The experience of reality is, first and foremost, of objects, space, and time. The experience of the mind or consciousness is always an embodied experience. The internal experience is always within a body within the external world, never outside or apart from it.
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1.
Imagine you are in a reality in which there are no objects. Even you do not exist as an object. Of course, this is impossible. But it is possible to imagine. We have the ability to do this somehow.Imagine now that you are moving through this reality. But how would you know you are moving? You would have no reference points.
Perhaps you are body, the only body in the reality, like a perfect unchanging sphere. Your spinning and turning would not give you reference points. And if say you are not a perfect sphere but you are unchanging then you still would not have reference points. No amount of rotation will tell you which direction you are facing or where you have moved to.
So let us say you are now you are an irregularly shaped object and you are now flexible. Your changing shape has now given you distance and duration. With this you have an understanding of space and time.
What is required of reality are objects, space and time. But space and time can never be observed directly. Space and time are only inferred from the relationships of objects and the change of the relationship of objects in inferred space, respectively.
2.
Objects mark positions in space and in time.A position in space is never simultaneously (at the same time) be occupied by two objects . Nor is it occupied by an object or space at once. I can only guess that a position is not occupied by two spaces at once.
What I can say is, a position is either object or space.
So space must be a special kind of object.
3.
Time is sequential and equal.An object moving with reference to another object shows this.
4.
There are no objects without there being space and time. Thingsspacetime is the fundamental characteristic of reality. This is the reality we exist in. This is the reality we should worry about. -
Reality is the entirety of objects, inferred space and inferred time.
Experience are the sensations of sight, sound, touch, smell, and taste, the processing of these sensations into coherent information as knowledge, and reaction to these sensations, including the sensations of mental processing, information and knowledge forming.
It is easy to understand what the sense inputs are as they have corresponding organs. But the mental organ was not understood until recently. Damage occurring to certain parts of the brain will affect different faculties. From such damage or aphasia we slowly have com to understand the role of the brain, noting that it is no different to the organs like the eyes or ears.
The brain with no noticeable moving parts like the other sense organs make it difficult to understand. Seemingly, it is inert. Yet this is where the faculty of mind and consciousness is. Damage the eye and your vision is impaired. Damage your leg and your ability to run is limited. Damage your brain and your ability to process the sensory information as well as your ability to respond to this information is affected.
Experience is the entirety of the physical input-processing-output process. There are no examples of mind or consciousness that is independent of the body or brain. We must take this lack of evidence seriously even if there is seemingly something we would like to call the mind or consciousness. The process of mind or consciousness occurs in the body. This is where we experience it, whether we are aware of this fact or not.
Calling it my mind does not bring it into existence. Calling it my consciousness does not bring it into existence. From experience, I had come to learn and understand this.
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I don’t believe that direct and complete knowledge is possible. That is, all knowledge is, in my experience, indirect and incomplete. Some are more direct than others, though.
Buddhists using the Indian philosophical outline of six pramana accepts but two — direct perception and inference. Using what we are given at birth our senses we experience the world with sight, sound, smell, touch and taste (direct perception) and the mind (inference).
Everything for philosophizing can be done with just these six faculties. nothing more is necessary. This is as direct as you can get to knowledge of the reality, except for the fact that you are part of the reality.
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Often, I have found in western philosophy that identity is identified not with body but something non-substantial. But by being non-substantial how can one claim its existence?
The problem arises from the fact that consciousness is aware of the consciousness that brings about this awareness.
I will argue that the problem isn’t about consciousness, awareness, or self but that any of these so-called “things” are brought about by the body that does the process of these actions.
It is like we have been tricked by mirrors placed facing each other, seeing a depth that is not really there. It is self deception. We forget that someone has to place the mirrors in such a configuration to begin with. That someone is not God (or some other power) but this physical being.
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I find it curious that we neither have experience of before our births nor after our deaths. And yet we claim to know something of a place beyond our physical existence when we only have our experience of this in the very physical existence.
Mental experiences are all we have. They may feel like something else but really they are all embodied experiences. And they are within a certain timeframe, namely the time between birth and death, or life.
Our experience of this non-physical self occurs within this embodied time. It is convenient that we forget this fact when claim a non-physical self.
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We are once subject and object. We can view ourselves as an external object in the external world. This locates us , orients us. By assuming we are somewhere else, or not located in any way or anywhere when all evidence indicates we stand from a perspective, is to disorient ourselves unnecessarily.
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The theory is almost complete. Now to writing. Talking it out with ChatGPT helped clarify my ideas and doubts. This view is correct, or it is defendable.
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When a being starts his or her life, they can neither comprehend being nor experience. Like a dog or cat who chases its own tail, a newborn does not comprehend self or other, inside or outside. They lack control of their body. They do not even know they are embodied. The experience just is. The objects just are.
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In my last post I pointed out that relativism can accept absolutism as one stance, but absolutism cannot. In this sense, relativism is inclusionary, while absolutism is exclusionary by its own definition and characteristic.
theoria 