Seeing is believing

What does our mind do? It interprets reality, none of the things that we see outside or on the inside is what we take them for. They are interpretations. This view might smack of the idealist philosophical outlook of Bishop Berkley.

He was of the view that everything in the world can be reduced to our sensations and their interpretation by mind. Leibnitz also thought on the same lines. He said that he can prove every thing we experience are relative to something else and can not stand alone.

The relationship between the subject and object has been discussed quite bare in philosophy. There has never been a consensus between the materialists and the idealist on this basic question. There was a time in the 19th century when people thought that all would become clear once we discover the basic building blocks of the universe that is the primary particles. This was proved impossible since then.

It’s not surprising that Einstein began to think on the same line as Berkeley at the beginning of the last century. Quantum mechanics had rewritten most of the concepts of science by then. The only citadels remaining to be pulled down were Space and Time. These were thought to be absolute by Newton.

Einstein thought that space is not objective reality as we take it for. It is only an arrangement of objects. Without objects there can’t be any space or conception or knowledge of space. He extended the theory in to the sphere of time too. It has no existence outside the measures that we ascribe to a progression of events.

He visualized the universe as four dimensional space-time continuum-Three dimensions of space and one dimension of time. All reality exists in Space and Time. They are inseparable. All measurements of time are of space also. Also the reverse is true. All measurements of space are of that of time too.

Einstein gave weight to sensory experience. The only world we can know of is the world of senses.
We can’t go beyond them.

So what is reality?

Tough question, if we can only experience world as is given to us by our mind then the only option to discover reality is to investigate the mind- This call for introspection, meditation and all the things on which the modern science looks at askance. But can any one show any other way?

I doubt it very much. You can jump on upon the roof and shout at the top of the voice that these are unproven methods to science, you can also shout that science even in its present fragmentary state has been able to bring relief to the world.

All these may be true. But one simple thing remains. What is behind all this? Can we leave it at that and say we can’t go beyond? Would that satisfy us?

The emergentists may argue that way. The world is an accident and consciousness is a product of evolution. It may be or it may not be. But the problem is that they are not sure of it themselves. We are talking about the rationale behind building a world and making it work. What we are interested in is in the principle itself.

Is it conscious or is it not? If it is conscious is there any method by which we can know it? What is it? We would not like to bind ourselves and it to the limits of the confines of God as is known to us in mythology.
But we need some thing to go on.

If that is provided to us by the systems which are considered old fashioned now why not try it?