Avoiding Metaphysics

Were it not for consciousness, the seeming of an immaterial self, questions about Being probably would never be asked.

The argument is simply that we are stuck in our Minds. The conclusion is, of course, that there is no certainty about what is, because that requires getting out of one's Mind. It is not good enough that someone or even a few individuals manage the feat of objective knowledge, the direct apprehension of Being, because that is still, ultimately, an incommunicable personal experience for them. Those who have such apprehensions - Gurus - must also have a way of instilling their methods and experiences in willing acolytes, so that all who share in those apprehensions are in immediate agreement. The fly in the ointment remains that each of us has individual experiences, even if we believe we have had the same experience as others. Without a directly shared transcendental method, intuition or knowledge, all there is is what a person thinks (believes, experiences) there is.

The solution of this problem is not Cartesian dualism, an assertion of two sorts of Being. It is not Platonism, an assertion of real Forms (eidos) which we perceive (somehow) in inchoate matter. And it is not the halfway house, Kantian Idealism, which proposes the existence of noumena as an unknowable, but necessary, condition of phenomena (experience). Instead of the traditional solutions, all of which are at least arguable, if not plainly defective, it is possible to sidestep the issue altogether. I think the success of modern science is largely due to avoiding questions about Being, and Purposes as well, in favor of just accepting what is before one's eyes. That is, we take naive realism as our working hypothesis. On this view, which I believe consistent with simple materialism, observers are part of the material world equipped with special abilities. If enough observers agree - if they are convinced by the proposed facts and theories - what is agreed is taken to be "true" or "real" or both. The sense of reality of truth is something each observer has, but which is not necessarily inherent or imminent in Being ("reality"). What we believe is just a guess, even if it is an educated guess. The point of the scientific approach is to put aside Metaphysical speculations about the nature of Being, and simply to assume what is, is, whatever that might mean. In other words, "whatever," in whatever tone of voice or mood one cares to have.

Despite this seemingly simple solution or avoidance of metaphysical problems, the materialist observer is still required to make a few leaps of faith. One must assume the proposed explanations ("facts") given by others are actually given by others; i.e., the observer must assume the existence of others like oneself. "Existence" here is a tricky word, for all it implies is that others appear as if they are material objects like oneself. That there are others is itself an explanation of finding facts in nature; i.e., the observer does not believe it invented the facts and theories which constitute one's knowledge, so proposes the existence of an intelligence which made what one learns. I believe my botany book was written by those knowledgeable in the subject, because I don't think myself capable of having done so or of conjuring up a book. That one discovers knowledge in natural experience is not a proof that others or nature exists, but the handy explanation of it all just makes those assumptions. As with Kant's noumena, the certainty of those assumptions is forever out of reach.

Research in Physics has brought us to a contradiction of sorts: the world of our ordinary experience is not the world thought to underlie that experience. Excepting those large scale phenomena explained by gravity (General Relativity), everything else seems to work according to Quantum Mechanical theories. At bottom, all that we see, hear, smell and touch - all of our experience - is merely statistical according to modern physical theories: it is impossible to pin down anything or establish direct connections (causes) between one thing and another. This replicates in modern science the ancient dilemma of dualism, what is "in here" as opposed to what is "out there." The modern difference is the problem doesn't matter because we are in a position to explain away "in here" as the neurological operations of an "out there" brain. The special position of the observer is being whittled away by brain research, leaving just one "as if:" the Universe is made of some sort of material stuff. Everything we know about the stuff is a theory about the behavior we observe, but we make no allegations about Being in itself. (I don't even know if that phrase, "in itself," has any meaning except to emphasize the stand alone nature of Being; i.e., "Being" and "Being in itself" are equivalent phrases.) So, there is the stuff and our direct experience of it, and then there is our attempt to make sense of it. The direct experience is a part of the stuff that operates a certain way, leaving only our supposed knowledge as somehow separate from the rest.

The problem of Being is presented because our consciousness of self demands explanation of the "out there" It does not seem that non-human animals pose the problem of Being, and no man-made computer has done so to date. Until we have an intelligent creature which is not also self-conscious, we have no way to detach our sense of Being (what is) from self-consciousness. But, there is more to it than that: our creative intelligence invents the problem. It is not enough simply to be aware of oneself to immediately feel a difference between self and other; after all, it is entirely feasible to see oneself as a separate entity without feeling (or entailing) anything about other identities and things. That which is "I" could be an arbitrary object in space-time, bounded by skin. In that conception, all other "Is" and other things are the same as oneself; it is just that we (arbitrarily) delimit patches and blobs of space-time. If so, there is no ontological difference between the chairs, tables and other furnishings of our world and ourselves. Nonetheless, we feel the difference. It is I who inhabits this body, no one else.

The foregoing considerations lead me directly to these propositions:

1. The main reason for supposing there is anything different about my being from that of the rest of the world is my consciousness of self. The reflective ability necessarily separates "inner" from "outer."

2. Metaphysical questions are always reduced to epistemological questions, because we have to ask what we can know and what is our mode of knowing. Anything we might claim about reality involves a theory of knowledge just to make the claim; i.e., we cannot "break through" the language of our claim. This leaves the simple assertion, based on intuition,  that "being is" as the only plausible, but unprovable, metaphysical statement.

Probably most people, and especially philosophers endorsing some kind of realism, will vigorously object: "You cannot do that, just throw away reality! You have to provide an explanation!" The retort to this objection and demand is straightforward: why not and why bother? Being practical, I ask what difference does it make? Would my writing change by one syllable, by one punctuation mark, if the world of my experience is really real or just a clever illusion? At this point, people pound the table - maybe they threaten to pound me - insisting upon the verities of their existence and beliefs. But, is your belief in the solidity of the Universe (as tested by pounding) any more justified than hundreds of other beliefs? What gives one culture or belief set more validity than another, except for one's loyal adoption of it? It was my (not uncommon) experience as a college freshman to have most of my "eternal truths" shattered or shaken when I ran into other people's eternal truths. I think most human beings are like me in being easily programmable during their first decade or two of existence. We come to hold certain beliefs as self-evident truths, simply because we have not had the occasion to question them. Even the most skeptical and cynical among us never completely free themselves of the cultural bias inculcated during childhood. For example, I still attempt to practice customs I was taught 60 years ago regarding women (holding doors, standing up, etc.), even though I know those customs are absurd in view of women's liberation. I am sure I act out many more as yet unnoticed or undiscovered fossil behaviors. Thinking about that makes me feel like a derelict resurrected from a 19th Century time capsule. Regardless of how I think about myself, insisting upon a really real Universe does not change my life nor, I suspect, anyone else's, so that insistence is pared away by Occam's Razor. What is left is a Cheshire cat's grin.

Acquaintances who do mathematics and physics strenuously object to the notion that 'it is all a figment of imagination.' But what difference does it make whether that is so? I am not inclined to discourage theoreticians from scribbling lines of (what is to me) incomprehensible symbols, especially when I believe their magic tricks contribute mightily to my well being. What is wrong with taking a neo-constructivist approach to mathematics? Does constructivism make the symbols and concepts any less meaningful to skilled practitioners? Have we abolished zero or infinity? Of course not. All that a subjective or constructivist approach does is point out the obvious, that practitioners are a kind of witch doctor who do things with language and figures. (Figures were originally artwork.) Our nearest relatives, bonobos and chimpanzees, have not been observed doing mathematics or art or writing. On this planet, only we human beings do those things. From an evolutionary point of view, human brains developed the requisite configuration to engage in the symbolic disciplines underlying the arts and sciences. Whatever else those disciplines may entail, they are first and foremost human works, not some property or aspect of non-human nature. Thus, those Philosophies of Science who attribute some sort of "reality" to the components or processes being studied are pointing out an illusion of Mind, not a fact of Nature. If it is true that photons, quarks and Riemannian geometry, for example, are human inventions, then it is only necessary to explain how these concepts or procedures work in human contexts. We need not force the explication to entail something about what is.

What is can be grasped because it is there. For myself, perhaps the strongest sense of being there is touch, because touch immediately delimits me from not me; i.e., touch determines a boundary. The other senses are ethereal, because sights, sounds and smells are transients, without boundary. Like temperature, pains and pleasures, the senses except touch are internal. I think it would be very hard to make sense of the external world as substantial without touch. Sight and sound are just patterns in one's head which cannot be grasped. Smells arouse very ancient parts of the brain (the so-called smell brain) which control emotional pathways; as in, "Smells good! I'm hungry." It is only because we can touch something that a smell translates into food on the table.

Any sort of claim about what is requires a language that directly perceives Being, which goes beyond descriptions, comparisons and associations. Touch is like that, but all that can be reported about touch is something is there. All the reports about what is there are sensations at the boundary. Once the other is internalized, as happens with food, it no longer has any taste or smell or individuality. One only feels the full stomach, which is another boundary between oneself and the other. We have no connection to other people or things which allows us to "feel their pain," despite the incantations of politicians, not even when they are the other in the stomach. What we feel are the reports of sensors mounted at our boundaries which send signals to the brain. Those signals would not even be feelings, were it not for the self-conscious brain identifying them as such. This last fact is obvious to those, like me, afflicted with degeneration of the nervous system. If I get cut or bruised or burned on the diseased limbs, it is not something that happened to me; it is not even something that happened. It is only by forceful attention to the problem, using prior knowledge and training, that I realize I have been injured. (For that reason, I have to be very careful about using tools.) I have to rely on visual reports to determine whether I gripped a knife or scissors properly and whether the desired cut is being made. Lacking the sensory equipment I once had, there is nothing "real" about the pineapple I sliced, although a residual sense of touch and visual reports support the notion that I sliced the pineapple. I may as well have watched the whole thing on TV.

Since disease and disability so easily disassembles what is me into parts of nature, it seems reasonable to suggest that the normal person's sense of self and other, and the normal person's sense of a real world, is simply a matter of being a normal person. The human kind of entity, a biological creature, behaves as if all that were so.

Posted 06/17/2008 07:58:29 AM                Last update: 06/17/2008

© Copyright Walter L. Battaglia dba California Expert Software 2008

All rights reserved.