Let us take the claim that objects are dependent upon being perceived.
My question is what is the difference between an object perceived by none, one or many? Does the object change in some way with the number of perceivers?
Tag: epistemology
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If the physical is of secondary importance then what is its function to that which is of primary importance?
There is a danger to downgrading the physical over the non-physical, namely there is no access to the latter realm.
Justifications of this are in general claims of a priori knowledge and existence when we only have a posteriori knowledge to work with.
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There are two objects. One is similar to the other. From experience I assume their characteristics are similar to one another as well.
This body has a mind. It is therefore reasonable to assume other similar bodies have minds as well.
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Earlier I said I have direct perception to my thoughts but it is more accurate to say that I have perceptual access to my thoughts.
In the view of Descartes to think is to know that one exists. But the question is to exist as what, as mind or as mind in body? In some ways dualism is correct. There does seem to be these two separate “things”. I will argue that one is an illusion. I will argue that one relies on the other.
The way we have access to the mind is important. I believe without the body we have no mind. I believe this because of the evidence, not because of blind faith.
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I have direct perception of my thoughts, but I have no direct perception of other people’s thoughts. I only have their physical being and actions to judge their thoughts by. I can only assume that other beings have thoughts like my own.
I do not think it is unreasonable to make this assumption. We see an apple, we assume it tastes like the other apples we have eaten. We judge from past experiences.
Memory plays a large role in our understanding of reality. We must however ask what assumptions are we making about things, about the reality. Are we, without realizing it, skipping steps to get to some of our conclusions?
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The theory of an embodied mind is neither new nor original. It is a staple of cognitive linguistics beginning with perhaps Mark Johnson and George Lakoff. The mind is never from any other perspective than the body within which it functions.
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Knowledge is physically or materially based because our senses including the mind are materially based. Reality is material based.2.
I deal with the material reality, or I should only deal with the material reality.3.
The abstract, conceptual, non-material “realities” by definition have no effects upon the material reality. Therefore we should not be concerned with them.4.
We should only concern ourselves with the material which can perform abstraction, conceptualisation, and think about non-material realities, and not concern ourselves with abstractions, concepts and non-real “things”. -
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There is no evidence that we can have any kind of knowledge outside of or prior to sensory knowledge.2.
If only the mind (whatever the word means) is necessary then we should be able to have knowledge through it alone. That is, a person born with no other sense other than the mind (following Buddhism, I take the mind to be the sixth sense) then this person’s mind should be sufficient to allow him access to knowledge.3.
There is also no evidence of a mind independent of the body, either before one is born or after one has died. -
Buddhism considers perception (pratyaksa) to be one of two (the other being inference) valid means of knowledge (pramāna). This is uncontroversial. What is to be minimally known is the physical reality. The question whether reality includes entities other than the physical ones.
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If you had to start investigations into philosophy there are no better places to start than ontology and epistemology.
Two of the oldest “branches” of philosophical inquiry, it lays the foundation for the rest of your philosophy to come.
Ontology is the study of what exists. Epistemology is the study of what is known and how it is known.
These questions cannot sound simpler. Yet very few satisfactory and probable answers have been given.
theoria 