Concrete Reality

We know other people by seeing and hearing them.

We know ourselves by being ourselves.

I am not another person.

My objective knowledge of him is not his subjective knowledge of himself.

Concrete reality is every aspect of existence.

An abstraction is one or more aspects considered separately.

Empirically observable objective reality abstracts from the totality.

The totality also includes subjectivity.

Objectivity is ontologically primary.

Subjectivity is epistemologically primary.

Objectivity is an inter-subjective consensus.

Its primacy is deduced.

We know someone else as he appears to us, never as he is to himself.

This is a permanent "mind-body problem."

We see both the cause and the effect in a father-son relationship but not in a brain-mind relationship.

Neuronic interactions and consciousness are causally related properties of a single organism.

Matter And Consciousness

Philosophically, "matter" is whatever pre-existed consciousness and exists independently of it.

It is not mechanically interacting particles with only quantifiable properties like mass and volume.

It is energy changing dynamically and qualitatively.

In fact, quantitative change becomes qualitative.

Cause and effect can be two objects or two properties of one object.

Molecular motion causes fluidity.

Molecular cohesion causes solidity.

Neurally processed organismic sensitivity causes consciousness.

Neurons fire electrically and interact electrochemically.

Properties of matter include motion, fluidity, cohesion, solidity, sensitivity, electricity, electrochemistry and consciousness.

Consciousness is a qualitatively unique material property, not an immaterial substance.

Matter has become conscious.

The One

The single reality is neither homogeneous nor static but internally differentiated and dynamic.

Energised complex molecules changed randomly until one became self-replicating.

Self-replication and natural selection generated multi-cellular organisms.

Naturally selected organismic sensitivity to environmental alterations quantitatively increased until it was qualitatively transformed into conscious sensation.

Increased brain complexity somehow transformed bodily sensations into perceptions of discrete objects.

The One becomes conscious of Itself by appearing to Itself as other and many, then realises its oneness.

The One is present in every particle but conscious only in organisms with central nervous systems.

It knows itself as animals and human beings but not in any pre- or trans-cosmic state.

Its internal relationships are spatiotemporal and physical or psychophysical.

Gods are personified natural and social forces.

"God" is unified personified external forces.

Science depersonifies reality.

Science explains objective events as instances of laws.

It explains less general laws as instances of more general laws.

It cannot explain subjective phenomena or the most general laws.

Objectivity is an inter-subjective consensus.

Subjectivity is the unique experience of each individual conscious organism.

A sensory input causes a neural interaction which causes a sensation.

Scientists observe and describe objective inputs and interactions but not subjective sensations.

We experience consciousness and observe conscious, including linguistic, behaviour but do not observe consciousness.

Numinous experience is of an awesome presence.

Mystical experience is of inner oneness.

Visionary experience is of projected visions.

Experiences can be interpreted theistically or non-theistically.

Theists personify ultimate reality.

Persons are self-conscious individuals.

Self is recognized as such only by contrast with other.

Therefore, the One incorporates all persons but is not Itself a person.

It is "God" as the object of numinous and mystical experience but not as a transcendent person.

The One imagines that it is us and we imagine the gods.

They are in us and we are in It.

All is one.

Three Indian Philosophical Systems

Vedanta: either monotheist or idealist monist meditation.

Yoga: soul pluralist theory and the practice of "control of thoughts."

Buddhism: anatta ("no soul") and "emptiness" teachings and meditation.

I place these systems in reverse order in terms of their approximation to truth.

The First Cause Argument

The Argument

(1) Every event is caused.

(2) An infinite regress is impossible.

(3) Therefore, there was a first cause, which everyone calls God.

Comments

(1) and (2) need to be proved.

There are uncaused events in quantum mechanics.

If every event is caused by an earlier event, then an infinite regress is not only possible but actual and there can have been no first cause which, in any case, would be a past event, not an eternal person.

Subjective, Intersubjective And Objective

Subjectively, each sighted person sees colors.

We learn words for colors when we learn to speak.

Thus, we learn to recognize and respond appropriately to particular colors.

Stop at red lights; go at green lights; people with pink skin and coffee with milk in are "white."

 

Intersubjectively, we agree about colors.

Grass is green; the sky is blue.

Objectively, scientific instruments detect and measure electromagnetic wavelengths.

Electromagnetic radiation causes color perceptions in sighted organisms.

Longer wavelengths correspond to red; shorter to blue.

Cause and effect exist and are not identical.

If only the objective existed, the nothing would be subjective.

Then there would be no distinction between subjective and objective.

 

Neurons cause consciousness.

If only neurons existed without any effects, then there would be no consciousness.

Subjective And Objective

Neuronic interactions cause consciousness.

Behavior demonstrates consciousness.

However, neither neurons nor behavior are identical with subjective experiences.

Consciousness is a relationship between subjects and objects.

It involves a qualitative difference between subjective and objective.

Nothing that is objectively observable is a subjective experience or vice versa.

An organism with a central nervous system is a subject and object of consciousness.

Each subject observes other subjects but not their experiences.

Subjective experiences are not invisible objects.

They are what it is like to be a conscious organism.

We know an organism's subjective experiences by being that organism, not by external observation.

Experience is present in each conscious organism, not elsewhere in an immaterial realm.

The relationship between objectively observable brain states and subjectively experienced mental states remains mysterious.

The relationship is not explained by reifying mental states.

To reify mental states would be either to identify them with brain states or to objectify them in an immaterial realm.

We must avoid either mechanistic reductionism or mind-body dualism.

The emergence of consciousness was a qualitative transformation.

Quantitatively increasing sensitivity was qualitatively transformed into sensation.

This created the distinction between subjective and objective.