While I agree with Descartes that if there is thinking there must be an existing object, the issue of whether whatever can be conceived must exist is more problematic. Limits in knowledge might prevent a mind from conceiving, say, a seventh dimension, but there are concepts that are contrary to logic that seem to leave the mind blank. If I try to imagine a shape that is only a triangle and only a circle the mind goes blank (and understandably so - for very good reasons). Yet if I try to imagine an event or action which defies the laws of physics, I have no trouble doing so. That at least shows that my mind has a greater accretive potential than the laws of physics, or at least that it reaches parts that the laws of nature cannot reach.
Moreover, one must be mindful of mistaking surface level intuitions for ultimate primacies and potentialities of ‘mind’ itself. Einstein heightened this concern by showing that intuitive notions of space and time are just approximations to reality; suitable as approximations that are valid to the range of all human experiences on this earth but not to be taken out of their subset context. The present moment at which the mind can in the deepest sense shut off from the external world and start to imagine its own potential* always seems to me to be the point that it is least in touch with the four dimensional space-time reality that surrounds it. It’s as though the ‘present moment’ seems to be greater than the present itself; that space-time’s essence doesn’t quite correspond to our own a priori view of past, present and future. ‘Knowing’ really is a deep and exciting mystery.
* Mind always feels to me to be an island that belongs to a much bigger and more expansive continent.
As for space-time not quite corresponding to our own a priori view of past, present and future - this might have something to do with Christ’s words that ‘many of these things will pass away’, I don’t know. Whatever ‘mind’ is, I do not imagine it will pass away. But given that it seems to be isomorphic with existence itself, transcendent of some of the subset laws and regulations of nature herself, one must be circumspect when contemplating ‘mind’ and the way it intuits the surrounding world.
For example, intuition tells us that an object cannot be both 2 meters long and 3 meters long at the same time - it seems logically impossible, particularly as Euclidean geometry forbids it. The same is true of the way we intuit ‘facts’ such as ‘a line connecting two points can only have one length’. As science has progressed we now know that Euclidean geometry is an intuitive part of our brain that does not apply at the deeper cosmological level; Einstein showed that the faster an object moves, the more compressed it becomes, and that if that object was travelling at a substantial fraction of the speed of light, then someone measuring it who was moving at the same speed could measure 3 metres in length long, whilst an outside observer would observe it as 2 metres in length.
The important thing to realise is that absolute reason imputes some reliability to existence, but that minds can impute different meanings to different subsets of reality which, although appear inviolable, must be subject to change as we learn more. Euclidean geometry is a good approximation to reality which doesn't on first inspection appear to be violated, but can be with further knowledge. But that doesn’t alter the fact that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line, any more than the fact that a wall is made up of largely empty space alters the fact that if I walk into it I will be stopped in my tracks. One approximation to reality does not necessarily make it wrong if in other aspects of realty it is violated somewhere. The theory of relativity rejects the concept of an ether with respect to which there can be determinate motion, meaning that the length of a mass gaining object in uniform relative motion is less than that measured by an observer at rest with respect to the Lornetz-Fitzgerald contraction*
* That is, a material body moving through the ether with a velocity v, contracts by a factor of V(1-v2/c2) in the direction of motion, where c is the speed of light in a vacuum.
Moreover, the fact that we are not ideally equipped to get a cognitive purchase on the external world as an outer entity yet at the same time our cognitive faculties allow us to sense deeper meaning seems to be imbued with symbolic meaning, suggesting this is a world of ‘potential’ and ‘possibility’ rather than actuality - which seems to be consonant with my Simulacrum idea - that is, that existence is a simulation of a better more Heavenly realm.
Moreover, one must be mindful of mistaking surface level intuitions for ultimate primacies and potentialities of ‘mind’ itself. Einstein heightened this concern by showing that intuitive notions of space and time are just approximations to reality; suitable as approximations that are valid to the range of all human experiences on this earth but not to be taken out of their subset context. The present moment at which the mind can in the deepest sense shut off from the external world and start to imagine its own potential* always seems to me to be the point that it is least in touch with the four dimensional space-time reality that surrounds it. It’s as though the ‘present moment’ seems to be greater than the present itself; that space-time’s essence doesn’t quite correspond to our own a priori view of past, present and future. ‘Knowing’ really is a deep and exciting mystery.
* Mind always feels to me to be an island that belongs to a much bigger and more expansive continent.
As for space-time not quite corresponding to our own a priori view of past, present and future - this might have something to do with Christ’s words that ‘many of these things will pass away’, I don’t know. Whatever ‘mind’ is, I do not imagine it will pass away. But given that it seems to be isomorphic with existence itself, transcendent of some of the subset laws and regulations of nature herself, one must be circumspect when contemplating ‘mind’ and the way it intuits the surrounding world.
For example, intuition tells us that an object cannot be both 2 meters long and 3 meters long at the same time - it seems logically impossible, particularly as Euclidean geometry forbids it. The same is true of the way we intuit ‘facts’ such as ‘a line connecting two points can only have one length’. As science has progressed we now know that Euclidean geometry is an intuitive part of our brain that does not apply at the deeper cosmological level; Einstein showed that the faster an object moves, the more compressed it becomes, and that if that object was travelling at a substantial fraction of the speed of light, then someone measuring it who was moving at the same speed could measure 3 metres in length long, whilst an outside observer would observe it as 2 metres in length.
The important thing to realise is that absolute reason imputes some reliability to existence, but that minds can impute different meanings to different subsets of reality which, although appear inviolable, must be subject to change as we learn more. Euclidean geometry is a good approximation to reality which doesn't on first inspection appear to be violated, but can be with further knowledge. But that doesn’t alter the fact that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line, any more than the fact that a wall is made up of largely empty space alters the fact that if I walk into it I will be stopped in my tracks. One approximation to reality does not necessarily make it wrong if in other aspects of realty it is violated somewhere. The theory of relativity rejects the concept of an ether with respect to which there can be determinate motion, meaning that the length of a mass gaining object in uniform relative motion is less than that measured by an observer at rest with respect to the Lornetz-Fitzgerald contraction*
* That is, a material body moving through the ether with a velocity v, contracts by a factor of V(1-v2/c2) in the direction of motion, where c is the speed of light in a vacuum.
Moreover, the fact that we are not ideally equipped to get a cognitive purchase on the external world as an outer entity yet at the same time our cognitive faculties allow us to sense deeper meaning seems to be imbued with symbolic meaning, suggesting this is a world of ‘potential’ and ‘possibility’ rather than actuality - which seems to be consonant with my Simulacrum idea - that is, that existence is a simulation of a better more Heavenly realm.
No comments:
Post a Comment