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Presented, then, as a human story, the history of the Universe is the
record of a major biological species which allowed its evolution to be guided by
conscious reflection. And considering the remarkable progress science has made
in the last hundred years, or the part physics has played in changing our
perception of the nature of reality from being independent of man to being
warped by the observer, nothing could be more opposed to the divinely
predestined and more or less infallible laws of Laplace and Newton. And yet,
this is religion in its most profound and mysterious sense. The universe is not,
indeed, an ex post facto study in the precise mathematical laws which
led, step by step, to the creation of the world. There are other forces at work.
Stagnation has given way to a restless, creative ferment. Nor are the processes
of the human mind, as in the classical sciences, irrelevant to the tough,
rigorous examination of reality which used to be the hallmark of science, or
independent of it. Such distinction can no longer be absolute. Consciousness
itself is one of the dimensions whose nature will have to be analysed. Indeed,
it cannot help but make the facts conditional upon the investigation. The
investigator may dispute the plausibility of the distinction, but whilst he is
bound to remain in ignorance of the connection, he plays his own transforming
part in the process. Facts and faculties are part and parcel of a single
conceptual transaction.
This may seem potent language to use, but the evidence for existing
‘facts’ is not necessarily separate from the process which renders them
apparent. It is not in the thing but in the thought. Indeed, to reproduce as
exactly as possible an objective reality the human mind is really forced to
compromise. Since it contains no self-contradiction, we can never describe the
universe, ‘the thing in itself’, but only our understanding of it. Nothingness cannot be translated into alternative terms. Judgment may
only be made in terms of measurement, though for sheer ambiguity it would be
hard to beat the Protean quality so apparent in Relativity. For the sense of the
meaninglessness of absolute empty space as a phenomenal entity is powerfully
implicit in Einstein’s work. It is, in fact, impossible to state the guiding
philosophical principle that underlies the two theories of relativity without a
systematic exposition of consciousness and motive. Indeed, it is hardly possible
even to grasp the scope and provisions of Relativity without having formed acute
and coherent ideas as to the nature of conceptual intelligence nor, in so many
words, without first making a careful analysis of the various states of the
four-dimensional continuum of which in the physicist’s experience he seems to be
the catalyst.
Dreamy
6 comments:
Excellent and engaging. Smoothly rendered too.
Prepare yourself for a deluge of words. Take cover. Oh to communicate with music, or a waft of the hand, and to be understood too, thereby.
"the part physics has played in changing our
perception of the nature of reality from being independent of man to being
warped by the observer."
Are we sure these, reality being independent of man and reality being warpable by the observer, are mutually incompatible? Something can be independent of me, yet still influence-able and changeable by me. For example: a piece of rock before I sculpt it is independent of me both before and after I chisel it into my vision. So too a patch of greenery before I lovingly craft it into a garden. Independence means it would nonetheless exist without us (as would the rock and greenery) not that it cannot be altered by us, surely? Beyond the purely realistic problems I have with maintaining that the human mind is essential for something’s (i.e nature’s) existence (Berkely)..(I follow Bertrand Russell, and other realists in this commonsensical regard), lies the narcissistic, arrogant consequences that will accrue to human experience if we believe that we are Lord and God of all, and not ourselves subject to contingency and inclusion inside a nature and a universe that is larger than we are (science for all its fault can involve a laudable humility, if you’re lucky). That in us which is God, I can accept, precedes and is superior to the Universe, but God is not everything that we are (alas). Of course, we don’t like accepting this because we, like the adolescents that we are, like to believe exclusively in our own power and self-sufficiency and importance (Lucifer’s original error methinks). To me the revelations of quantum physics do not undercut a realistic appraisal of knowledge as that about a Universe which cannot merely be identified with us,and that is more than we are and existed in its own right before we did. Just as God existed ‘before’ it did (yet what is time before finitude it may indeed be asked?). This does not contradict our power, however, to seriously mould and reconfigure the universe, in the ways you suggest however, through consciousness, not only technology or manual effort. Hence, unlike Hume, for example, I have not found ‘miracles’ things difficult to believe in (though I be not an accredited miracle worker, alas :()
‘Consciousness
itself is one of the dimensions whose nature will have to be analysed. Indeed,
it cannot help but make the facts conditional upon the investigation.’
Yes. But also felt too, experienced broadly and lusciously, without as much as with concepts. Also, that facts are determined in their shape by investigateion doesn’t mean the facts are independent of us in being external to us in their reality, their ‘thereness’(as I try to explain above). The universe is not contained in the human mind, but vica versa (except regarding God’s presence in us, which I see as the incarnation of the uncreated “more than universe”)
. ‘Indeed, to reproduce as
exactly as possible an objective reality the human mind is really forced to compromise.’
Yes, the ‘map is not the territory'. We choose what to emphasise and put in, what to ignore and leave out. How thoroughly irresponsible if we are claiming to be objective-knowledge- system builders.
‘the various states of the
four-dimensional continuum.’ The fourth dimension being time, presumably.
Are you aware of Longsword's work (www.darkage.ca). He speaks a lot about the four directions, and fourfoldedness in general?
x
22 July 2008 19:51
I can't argue with any of that, Dreamy. From the most primitive times, mankind has been forced to interpret phenomena only in terms that his consciousness has developed sufficiently to accept.
You describe consciousness as a dimension whose nature will have to be analysed.. is that the fourth of your four? And do you believe this is possible to be done by human investigators, given the gist of the rest of your reflections?
Clearly, what will have to be investigated is whether our own minds contribute something to the universe they investigate - a view incidentally which dates back to Nicholas of Cusa and the idealist philosophers. As indeed, quantum physics, too, tells us a great deal about our own minds, but very little about the outer world.
Nor is it conceivable that this may be subject to “proof“.
But the implications, so far as I am concerned, are clearly apparent in synchronistic (as opposed to paranormal) events. For in the same way that on the subatomic level we cannot observe the universe without disturbing it, there is bound to be a mechanism whereby the setting of one measuring device (consciousness) can manipulate the understanding of another, however remote.
Permit me to be brief on this, ASU, I fully intend to return to your question - very shortly - in one of my subsequent post. It is, indeed, central to the whole conundrum.
D.
"Oh to communicate with music, or a waft of the hand, and to be understood too, thereby."
And indeed, Jonathan, why not?
I write for inspiration. I disconnect everything. The telephone, the buzzer, the entire universe. No nicotine, no drugs, no alcohol. It took me years to get there. Now it may take my hours. Than I’ll switch on the music, with its immortal adagios. After that, I am floating free, cut loose in a thoroughly looted, Bob Dylan, sort of way - with one hand in the air, equally knowing and unknowable, human yet divine. Either way, hovering wherever I please, never knowing whether I am the dreamer or the dream. But I find an honest answer to almost any question I might care to pose.
The universe is virtual.
You may reasonably wonder whether I am losing my mind. No Sir! I simply describe the truth of the observer’s situation in the context of the virtual world as best I can. Forgive my inadequacy. In this world no elementary phenomenon is a phenomenon until it is an observed phenomenon.
Dreamy
"Oh to communicate with music, or a waft of the hand, and to be understood too, thereby."
"And indeed, Jonathan, why not?"
Good question Selena. Well I certainly EXPRESS myself in my role as a consumer of music, and am all for shamanic experimentation when it comes to body posturing too (though I dance less than I used to). Yet to express oneself is not the same as to communicate oneself, if you see what I mean? One can express oneself and impart no information, no revelation, no meaning, no content, becasue what you wanted to express had not been understood. To 'communicate', some other mind needs to comprehend, take on board, interiorise, integrate some point, some, yes, conceptual content that you were delivering to them. The package that you were expressing having been successfully delivered.
This is less easy through music and body gestures, methinks, at least at our level of consciousness. What, for example, do Mozart's Symphonies mean, for example? Which is why we need words, even though we sense their inadequacy, if we want to do more than revolve majestically in the sumptious reveries of solipsism.
I dont question the essentially emotional heart and identity of music, but sometimes we want to communicate ideas too.
'In this world no elementary phenomenon is a phenomenon until it is an observed phenomenon.'
Well, Id agree with that becasue a 'phenonemon' by definition is something that is perceived. But my point is that the Universe does not wait upon the ceremony of our getting round to perceive it. Oddly, enough it has a life of its own. Yes, one we are a part of, and one it wants us to be a part of, too. It doesn't exist just in order to be perceived by us...
Wow..glad your self-relation in the isolation of your own self-reliance is as jolly and robust as it seems to be.
No alcohol! Are you sure!? Is that wise? Surely a little something on occasions....?:)
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