Rather than try to explain my non-materialist ideas in any logical way (which would require writing a book), I thought it might explain where I’m coming from regarding my non-materialist thinking and give a quick outline of the evolution of my thinking. DO NOT think you will have a solid understanding of my ideas from this writing.
From the very beginning – although I didn’t realize it at the time – I based my thinking on two assumptions - science works, and my experience is a given. Perhaps one of the best things that happened to me was that my basic approach and view were developed before I learned anything much about philosophy. As a result I didn’t get bogged down in what now seems to me to be an intellectual quagmire, where any idea gloms up a thousand other questioning ideas. “That’s a dog. How do I know it’s a dog. What does it mean to know? Can I really “know” anything? How do I know that I know, and on and on and on.”
My first realization was in the form of an intuitive realization that if what I experience happens in a material brain (which even at that time I realized couldn’t be in what I experience as my head), then what I had learned to call “the world” (what I call “This Experience”) can’t be a material world. (I can hear all the philosophical bells going off – representative realism! Direct realism! Naïve realism!” See what I mean about the quagmire?) Lucky for me I didn’t have any of that in my ears, and was able to think in relative conceptual peace.
A quick intuitive leap lead me to understand that if Materialist Sense Story is right, then nothing I experience seeing is made of atoms, that there is no light going into what I experience as my eyes, and that the brain my mind and experience are supposed to happen isn’t in what I experience as my head; that I literally can’t locate the brain I’m supposed to think with or the world it would exist in. This lead to the understanding that physical concepts of particles, light, etc. conceived of as entities existing in a material world were derived from an experience in which they can’t exist – even if the materialist view is correct! Physical concepts were derived from This Experience. So "physical concepts of a material world" were derived from an experience that (even according to the material worldview) can't be a material world.
That was followed closely by my understanding that there is no rational way to go from a brain of separate neurons, and neurons of separate impulses, to any experience of any kind. There still isn’t. Those ideas, combined with physical science’s explaining away of the basic concept of matter, left a huge doubt in my mind as to the whole materialist worldview. Piece after piece after piece kept falling away.
My next realization was that I can’t experience anything that isn’t me – that I don’t “see” color, for example – I literally am the color and the spatial aspect of the experience. This developed to the realization that the experience I had learned to call “the world” - all the color, space, sound, sensation, taste – is something I am. I literally am This Experience. It’s not a material world. It’s not something happening in a material brain. But in some sense it’s me, part of me, an aspect of me – whatever “me” is. (Perhaps a better way to put it is not that “it’s me,” but rather that there is no part that “isn’t me” – leaving space for, well, I don’t know what.)
It was around this time that my thinking started to take the form of thinking of myself and other “animals” not as “living things,” but rather as “beings” (my neutral pointer for whatever it is I really am). From that point to this day, I am content to understand that I really don’t know what my nature as a being is.
One of the most important lessons the Materialist Sense Story taught me was that there had to be an underlying reality of which my experience is merely a “surface.” (In the Materialist Sense Story the material world is an underlying reality that I can neither experience nor locate.) Having accepted that there had to be an underlying reality, I realized that it was illogical to just assume that the concept of a material world (which was originally conceived of as a mistaken interpretation of This Experience) had to be the only possible underlying reality. Fine. So I don’t know what the reality underlying my experience is. Fine. This would make perfect sense when I understood that quantum physics – trying to make sense of physical models as if they describe something happening in a material world – is weird and inconceivable. Then, in thinking about quantum theory, I understood that what quantum models described was in some sense what is going on in the underlying reality, but which physicists are trying to explain in terms of events in the “spatial” terms of This Experience.
Let’s not forget about space. Understanding that the very concept of “objective space” was derived from an experience which even the Materialist Sense Story says is not an objective world (This Experience), I understood that there is no basis for the very concept of “objective space.” So space, in any objective sense, is gone too. At any rate, I've never experienced one.
All through this, in a slow manner, I came to disassociate physical science from the idea of a material world and materialism in general. I understood that physical science worked. I realized it was a system derived, not from a material world I can neither experience nor locate, but from This Experience. Physical science was not derived from a material world. I also understood that physical concepts like photon, particle, field, etc. didn’t describe something in a material world (which didn’t exist anyway). They were mathematical models of how what happens in the underlying reality is manifest in This Experience. I came to understand that we don’t need the materialist worldview to do physical science.
A final but important realization is that the mistake science has made regarding the brain is in regard to what brains ARE. Brains – as spatial entities – are not things in a material world. We can’t find or prove the existence of such a world, nor the brains that would be in them. And even if we could we have no way to go from such brains to This Experience. The question isn’t “what is the relationship between material brains and consciousness," because there is no such thing as a material brain. Rather, the question is what is the relationship between brains as aspects of This Experience and This Experience as a whole – and that that relationship isn’t found in This Experience, but rather in the underlying reality.
I could go on, but I won’t. I suppose this might cause more confusion about my ideas than clarity, but there is it. None of this is intended to be a really coherent explanation of my ideas. As such, although I’m glad to answer questions that can be answered in a reasonably short response, but I’m not going to get dragged into any nit-picking arguments about this phrase or that phrase.
To get a sense of a more reasoned-out bit of my thinking, check out my latest post on my Occams Hatchet blog -http://occamshatchet.blogspot.com/
From the very beginning – although I didn’t realize it at the time – I based my thinking on two assumptions - science works, and my experience is a given. Perhaps one of the best things that happened to me was that my basic approach and view were developed before I learned anything much about philosophy. As a result I didn’t get bogged down in what now seems to me to be an intellectual quagmire, where any idea gloms up a thousand other questioning ideas. “That’s a dog. How do I know it’s a dog. What does it mean to know? Can I really “know” anything? How do I know that I know, and on and on and on.”
My first realization was in the form of an intuitive realization that if what I experience happens in a material brain (which even at that time I realized couldn’t be in what I experience as my head), then what I had learned to call “the world” (what I call “This Experience”) can’t be a material world. (I can hear all the philosophical bells going off – representative realism! Direct realism! Naïve realism!” See what I mean about the quagmire?) Lucky for me I didn’t have any of that in my ears, and was able to think in relative conceptual peace.
A quick intuitive leap lead me to understand that if Materialist Sense Story is right, then nothing I experience seeing is made of atoms, that there is no light going into what I experience as my eyes, and that the brain my mind and experience are supposed to happen isn’t in what I experience as my head; that I literally can’t locate the brain I’m supposed to think with or the world it would exist in. This lead to the understanding that physical concepts of particles, light, etc. conceived of as entities existing in a material world were derived from an experience in which they can’t exist – even if the materialist view is correct! Physical concepts were derived from This Experience. So "physical concepts of a material world" were derived from an experience that (even according to the material worldview) can't be a material world.
That was followed closely by my understanding that there is no rational way to go from a brain of separate neurons, and neurons of separate impulses, to any experience of any kind. There still isn’t. Those ideas, combined with physical science’s explaining away of the basic concept of matter, left a huge doubt in my mind as to the whole materialist worldview. Piece after piece after piece kept falling away.
My next realization was that I can’t experience anything that isn’t me – that I don’t “see” color, for example – I literally am the color and the spatial aspect of the experience. This developed to the realization that the experience I had learned to call “the world” - all the color, space, sound, sensation, taste – is something I am. I literally am This Experience. It’s not a material world. It’s not something happening in a material brain. But in some sense it’s me, part of me, an aspect of me – whatever “me” is. (Perhaps a better way to put it is not that “it’s me,” but rather that there is no part that “isn’t me” – leaving space for, well, I don’t know what.)
It was around this time that my thinking started to take the form of thinking of myself and other “animals” not as “living things,” but rather as “beings” (my neutral pointer for whatever it is I really am). From that point to this day, I am content to understand that I really don’t know what my nature as a being is.
One of the most important lessons the Materialist Sense Story taught me was that there had to be an underlying reality of which my experience is merely a “surface.” (In the Materialist Sense Story the material world is an underlying reality that I can neither experience nor locate.) Having accepted that there had to be an underlying reality, I realized that it was illogical to just assume that the concept of a material world (which was originally conceived of as a mistaken interpretation of This Experience) had to be the only possible underlying reality. Fine. So I don’t know what the reality underlying my experience is. Fine. This would make perfect sense when I understood that quantum physics – trying to make sense of physical models as if they describe something happening in a material world – is weird and inconceivable. Then, in thinking about quantum theory, I understood that what quantum models described was in some sense what is going on in the underlying reality, but which physicists are trying to explain in terms of events in the “spatial” terms of This Experience.
Let’s not forget about space. Understanding that the very concept of “objective space” was derived from an experience which even the Materialist Sense Story says is not an objective world (This Experience), I understood that there is no basis for the very concept of “objective space.” So space, in any objective sense, is gone too. At any rate, I've never experienced one.
All through this, in a slow manner, I came to disassociate physical science from the idea of a material world and materialism in general. I understood that physical science worked. I realized it was a system derived, not from a material world I can neither experience nor locate, but from This Experience. Physical science was not derived from a material world. I also understood that physical concepts like photon, particle, field, etc. didn’t describe something in a material world (which didn’t exist anyway). They were mathematical models of how what happens in the underlying reality is manifest in This Experience. I came to understand that we don’t need the materialist worldview to do physical science.
A final but important realization is that the mistake science has made regarding the brain is in regard to what brains ARE. Brains – as spatial entities – are not things in a material world. We can’t find or prove the existence of such a world, nor the brains that would be in them. And even if we could we have no way to go from such brains to This Experience. The question isn’t “what is the relationship between material brains and consciousness," because there is no such thing as a material brain. Rather, the question is what is the relationship between brains as aspects of This Experience and This Experience as a whole – and that that relationship isn’t found in This Experience, but rather in the underlying reality.
I could go on, but I won’t. I suppose this might cause more confusion about my ideas than clarity, but there is it. None of this is intended to be a really coherent explanation of my ideas. As such, although I’m glad to answer questions that can be answered in a reasonably short response, but I’m not going to get dragged into any nit-picking arguments about this phrase or that phrase.
To get a sense of a more reasoned-out bit of my thinking, check out my latest post on my Occams Hatchet blog -http://occamshatchet.blogspot.com/
