The Nature of Reality

Any on topic remarks are always welcome.

 

THE SENSORY NATURE OF THE WORLD​

As we have seen the experience of outside objects relies on our senses. Further, our senses determine what we can sense, and therefore what attributes can be known about reality and what we call outside objects. As the senses rely on the body, we again can see that outside objects and the body are one and the same.
Other persons' bodies likewise are outside objects to our perception, subject to the same limitations of our own bodily sense apparatus.
From our own objective experience other persons' bodies are merely another subjective experience.

To some this may seem to be a form of solipsism, hopefully this will be addressed as we proceed.

 

I think there is a distinction.
In classic Idealism subjective things are not real, only a construct of your mind, once you go to sleep the world disappears as there is no one to observe it, the subjective mind is absent. Objective and subjective are separate. The subjective "makes" the objective.

Advaita vendata doesn't claim objects aren't real, only that there is no separation of the subjective and objective. Both are real and both are the same.

I think!

 

COMMON SENSE AND THE TESTIMONY OF OTHERS​

We are led to believe that independent objects exist because others agree that they do so. Likewise we believe that others exist.
The stance being presented in this thread is in opposition to those beliefs.
This doesn't mean we need disregard "normal" interactions with objects and other beings commonly seen as having an independent existence.
What it proposes is that we must understand the nature of reality and our place in that reality.
Once we see that our true self is in fact imperishable and rooted in ultimate consciousness, we then can live unaffected by the highs and lows of life.

 

We only know other beings while we ourselves can sense our own body. This occurs in two of the three states of being, dreaming, and waking. While dreaming we experience other beings and attribute life to them even though upon waking we realize they were only products of our mind.
So too, when in the waking state we attribute life to other beings even though we cannot directly perceive life itself.

Could it be that life is merely a notion, or idea, in both the dream and waking states?

 

Clinging to what we already know can be a deterrent to what we may come to know, or learn. In general we find comfort in our individual experiences of the world. They seem to be true and there seems to be no reason to question the validity of everyday experiences. After all, if we kick a rock it hurts our foot.
Then again if we kick a rock while dreaming we may also feel pain.

Our choices are to accept life as it is commonly known, or to seek a broader understanding of what reality really entails.

Who's to say that dreams and nightmares aren't as real as the here and now?
― John Lennon​

 

THE UNREAL DUALISM OF MIND AND MATTER​

Both the waking state and the dreaming state are nothing more than a product of mind. Mind in this regard is thought, and no thing exists without being thought of. Thus thought and matter are the same. The only difference is the intensity of the thought which at times seems to engender matter, at other times it does not.

Why some thoughts manifest as matter and others do not will not be considered at present.
To debate evolution, first cause, or cosmology serves no purpose, at present, for an understanding of reality.

 

TWO COMMON MISUNDERSTANDINGS​

In this section it is pointed out that although Bertrand Russell agrees that immediate experiences of the reality of an object are mental, as the senses are intermediately involved between the object and the mental apprehension of that object, when no one is present to apprehend an object it must still exist. He makes this claim because as it takes time for light and sound to reach an individual from a supposed object, that object must exist prior to the observation otherwise no light or sound would have originated.
Levy disputes this as he sees no difference between immediate knowledge of events and events that occur where there is no one to observe.
This is because the inference of events occurring without immediate observation and events occurring with immediate observation both entail immediate recognition of their occurrence.
In addition observation that occurs directly though our own senses, by acknowledgement of another's senses, or through a physical extension of our own senses; all occurs immediately.

Russell agrees that matter is not the cause of mental activity, but the other way around.
Dr. Johnson attempts, as many others, to refuted this notion by kicking a rock and having his foot repelled by the stone, thus claiming the rock has individual reality.

But what Johnson doesn't know is that both the rock and his foot are mostly comprised of empty "space" and never meet. In this Levy is referring to the possible role of consciousness in the collapse of the quantum wave-function.
In addition Johnson's argument is an example of ‘argumentum ad lapidem’.

The stone is mental, the foot is mental, the body is mental, and the external world is mental. All are all an integrated mental activity.

 

Thanks for the remarks!

The next section deals with the concrete illusion of the world, objects, and how they are perceived. Please add any comments or criticisms.

 

THE ILLUSION OF MATERIALITY​

The notion of length and breadth results from the memory of many different observations of local sensory perceptions. The more local immediate perceptions retained by memory, the greater the length and breadth perceived.
As these perceptions of length and breadth are retained, the notion of a continuous surface is formed and the idea of an object arises.
If we consider the perception of a cube, the idea of its surface arises as we scan the "object" by various senses such as sight or touch. We see or perhaps run our hand across the top, then the front, back, and sides. All we have perceived thus far are independent surfaces, the front, back, top, bottom, and sides. By uniting theses surfaces in memory the notion of a cube arises.
Note that our idea of a surface, that is length and breath, cannot be conceived of without also considering depth as no single flat surface, lacking depth, can ever be conceived to exist.