Modern science tells us that space is energy. This makes sense with Einstein’s equation – E=mc2 – where mass and energy show a mutual and direct relationship. Since space seemingly “replaces” an object in a position it can be treated like an object. Further, nothing violates this. A “position” in space is either occupied by space-energy or object-mass. And multiple objects never occupy the same position. The proposition is, a position is occupied by either an object-mass or an object-space.
Tag: philosophy
I love Kant, the later Wittgenstein, Derrida, post structualism, postmodernism and the philosophy of language.
I, realist
I am a philosophical realist.
The physical reality, to me, exists independently regardless of whether it is perceived or not by me or anyone else.
The evidence is that things, firstly, do not simply disappear if it is not perceived. The back of my MacBook I am typing this on is there even though I am not seeing it. This extends to everything else, the underside of the table, outside, beyond the driveway, over the hill, behind the cloud. Secondly, before I came into existence the world existed. My parents were there to bring me into the world. And their world was a continuation of mine. Go back again further enough and there would been a time when no one existed to perceive the world. It makes sense that it existed even without being perceived. Thirdly, there will be a time in the universe when everything that perceives will pass away, and the physical world will continue to exist. There is no reason why it should disappear.
This kind of thinking places us into a mode of humility. We are not special, no more or less special than anything else. But to think we are better than other things because we see this is part of the complacency of being human. It is the exact same “place” where the humility comes from. But we must learn to struggle with that, knowing we will never fully be free from this view as a collective and as an individual, if there are such things to begin with.
What is sensation and sense data?
We often confuse sensation and perception.
From: Wikipedia.
Think of the camera obscura. There is nothing but light which is making the image on the wall. Or think of a video camera attached to a video screen. The camera captures the light external to it, turns it into data and turns that data in to the video image on the screen. It does not “think” about the image. It does not “have an opinion” of it. It simply reproduces it.
The eye does the same thing. It captures light eternal to it, turns it into data and reproduces that in your brain. Until then it does not “think” about the image. Thinking occurs after that data is received. That raw data is sensation. The processed data after reception is perception.
If you are still not convinced then this talk by Sheila Nirenberg about her research on the prothetic eye is an excellent real-world demonstration of what sensation and sense data is.
One reality
It would be nice if tomorrow I would woke up and a different US president was in the White House. But because there is one reality I have to be content and continue with it.
It would also be nice if I woke up tomorrow morning to find I am a world famous scholar with three important books on my resume. Again, that would not be the case. I must work for those. Sigh.
Perception colours reality
I am in no doubt that there is only one reality, and it exists with or without being perceived. For this reason perception colours reality rather than changes it. Different perceptions (not different realities) are the root cause of all misunderstandings.
When does a soul get created?
As a Buddhist, I do not believe in souls. Talk to most people – Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Sikhs and even Buddhists – and they talk as though something survives after death. Such is the power and attraction of the concept of the soul.
Out of curiosity, I asked an American Muslim when is the soul created. He said, “at the moment of conception”. And thereafter it remains either in Heaven or Hell (and also Purgatory if you are Roman Catholic). So the mystery, it seems to me, is that the eternal soul did not start off as eternal but was created out of the grace of God or gods (of which again in Buddhism are concepts).
The problem here is that we have no evidence for these, only that of the textual sources, and not any independent or direct proof of souls and gods as such. Apart from being told by someone else, namely the sacred texts and by those who believe in word of the sacred texts, there is no other proof. Buddhism’s claim that everything is impermanent can be verified by observation. While we cannot observe everything, the weight of non-contrary evidence is substantial. Inferential logic tells us that the soul is perhaps one of these “things” which stands counter to impermanence even though no one can show us any evidence for its existence.
This alone should sound off alarm bells in your head.
While I do not have a problem with the concept of the soul, I do have problem with the belief in the existence of a soul. But at the same time, it is normal to think and believe that such a thing exists. This is something humans do very well, and perhaps defines us from other animals. But it is also natural that some for the human species (Buddhists) to “see through” it, that is, to understand the nature of it.
So it is baffling that in this day and age, where our understanding of the natural physical world has progressed this far, to be still caught in the grips of such an illusion. Powerful indeed is this illusion, passed on from generation to generation through speech and action.
Souls are not created. The concept of a soul is. The concept is perpetuated by its continued reinforcement. The root is therefore in the nature of words and not in the nature of the thing.
Sensation and perception
There needs to be a differentiation between sensation and perception. Sensation is purely sense data, and perception is processed data. Sensation can one of five (there are more) basic sense data from the eye, ear, nose, skin and tongue, in the form of sight, sound, smell, touch and taste. Perception is the processed from these five senses as well as from the mental data (thought and concepts).
A video camera and its connected monitor is like sensation. The video camera thinks nothing of the signal coming through its system, only to pass it down a wire to a monitor to be displayed. Certain limitations are placed upon the data through how it is displayed on the monitor but nothing more.
A processing unit attached to the monitor then can analyse, organise and categorise the data in the form of light that is formed as a representation of the external world. A video/monitor unit is useless without the processing unit. And the processing unit is useless without some kind of data.
In this way, the video/monitor unit is the experiential component while the processing unit is the rational component of the transcendental idealist model.
On the id, superego and ego
There are conditions and your reaction to these conditions. The conditions are 1) what you want to do, 2) what your society wants you to do, and 3) what you decide to do and do in response to your desires and society. Freud called your desires id, societal pressures superego and your decisions ego. There should a balance for all of these. Otherwise there are problems.
Another way to put this is that the id is the internal world, the superego the external world, and the ego view and interaction of the internal and external worlds.
Where idealism fails
If the mind (ideal world) supervenes the body (physical world) then there would be no need for the physical world whatsoever. That is, at any moment we can forego the physical and continue to exist in ideas.
The fact that we loathe to “let go” of this world must mean that we do not fully believe that such a world exists. And if we do it is has nothing to do this world, for no effect (paranormal or otherwise) upon it has ever been observed without questions being asked. There is nothing certain about the ideal world.
one, forty-two
everything real
has a positive
equal value
called existence
un-equivalence
is our choice
our preference
our bias
our privileging
of a thing
over others
be it god
the self
the soul
or whatnot
that
is the nature
of me
a human being
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