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…there is no reason, even for a materialist, to deny the existence of the non-material. It is something else entirely, however, for a materialist to affirm the existence of the non-material, as in “non-A exists.” This seems to me a bit like saying, “Since what I know exists, exists, then what I don't know exists, also exists." To me, the best one can say is, "That which I do not know exists, may exist.” This is why we are able to consider atheism a religious position: because an atheist believes in the non-existence of gods. To me, this is a rational enough belief, but a belief just the same. I myself prefer a certain stoicism: “Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one should remain silent.” Or a certain William Blake: “I know not, and I cannot know/I ponder, and I cannot ponder; yet I live and love.”

Just had to go straight for the good stuff, Bouilhet. :^)

I’m glad you find the idea of “second reality” intriguing. IMO, Voegelin does an excellent job explicating this subject, pointing to evidentiary sources that are ancient yet made topical again, in the twentieth century, by Musil and von Doderer. Voegelin finds the “shorthand” description of the problem of second realities in Elias Canetti’s novel, Auto da fe, which is a work in three parts, under three titles, understood to be in successive or “progressive” order. These are the titles:

“A Head Without a World – Headless World – The World in One’s Head”

Hegel had a field day with this construction, citing Aristotle’s Metaphysics along the way…. (Book XII, Part 7.) But I digress.

You wrote: “If there is a first Reality, then to some degree we all inhabit second realities; our access to the infinite (and I believe that at times, fleetingly, we do have access) is necessarily limited by our own finitude.”

Absolutely agreed, Bouilhet.

Alamo-Girl raises another quite pertinent question: “What are we to understand when you say reality is an illusion? What is the subject reality, and what do you mean when you [say] it is illusion? Do you … mean that it (whatever it is) deceives? How does it compare to Kant who thinks space is a category of rational intelligence and doesn't belong in empirical phenomena. Are we fair to say that whatever is not in our mind is illusory?”

Great questions, A-G! For Kant, apparently both space and time are “categories” of the human mind that subsist in a manner that is not at all the way “natural phenomena” subsist. Jeepers, but I cannot say whether I think he’s right or wrong about this. Honestly I just don’t know.

Here’s the problem: I have been trying to update my knowledge base in recent times to incorporate the insights coming from contemporary quantum field theory based on Standard Model physics.

The world that quantum field theory describes is not at all the world that you and I are accustomed to living and thinking in. If the theory is correct, then all our human perceptions of “concrete bodies” in nature is subject to reconsideration.

To put this into perspective, as a young person, somehow I got this idea into my head that my physical body was just a “robot” carrying around and executing the “program” that was me. (It seems I understood this “program” to be what theists call soul.) Clearly such thoughts expose the fact that cognitively I was operating in the Newtonian universe at the time.

But now we find we live in a “quantum universe.” Everything that exists is made up of exactly the same “stuff.” It has also been suggested that even “matter” is up for grabs, as not being a physical existent in its own right, but as being an epiphenomenon of force- and field-mediated energy relationships. As Voegelin put it, matter – in the Newtonian sense -- is on the verge of “disappearing altogether.”

And yet I have this sense of myself as being somehow “concrete,” with "firm borders" or "boundaries" that define and demark me from everything else around me – even though my existence is moving through, in the flux of, an unknown number of universal fields in a yet-unspecified number of dimensions, and there is absolutely nothing about me in terms of physical nature that is all that much different than a rock’s: Both I and rock equally depend on physics and chemistry, it seems. And the fields in which we mutually swim, so to speak. Why I am myself and not a rock, swimming through these common fields, I continue to explain to myself in terms of soul….

So, confronted by this problem, perhaps Kant had an epiphany: Space and time are categories of the human mind because one needs “categories” in order to sift the apparently random so to make it into a “something” that the mind can grasp and understand. Perhaps this propensity is “loaded into human nature” somehow. And perhaps it might change, evolve over time, as the articles in September 2005’s Science cited above indicate may be the case.

cornelis wrote: “When Einstein said ‘reality is an illusion, albeit a very persistent one’ he was speaking of local realism. In his view, behavior at the quantum level should be like it is at the classical level. It is not however the same…. Certainly we can’t continue to call illusion the realization that our view of reality is partial.” All views of reality are partial. Or so it seems to me…. That doesn’t make our partial view “illusion.” Meanwhile we try to open up our view of things by additions of new knowledge….

In Einstein’s case, perhaps he made the arguments he made in his extended debates with Bohr (e.g., in favor of local realism and contra “spooky action at a distance”) in defense of classical science -- even though he did as much as Bohr to unsettle that paradigm. Yet there are writings and statements from Einstein that suggest a mystical bent to his nature, an openness to the divine....

Bouilhet, I am delighted that you find Plato’s myth of the cave so interesting. A couple of further thoughts on that subject. (1) We want to question the reality of the Light as something philosophically necessary. I don’t have a problem with that; but frankly, I’m not done with the prisoners yet. The shadows cast on the cave wall are the shadows of the prisoners themselves: the light source is at their back. That is a stunningly profound statement, IMO. (2) The myth is about “ascent and descent” – the one prisoner who escapes his chains, turns around (the periagoge), and climbs up out of the cave towards the Light. What does Plato mean by this? And then the prisoner descends back into the cave, to relate his experiences of the Light to his fellow prisoners – who wish to beat and kill him as the expression of their thanks for his “interventions” into their happy dream world.

This “ascent” and “descent” business seems to me to be the great myth Plato told to explicate his experiences in the Metaxy, his model of psyche (human and, I suspect, cosmic as well). I drew a picture of that once. I’d post it, but I’d need to ask a friend to host the graphic for me. I find this a most fascinating issue – and wondered if you'd be inclined to look at it in greater detail.

Anyhoot, I’ve run on too long as usual. Couldn’t help myself, the conversation is just so stimulating – and so much appreciated. Sorry to have not responded sooner – I’m on drop-dead deadline at work and have had little time to think, let alone write, these past several days. But I did get a chance to read, at lunch.

And so, thank you so very much, Alamo-Girl, Bouilhet, cornelis, for your excellent essay/posts.

p.s.: I do agree with your statement, Bouilhet: "it is not our reason which perceives reality but which processes the reality we perceive; deficiencies of reason may imply deficiencies of perception, but the inverse does not hold: reason is not reality. Rather it is a means by which we keep reality coherent for ourselves [e.g., Kant's categories qualify here?]. The gaps (often chasms) only indicate, for me, a cracked surface; they are not erasable, to my mind, and I don't see why they should necessarily be unwelcome." (Notwithstanding, still it seems one has to deal with "the observer problem"....)

[ The world that quantum field theory describes is not at all the world that you and I are accustomed to living and thinking in. If the theory is correct, then all our human perceptions of “concrete bodies” in nature is subject to reconsideration. ]

Been studying this stuff for awhile too.. Seems like a lot of if'n to me.. Kantian and Hegelian figments long ago bored me.. but string theory as much I can grasp seemed interesting.. for awhile.. You know what I did, I developed a theory of my own.. Scientific?.. LoL.. not hardly.. And until something concrete is proven (to me) I'm gonna go with it..

I propose that this Universe is composed of designated matter and un-designed matter.. Any matter is energy in one form or the other.. and human spirit is un-designated matter.. all the solids we know about are designated matter.. basically everything "I' know about in the Universe as this Universe is designated.. thats where I get the Universe is three dimensional but the spirit is 4th dimensional.. Because I cannot justify the 1st and 2nd dimensions.. anything I know of deemed 1st or 2nd dimensional is still 3 dimensional always.. actually I know of nothing not 3rd dimensional and no way to prove any other dimensions exist except in our heads.. Like we are limited to this dimension.. for NOW.. that is my point.. i.e. the 4th dimension being the spiritual dimension..

Is it TRUE.?. who knows.. If there is a God and God can manipulate "matter" at will.. Why not.. Mathematics can conceive of infinity but that don't mean it can access infinity accurately or at all. There could be a Cypher Ceiling to math.. i.e. so far and no farther.. For sure there is with me a Cypher Cieling..

Designated matter and un-designated matter.. has possibilities and some string theory might even support it too.. Jesus walking on water etc.. might not be mythical visions of a fanatical moonbat.. What IF "we" with a new conduit(BODY) could designate or un-designate matter in this Universe, in the "future".. Kinda gives "heaven" a whole new scope and a range of possibles.. Anyway maybe I'M the Moonbat.. I'm o.k wid dat... been one for a long time.. I'm used to it..

Course YOU conversing with a Moonbat might effect your good name.. d;-) LoL..

Thank you oh so very much for your excellent essay post!

But, er, you have attributed cornelis' questions to me. I take that as a huge compliment, by the way.

Also, if you need a host for your chart please let me know.

All views of reality are partial. Or so it seems to me…. That doesn’t make our partial view “illusion.” Meanwhile we try to open up our view of things by additions of new knowledge….

I very strongly agree. I have however used the term "illusion" to apply when the partial view is found to be erroneous as in the parable of the ten blind men describing the elephant. Perhaps that is what Einstein meant when he said "reality is an illusion, albeit a very persistent one."

Indeed.

The most beautiful and deepest experience a man can have is the sense of the mysterious. It is the underlying principle of religion as well as all serious endeavour in art and science. He who never had this experience seems to me, if not dead, then at least blind. To sense that behind anything that can be experienced there is a something that our mind cannot grasp and whose beauty and sublimity reaches us only indirectly and as a feeble reflection, this is religiousness. In this sense I am religious. To me it suffices to wonder at these secrets and to attempt humbly to grasp with my mind a mere image of the lofty structure of all that there is. — “My Credo,” presented to the German League of Human Rights, Berlin, autumn 1932, in Einstein: A Life in Science, Michael White and John Gribbin, ed., London: Simon & Schuster, 1993, page 262.