Re: Science, Religion, Philosophy.
From: JonTi (jonti_at_london.com)
Date: 07/30/04
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Date: Fri, 30 Jul 2004 08:02:43 +0100
On Thu, 29 Jul 2004 17:29:09 +0000, Franco wrote:
> Our mind is part of universe, and our knowledge is relative and not
> absolute.
Hmmm. I'm tempted to exclaim "Absolutely true!", but the irony might be
lost on some of our readers. So I'll just point out that the above claim
about reality is, of course, an absolute claim.
> Our knowledge is based on physics, is based on our perception of the
> phyiscal world.
That's a meta-physical claim, a claim about physics. Here's an
alternative metaphysic:- Physics is based on the knowledge our minds have
of the world, from perception and reason. Yet physics yet has nothing to
say about the primitive facts of perception ("qualia"), and is weak in
accounting for the way that our rational minds are able to have knowledge
of the real world.
Knowledge is something to do with consciousness. There is something which
it is to be like, to be conscious. There is something which it is to be
like, to have knowledge. The future development of knowledge (particularly
about time and change) depends on theories which are able to re-integrate
mind with matter.
> When a physicists elaborate a theory he use his brain, and his brain use
> mathematics, and that mathematics is based on our perception
> re-elaborated by our brain.
Well, that's the theory. What we know for sure is that we use our minds
to elaborate theories (often using mathematics and mathematical thinking,
which is *not* empirically derived from the world) to account for what we
can perceive.
It's worth stressing that mathematics is nothing about sensation. You and
I might percieve the world very differently (the famous colour names
problem provides a trivial example). Yet provided the *structure* of our
sensations is homologous, then we can sensibly talk.
> Einstein said: "do you really think that the Moon exists because you can
> see it? And it disappears when you do not see it?"
> These words of Einstein tell us that he was sure that our universe exist
> itself and not if we think about it or not.
Of course objects continue to exist whether they are subject to perception
or not. That must be the null hypothesis, for change requires explanation
rather than stasis, and there is no reason to believe in that particular
change. Objects are real. An object that could have no effect at all on
any of our perceptions would have no place in Einstein's thinking.
To stay with Einstein, his theories of relativity and all of classical
physics, think of the world as predetermined. Newtonian mechanics and the
space-time continuum both imply that the history of the universe is fixed.
What I am saying is that we now know enough to regard that as dubious, to
put it mildly! A possible way forward is accept mind as a theoretical
primitive, and not something that can be derived from other fundamental
entities.
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