Reality contains supraphysical components

From link

A: As noted by Berkeley, we can know reality only through perception. So our theories of reality necessarily have a perceptual or observational basis. But as noted by Kant, the process of observation has substantial internal complexity; it is a relationship of subject and object with sensory (phenomenal) and cognitive (categorical) components. So reality is at once monic, because uniformly perceptual, and dualistic, because perception has two complementary aspects. Thus, the "dual aspect monism" of the CTMU. Now consider physics. Because physics is governed by the scientific method, it deals exclusively with phenomena. Thus, it effectively diverts attention away from the cognitive, categorical aspect of perceptual reality, without which neither phenomena nor scientific theories could exist. Because physics is irreducibly dualistic and takes the fundamental separation of mind and matter as axiomatic, it cannot provide us with a complete picture of reality. It can tell us only what lies outside the subjective observer, not within.

 

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I'm not sure what to make of numbers and mathematics generally. Sometimes I have slightly Platonic feelings about that. Logic, universals and so on. Unrealized possibilities, conceivably.

My ontological views tend to be broadly physicalist, but I can't say what the precise boundaries of physical reality are.

But I'm definitely not a Kantian and wouldn't want to adopt a Kantian-style idealism as my model. That seems to be the thrust of the quote in the initial post in this thread.

 

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And?

Agreed.

 

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Syne just drew my attention to this:

I don't think that's true.

Physics doesn't have much of anything to say about mind. It's certainly not committed to a full-blown Cartesian-style dualistic belief in non-physical mental substance alongside physical substance.

The general tendency at the present time seems to be to address mind at what we might call a 'higher level', in terms of data-processing functions that are performed in our human case by neurophysiological "wetware".

Obviously that's controversial in the philosophy of mind and there's still a vocal faction of philosophers that argue strenuously against it, sometimes in defense of more idealistic and/or less physicalistic ontologies.

 

I thought that physics didn't generally concern itself with the mind. Biology, however, does and it generally holds that the mind is an emergent phenomenon arising from the complexity of the highly organized matter within the human brain.

 

These days I tend to think that consciousness is simply one of the ways in which physicality can manifest itself. In other words, that the property (or properties) necessary for the emergence of consciousness is (or are) an innate characteristic of physicality; of the fabric of existence itself. So there is no dualism at all. All emergent qualities simply derive from the same basic 'stuff'.

Further, since anything that can actually be said to exist (and actually does exist independently of one's imaginings) must have substance of some sort (by virtue of a comparison with absolute nothingness), and since the existence of knowledge of such would demonstrate a causal connection, anything that can be said to actually exist is fundamentally the same basic 'stuff' (otherwise you have the interaction problem).

This is one way of looking at reality without running into the usual philosophical conundrums.

 

It does so implicitly: Physicists (especially those prone to scientism) approach their field of study as if they (the physicists) wouldn't matter; they act as if those theories really pertain to things "out there" and that the people who make those theories are irrelevant.

We've touched on this before. I'm not talking about the importance of scientists as persons, or considering their personalities or emotions or other human concerns as such.


Rather, the issue is, literally, meta-physics - the philosophy of physics.

As you yourself have noted elsewhere at the forums, scientists are generally not particularly interested in the philosophy of science (and the particular philosophies of the disciplines), but instead often act as if one could perfectly well do science without an inkling of the philosophy of science.


So I tend to agree with the thrust of the OP. Science without philosophy of science is an effort to take interest in things that are relevant to people, while considering people irrelevant.

 

From the Buddhist perspective, perception is an act, and it is lead by desire; how we perceive things depends on our desires (of which there are many, so it comes down to observing one's mind moment by moment).

So how do you reconcile your Buddhism with physicalism?

 

Thus physics (and science in general) cannot be taken as the alpha and omega on all knowledge claims.

Arguably, thus physics (and science in general) cannot be taken as the alpha and omega on knowledge claims that are relevant for people in their daily lives.

 

It's easy to say that and superficially it sounds meaningful but if it actually is, then it should be possible to talk about what it means to know reality other than through perception. However, I've never seen anything approaching a sensible story about reality as unperceived and without one, I dont think there is an issue. So, can anyone either clearly state what unperceived reality is supposed to be or give some independent reason for the reader to be convinced that there's something more than head-wanking at stake.

 

^
As the rest of the OP text contextualizes, there is the mistake to think that we somehow have an objective, direct grasp of reality, without the interface of perception.

The philosophy of mind according to which we have such a direct grasp of reality is called naive or common-sense realism.

The scheme for naive realism is, from Wiki:

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In this scheme, there is no notion of there being such a thing as perception (in the sense of perception being guided by subjective factors, and thus one person's perception of a thing differing from another person's perception of the same thing).

The OP is arguing against naive realism.

 

But you've still to give me a reason to accept that the notion of unperceived reality makes sense. So you haven't any warrant to talk about a mistake.

 

You have that backwards. Even if we assume an idealist perspective, where all phenomenon is mental, we must still address our observations with a large degree of realism if we want to advance any field of knowledge. This is where pragmatism in science makes the question of idealist or realist mostly moot by being more concerned with what works than any ontology.

 

Ok. I think that science would agree with that.

In most cases our perceptual activities are motivated, yes.

How we observe things is often influenced by our desires. They certainly determine where we direct our attention and so on.

Sure. Mindfulness meditations address that.

But I don't feel comfortable pushing that idea towards the seemingly solipsistic and self-aggrandizing assertion that all instances of perception are nothing but my own observation of my own mind. (I have no desire to be God.)

I think of Buddhism as the psychology of dukkha, not as if it somehow constitutes a final omnisciently-revealed and totally authoritative physics, ontology and theory of perception. When my attention turns to those latter areas, I'm still very much a dependently-arisen work-in-progress, strongly influenced by philosophical considerations and by modern science.

If my saying that is unacceptable to some of the more traditionalist and/or philosophically idealist Buddhists, then that's fine with me. I'm not seeking their approval, nor am I even particularly attached to applying the word 'Buddhist' to my self.

 

I'm pretty sure that the Dalai Lama feels that way too, at least according to what he told Carl Sagan.

 

A simple examination of the truth would reveal that Christopher Langan is making an assumption when he says there are supraphysical components to reality, he is misinformed. This webpage is correct to say that immortality is an imaginary surrogate. There are no gods or ghosts commandeering the actions of the living brain. The mind is simply a name we give to the brain's actions. It has no separate or immaterial existence. Therefore, we can conclude that reality is strictly physical in nature.

 

That's objectivity. I think that it's sometimes more of an ideal than a reality, but it's nevertheless an ideal.

I think that they typically can and do. The thing is, that doesn't mean that they don't have a philosophy of science, it just means that it's being implicitly assumed and remains unexamined.

The underlying presuppositions do occasionally rise to the surface and become conscious and explicit when problematic counter-intuitive situations arise, as with the birth of quantum mechanics.

Ok, I can kind of agree with that point. But I'm not convinced that was what the subject-line or the original post were about.

I definitely and most emphatically wouldn't want to push the idea that scientists' work implicitly or explicitly employ philosophical presuppositions, to the far stronger (and in my opinion outlandish) idea that reality is constructed and contains those presuppositions as "supraphysical components". I'm more inclined to say that a reality that exists quite independently of what anybody thinks about it then gets described from a variety of points of view, employing a variety of presuppositions and conceptual vocabularies. (Some of them far more accurate and defensible than others.)

(I should add that I most emphatically don't believe Thomas Kuhn's incommensurability thesis.)

But the bottom line here seems to be that we need to keep the territory/map distinction in mind and remember that the things we (or scientists) believe and say about reality shouldn't be uncritically confused or equated with the reality we're talking about.

 

WTF does he know? (Dalai, not Carl).

 

@spidergoat --

I don't know what he knows, but I do know that he doesn't consider the "truths" of buddhism to be superior to the knowledge of science, and even went so far as to say that core tenets of buddhism would have to be reconsidered if they were shown to be inconsistent with scientific findings. I can't think of any other religious leader who's said anything similar, and in itself is laudable.

 

"Supraphysical" would be principles that regulate the components of a world, so as to avoid the redundancy of adding a reality (place) to explain a reality (place). There would be no more to the existence of such principles than their potency to bring about those effects -- thus, no instantiation as physical bodies residing in a realm. Their product would be their evidence: Entities/events behaving orderly or lawfully as a world. Or IOW, they would engender/govern an alternative type of be-ing that was presented as existing as things located somewhere and somewhen (spatiotemporal), rather than their own primal manner of existence as potency (power to bring about and affect; to change or prevent change in their rule-like manner).