1st Walk (in true Jean-Jacques Rousseau style, I tend to go for a stroll and think about things)
I’ll admit as much, this is a backwater blog of tremendous irrelevance where the dialouge seems to be me and jon batting forth the ideals of idealism and pragmatism; I’ve never been one for letting unpopularity get me down so I have decided to dedicate this page to an ongoing and hopefully enlightening discussion on one of those epic philosophical questions to which there appears to be no real answer.
As the title would suggest it is regarding the nature of reality and all that that debate entails.
I’ll start things off with a brief syllogism which outlines my basic belief in what is real and what is not.
Reality is Perception
Perception is down to the individual
Reality is naturally down to the individual.
Therefore if my premise, that reality is merely what we perceive to be true, is correct and perception is most definitly reliant upon the individual then it follows that reality is merely an individual experience.
This seems like a lonely world but since I can never be truly sure of what another is thinking it stands to reason that reality for me is only what I can see, feel, do and experience in the world.
Its a cop out paragraph of course which does nothing to deal with the actual substance of reality, the metaphysics of the world, to say that its all down to individual experience is fine but what is it that we experience? That really is the question.
Again I’ll rely on logic to get me somewhere here (bear in mind I’m flying blind right now)
The physical world (that of shape, sound and colour) has a definite effect in our day to day lives.
For a physical object to interact or effect upon something it must exist in the same way that the affected object exists, ie on the same level, dimension or plane.
Concluding that we are of the physical world, at least in part, but enough for the physical world to be very relevant.
That of course is all based on the premise that physical objects have a part to play in my day to day existence, well, inductive reasoning suggests that yes they do, they always have done, and though logically at any point they may discontinue to affect me, I can be reasonably certain that they will continue to affect me, I’ll take it as a given.
However I cannot just be of purely physical matter, or can I?
I’ll look into it.
At all times I am aware of my own thought process’, even when asleep I am aware of my dreams which of course are thought process’
Awareness suggests detachment, to be aware of something means that you are in some way observing it, to be aware of pain, or of hunger means that as well as experiencing it you are also observing it, for the actual feeling can be overridden so much so that you can starve yourself to death, this suggests detachment to some degree from the physical.
A tentative hypothesis to conclude with is a total mutilation of cogito ergo sum in that I am aware of my thoughts, therefore I am detatched from my thoughts and in being detatched from my thoughts I must therefore exist externally from my physical and mental process’ for the physcology of the mind is a observable through scientific analysis, which would suggest that it exists in the physical world, we can observe which parts of the brain activate in various thought process’ however because they are observable in the physical world we to be able to observe our own thoughts must be able to in some way observe our thoughts in an external sense.
2nd Walk
Considering exactly what it is that makes us the person we are I first thought about the person that I think I might be. This seems simple but immediately leads to a distinct lack of comprehension.
I began by thinking that I must be the person which I present to others, that is to say by my character, my abilities and my knowledge.
Addressing first this notion of ‘character’, what is it when we say character? it would appear that my handling of social situations, my treatment of others, my attitudes to various concepts and situations are largely down to what I have been taught by my family, my education, my experiences, my genes and my physical appearance.
It becomes very clear that none of the things I would use as examples of my personal character are really ‘me’ they all seem to have some causation and if this is true then my character is merely a collection and then expression of sensory, idealogical input which makes me into some incredibly complicated, programmable mirror of the world I’ve experienced.
Slightly disconcerting but from a positive point of view this realisation is an ideal limit to the amount of moralising that I can really get away with; in essence I can’t get away with any moralizing at all, though I can state what I think is right and wrong, to try and determine that I am ‘better’ or ‘worse’ than another is like saying that the prize I won in some celestial tombola is better or worse than someone elses and then taking that to mean that I personally am a better or worse person than another; essentially I’m no different.
