent entity in its own right. I do see mind and body as interrelated and hard to separate, in a holistic way, although there does need to be some kind of source from which everything arises, or has done. I think that many philosophers are opposed to the idea of the invisible but we know that it operates in some ways, such as in electricity or Wifi, which just seem to be generated through signals.
I also do think in terms of the collective unconscious, described by Jung. Generally, I think that the interrelationship between mind and body has not been addressed adequately. I think that the basis of this has stemmed from the dualism of Descartes. I would also say that the dualism has meant that body and mind have been seen in a shallow way and the instinctual side has been underplayed. What occurred within Western philosophy is that we have ended up with too much emphasis on the empirical, especially within reductionist determinism.
I have read a lot of Jung and Freud, as well as other writers on the unconscious. It is hard to know to what extent the unconscious refers to hidden mechanisms which we do not understand.However, I am inclined to view the unconscious as a source.
One book which I read but, unfortunately, don't have any longer is a book by Victor White, 'God and the Unconscious.' But the idea of the associated between the two is interesting. Perhaps the idea of the unconscious and God, refer to the same reality, although it is likely that this perception of God would be a bit different from the conventional idea of God in most mainstream religious beliefs in Western thought.
And I mean all possible collections, because what is the difference between "possible" and "real", after all?
Our material world is a part of that, perhaps a rather small part.
I’ll add that cultures, goals, and values (to list just a few examples, the unconscious as just one more) are all invisible - imperceptible by the physiological senses - and hence non-empirical (in today’s understanding of the term “empirical”, which no longer signifies experiential). Most would deem each of these to be addressing immaterial givens, yet each of these will hold its own type of quite real determinacy upon us as conscious beings and, in consequence, upon how we interpret the world—including in relation to the question which the OP raises.
I would see cultures, values and goals as arising from humanity, but they are are part of the collective unconscious. I am not sure if this is what you are saying, or asking?
I think material cannot account for all phenomena in the universe as strictly speaking: materials must be manipulated and what better to manipulate the physical than the non physical. Furthermore if there is only material existence there cannot be a “nothing” To contrast such an existence and as far as I know all things have an opposite. No matter how fundamental.
I think your question as to whether energy is material is an important one. I think that it is at the core of physics. I am not a physicist but I believe that we have moved away from the Newtonian model which looks to structures. The quantum physicists are showing that the universe is much more complex and are less inclined to look for explanations in purely material terms.
Oxytocin. I think all emotions have a material basis in terms of hormones, enzymes and the like. What's not explicable through such means is selfless devotion and self-sacrifice.
When interacting with others, the difference between their desires and mine is what makes them real.
I wasn't intending to offer an ontological position, but simply wanted to supplement your statements that that which is invisible is often very important - and this regardless of ontological stance.
Since you bring up the collective unconscious, and in keeping with the thread's subject, if physicality isn't to be interpreted as ultimate, or absolute, reality, would you then view physicality to of itself be a product of the collective unconscious?
I'm asking out of a curiosity to better understand your point of view. As for myself, to be forthright, my leanings are toward an objective idealism, with the ultimate/absolute reality being along the lines of the Neo-platonic "the One" - which makes me open to notions regarding the collective unconscious. I haven't read Jung in a long while, though.
I would say that the question of whether the cause of physicality is a very good one. That would be going to the point of seeing the collective unconscious as being like a God force. I think that to see physicality arising in this way would be pushing Jung's ideas way beyond the way he speaks of it. The physical world has been around for a long time, so we are looking at the whole birth of the universe.
I am not sure how the Neo Platonists view the origin of the universe. I am familiar with some objective idealism. Surely, this sees mind as more essential than matter. I think that which is more primarily is the underlying question I raise. I don't have a clear answer as this is something I do wonder about a lot. However, I do think that mind and matter are so intricately bound together and think that they cannot be separated. So, if the universe and all others collapsed entirely, the question is what would be left, other than the debris. Would the laws of the physical world have collapsed. We could say that invisible laws, such as gravity are independent of physical reality to some extent, but not necessarily universal. Gravity does not operate when people are walking on the moon.
As I was writing that paragraph I felt that I was dealing with complex knots and it made me think why many philosophers believed in God, on the basis of the argument by design. I am tempted to use Jung's ideas of the collective unconscious as an explanation, but I feel that this is stretching the whole idea out of context. A similar idea is Rupert Sheldrake's idea of morphic resonance, which speaks of morphic fields as an underlying memory within nature. In my own quest to understand these complex matters, I think that I will keep reading a mixture of philosophy and the philosophy of physics.
I was reading one of the replies which you sent to me and I see that you of how we 'can't distinguish between the real and unreal'. Surely, this complex matter can at least be spoken of in some ways by Kant's ideas about objective reality, as well the ideas within physics. Perhaps it is the whole way in which so many different theories have arisen in physics which has put as in a Tower of Babel and , as a result, we have become lost in being able to get any grasp of what is 'reality' at all.
Kant supposedly wanted to unify rationalism with empiricism; he took an eclectic approach and was of the opinion that though we perceive the world through our senses, our minds shape sensory perceptions and the final picture of reality is a kinda sorta synthesis of the two. How does this weigh in on the issue of real vs unreal? Well, if one subscribes to some variation of rationalism, ideas, whatever they may be, are real, as real as the apples Kant may have partaken of during one of his meals. If so, everything would be real. :chin:
The way in which I believe that Kant's ideas are applicable is his whole idea of the transcendent. As far as I see it would mean that despite empirical reality, he thought that this was an objective reality underlying all else. Of course, he was coming from the angle of Christianity. However, I do believe that if we dismiss his theory of knowledge with regards to the idea of the transcendent, then we must in some way reject his whole logic of a priori knowledge and settle for a posteriori reality.
'The phenomenal domain can be accorded reality without according it inherent or intrinsic reality'. Are you saying that there is no intrinsic reality as far as the limits of our human knowledge, or that the whole question of trying to find it is not that important?
Physically rearranging a configuration of wooden blocks from a straight line to a ring is changing the information stored in that system of blocks without changing any block in its own reference frame. But the state of the block has changed in any fixed frame (position being part of something's state). Each block -- that is, each material constituent of the system -- has changed.
But this is why I prefer to think of things in terms of the "physical" rather than the "material". There seems less ambiguity about whether we're speaking of the inate properties of a thing (which define what that thing is) or the state of the thing.
Everything material that we experience must have some mental correlate. It doesn't follow that in order for a thing to materially exist, there must be a mental thing to experience it.
The other question is whether in order for a thing to experience anything, must it have a materialist existence. If the answer is Yes, then we're firmly pointed toward the material as having primacy (since an inexperienced material thing is not ruled out while an immaterial experiencer is). If No, then we're looking at dualism.
The likely answer depends heavily on how seriously you take empirical evidence over beliefs. If you believe immaterial consciousnesses exist, and the empirical evidence for the physical basis of consciousness doesn't move you, either dualism is true or material existence is false. If you take seriously the evidence that mental processes are physical, then either you need two qualitatively different ways of making a mind (material and immaterial) or else materialism is likely true.
True. But what renders a certain configuration as "informational" is something external to the configuration itself. Signs are arbitrary.The information content transcends mere physical state. Even if you are talking about physical entropy, some states may be more "improbable" than others, but that is a long way from containing meaningful information.
No, I didn't mean to say that it does. But "experience" itself is already the mental correlate. All experience is mental experience, and does not ever turn into anything but a mental phenomenon.
Quoting Kenosha Kid
And that's why I was saying there seem to be two contradictory statements which both seem obviously and necessarily true. I did not mean to imply that there are no solutions to this problem, only that it seems at the heart of the philosophical problem.
Quoting Kenosha Kid
Sure, I get what you're saying. But I feel like the best way to resolve the dilemma is a compatibilist one. I consider my experience as if it was a true representation of a material world, but at the same time I take seriously my own experience of myself as an acting subject.
Edit: And I should perhaps add that the reason I take these stances is that I consider them pragmatic necessities, which is to say adopting other stances is theoretically possible, but leads to performative contradictions.
I don't think I'd agree with that. I think a more modern take has information physically encoded irrespective of its meaning, that is it is useful to talk about information passed from one system to another without an interpreter. Meaning is the interpretation of information (straight line, ring). I think perhaps this is just a difference of terminology.
Quoting Pantagruel
That is true, entropy alone does not tell you anything about the probability of the state, which reinforces the point that information (number of microstates explored) is distinct from meaning (probability).
Quoting Echarmion
I didn't think you did, I was just jumping on for clarity and an excuse to weigh in :) I generally find little to disagree with in your posts. (Really enjoyed your conversation with Isaac btw.)
Quoting Echarmion
For sure.
Quoting Echarmion
Ah, here we may diverge. My evaluation is almost the opposite. The mind seems to me pretty excellent at interpreting everyday sort of phenomena but exceedingly poor when it comes to less localised scopes of enquiry. Philosophy and science naturally lead us away from the everyday and toward what for the mind is quite abstract (and we want to go there). Understanding how the brain and mind work is one of those areas where inevitably we can't rely on everyday reasoning, since we're reasoning about the thing that does everyday reasoning. It's a Plato's cave kind of deal. At some point we have to get behind the capacities with which nature blessed us in order to understand those capacities. An example of where the brain falls short is in comprehending the counter-intuitiveness of quantum theory, for instance. The usual advice is to stop thinking about it and follow the maths and the evidence.
I was interested in your specific point about the way in which you use you say that you prefer the word physical to the word material. At the time when I wrote this post I chose the word material and I think that I was thinking primarily about what is the underlying basis behind existence. So, having reflected and the way in which material possibly is more ambiguous, do you think my question would have been of a different nature, from your point of view if it it has been posed as is the physical world the absolute reality?
From the materialist point of view, no, there's not really any difference. Things like energy, space, information are considered part of the material universe. It's just that sometimes you see people use the word in the more traditional sense, which these days equates to massive matter, excluding other ideas of 'state, like position, momentum, etc.
At least as regards ordinary language use, a dream (which is intra-personal), a language (which is interpersonal), and a physical apple (which is objective) can each be real, but in qualitatively different manners.
“Did you really dream that?” “Yes, that was a real dream I had [and not me telling you a fib]” Though more awkwardly, the same can be expressed of most any idea: “Is that your real idea of a fun time (or: of what a tree looks like), or are trying to pull my leg?”
Even when interpreting most everything to hold the potential to be real - i.e., to be actually occurring, rather than being fictitious - the type of reality implicitly referenced will often significantly differ. Thereby leading into considerations of different reality types: e.g. strictly personal realities (e.g. dreams), interpersonal realities (e.g. cultures), the empirically objective reality (physicality), and, maybe, a singular metaphysical reality (this being where the notion of God or related notions would fit it).
Then again, we implicitly most often address reality as that which is strictly objectively real. This is where we tell ourselves or others that a nightmare was not real. But here, no such thing as real ideas or real languages can occur.
I suppose we could like at all such experiences, from wet dreams to cold mountain streams, as real in their own way. However, the domains of the mind and physical reality seem not to coincide perfectly. When we have a nightmare of being run over by a vehicle, the fear is as real as being run over by a real vehicle . However you don't get cuts and bruises if it was just a dream. It looks like the mind inhabits a world of its own, quite different from the world of the physical and there are regions of overlap between the two but some experiences are exclusively mental or exclusively physical.
I agree, because the more I have thought about the nature of reality over the weekend, I come to the conclusion that Eastern philosophy has probably a more synthetic understanding. The split between mind and matter, seems to permeate most viewpoints within Western philosophy,
The question is too large for me to provide a proportional response so I will just make two observations.
In De Anima, Aristotle related being alive to varying capacities to have other things be present to the one who perceives. The range from the limited world of touch to the highest possible capacity of intelligence was related to having what is present becoming actually what was being encountered. There have been many who marked this approach as a break from Plato but I am not convinced. The dialogues that discuss the nuts and bolts of perception don't question the status of actual beings.
Another element in De Anima is the recognition that how one is permitted to have this experience is invisible. It is the withdrawal from experience of the operation as an operation that permits one to perceive the other as other. The bug in the program being reported by others is seen by Aristotle to be a feature.
One of the qualities I appreciate Nietzsche bringing into view is the contrast between Hume and Kant in terms of what they were concerned about. When Hume questioned the limits of what could be said to cause what, he didn't want everybody to run about in a panic that such skepticism meant the end of talking about experience altogether. Hume went on to lay wagers on his billiard games with perfect equanimity.
Yes, I do see that the question I have raised is rather large. I was thinking how it is central to all philosophy and that is why I raised it. But as I read the various angles I felt my head exploding.
I even downloaded a book called 'The Deception of Materialistic Western Philosophy', by Julian Hamer. The font was so small on my Kindle( and enlarging it was not very helpful as I couldn't read a whole sentence properly) and I got a headache.The gist of the book, as much as I read, was that Western philosophy has reduced thinking to science. It suggested that a return to archaic ways of seeing was not helpful, but it did not seem to give a clear alternative in the conclusion.
Another person pointed to the importance of Greek philosophy, so I do plan to go further with that direction of thinking. I did read Hume at one point, but I had not thought of him directly in relation to this area of thought. I do believe that Kant's thinking is also important, but I have to admit I got a bit stuck as to whether Kant sees the transcendent as actually underlying the empirical order.
At this stage, I have not seen a really convincing argument beyond that of the Eastern thinkers, but that doesn't mean that does not mean that I am about to abandon the Western tradition of philosophy. I guess that I just plunged into deep water and have to learn to swim, because the question I have raised is very complex indeed.
The whole thing is pretty darn enormous.
For myself, I am not interested in making the different parts I have worked upon for my own purposes be drawn into a kind of map anyone could use. Earlier versions of myself did do that but my change of view is not a judgement upon myself or anybody else. That would be another map. And saying it that way is also another map. I follow Zhuangzi on this point.
Your results will vary. Scholarship saved my life. I will never betray it.
Don't withdraw from your enterprise because others say this or that. Keep going.
Thank you, I will keep reading and thinking it through because I do see it as an important recurrent philosophical issue.
Pick a lane. Is it your issue or one we all have to pay attention to as the result of your results?
Yes, it is a good question whether it is my own question or one of our time. I am going to bed now as it is after 1am but if you or anyone else is interested I think that Kant and Descartes are essential for thinking about this. That is because they have been so central to the development of Western philosophy, but I am sure that this is only a starting point.
If we take into account the statement that "philosophically, something must exist after death" without considering the existence of egoism, it is possible to say that yes, something must exist after death in order for existence to continue to be witnessed and "Being" continue to be, for existence needs something or someone to witness it constantly so that it can be.
However, if the concept of egoism is applied to that same thought, consciousness - or mind, as you refer - can indeed have a finite existence thanks to the eternalization of individuality through the ego, - such as, for example, the legacy - even if it be it for some finite time, the influences, therefore, its essence, still endure indefinitely - - and therefore, cease to be.
I affirm: - Many of the issues discussed here will never come to a conclusion if the concept of egoism is not applied to them.
I will have a think about how egoism fits into the picture overnight. It is way of thinking outside of the box of dualism.
1. Material objects are, by their very nature, infinitely divisible
2. Nothing that exists is infinitely divisible
3. Therefore material objects do not exist
1 is obviously true. Any material object occupies some space, and any region of space can be divided.
2 is self-evident to reason, at least upon reflection. For if something is divisible then it has parts - those into which it can be divided. And so an infinitely divisible thing will have infinite parts. But there cannot exist any actual infinities. That's precisely why we reject views that generate infinite regresses.
3 just follows as a matter of logic.
Let's start by just clarifying what we mean by 'material world'. We mean a world that exists 'objectively'. That is, a world that is not made of mental states - a world that exists outside all minds, then.
What evidence do we have of the existence of such a place? Well, most people are going to appeal to their sensations. That is, they take the 'material world' to be the place that their senses are telling them about.
However, argues Berkeley, the 'sensible world' and the 'material world' cannot be the same place. For the sensible world - the world of shapes, colours, smells, tastes, textures and so on - must resemble our sensations, for otherwise in what sense would they be telling us about it? (they do not have to resemble it perfectly, of course; but they do need to resemble it in some sense)
Yet sensations can only resemble sensations. Smells are like smells and not another thing; tastes are like tastes and not another thing; and so on. So, the sensible world that our sensations give us some insight into must itself be made of sensations.
But sensations are essentially sensed. That is, they exist 'as' states of mind. And so the sensible world - the world that our sensations give us some awareness of - must exist as the states of a mind. Not my mind or your mind - for the world is clearly not a creature of our wills - but the mind whose sensations they are.
Thus, our sensations give us evidence for the existence of a sensible world, but a sensible world is not a material world.
It seems, then, that we have no empirical evidence that the material world exists. That doesn't entail its non existence. However, now that we can see that the material world is not the world our sensations tell us about, it is hard to attach any meaning to the term 'material world'. That is, it looks as if it is an empty idea.
You escape that dualism by being aware that in saying "mental reality precedes physical reality", you aren't stipulating that the mental and the physical are somehow opposites. Unless you believe they are opposites, though I'm not sure why this should be the case.
I understand your point about our epistemology being mental. But if the mental isn't also physical, then I don't see how you can escape idealism, unless you defend dualism. If you defend idealism, then that's fine.
"Real" is an honorific term. If I say this is the "real truth" or the "read deal", I shouldn't be understood as saying that there are two kinds of truth or two kinds of deals, I'm only emphasizing my statement.
We no longer know what bodies are, we used to think we knew what they were back in Descartes' time, but now we don't. The materialism of those times was mechanistic. The only viable alternative to that would be something like Galen Strawson's "Real Materialism" the idea that everything is physical. And we use the term out of convince because we want to talk about the world "out there" as well as the mind.
Bodies were taken to be mechanistic entities that worked by direct contact: one object directly affects another object and so on. It's the way we intuitively understand the world, but it is literally false, the world doesn't work this way. Newton proved it and he could not believe that "bodies" weren't "physical" in the sense of working by direct contact, he said that:
"It is inconceivable, that inanimate brute matter should, without the mediation of something else, which is not material, operate upon and affect other matter without mutual contact... [This] is to me so great an absurdity, that I believe no man who has in philosophical matters a competent faculty of thinking, can ever fall into it."
Now the terms physical or mental are vague terms used to highlight features of certain aspects of reality, without a sharp distinction being made as if they were polar opposites. I think it makes more sense to say that everything is physical, and that the mental is part of physical reality. If you prefer to invert that and say that everything is mental, then you have the extra burden of trying to show that a world absent people (a mind-independent world) exists at all.
Seems like the Cartesian dualism approach, which isn't to my tastes. To each their own, though. What is an exclusively physical experience? I read it as affirming a non-mental experience - which to me is a contradictory affirmation.
I have wondered at times if the physical world is illusory, as 'maya', described by the Hindus. If anything, it sometimes seems like we are suspended between the opposites of the dense matter. On a few occasions, I experimented with psychedelic substances and this did lead me to question the view that the physical world is the most absolute reality.
In particular, when I was amidst a crowd of people on the dance floor, I had the sensation that I was able to walk through other people's physical bodies as if I was beyond the physical world. I also looked in a mirror and, based on what I had read in others' accounts, expected to see myself as a monster of some kind. What I saw was all my surroundings in the mirror and I was just not there at all, but invisible. It was as if I had left my body completely.
Of course, many people would say, 'Well, you were on drugs", but it did make me perceive reality a bit differently. But, since then, I have worked with people who are psychotic and don't see my experience at face value, but I do feel that I did access an altered state of consciousness, and I have experienced some less intense altered states naturally too. I am not convinced that the physical world is unreal but I do have a certain amount of an openmindedness to thinking about the idealist viewpoint, but want to be careful to avoid philosophical delusion. I do wonder if there are different frequencies ranging from the material to the invisible.
I can say your understanding of the philosophy of egoism to the consideration of the way in which we experience the ego. Even though I have sympathy with Hinduism and Buddhism, I do believe one of the problems of Eastern philosophy, as well as Western forms of religion, is that the ego is underplayed. This is especially true when people think that they are overcome the needs, including the instincts.
Even though I do meditate, using a mixture of methods, including some mindfulness techniques, I do not believe that it's helpful to think in terms of overcoming the ego. I do believe that many people think that they can switch off the ego, but I would say that they are probably deluding themselves.
I would also say that it is at the level of the ego that we experience the way in which mind and body are interconnected in an intricate way. The perspective of ego is one which cannot split the two apart. The physical needs are combined with goals and aspects of social and cultural ones.
It does all come down to perspective and in this respect I bring in the ideas of Nietzsche, who has influenced the development of your own ideas on egoism. During the weekend, I was reading a book called 'Knowledge From a Human Point of View' , by Ana-Maria Cretu, which has a chapter , 'Nietzsche's Epistemic Perspectivism', by Stephen D. Hales. In this, the author includes Nietzsche's emphasis on the role of instincts and pleasure. Also, he describes how Kant and Plato can be seen as placing an emphasis on 'otherworldliness' and,
'Instead of absolute truths and partially objective knowledge of a supra-empirical world, Nietzsche offers a vision of partial, fragmentary, perspectival knowledge.'
I think that this reminds us of our limited human view. Personally, I'm inclined to think that there are higher states of consciousness which we can access, but at the same time do believe that the perspective of realising and affirming the needs of the ego is essential too. I see this as being an important aspect of self awareness.
I would say that I do think that you are correct to physical and mental are vague terms used to highlight features of certain aspects of reality'. This is going beyond the dichotomy of dualism and in the process previous to this, I have been reflecting on the idea of the perspective of the ego, in response to@Gus Lamarchs philosophy of egoism.
As I have been writing today, the thought that I am having is of the way in which consciousness oscillates between the physical and the mental, with the ego spanning the space between, incorporating the fuzzy areas including instincts and emotions. One possible way of seeing through the apparent philosophical problem is to see the physical and mental as a continuum which we can access in our experiences.
I do agree with you in wishing to go beyond the position of Cartesian dualism, as well as the division between the material and the physical and non material realms. At the time of writing I am thinking that perhaps it is better to see these as two poles on a continuum. Of course, my view may alter a bit but, certainly I do think the idea of a continuum works better than dualism.
Yes, I did wonder if I was coming from a rather different angle from you. I would imagine that I do not adhere to idealism in a conventional sense at all, especially to the ideas of Berkeley. I am sorry if I did not seem to have looked at the arguments which you had given. I will give them another read. It is simply that I have read a lot of people's views in the last few days and was trying to put my own thoughts together.
Berkeley listens intently to reason and reports what he hears. And you can check whether your reason confirms what his says. And his says that the world our sensations tell us about must resemble our sensations in some way, otherwise they would not be telling us about it.
That's true, yes? It's truth becomes apparent on reflection.
And sensations can only resemble other sensations - that's true too, isn't it?
And sensations can only exist as the sensational activity of a mind - that's true as well, yes?
What follows? That the external sensible world is made of the sensational activity of another mind.
No drugs, no meditation, just cold hard reasoning.
I will just say that I haven't used any drugs in a very long while. The psychedelic experimentation I referred to was when I was a student.
That makes more sense than thinking of "mental" and "physical" as opposites of some fundamental kind. I mean, the way it looks to me is that the mental is the outgrowth of physical configurations. Then the mind represents aspects of the world. But we speak of "physical objects", like a laptop or a tree, because we don't think they depend on mind completely, otherwise, we are bound to say that the world is 100% made by me. If it were, why can't I know the nature of physics or psychology just by thinking about them?
Agreed. This comes back to the nature of fundamental phenomena, whether one subscribes to a dualist or monist philosophy, science has shown that energy has the capacity to operate as both a wave and a particle simultaneously. In this way it is both a discrete possible temporo-spatial location( a particle) and a sort of field of possible locations based on probability (a wave).
So it’s clear that the line between the material (discrete/defined) and the non-material (potentiality to be) is at best difficult to delineate. Einstein also pointed out the duality of energy with his energy equivalence E=mc2 which was the first solid scientific principle on exactly how energy relates to mass - its “alter ego”.
I like to picture it as a spectrum of determined scale - as energy is finite (Cannot he created not destroyed) and quantised (photons) - therefore at one pole of the spectrum you have the solid and manipulated form the “acted upon” and on the other you have the inmaterial potency “that which enforces/propagates the action” - the scale between them is then space-time (C^2) the speed of light squared - an area with the parameters of distance and time (speed).
None of this prevents energy and matter from being the exact same thing because implicit to the nature of each is perspective ... from what point on the scale are you observing it? Relativity. Or duality.
This neatly circles back to wave- particle duality in that it collapses into one or the other when “observed” or made “discrete” and relative.
Well, I affirm that our human perception, in this case, the individual one - egoism - is what makes us unique and is what makes our conscious existence within the Universe possible. Limitation is the way of acting that has been applied for thousands of years in the human psyche, where the human nature has been opressed and in its place, empty third objects have been placed - such as religion, the State, Group, Community, etc ... - to to be worshiped, and that same doctrine that persists until today is what makes you think that "the human vision is limiting". What is limiting is the doctrine that it is necessary to see the world through the eyes of another...
I don't say that is not possible to exist "other higher states of cousciousness", but that trying to reach them without the human egocentric view is impossible.
While I think that yes definitely there is a correlation between oxytocin concentration and “bonding” or “affection” based behaviour that has resulted in the belief that it is the “love Molecule” - it’s likely along the right track but I think it’s also rather reductive. I don’t believe that profound and deep emotions of consciousness are explicitly quantised as “just a molecule.”
If this were the case then we would have already resolved war, depression, hatred etc by injecting ourselves repeatedly with oxytocin. We’d all be love bugs lol.
One think to point out is that in general with bio pharmacology - the more frequently we use a molecule the less of an effect it has and the more effort we have to put in to get the same result. This is tolerance and is common to the majority of chemicals we use both endogenous - dopamine, endorphins for example and exogenous - caffeine, Cocaine, hallucinogens.
So at the very least there is a complex negative feedback that prevents a “one solves all solution” To the generation of emotions and feelings of pleasure etc.
Love is noted for its consistency and perseverance despite removal of the object of love. One can continue to love with all their being a partner who has passed away decades ago. Love seems to be incredibly powerful and Often long lasting and I just don’t see this as being down chemistry alone.
Also on your point of selfless devotion and self sacrifice.. is this not a feature of love? Does he/she who loves in totality not find themselves willing to sacrifice anything and everything for the preservation or wellbeing of the object of their love - think the maternal instinct of a mother to throw herself in front of traffic in order to rescue her child from being hit by a car.
Yes, it is a feature of love, and no, there is not a material explanation for it.
When I spoke of our limited human view I was not speaking of seeing through the eyes of another but more of the limits of possible knowledge in virtue of our ability to know the ultimate truths.
As Barry Stroud argues, (in the book I cited in my previous post to you): '...whatever we human beings come to know is from a human point of view. There is no other point of view from which human beings could know anything.'
The one other point I will clarify about higher states of consciousness is that what I am talking about is not necessarily free from egocentricity or dependent upon it. I am referring more to what Abraham Maslow spoke of as peak experiences.
I recently got to know Georg Northoff and I think his idea of stop-using the term mind and focus more on the brain and its relation with the world is very successful.
http://www.georgnorthoff.com/
Don't you think "mind" is an extremely anthropocentric concept in most of the cultures (western and asiatic) (except true pantheists of course - not sure Spinoza's was true one :brow: )?
We're surrounded by what we call world, nature, univers, matter, etc. however we want to call it.We can deny it and speculate as much as we can but while our brains biology is the same than Plato's and Aristotle's or even Hegel's so that we still have many of their existential intuitions.... while we keep going in circles within many naif intuitions, the actual progress in understanding the world and in understanding human nature is coming from biology, neuroscience and physicists, in one word from science.
Philosophy should go hand-by-hand with science but I see here we talk too much speculative-philosophy only.
So the answer to the question "Is the material world the most absolute form of reality?" the net answer is yes, of course and keep moving. You can spend time defining the concepts within the stated question (world, material, absolute, reality, form) and you will get into Wittgenstein's linguistic turn and then Quine... but after this we should be talking about Stanislas Dehaene, Daniel Dennett, Georg Northoff maybe Metzinger as well, Antonio Damasio, and a long etc. of thinkers that are producing philosophy that has absorbed contemporary discoveries.
Those discoveries that come thanks to the new technologies, that are basically extensions of human humble senses. Technologies that are the only way to experience new worlds, new realities, learn more and speculate better :chin:
I do agree that philosophy is super powerful. I like it so much!! Reading the right philosopher at the right time of your life with the right mood is a mystic experience :-)
Plato's dialogues, Hegel's dialectic, the great positivists like Hume, our dear Hobbes... infinite list of great thinkers... should we include Derrida? Yes, why not (kidding).
But we have to recognize it is like listening to music, it doesn't help better understanding the world. It helps building a critical way of thinking, scrutinizing reality but not generating knowledge if it doesn't take into account scientific method and scientific language.
Contemporary technologies are the ones that shape our understanding of the world and how we experience it (biology and AI are challenging the foundations of our laws and ethics, as one example).
Material vs Immaterial fight: of course there are "things", "concepts", "values" that are abstract and part of the subjective human world that refer to human matters that exist thanks to humans and that will disappear with humans. Those "things" are anyway "material" in the sense that are coded in our minds through symbols embedded in our biology, within our brains and our brains manipulate them continuously, conscious and unconsciously (let's be humble again, mostly unconsciously), same way my brain is working right now to write this post.
So let's be honest, yes everything resides in the world, in the material or quantistic, or however you want to call it using this colloquial language but let's be humble and recognize we are just:
nature that thinks
nature that one day found itself in a mirror
and started to walk and explore to survive time
by walking and exploring it met a second mirror
and those 2 mirrors look at each other
and infinity was raised
we humans are drowning in that infinity
while nature continuous its time.
Thank you for your link to the ideas of Northoff. I think that you raise many good points in your comment. So far, I have not had any reference to the ideas of philosophers, such as Dennet. I have read him briefly, but was not inspired by him, because I find him too materialistic.
I would say that I really created this thread because it appears to me that there are many hard materialists on one hand, and on the other, a tradition which emphasises the 'mind'. I would say that I dislike the word mind, but brain seems a bit limited. So, really I was just asking the question because it seems that many philosophers are diametrically opposed on the subject of mind, and the material world. I am not saying that it is more important than the questions of living, but just an implicit assumption beneath the surface. So, I am raising it as one for the starting point about clarity for thinking.
I do think that you are right to point to the way in which energy, and relativity, is an important aspect in the way of thinking on the spectrum in between duality. I would say that the quantum physicists are leading the way in questioning a materialist, mechanistic understanding of the world.
Agree the brain is limited in its own but if we look at the "brain in relationship with the world" it becomes very interesting :wink:
And let's keep the metaphysical discussions aside. Every philosopher after Aristotle has tried to create a metaphysical system of ideas with new "metaphysical concepts" trying to reinvent the wheel each time: Kant, Hegel, Camus... each of them trying to reinvent the metaphysics of the previous one. It is a clear symptom that it is not the right path to follow.
The "meta-anything" is an intellectual loop.
If Dennett looks too materialistic try for example cognitive naturalists like Daniel Andler or Sandro Nannini.
I would say that while metaphysical and epistemological points of view should be not seen as philosophical ends they are implicit in most systems of belief, including those in psychology and even political views. I would say that it is worth looking behind the surface of all views because these assumptions are at the core of all systems of values and ideas. For example, I would say that many adopt determinist belief systems because they are popular and mainstream, and they may not have really examined the underlying premises in much detail or depth.
Right, and we can say the opposite as well. That religious and spiritual beliefs (impregnated of dualism and metaphysics) are much more popular and mainstream and have been used and are still being used to manipulate the mass. And it is quite obvious that certain countries with low-education standards and high poverty rates are much more religious than rich and developed countries.
The scientific world is much more complex to understand and usually its teachings not easy to accept as scientific discoveries can be a revolution against mainstream ideas and main-culture assumptions (we know consequences in history of people being killed because of showing scientific facts) but once we understand them and its implications we can never go back :wink: We cannot elude them.
I definitely would not advocate that people just hold on to mainstream religious beliefs, especially in countries where there are low education standards.
I already have spent a long time thinking through the beliefs which were taught to me as a child in Roman Catholicism. I am not specifically wishing to try to replace any views which I see as materialistic within science. I think that I am more inclined to the extremes of the religious and spiritual, or of scientific materialism.
My own personal interest in the question is not my single quest, as I am very concerned about the present and future of humanity. Really, I am just in favour of critical enquiry within philosophy.
Absolute? Well, ineluctable (i.e. subject-pov-language-gauge invariant) apparently.
Furthermore ...
[i]"The future is uncertain
But the end is always near"[/i].
Thanks for your links to discussions in older threads. They are a little before I joined the forum . I do understand that people who have put forward ideas into other threads probably don't wish to repeat themselves.
I will look at the links but do wish for some kind of interactive discussion, even if it my discussion is only of interest to newer members of the forum.
I'm late here. The material world is not "absolute" in the sense of it being fundamental or permanent but it is as if it were to us since we are of it and in it as temporary and emergent events from the Absolute, many of which events are long lasting.
In physics, many of the earlier proposed absolutes have fallen, such as space, time, classical fields, and particles. All that's left so far are the proposed quantum fields of QFT that work fairly well for the standard model.
An electron, though secondary to its primary electron quantum field, holds together because it has the quantum unit of negative charge. It gets called 'elementary' since perhaps it is non-composite, I guess.
A proton, as a very long event, maybe lasting 10**35 years, is composite. Not anything composite can be the absolute base fundamental.
Yet, what 'realness' should we grant to our human reality, given that it becomes from the Absolute or is actually the Absolute at heart? Should we regard that the temporary transmutations of the Absolute are not the permanent Absolute itself? If so, then the Absolute is somehow coterminal with the goings on in our reality bust somehow not consubstantial with it. If not, we are the Absolute directly and change is intrinsic to the Absolute, which idea perhaps does not compute.
We see that everything changes continually at our level, as quick or slow events, although semblances continue, restrained by time from all happening and going away in a flash, leaving there to be not anything particular lasting here.
Coincidently, or relatedly, since the Absolute cannot have a beginning, it can't then be anything particular, as there is no point in time before it or outside it for any direction or design to be given.
Yet, we suppose covariant quantum fields, all atop one another, as they can work, given quantized energy (nothing else is quantized). The best we can say is that their base existence has no opposite, such as that 'Nothing' cannot even be meant, and so they have to be so, with no alternative.
Or they are forced, again because 'Nothing' cannot be. Yet, 'Nothing', or at least 'zero', seems to be the sum of our reality in that the negative potential energy of gravity exactly balances/cancels the positive kinetic energy of stuff.
Personally, I'm inclined to think that the way quantum physics is going gives far more scope for imagination than many other sciences, including the scientific disciplines. I am talking mainly of psychology, especially when it is being pursued by those who are determined to claim that it is a science.
The quantum physicists do break down the division between the material and the immaterial. In some ways, this allows for a view of life of energy, which corresponds which is the idea of the Tao ,as Fritjof Capra argued. The idea of the Tao is so unlike the anthropomorphic images of the force behind the universe. It is one which is free from the more dogmatic associations people have felt oppressed by in mainstream religious traditions.