blog
Yes, I have privileged access to my thoughts, words and actions.
But what access do I have of someone else’s thoughts, if it is not only their words and actions. Equally, no one has access to my thoughts except for my own words and actions.
The concepts in one’s head remains in there until it reveals itself in the form of matter as representation to me or as representation to them.
In the future, human beings may (will) disappear from the face of the earth and cease to exist in the universe.
“Aliens” may visit earth and see the bones and ruins and surmise in an act of archeology what kind of being created these things. They will see the books and writings (words) but not understand them. For they have no access to the concepts (mind-objects) that no longer exist. What is left are only things and words (as things).
There are no concepts lying around to be found like cultural artefacts. For that is the case. That is the only reality.
“Back in June I said that everyone is trying to will the coronavirus out of existence. And look where that has gotten us to,” my friend said.
While it is fine to think of everything as objects of the mind one still questions whether it is helpful to do so or not.
Because in the end, objects of the mind of object of reality must be dealt with in terms of being objects of reality, not as objects of the mind.
In short, given that all things are equal to prioritise the mind over matter is more problematic the opposite.
If we are to survive this pandemic we need to take physical as well as mental precautions. We cannot believe that by simply ignoring it or by willing it away, it will go away.
Do not look for the answers you want. Take the answers you get.
I am a Toronto Maple Leafs fan. Does that make me anti-Oilers, anti-Jets, anti-Bruins? Or does that just make me a Leafs fan?
I am a Buddhist. Does that make me anti-Christian, anti-Islam, anti-Hindu? Or does that just make me a Buddhist?
Do you see where I am going with this?
The “if you’re not with us, you’re against us” thinking turns everyone else into an enemy when there is no evidence for this. And you can never assume that the other person also thinks like you. There is no evidence for that either.
There are five main faculties. In ordinary language these are sight, sound, smell, taste and touch. It may be obvious but they need to be named. The most used faculty is sight. Your eyes work like a video camera and monitor. The camera captures light creating an image of the things in view and thus determining the space. The faculty of sound does something similar but only in audio form. The faculties of smell, taste and touch are more “localised” where distance and direction is not so important whereas intensity of source is.
Simultaneously, these five faculties give you all the information about the reality, informing you about what exists, their relationship in space and also inform you of time. This information however, needs to be interpreted in synchrony. And this is done by the mind. The act of mental interpretation is called perception.
1.
Earth formed not long after the sun formed. But was does “forming” mean?
It is a process not so much deliberate as accidental. The conditions for conducive the weak forces of material mass brought about a lumping together that can only be called planetary formation. This accidental formation then is a process.
In the early 2000s a man named Steve Jobs invented a device (or a better one at least. Others too were working on similar a product) that could make phone calls, replace your diary and notebook, connect to the internet and not require a keyboard but on a multi-touch sensitive screen. Again, what do we mean by “invent”?
It is, in this case, a process not so much as accidental but deliberate. The conditions were also conducive of putting ideas together to invent the iPhone. This deliberate inventing is also a process.
Whether we talk about planet or iPhones they are things. The forming and inventing are processes that cannot be said to exist as thing but as processes of things.
2.
The word processes, in plural form, hints at the limits of language. To make processes a thing is not only to nominalise but also to noumenalise it. The act of giving a concept a signifier is to nominalise. The act of giving the sign (signifier-concept unit) quality of substance – that is to become a thing – is to noumenalise. Similar acts can be and are done regularly to qualities.
There are two problems. Firstly, the process of noumenalisation is so pervasive that almost goes unnoticed. And secondly, it leads to the perception that there is more than what actually exists.
And it is with this second problem that comes about the unbridgeable gap between ontology and metaphysics.
Rationality without empiricism is impossible. A child born without experience is not considered “alive” for a reason. (This may sound circular but) we necessarily start with reality, then experience, then thought (reason). What ends in death is experience and thought but not reality, for the body remains.
This may be a common sense view, a conventional view, a “reductive” point-of-view but there is nothing that I should apologise for … except for being boring perhaps.
However, in physics, things exist such as point particles (no length or breadth), forces (only location), and wave functions (probabilities of being found at certain places), which do not fit the spatiality criterion but are not mental in nature. There are also things which lack spatial character yet are actual, such as numbers.
Mind and body…
Mind and body is a problem that will never end.
But does a point exist in physics, or have we mistaken geometry for physics here? I also question numbers as well.
No, I am not doing this to be a pain in the butt. I am genuinely questioning whether they exist at all, or are they only mind constructs of a physical brain. This leads to me to question why the focus on mind only when the post is about body as well.
With the physical reality we can test things, including the mind. It was pointed out in this post also that awareness is criteria of mind. But I question whether we are aware of mind when truly all senses are shutdown as in the case of comatose. In such a state where body (as in reality) does not matter (figuratively and literally) anymore would not mind be in a state of bliss. Why should one return to a state of imprisonment, of bondage, if disembodiment is a possible existence? I will argue that in the state of coma, the mind (as a function of the brain) will have the representations (thoughts as it were) to perceive. But without spatiality, relational values will seem to not matter and therefore collapse. The patient slipping away may be like a switched off computer, where memory may need some time to actually clear from its memory banks.
Realism that has been described as colorless reductionism I call your colourful additionalism*. My move is a kind of Ockham’s Razor and partly Zen Buddhism. I was taught that some things are unnecessary.
*Mix of American and British spelling fully intended.
signature103 