Within the context of my conjecture I assert the following paradoxes. I am linked to everything, but have only partial awareness of being part of the whole. The more I am separate, the freer I am; yet the source of my freedom from causality lies in the whole. The less I am, the greater I become.
Reg 2009
The Explanation
A Kantian Conundrum
(Please note the significance of capital letters in this text to differentiate between the ordinary and metaphysical meaning of a word.)
How sure can I be of my knowledge of the world and my self? Greater minds than mine have wrestled with this problem.
I find Kant’s treatment of this question enlightening and helpful. He categorises judgements. In between the certainty of logical truths which defy doubt and the empirical facts of science which rest on observation and experiment, there is a class of judgements he calls “synthetic a priori”. These are principles which cannot be deduced with logical certainty. The human mind applies them to experience without troubling to gain empirical proof. “Nothing comes from nothing”. “Any event must have a prior cause”. “There are external objects”. Assumptions about the sequence of events and the identification of objects seem necessary to make any sense of experience.
Kant asserts that knowledge of the world is only possible, if the mind provides a systematic structuring of the representations it receives. This means the reality I am so familiar with is a “known” reality in the sense that it is formed by applying the mind’s perceptual and analytic tools. Kant argues strongly that the mind will fall into error, if it attempts to make an assertion about the Reality that lies behind the reality the mind is set up to handle. This implies that I am banned from talking about “things in themselves”.
No matter how great the philosopher, I hold that we should always seek to doubt and question. Kant was not an idealist. He believed there was an external reality. His transcendental argument for this is that the concept I have of my self as separate presupposes something outside to differentiate “me” from the “not me”. I too prefer to believe that the world is not purely a construct of the human mind. There is some underlying Reality. Despite Kant’s admonition surely I can still wonder how it is that the synthetic a priori judgements fortuitously fit with Reality. There might be clashes with non objects, holes in reality or inexplicable happenings. This is the conundrum. Explanation can be attempted by a range of speculative conjectures.
1. Could it be that the collective consciousness of the human race exerts some control over the raw data of Reality to keep it in check? This would explain why I experience a solid, dependable and substantive world, which I cannot change by an individual act of will. However this conjecture is anthropocentric and the collective will mysterious. It suggests an answer to the primary question of how it is that we confront an ordered world. Ingenuity can be applied to keep this conjecture going to explain the fossil record, but I prefer to believe that primitive life did not have to struggle to exert some control over Reality to survive in the world.
2. For the physicalists common sense has a ready answer to the puzzle. If Reality had not been ordered and knowable, the human race would not have survived. The human brain developed a successful approach to understand the environment it found itself in. The principles we apply without question have stood the test of time. The survival of the human race is sufficient proof of the ability of these presuppositions to create a known reality that interfaces successfully with the underlying Reality.
This is a sound practical approach that can accept that the presuppositions on which human knowledge is built may not always hold good for all future conditions. I find it somewhat dull and it will always struggle to explain the hard question of self awareness.
3. Finally I turn to the strange and mystical alternative. Known reality is just an aspect of the greater Reality. It is not fortuitous or contingent that the synthetic a priori principles apply to all experience without objection from an underlying Reality. The principles are a necessary consequence of forging a known reality out of the greater whole.
In known reality I am a subject perceiving objects. My knowledge is characterised by perception and experience from an individual point. I analyse, categorise and divide. The greater Reality may be an undivided whole. Awareness, matter, energy, and light undivided. This Reality can only be grasped as a whole, which is impossible for an individual. The unity of Reality ensures pattern and order in reality.
The synthetic a priori principles cover presuppositions of separate existence and an external world in which objects and events can be picked out and connected. The axioms of mathematics and geometry rest on presumptions of dimension, duration and sequence, which appear to be found by examining experience, but these concepts (or their precursors) are needed before or else the experience could not be had. Therefore I conclude these are necessary principles to give me a place in space and a point in time. The absence of this perceptual and conceptual framework would leave me infinity in no space, eternity in a moment, no separate existence and everything and nothing. If I cannot experience the whole, perhaps an inner sense can still recall a faint echo of being one with a greater Awareness.
These principles separate me from Reality, yet allow me to experience reality. They define me as a subject experiencing objects. I can pull back and examine my thoughts and feeling objectively. The one thing I cannot examine is that mysterious ingredient of self awareness. This is not my sense of self which I construct. It is a fundamental feature which tells me I am aware. Here is a paradox. Self awareness is my one intimate experience of an indivisible whole. If I think of Awareness as a field permeating Reality, my individual awareness is the point where the field coalesces on my physical presence.
1. This does not require a belief in a knowledgeable and powerful God. The greater Awareness need only be thought of as a passive potential; an intrinsic, impersonal, non human fundamental property of the whole.
2. The known world is real, but there has to be more than I can grasp. Common sense and science are valid within the domain of known reality.
This essential ingredient of self awareness eludes me. As soon as I think of it, it is not there, but always with me while I am aware. I sense it, but cannot make it an object of my sensibility. It is the key component of my existence as a thinking and feeling subject. It is as if my face was glued to a peephole through which I perceive the world, but sense something beyond or behind my gaze and this gives me the idea that this ingredient comes from outside the scope of known reality.
Here lies the possibility of a direct link to Reality. However if there is a third eye or sixth sense, Kant’s admonition tells me that I would still not see things as they are in themselves. My understanding has to form its own reality. I might though be able to glimpse another aspect, which gives me a taste of a greater reality. Reality-in-itself is beyond the reach of an individual mind.
Science investigates the nature of reality behind appearance. Equipment can greatly extend the range of human perception. Theories explain the underlying structure. This broadens my grasp of reality and I realise there is far more in reality than I could ever experience and understand. None of this could bring me any closer to Reality. I can put the segments of an orange together and comprehend the whole, but awareness of Reality would require me to be the orange.
This discussion centres on what the human mind can know in contrast to what actually exists. The theories of relativity and quantum mechanics are great achievements and have transformed our understanding of reality. However if the reality we can know is just a splinter of a greater whole, perhaps we will never be able to create one complete and consistent theory of reality. The further we probe, the more indications will we encounter that our understanding is partial.
The question then is what sense can I make of any input from a sixth sense. Language evolved to handle perceptual input. My mind might fail to interpret reliably input from “awareness”. Therefore I read with interest various accounts of mystical experiences. The essential feature of such experiences is losing the self within something greater. Stopping thought and turning off perception would seem to be a sound tactic for letting in experience from a sixth sense. These experiences are then interpreted by the mind of the mystic. The accounts I have read are described in terms of the religious beliefs of the mystic.
How complete is their union with their gods? In my view union with Reality implies the end of individuality. I am no adept and claim only to gather a sense of something greater beyond or behind reality. This though is enough to give grist for those who seek enlightenment. The conventional explanation for religious belief is the need to come to terms with death. The sense of a Reality behind reality must also drive this impulse. My contention is that the construction of religious beliefs is a misinterpretation of a fundamental aspect of human experience. Simplistically I am a splinter that holds a faint echo of being part of a whole, but would be unable to comprehend the whole except in splintered fashion.
I surmise that Awareness as a fundamental property of Reality is latent. It is not self aware. Self awareness is manifested by independent awareness; the result of an interaction between a brain and Awareness. There is a dualism of dimension here. Awareness is not recognised as something which can exist in reality, yet the existence of self aware conscious individuals implies its existence in Reality. This creates individuals whose actions and thoughts cannot be wholly explained or determined by cause and effect. There is an extraneous ingredient in the self aware individual.
This supposition cannot be proved. I make an assertion about something which lies outside normal perception. Like religion this depends on faith or what you wish to believe. I prefer to believe there is a mystery science cannot explain. Otherwise consciousness, free will and individuality will be reduced by neuroscience to bio-chemistry. I can only point to great music, art, intuition and the feelings these engender. Within the limits of its view, science may well be able to explain these feelings, but science rests on the presumption that there is nothing beyond the reality that can be known through perception.
The logic of my conjecture is that I exist as a transient interaction between a living organism and Awareness gathered from Reality. Death dissolves any personality back into the whole. However my life identity is a strand through space and time. This implies persistence in Reality. There may well be an intermediate state without a physical body. Known reality is a sliver of a greater Reality. I imagine a fish seeing the keel of ship. Likewise my knowledge of myself is only a part of a greater whole. My head emerges from dark water and my gaze cannot penetrate the surface.
Withdrawal from the world is advocated as better than bodily experiences in some religious tracts. I can see the merits of calm contemplation of universality to offset the stress of daily survival, but independent awareness is a great achievement and should not be dismissed as worthless. I think both perspectives have to be combined.
If there is any survival of personal identity this implies the persistence of an individual viewpoint in a separate reality, but this speculation falls outside the domain in which my understanding is valid. I am suspicious of other ways by which this is deduced. I note that in my dreams I import my physical identity and personal history. There may well be content filtering through from Awareness, while I am disengaged from my senses. However when I dream of floating, I imagine I have a body. When I am in a strange place I project my wishes and recollections to link it to places I know. The experience is distorted to make it fit within my terms of reference. This makes me sceptical about all those accounts of past lives. If the memories of dead people are accessible to a living individual, then the mind of the living individual would strive to organise these into a personal history.
RA 2009
Our shared understanding of the everyday world appears sound, but I feel it lacks something. Can we dream up a greater reality which sets ordinary reality within a meaningful context?
Consciousness is still a mystery. This allows me to suggest that it can provide access to experience beyond the reach our physical senses. In truth we are all mysterious and outside the confines of perception and self identity, perhaps we all stretch to eternity and merge with a greater whole.
I examine my sensory input and the thoughts and feelings that result. I can grasp that it should be possible to explain how higher feelings can be refined from humbler emotions and that this is how great art and music can touch my soul. However when a few simple notes lift my spirit to touch eternity reminding me briefly of a greatness left behind and yet to find, I think it more plausible that I am sensing beyond the bounds of normal perception.
My Meditation – in search of a greater realityI am reassured by the scientific method. It is good to have the security of tried and tested explanations. Contrarily I also yearn for some greater mystery that eludes reduction to elements linked by mathematical principles. The world would be a duller place if a theory based on particles or vibrating strings will one day explain everything. What space will it leave for the human spirit or the excitement of the unknown? I acknowledge a dichotomy in my attitude.
I look to the horizon where eternity starts, searching for that which is apart from me. There is a mystery of feeling part of something greater, but not part of me.
Do I want to find religion? I cannot find one that fits my numinous urge. There ought to be more choice. I do not seek a father figure or wish to dismiss this world as illusion.
In conventional understanding of brains, bodies and an external physical world our concept of the outside is formed within our heads. The view we have of an external world is held within. On an alternative metaphysic this perceived reality is the result of the interaction of mind with matter. I am already part of what I sense outside and my sense of self is just a fiction of separate identity formed by perception.
Introspection as a means of obtaining knowledge is viewed with suspicion. This is based on the assertion, that internal experiences cannot be examined objectively. If I say; “It is raining outside”, others can look in that direction and agree or disagree. If I start to describe my internal experience of consciousness, there is nothing in the “real” world that others can look at.
If I say I feel pain in my foot, no one else can feel my pain, but others can examine my foot for a likely cause. If they see a thorn in my big toe, they may be able to say-” I know how that feels”. Language works because there is dialogue between beings who share similar experiences. A pattern of sounds or written marks can reassure me that others see or hear the same things that I see and sense. Ultimately I can never be certain that someone else will feel or think in the same way as I do about green grass or butterscotch. We are all locked within our own bubbles of perceived reality, reliant on hearing the correct pattern of sounds to confirm that this is a shared reality. Where is the difference between extrospection and introspection? Only in the way I point to one type of experience compared to another. I can describe my introspection and you can compare this with your own introspection.
When I turn my attention inwards I think I find the centre of my consciousness within this layer of skin and bone. It can be a lonely place and I would rather look out at the world. Am I tied to this viewpoint in space and time? My senses do seem to anchor me, yet I can imagine the vastness of space. If I stretch my mind to its furthest expanse and then fold the universe in on itself and wonder what space lies outside of this, my imagination appears to escape the bounds of place and time. In conventional understanding this only means that I wander around the world I’ve created inside my head.
I look inside my head to find the source of my consciousness. I have a sense of my self. This I think is my personality or ego and it is the result of social interaction and personal history. It is an object of consciousness, not the subject and source of the awareness I seek. Here is the difficulty. Language is forged by the perceptual model. How can the subject itself be viewed without a mirror? The metaphor I could use is a cinema screen on which my ideas, memories and feelings play, but how can I examine the projectionist who produces and views the images?
So I gaze upon my self and at one and the same time I am aware that I am doing this. I am aware that I am aware that I am thinking about my ego. The “I” appears to retreat, but this is not the start of an infinite regression. I find that subjective awareness is a seamless unity that feels its edges. This inner gaze could be called the sixth sense, but in fact it is fundamental to all thought, feeling, imagining and external sense. This inner gaze enables me to draw a distinction between a subjective experience of my feelings and the inner act of standing back to look at them objectively. Is this fundamental awareness trapped inside my head? I cannot be certain of what it is, because I cannot examine the inner I.
I choose to trust my internal sense of the essential ingredient of consciousness as separate and independent from perceived reality. All knowledge of the world is based on perception and the assumption that if I obtain agreement and confirmation from others on what I observe, then I should be able to trust my senses. This leaves freedom for doubt and allows me to speculate about what lies outside the bubble of perceived reality. I draw a picture of what this might be like. I imagine my face glued to a peep show. Inside this large box there is a vast and wonderful universe and I peer out through a figure in centre stage. I can sense the outline of this figure and perceive my physical body in this world. I cannot pull my face away, but wonder if there is something outside the peep show, or behind or to the side of my awareness. Only at death might my awareness become unstuck from the peephole.
Within its domain scientific truth remains valid. Within my perception of physical reality I am only brain and body. I do not seek to deny this reality, but I cannot presume that this is all I am. I am unseen. This opens the way for me to imagine a greater self in a wider reality. This endeavour lies outside the bounds of truth or falsehood. It is art, not science. It is driven by the frailty of human existence. I recall fleeting moments of feeling part of a greater whole and recognising the triviality of my everyday concerns. Touching eternity briefly I gaze down on the ordinary world as if it was an ant’s nest. Individuals are unimportant. From this vantage point “nothing really matters”, because the whole is of incomprehensible significance.
Accounts of mystical experiences interest me. Descriptions of these recounted experiences across many religions contain common elements, but are all interpreted in line with the mystic’s own religious beliefs. Psychiatrists might classify these as psychotic interludes. I seek to create an alternative explanation.
Now that I wish to venture into alternative reality and speculate about what lies behind the perceived reality we take for granted, I choose to assume that the world is shot through with awareness. It is intrinsically knowable, because it is the product of mind and matter. This notion does not require a faith in God, just a radical animism which presupposes a vast impersonal potential of knowingness. This vista makes me a small fragment of awareness, which has developed an independent consciousness. Awareness becomes self aware, when it can draw a distinction between that which is part of itself and that which is not.
The independence depends on a separation. This could be illusory. I might in truth be linked at a deep level to the whole, but perceive my self as separate. At this juncture I feel I should aim to pull my understanding of the inner and outer worlds inside out. Suppose that what creates me as a separate consciousness is perception. Normally I might view my senses as an outlet to the wider world. Instead perception and the concepts I apply to my perceptual input can be thought of as a membrane or filter that limits my link with a greater reality. We all build bubbles of perceived reality and when we converse are reassured that we can agree that this must be all that there is to the world. My 2 dimensional sketch of this is set out below.
I gaze out into the reality I am familiar with. Where am I in this inadequate diagram? Somewhere in the choke viewing myself and the world, where consciousness enters. The constriction is my perception and I exist only as temporary separation from the greater whole. On the metaphysical level my perception of an external world is my inner world which lies outside the greater reality. My small bubble of reality is formed from the limited content that leaks through from Reality.
In my perceived reality I experience physical sensations of touching objects. I ingest food and air and the molecules that make up my body have been acquired from outside. So despite the sense of apartness I am part of the physical world. I can feel fellowship with others in this. However the notion that my consciousness is just a temporary fragment of a greater truth challenges me to explore a more direct bond with the reality behind everything I perceive.
What keeps me stuck to the peephole of my bubble of perceived reality? In truth I am so yoked by perception that I may possess little skill or practice at turning my inner gaze elsewhere. However I suspect my ego is reluctant and fights hard to preserve its identity. Separateness and independence are great achievements. Have I locked myself in a secure and comfortable prison cell?
Independence implies freedom, but also isolation. Do I yearn to be part of a greater whole? Only if I cease to exist would I be absorbed back into a vaster consciousness. I do not want to go as far as this, but perhaps there are ways in which I can reach out from my small world. I may still be able to recall faint echoes of greatness before I became. If I manage to switch off my perception and my ego, is there just nothingness or a glimpse of a greater truth? If I push at the boundaries of my senses to the very edge of perception can I detect a feeling of something beyond?
Find a spark of joy within.
Let the flame melt you.
I will not die.
I will feel the sky.
I assert no more than this. Firstly there is far more out there than I sense or know. Secondly I am in some way connected to it and I want to feel this. I may become too focused on a particular situation or a particular way of experiencing the world. If I can free myself from these bounds, perhaps I could remain more in touch with eternity and infinity.
I seek to find a shape for my image of individual consciousness and a greater reality. I thought first of shapes breaking through an opaque surface into light. Above the surface the shape is seen clearly; below it is obscure. In this search for a metaphor of individual existence the image of icebergs floating on the sea came to me. The bright snow-capped top and the large hidden bulk below suits this creative purpose. However although the ice will melt back into the sea, the divide between frozen and liquid water is too sharp.
A range of mountains possess distinct peaks, but their shoulders merge into a collective base of rock. This picture is too rigid and long lasting. My intuition suggests a luminous mist coalescing on individual particles, but this lacks dynamism.
Looking out to sea I see glints of sunlight sparkling on wave tops.
This image gives the right balance of separate identity merging with a greater whole, together with the ephemeral nature of individual life. Individual existence is a temporary shape on the flow of consciousness. No image gives the true picture of the dimension I struggle to grasp.
What attributes do I wish to give to the sea of consciousness? This vastness is potential lacking individual identity. It is a source of unlimited inspiration. I could drown in its enormity and perhaps at death packages of memories reside here as echoes etched on eternity. I do not attribute omniscience or omnipotence. Passive and peaceful, the vastness is uncaring of human endeavour. All life connects to this source of consciousness and the interaction with physical existence creates separate consciousness. How much consciousness does a single celled organism possess? Only as much as it can handle. This idea gives me a link to the whole, but I cannot experience the vastness directly. It would engulf my existence.
I avoid a simplistic dualism by this conceit. Attributes such as intelligence do not have a direct correlate in the world of spirit. Intelligence, emotions, appreciation of art and wisdom are all attributes of human experience that result from the interaction of consciousness with the physical world. Consciousness is the essential ingredient. It cannot be like my limited consciousness.
I could turn to metaphor to describe the relationship of part to the whole. If I had eyesight, but there was no light in the universe; I would see nothing. However I prefer to say that this interaction is mysterious, because it lies beyond my reach.
The analogy of waves helps me to describe the structure of my self. From the crest down to the base of the wave there is a sliding scale from being fully focused on present experience out to the expanse of the other. In an upside down fashion the comparison here is with the atmosphere. Close to the surface individuality is dense, but higher up it gradually thins until sparse molecules merge with outer space.
On this view I possess a greater self of which I am to a large extent unconscious. My greater self may well contain demons, angels, dead ends and fool’s gold. I hope that ultimately it reaches out to a bright shining horizon suffused with blissful peace. My aspiration to stretch out to my greater spirit encounters a painful obstacle. It is not me. It is alien and if I draw closer to it, I will change. Somehow I must let go of my ego, if only for a fleeting moment. In dreams I sometimes find myself at the top of a great cliff looking down in awe at a beautiful valley below, but clinging to the rock. My ego fears it will be destroyed.
My wish to move away from a self centred point of experience is motivated by the desire for a greater strength and purpose. I can only achieve faint glimpses of something wonderful guessed at beyond the horizon. Diffusing experience to its furthest reach brings back faint whispers from beyond the edge of the known world. This may be the urge which drives the search for a hidden paradise. If I can touch the eternal, perhaps it is possible to integrate this with everyday experience to develop a more meaningful life.
I aspire to become one with a greater world outside the bounds of my small self. The irony of this aspiration is that at only in death will I achieve this and then will no longer exist. There is an abrupt divide between particularity and universality. I trust that my greater self mediates between personal experience and the vast stretch of eternity. Stretching out to my greater spirit I sense faintly the flow of the vastness. Active particularity fades into passive universality. I recognise the wish to believe in an immortal soul, but the image I sketch has more pathos. As the wave subsides or the iceberg melts, the brief expression of individual experience is reabsorbed by eternity. However there is no certainty in any of this. Instead I could envisage a shape or shading persisting in the water, because the glue of identity and passage through space and time holds together a bundle of memories and experiences.
My attempt to create an alternative view of reality suggests a basis for a religion that restores a balance between the everyday and the sublime. Both have equal value. Individual lives are brief sparks on the vastness, but the process is continuous as each interaction accumulates experience within consciousness. We all participate in something far greater than we can imagine.
The Meaning of Life – the Ultimate Question?
The answer is 42, but Deep Thought pronounced that no one knew the ultimate question. This is a sound point, because there are a number of meanings which can be assigned to the question; – “What is the meaning of life”.
The easiest nuance to sympathise with is the feeling that it all seems so pointless. We strive and struggle and then we die – what is the point?
If this is about worth and value, there is a tendency to rush forward with a number of things that people should care about. However this tendency presupposes a commonly accepted system of values. Who am I to judge whether a mug of tea is worth more than a glass of champagne?
I am more intrigued by the possibility that life is a foreign language that I understand only superficially. If I understood more perfectly, the hidden meaning of events and experiences would be revealed.
Both variations require a context within which the question can be framed and the answer assessed. I think this implies that I have to describe the nature of reality and myself, before I can frame the question. Hence this is the ultimate question. RA
