I would like to add to my paper on the mind-body theory, particularly about the notion of "tuneness" and the correspondence rule. Again, they are that the mind is not really tuned into what it is conscious of, but it does correspond to something real out there. Take color, for example: color, as you know, is not really a property of the object that bares it, but a property of our perception of that object, for it is quite possible that two people perceive an object in two different colors. But this is not to say that neither of us is right, does it? Well, in fact it does, as I will now show you. Every color, and every experience for that matter, has a site of localization in the brain. There are three color receptors on the retina: red, blue and green. Each receptor is connected to neurological fibers that lead to the localized sites I just mentioned. Each receptor has a one-to-one site on the occipital cortex, thus on the brain too we find sites for blue, green, and red. But suppose a surgeon were to operate on the brain and rewire some of these connections, say such that the red receptor now lead to the green site, the green receptor to the blue site, and the blue receptor to the red site. Thereafter, any object which you previously saw as red would be green, that which was green would be blue, and that which was blue would be red. Now, it is unfair to say that the original organization of the brain was the "right" one just because it was natural, for nature is random and does not function out of purpose. So nature could have very well wired the brain in the same configuration as the surgeon did. It may have been a little more tangled, what with fibers now having to cross over each other so much, but a great portion of the brain is quite tangled already, if I may say so. Think about the occipital lobe! Why, it's at the back of the brain! How much more complex could the visual system be to send fibers from the eyes at the front to the visual cortex way at the back. Furthermore, the visual fibers cross over at the optic chasm! Surely, we're not about to say our whole visual system is a hoax (although in what follows, that may not seem so implausible). Getting back to color, it is more a function of the brain, and a function at that, not a property. So, as we could say, it's all in the mind.
But regardless of what color we perceive upon some object, there is one true and constant thing that corresponds to it, a specific frequency of electromagnetic radiation. Okay, well that proves that color is not real. It doesn't entail anything over and above that. But think about this: instead of swapping color sites on the brain, suppose we were to swap sensory modality sites all together, so that our color receptors now linked up to, say, the auditory cortex, and our auditory receptors linked up to the visual cortex. Seeing sound and hearing light??? Oh, yes, this is quite literally possible. Remember that they're all just neurons. Any dendrite can hook up to any synapse (although there may be some difficulty in providing the proper neurotransmitter type). So when a certain frequency of radiation hits the retinal receptors, it yields the experience of sound, and when a certain frequency of sound wave hits the auditory receptors, it yields the experience of vision. Now here's the question. If before we said that because light-the way we experience it-can be reduced to a certain range of frequency of radiation, this is how light will be defined, then can we now say that because sound-the way we experience it-can also be reduced to a certain range of frequency of radiation, this is the new definition of sound? Can radiation sometimes be light and sometimes be sound?
It gets more complex than that! If we think about the nature of vision and hearing, we come to realize that sight applies to rigid objects and hearing applies to happenings or events. That is, we see a stone, but we hear a stone fall and hit the ground. Thus, here too we have an example of the uncertainty of the base of correspondence. If we swap the neural connections around, we see processes being undertaken, like a quick flash of light when the stone falls, and we hear objects in a simple state of existence.
Now, suppose we did something even more radical and connected the optic nerves to the emotional centers (in the limbic system) deep in the center of the brain. Now every time radiation stimulates the retinal receptors, an emotion of a certain type will arise. So do we say that emotions are merely a specific range of radiation frequency?
And finally, what if we connected the optic nerves to the thinking centers (cerebral cortex)? Different types of thoughts would be explained as different frequencies of radiation. Moreover, they wouldn't have any logical order, for each successive thought is triggered by every successive impulse of radiation on the retina (but you should know from reading my paper on the mind-body theory that "vision" may have become an entirely different and unintelligible experience by now, and therefore leading not necessarily to thought with some logical order but to whatever would make sense according to the behavior entailed by this new experience). Now here arises a problematic question. If our justification for believing that our thoughts (in this example) are in fact radiation is that it is scientific knowledge, proven and replicated (just as is the case in actuality with the science of optics), then this justification, being knowledge, is otherwise known as thought. And as a thought, it too is stimulated only by a specific frequency of light, and nothing else. This means that it is not stimulated by the memory of past scientific experiments, not by the words of books or people, and certainly not by the logic of precedent thoughts. Thus the question is this: What justification then do we have to suppose that thought is really radiation?
Well, one simple solution to this problem is to remind ourselves that this is just an example. Really, our thoughts are triggered (justified) by other rational thoughts, and automatic stimulation from the senses and emotions. But this statement is a belief just like the thought-radiation one all the same, and it too is vulnerable to the scrutiny of skepticism. For we know this statement by scientific experimentation as well. So we can ask ourselves this question: How can we justify this statement (that we know what thoughts are scientifically) if it is itself a thought? Wouldn't it too be stimulated by neighboring thoughts, sensations and emotions (or neurological circuits to put it physically)? Thus the argument is rather circular, for the scientific justification for how we know what thoughts are has not really been justified itself in the same way. It came after the scientific research was undertaken! Let's ask the question this way: Your memories of the teachings from science may give you adequate reason to back up your claim that you know what thoughts are, but how do you back up your claim that this memory itself is not produced by something contradictory to the scientific evidence, say by direct stimulation from a certain frequency of radiation? Suppose that were the case. Then perhaps this feeling of justification comes and goes in a fleeting moment as different radiation frequencies hit your receptors and "scramble" your so coherent order of thought. The bottom line is, over and above the fact that any mental experience can be explained by any corresponding real entity in the outer world, we also have no good reason to suppose that currently we have reliable knowledge of what (even if it can easily be changed) these mental experiences do correspond to.
Thoughts don't necessarily have to be limited to attributes like radiation or other adjacent neurons. We could mention a whole crop of causes. In fact, the whole question of justification can be posed to any bit of knowledge. How do you know that you even have thought-neurons? How do you know that the physical world exists at all? How do you even know that there has to be a cause for your thoughts? All these questions are possible because any reply can itself be brought into question. Maybe you're insane!!!
Well, the thought-radiation example, certainly makes thoughts seem absolutely meaningless, just a smattering of experience-blobs, as I nick-named them in the mind-body theory paper. Posing the question "How do you even know that radiation on the receptors is the true cause of thoughts?" makes the meaninglessness of thought seem even more evident because it presents the radiation-thought theory (and any theory of thought for that matter) as equally meaningless. That is, what meaning could you find in a concatenation of electromagnetic waves? If mental content is supposedly determined by physical operations, all meaning and purpose therein disappears, but the experience itself remains. This, now, overrides logic since logic itself cannot defeat the question "How do you know?" when it is posed onto itself. That is, I could come to a logical conclusion on some matter and still ask "How do I know" about the reasoning I used to arrive at this conclusion, incorrigible as it may be. "How do I know that my thinking entails my existence? Couldn't I be wrong in assuming this to be a flawless argument? I wouldn't know." The only way that I would be right about this is if it really does mean that "I am", but since we abrogated meaning from the picture we can now assert anything, absolutely anything, without the prerequisite that it be perfectly logical. It can be perfectly illogical!!!
It could be; it doesn't have to be. My mind-body theory is not a conclusive proof for anti-realism. It merely shows the possibility. But reflect on what's been said so far. The world as how we see it and believe it to be can be explained, neuro-psychologically, by an abundance of so many indefinite things (other neurons, radiation, sound waves, electrodes, a supreme being, etc.). The list is endless, or shall we say infinite. So our contemporary, scientific belief about the underlying mechanics of the mind is just one possibility out of an infinite sea of many others. As for the probabilities, science has offered nothing. Science has only offered that certain possibility that we currently believe in. As a matter of fact, science has a long tradition of faithful adherence to empiricism. That means that scientists will accept whatever empirical evidence they come across, but will not question the probability of its trustworthiness. Its trustworthiness is obviously not one of the empirical facts we've come across. I'm speaking, of course, in the light of the mind-body theory, for I understand that science has enjoyed a history of success and this could be considered as empirical evidence for the likelihood of science. This, however, overlooks the reliability of memory and records, whereas my mind-body theory accounts for this at its very heart. When we "kind of have a feeling" that science is the most trustworthy claim out there, this can be explained as nothing more than an intuitive inclination, perhaps innate and natural, to believe. In effect, what the mind-body theory is saying about probability is that there is none. Out of all the possible theories of reality we can conjecture (and more), they are all equally likely. Therefore, out of the infinite array of possible truths out there, the probability of the modern scientific view is next to nothing.
Now a little story about how a mind who follows rules 2 and 3 (from the 3 characteristics of all experiences mentioned in the mind-body paper) can possibly come to realize its own "unreality". Those rules again are, respectively, that experiences will always be taken to be about reality, to be out there, not really experiences but phenomena, entities, truisms, and that experiences will always be taken to be meaningful, understandable, agreeable, indisputable, and common sense. Now, the difficulty arises because these rules seem to barricade minds from self-discovery, that is from realizing its own "unreality." To say that one's experiences are unreal and meaningless obviously violate these rules.
Well, the story goes like this. Any category of experience (thought, emotion, sensation, or sub-categories like vision, taste, audition, facts, imagination, painful or pleasant emotions, etc.) cannot, within itself, discover its own unreality and meaninglessness. Take, once again, color: Say I looked at some object and perceived it to be blue, but then to my dismay, I realized I had forgotten to take off my blue tainted sun glasses, so I took them off and realized the object was really white. I would not, from that, conclude that all color is in the perception, not in reality. I would only conclude that the previous perception of blue was mistaken. In fact, my present perception of white would indeed be deemed a true and accurate description of reality. All colors, I would continue to believe, are actual aspects that exist in reality, not randomly created and meaningless experiences. But upon cognitive analysis undertaken by my higher mental functions, I can contemplate the nature of color, observe the many instances when color deceived me, remember cases of color blind people and examples of species who have color receptors far beyond the bounds of our range of visual perception (nocturnal animals to name one), think about the neurological makeup of our visual system, and I would soon realize that maybe colors aren't properties of the objects they appear transposed on, but a creation of our brains due to the translation of physical stimuli.
The same applies to emotion, and all the more easily, for emotions are the least of our experiences to be consistent across different individuals, and even in ourselves. When I feel down and everything's going wrong, I attribute the depressed feeling I sense to reality itself: Life sucks! But when things turn for the better a few days later, suddenly life's great! It's not that I feel great (although I could interpret it that way if I so chose to change the way I thought about it), it's that life is great, and my previous pessimistic attitude was wrong, even stupid and childish of me. But if I was reminded that attitudes such as these are really about emotional states rather than reality itself, I couldn't judge myself as being wrong before. I was just in a bad mood and I came out of it. Nobody attaches any truth value to moods. Also, when I find myself in a somber mood, seeing life as a desolation, I see others who are happy and express life as beautiful. I ask why, and they tell me of the fortunes that have come their way. So I realize that what I'm experiencing is an emotion. Life could not be both joyous and depressing at the same time. These characteristics, to co-exist, must attribute to separate entities, namely two remote emotions present in two remote individuals.
In both these examples, the method of moving from obedience to rule 2 to skepticism about it was to think about the experience in question. To notice inconsistencies in the experience-category results in modeling it cognitively as a mental item, and this cognitive process abides by rule 2 all the way. It is accepted as a truism, a fact, and so, even though the model is suggesting that the experience that it's about is mental, the model itself is not mental (which, of course, is not true, but only because we have cognitively analyzed that model and consequently made up a new model representing the old one. If infinite efforts were invoked, an infinite regress would inevitably occur.) The experiences under analysis do not violate rule 2 any more than if they were left to be. To say "experience X is mental, not actual" is not a change in the way X is itself experienced (real or mental), but an operation of cognition apart from the experience, and this cognition labels the experience as mental, not itself, so it remains faithful to rule 2 as well.
But as for unmasking cognition, this is undoubtedly the most difficult to detach from reality. I should rephrase that: it is the most difficult to detach from meaning, for whether correct or mistaken, thoughts always have some intentionality that the beholder can grasp. This is what makes the option to believe or disbelieve possible. An experience that has no intentionality (e.g. color, depth, pain, recognition...) can not be put up for believing or disbelieving. It is true that the inconsistencies in thought prevail across people and through time in the individual person's case. We find an abundance of different beliefs and views from person to person, and we recall countless times when we've been shown our mistaken beliefs. This is only enough to recognize cognition as a mental item, that some can be right and some can be wrong, but we still believe in this: if a thought is right, it is also a fact (out there). It is not enough to regard thought as meaningless, untuned as I would have said in the mind-body theory paper. Experiencing mistakes about color and mood allowed for converting them, in our mental models, to mental items. This, as well as converting their definitions to "meaningless and untuned experiences", was possible due to our higher functional thought experiences. Without thought, after a change in color (say from blue to white) or emotion (sad to happy), we'd simply accept the new color or emotion without embracing the implications of this change about the mental-reality distinction. It does require some thinking. I am going to suggest a hypothesis that is two fold, the first part of which can now be delineated: 1) It requires thought to translate the experience from reality to mentality. This is the first step. The second is translating experience from mentality to meaninglessness (which would not take it away from mentality). What would it take that thought alone can not provide? Remember that when the first step was taken for color and emotion, all we needed at the very least was recollections of color and emotion undergoing change. In other words, we did not have to presently be experiencing the change. In fact, and this is the key point, we did not have to be experiencing anything of color or emotion, let alone a change. We could very well have been completely in an emotionally detached, and very well blinded, philosophically analytical state and still come to the conclusion that we did. The very first leads for my mind-body theory came to me while in a "higher state of consciousness", or while under the influence of intoxications (drugs). Getting high on marijuana and acid "shifts" your cognitive experiences a little along a new dimension of mind unknown to those who have abstained all their lives. To understand this, take color, once again: we could say that red "shifts" along the dimension of color if it begins to look more like orange. But this dimension is well known. Suppose now that the color spectrum (imagine it as linear instead of circular) was to shift orthogonally, and because of such a shift, each color becomes something a little different: blue becomes blue', red becomes red', purple becomes purple', and so forth. These "prime" colors undergo a change that doesn't make them new colors that we've never seen or can imagine. It is true that we've never seen or can possibly imagine them, but their change is not along the dimension ascribed to color. This new dimension is not one of color, but of something else, of "priming" the colors, and this being incomprehensible we have no hope in ever understanding what becoming "prime" means. However, the colors have not lost their color-characteristic all that much, for the shift is only slight, so we can still recognize them for what they were originally. But we cannot say, now, that they are exactly the same as colors, as we understand "colors". So we must admit that they are not really colors anymore, but something very similar (kind of like how smell and taste are similar but not identical).
Something very much like this happens to your thoughts under the influence of psychotropic drugs. And if this is what happened to begin my ideas which later turned into the mind-body theory, then perhaps what is required to translate the status we attribute to thoughts as mental items into the status of meaninglessness is to have thoughts analyzed in the same way as colors and emotions were analyzed but with an experience other than thought. Thoughts which are slightly shifted due to drugs, what we can call "thoughts'," do not fit the definition for thoughts exactly, at least not as the abstainer understands thoughts. Although, they are not all together so different that they lose their analytical ability entirely. (However, let me tell you, analysis in a high state is a rather "trippy" experience, and I wouldn't say it flows precisely with the same logic that our ordinary sober analysis does. For that reason, it is not always reliable, at least not in relation to sober-logic, but for our purposes it works all right.) So, while high, we can notice the inconsistencies along the "primeness" dimension of thought. That is, we can notice how thought differs from thought', and thereby conclude that facts, or the truth about reality and the way we see it, are relative to our perception of them.
Mind you, in thought' you would not recognize thoughts as totally meaningless. We would still understand our everyday thoughts just as we always do. Well, almost like always, and that's the key point. Note that we don't need to be experiencing thoughts while in thought' to compare them; we just need to be able to recollect them. And in thought', we can analyze them still, but now we may notice subtle differences. So, for the most part, we will still agree with most of them, but we may sometimes "trip out" and arrive at insights and the like that we regularly, in sober states, would regard as rubbish. But the reason is not so clear: it is not that we arrive at conclusions about matters erroneously with thought', it's that a certain quality of thought has changed in thought', and this change suffices to justify the occasional inconsistencies between thought and thought'. In other words, the priming shift yields a new sort of "logic", in most respects similar to the standard one, that not only grounds thought' soundly, but incarnates thought' as an essence, making it subtly different and thus capable of unfolding analytical discourse in a somewhat different direction. This new "logic" follows rules 2 and 3 all the same, and so, during possession of it, it seems real and meaningful. But when we return to thought when becoming sober, we no longer have it, and this forces any recollection of it to risk losing some meaning. You might think back and wonder "What the hell was I thinking? What the hell did all that mean?" It would seem your train of thought during the high state was just a bunch of jargon.
Note that when you're in the high state looking back on the sober state, it's not the content of the thoughts that you deem inaccurate, for thought' can very well have the same intentional content, but it's the lack of "primeness" that you see as inaccurate. The high-state beholder will assess his high state in comparison to previous sober states as "more insightful. I see the world in a whole new light. I see things and understand things that I'm usually blinded to in the sober state. This truly is a higher state of consciousness." Of course, as soon as he returns to his good old sober mind, he'll be asking that question above: "What the hell was I thinking?" And it is upon comparison of these two states-always regarding the other as meaningless nonsense-that brings one to wonder if the truth of his thoughts are absolute therein, or relative to the mental state one is in (high or sober).
Remember, both thought and thought' are about the same thing, but one attributes primeness to it and the other doesn't. How can one thing, one fact or truth, be both prime and not prime at the same time? Clearly, the fact or truth must be an inconsistent entity capable of change, thereby confusing any notion of meaning ascribed to it. Once you are able to do this-able to see thought as having the potential for meaninglessness-a strange thing happens. You begin to understand what I mean by mere blotches of mind-material, untuneness, and you begin to question the validity of reality. Thought may seem to possess the attributes of sense (rule 3) and intentionality (rule 2), but that's only when one is in possession of the thought. The truth very well may be (and I use the word "truth" very lightly here) that everything has about as much meaning as a bowl of soup.
Whether your thoughts are primed or not, you will always assess the other state-that which you are not in-as mistaken. Just like color changes! But it requires a separate experience, one with the ability to analyze, in order to compare all the changes in color and conclude that color is relative to how the mind perceives it. Therefore, there is no such thing as an object's true color, making color an entity that is incompatible with any value of truth or falsity, and hence without meaning. As you see, it took an analytical experience to do this as well as a separate experience. In other words, thought is analytical and that satisfies part 1) of my hypothesis, that is cognition can analyze itself, assigning truth values to certain thoughts within itself, but because it is not separate from itself, or on a perpendicular dimension to itself, it cannot deem itself as meaningless, something that truth values are inapplicable to. That's why it required thought' to do this. Therefore, we have the second part of my hypothesis: 2) It requires a separate experience, analytical nevertheless, to take something from mental to meaninglessness.
Is all fact thought? That is, can we rightfully say that there are things out there called facts? Or is it anytime we refer to facts, absolutely all that constitutes the "fact" is mental? Because anytime we want to ask ourselves this question, even bringing up things that are "known" to be factual, aren't we inevitably thinking about it? And of course thought must follow rule #2, which is to experience anything mental as something non-mental or "out there," which accounts for the irresistible inclination to accept a thought's appearance as a fact. Nevertheless, there still may be facts out there that exist independently of our presently thinking about them, but of course this entails that all of these types of facts are ones we are always unconscious of. Therefore, even if there are facts out there, we'll never know it. In regards to the facts that we do know about, I believe it is fair to lay down this distinction between them and thoughts: facts are thoughts under the influence of rule 2, thoughts are those that aren't (or those that are being analyzed by higher order thoughts following rule 2). So in both cases, facts (that we are conscious of) reduce to nothing more than thoughts. The whole of the known world is all in the mind. It is not real, never was, and never will be. But what about unknown facts? Well, because facts are facts, that is when I talk about "facts" I only mean one thing, there shouldn't be any difference between known facts and unknown facts, at least none that have a crucial effect on the essential properties that make a fact a fact. The only difference is one having to do with our psychology, and not with the facts themselves. Thus, since a fact's status as either out there or in here effects it's essential properties, not only are known facts all in the head, but facts in general are. There is no such thing as a general fact. Now, perhaps some would say, I am being unfair in this line of argument, what with disregarding the importance of the properties of being a known or unknown fact. For it seems like cheating to define all facts as mental if being known or unknown (mental phenomena themselves) are of no consequence. But I'm way ahead of you here. I would suggest that, perhaps, we could say unknown facts indeed exist out there, but then they would have to be something other than what we mean by "fact." What we mean by "fact" all depends on a psychological phenomenon, namely a notion. Notions are what make facts possible-that is, they make facts work in the mind. The notion of some term is essentially its meaning, the impression we get from hearing its utterance. And all of these-notions, meanings, impressions-are mentalistic objects. Therefore, our notion of what a fact is is a mentalistic object. "Okay," you may say, "maybe some facts are really `notions' as you say, and that might make them psychological, but what's wrong with considering the fact that the notion's about? Couldn't we consider that as real?" No we can't. Let me tell you why. You are considering the fact beyond the notion. Considerations are another way of reducing fact to thought, right? Put it this way. There is a procedure you seem to be undertaking when considering the fact that the notion's about. First, you think about the fact or the notion, and you experience them as one and the same. Second, you step back and evaluate your thoughts about this fact, and realize that the perception of a "truth," which is the fact, was really only in your mind in the form of a thought. Third, to reconcile this, you separate the thought or the notion from the "real" fact that the thought is about, and then, as if the notion or thought was an expendable piece of trash, you put it aside and resume consideration of the real fact. The whole problem with this procedure is you've accomplished nothing. If you think about it, you end up back at square one. Sitting there considering the real fact after discarding the thought or notion, you can all too readily repeat the entire procedure starting by realizing the real fact under consideration is really a thought about the fact (because it's under consideration). You can never really end the cycle: you will always come back to the realization that the fact which you perceive is really a notion, a thought, for to perceive it is for it to be a perception. When the question in quotations above was posed, the asker has simply gone a step further through the cycle, and can just as easily re-commit the same error. Therefore, we never truly get to perceive genuine facts, we can only be deceived by rule 2, and so what reason have we to assume that genuine facts exist out there? Now, let me ask you a question: If unknown facts are true facts, then what happens to them once they become known? Do they disappear? Does something once real suddenly become an illusion when someone's conscious of it? And what if a fact is unknown to me but known to you? Which would it be, fact or thought? Can't thought and fact coexist? I suppose they could, but as I said earlier, you'd never be able to tell. We'd never know: is it a genuine fact, or is it merely a thought guised by rule 2? Well, we can say this: the guise can easily be unraveled. Everything that is known to be a fact, can be stepped out of temporarily and recognized as a thought. And as a notion, the definition of "fact" is also psychological even when we ask the question "Is the fact beyond thought there?" In our consideration of the "fact" in that question, we tend to point our fingers at it (should it be given physical manifestation) in order to give better illustration of it. What we fail to realize is that if we can do this-point to it (figuratively)-it must actually be a notion or thought under consideration (for pointing is the metaphor for considering). This really means that when we make reference to "an actual fact out there," all of our meaning and understanding of this takes the form of a thought. Therefore, our utterance of "an actual fact out there" means nothing more than a thought (but unconsciously since it follows rule 2). Thus, if we still really want to legitimately say that facts are out there, we must agree to mean something other than the notion of "fact" implored in the above statement. If not, then whatever is out there, if "out there" is indeed a possibility, is not a fact.
But is that a fact? When you take a moment and look at this in perspective, it seems self-contradictory: The only true fact is that there are no facts. Well, then there is at least one fact, and that falsifies the "no facts" conclusion. But we have to remember that another way of putting it is to say that there is no logic beyond the mind. So without logic, no violations are being committed by the statement "The only true fact is that there are no facts." Since logic doesn't exist, anything goes. Statements that create paradoxes can be numerous as infinity. Of course, this also means that we could deny the single fact conclusion, stating that there are indeed a manifold of facts even though it contradicts everything we have been arguing so far, and that wouldn't matter. Without a firm logic foundation, you can look at it anyway you please. Logic will derive from whatever system of existence you prefer to believe in.
Here's an example: I will flip the coin and argue in defense of realism. There is a common doctrine in the philosophy of mind that states "The experience is exactly what it seems to be." So, for example, when I have the visual experience of sensing the color red, it cannot be anything else. But maybe I have abnormal color perception, and my friends tell me that the color is really blue. Still, as I said earlier, color is all in the eye of the beholder. The object under perception has no real color of its own. It has a frequency of radiation emitting from it, but that has no necessary color assignment. Some color X is defined precisely as a visual experience. It is not an entity which can exist independently of perceiving it. So the color is the experience. And I would think this is true of all phenomena defined as the experience of it. Now, as we have been hitherto arguing, everything possibly imaginable, including facts, are only and solely the experience of them. So a fact is no more than the experience of that fact. But, of course, this is an "if and only if" statement. That is, we say "a fact exists if and only if the experience of that fact exists." These statements follow a simple rule: they can be put in reverse so that we can legitimately say "The experience of a fact exists if and only if the fact exists." What this statement is saying precisely is that when we perceive a fact to be true, it is an experience in the mind as we've always said, but it also requires the existence of the fact outside the mind. Note that it doesn't say that the fact outside the mind can exist without the experience of the fact, but only that in order for the experience to exist, the fact must exist too. This is all possible due to that doctrine I mention just earlier that says "An entity X and the experience of that entity X are one and the same thing." In other words, the essence of the experience of some fact X is that X is real and true. That is how it is perceived. If that is the experience, and if the experience exists, then we must also say that the fact X exists (since they are synonymous). In that case, we might also say that there is no mind independent of an exterior world. In fact, for materialistic eliminativists, we might pose the extreme view that the mind doesn't really exist, that all this time what we thought was the mind was really the outer world (absolute subjection to rule 2). Instead of sensations, there are only physical objects and events. Instead of emotion, there are only good and bad people and circumstances. Instead of thoughts, there are only facts. But, of course, in order to accept this view, we must also accept that reality would not be static, for emotions change, beliefs change, and even sensations change. Reality would have no consistency whatsoever.
I don't have a problem with this. Einstein once showed us, that just because one particular entity has no consistency does not make it an impossibility as long as another entity related to it causally makes up for it such that it too changes, but in proportion to the original entity, so that the collective entity that the two related ones compose is a constant. In mathematical terms, an example would be, let's say, A x B = C. Now, if A changes, it is only due to an inversely proportional change of B, so that the real consistency is found in C. Einstein's example dealt with the changes in time-which up until his time was considered to be unalterable-which are possible if there is a change in velocity, length, and mass/energy. What is the constant that this theory was intended to explain? The absolute speed of light that, counter-intuitively, does not change relative to the motion of the observer. Mind you, these entities are not meant to be understood as "the length, velocity, or mass/energy of a particular object," but as velocity, length, and mass/energy themselves, so that all measuring devices would not be able to detect their changes since they too change in the same direction and magnitude. Since these changes go undetected, this accounts for the collective consistency we experience in all of them. In light of our subject matter (mind-reality), we change one variable which is the mind-reality entity from absolute mind to absolute reality so long as we change another related variable which is the nature of consistency of the first entity from absolutely consistent to absolutely inconsistent. These two entities create a consistent collective entity which we can call "the ever changing reality." I consider this entity to be consistent because since it changes, it adheres to its own definition of being inconsistent at all times, and therefore is ultimately consistent.
I've wondered something lately. If, say, you take an extremely long concatenation of thought or inner discourse, that is, you start off with some idea and contemplate it elaborately passing from thought to thought and arrive at conclusion after conclusion so that the more you contemplate the farther away you get from the original idea (kind of like the course of this paper), do the most recent thoughts become a slightly different experience-that is, something other than thought or whatever the original idea you started out with is? Of course, the last thought (or whatever it may be) cannot be compared with the first since it is too distant and therefore might be immediately blatant as something other than thought. In that case, maybe the last thought in the series could turn out to be a contradiction of the first and that would be okay. Our derived paradox about the one ultimate fact might be a case in point. I personally doubt it, but it might be. But regardless, it's just an example. My main point in this last section is that when we look at the whole flow of experiences that go through our minds from a macroscopic point of view, I wonder whether the beginnings and the ends are different in the context of what category of experience they fall into.
For example, as I sit here righting this paper, the deeper I delve into contemplation, the more inspired I might become. I'm sure it isn't uncommon for writers to become more poetic or "sound prettier" when they are hit with inspiration. But most professionals try not to become so much so that they become incoherent. But let's assume that a writer did not have such an inhibition, and allowed his racing thoughts that came out too fast for his hands to pour out onto his paper so that his ramblings sounded like that of a schizophrenic. Or perhaps he became so inspired that he felt the urge to rhyme or use one too many metaphors. His paper would end up sounding more like a poem or perhaps the Bible. Any further yet, he might start transforming his writing into a drawing or he might start to dance as he wrote. Would then the contents of his project really be thought, or does it seem more like emotion at this point?
So theoretically, you could make such transitions from and to any of the known human experiences (i.e., thought, emotion, and sensation). And indeed we do have such experience. What is lingual comprehension but an experience midway between audition and thought, or the joy of music but midway between audition and emotion (These two experiences are perfectly symmetrical in respect to their localization on the left and right sides of the brain respectively. Perhaps they perform equivalent functions on different experiences.) Thus, why shouldn't their be-in theory-transitions from known experience to unknown ones? In the remainder of this paper, I will attempt to describe a possible scenario of such a transition that we may-so very gradually and unnoticeably-actually be undergoing as a species.
On a very grand scale, I suspect that since the beginning of the evolution of our species, the experience we know as thought has actually been undergoing evolution itself, and will continue to undergo further evolution. Others may agree with me on this matter when they consider the oceanic difference between human kind and lower level animals, say the dog, in terms of our mental capacities. Ask yourself this question: Do dogs think? If they do, which I believe is probable, it would have to be at a considerably more primitive level than human thought. Therefore, on an evolutionary continuum between K-9 and human, there is a smooth and uniform developmental change. A change not unlike that of a new born maturing to an adult. That's nothing new. What is new is that because there is such a vast difference, would we honestly be able to say there is only a quantitative difference, or would we be able to say there is also a qualitative one. That is, the way the K-9 experiences its thought reasonably might just be unequivalent to what we experience thought to be. To make this more clear, let's take another example, one that extends the difference manifold. Consider the chicken. Now, I see no reason why there shouldn't be an evolutionary continuum between the chicken and the K-9; after all, they are about as different from each other as the K-9 is from us. Therefore, there is also a continuum from the chicken to humans. Now, surely, you're not going to argue that chickens experience the comprehension of advanced physics or poetry or religion. If a chicken experiences anything remotely like thought at all, it couldn't be comparable to what the human intellect can grasp in the least. I realize that, unfortunately for me, there's a slight flaw with this analogy. Perhaps the only reason chickens can't comprehend in the least the concepts and ideas that half the human population itself has difficulty grasping is because thought is completely lacking in that species, thereby implying that it's only quantitatively different. Nevertheless, we can still revert to the dog as a reasonable analogy, and just consider the chicken a bad example. In any case, the purpose of the chicken example has been served: it helped (I hope) to explain my meaning. A better example would be to ask "What would it be like to experience the level of comprehension of our own species somewhere down the road the distance of the dog to us ten fold?" Imagine all the knowledge and awareness of that stage of human evolution flooding into your current stage of mind. It is hard to label such an experience as nothing more than thought.
There are two forces that transform the physical structure of the brain. One is in the short run, the other in the long run. They are, respectively: 1) inner thought discourse, and 2) biological evolution. Number 1) can also be labeled "culture". It's obvious how evolution changes the structure of the brain, but not so much culture. Well, let me explain it then. There was a section from my paper on the mind-matter theory where I discussed the relation between mental experience and the physical brain when it comes to cognition or "nurture" (from the nature-nurture issue). I'll lay it out again. Every second, our thoughts are passing from one to the next and so on. According to the theory, there is a rule that states that for each and every distinct experience (i.e., each and every thought), there corresponds to it an underlying physical process. The physical process in this case is the neurological circuitry on the brain, specifically the cognitive centers. Every neuron (or neuron group), when fired, corresponds to a unit of thought. Now, obviously, not all of our thoughts are constant or familiar. We are constantly creating new ones, forgetting others, modifying and building onto still more. Therefore, the rule would predict that neurons are constantly being created, dying away, and reforming their connections to other neurons. This is precisely what's going on. Thus, our everyday tendency to think creatively is restructuring the brain (at a microscopic level). And all our commonly shared thoughts, values, opinions, etc., are supplied to us via the culture we inhabit; therefore, this first brain restructuring mechanism is primarily the forces of societal indoctrination (and remember that we are talking about the human species, not individuals who can easily deviate from the cultural norm).
In terms of evolution, I think it's pretty obvious how the process works. The mind-matter theory says that "I do X because I experience Y." X also depends on the neurological circuitry of the brain. Remember, the human organism can also-with perfect reason-be thought of as a mechanical system, and so you will see different products with different inner mechanisms. Thus, when X changes due to the physical evolution of the brain, Y does too. Compare the chicken's brain with the human brain again. It compares perfectly with the contrast between a simple, arithmetic-limited pocket calculator and the latest, top of the line, all purpose PC. Could we ever for one second believe that the one grew out of the other? Well, put it this way. For someone who has never before seen a computer, regardless of whether they've been familiarized with calculators, would they be able to classify it in the same category as calculators? Would they honestly recognized the equivalence of function and purpose between them? Remember that a computer can do so much more than math: it can process literature, draw art, compose music, read programs, play games, store data, etc. Take all these functions and consider what the mind-matter theory would have to say about them. It would say that all these functions are executed due to an experience Y that entails the need for them. Now how would this experience compare to that of a calculator's? I'd imagine they'd be quite different, but if we drew a line of evolution between them, we'd see that it was continuous. Therefore, one ought to derive from the other, adding a change of quality onto quantity. Chicken brains and human brains compare in exactly the same way. The one is a much more advanced and complex version of the other, so it is a quantitative difference, but a qualitative difference should also be seriously suspected.
Now how can one take the vicissitudes of thought in the short run and show a qualitative change all the same? Well, as we already said, every thought, when novel (which is actually very often. My thoughts on this paper are a case in point.), slightly change the circuit configuration of the brain. Let's say that a certain set of thoughts-an inner contemplation of something simple-shifts your circuitry in a certain direction. Is there a limit to how far in this direction the shift can go? Is there a limited number of combinations your neurons can be arranged into? Maybe, maybe not. If not, then there should be some inner discourses you can undergo in which you have no ends or loops that return you to your original state. With these, you should be able to think things like "There's X-therefore Y-oh, and that means Z-and plus A...H-I-J-K..." If you go far enough in this direction you just might end up with "X999-Y999-Z999-A1000," and these would be experiences that are just too far down the road you traveled with your original argument (There's X...) that they don't even compare anymore as real thoughts. Remember that we could only validly claim this if the road you take is linear. If it curves significantly, it has the potential to remain in the vicinity of the original argument. But we don't know if such a lengthy road is possible, for we must re-ask ourselves the question "Is there a limit to how far in this direction the shift can go?" I think the answer would depend on X from the statement "I do X because I experience Y." How's that? In order for the experience to have changed significantly, it would have to entail something very different from what Y would entail (if Y is normal thought yielding some normal behavior X). In other words, these experiences X999-Y999-Z999-A1000 would have to end with the conclusion to act out a behavior that doesn't usually result from normal thought. You can imagine some pretty freaky and bizarre behaviors, I'm sure. And since the brain is the bundle of wires that controls behavior, then what is also required to carry out this bizarre behavior is to change the wiring. This is exactly what happens along the road from thought to the new experience. The slight shift in neurological circuitry that usually goes on in every day life takes on this drastic change to such an extent that the whole brain attains a completely foreign structure unlike any other.
This would obviously require some pretty profound and unconventional thinking. Only the most elite of the philosophers dare to venture away from normal thought, and even at that they don't get far enough in order to discern a distinct transformation. But let's play with an example: let's suppose that a philosopher wishes once and for all to attain the ultimate goal of all philosophers-that is, unlock the ultimate answers of life's mysteries (we do not particularly need to outline any specific mysteries). The thing that philosophers long for is to satisfy their curiosities about the unknowns and the mysterious. Their ways about doing this is to think deeply and creatively. But a philosopher has this tendency built into his/her nature-that is, it reoccurs throughout his/her life time. So, even if at some point he/she arrives at an explanation or insight that quenches his or her yearning for it, somewhere down the road this yearning will crop up again, sometimes over the very same matter, at other times over a brand new problem. So the philosopher is never ultimately quenched. But our philosopher in the present example will not stand for this; he/she will not accept this cycle of answers and questions. He/she wants the ultimate quenching. How does he/she go about doing that? Well, as a philosopher, by the only means he/she knows: thinking deeply and creatively. Now keep in mind that at this point, the philosopher doesn't know what to expect as an ultimate answer to his/her curiosity, but he/she does expect it to be nothing over and above some kind of theory explaining the universe-albeit a compellingly deep and complex one-but really no different in definition than any other theories in philosophy, all cognitive and logical. Anyway, he/she goes about doing this and follows a thread of ideas and arguments not unlike the road from X to A1000. Now, such a state as ultimate quenching, I could only conceive as being described as contentment in all things, absolute knowledge, and emotional rest. Someone in such a state would likely be imagined as a Buddhist monk sitting atop a mountain, his legs folded in and arms relaxed and spread to each side, his eyes closed and a great smile of contentment on his face (not an intense smile, just a simple one). He is one with himself, he is fulfilled, he is at peace. Assuming our philosopher is following the proper path, eventually his analytical experience of contemplating might become, say, an experience of encountering a "door". This door would not be visually or physically there. It is a metaphor, or the best way to describe the experience whatever it is. He is in this door-before-him like experience, indescribable by thought, emotion, or sensation. He is about to take the final step, to unlock the door, and free himself from the world of human discontent and perturbation. Beyond the door he is unbound by anything. He can fly away. He is free. He has but to unlock it. Does he have the key? Well, all the work he has done thus far in philosophizing should have served to provide the key at this point. See, the experience of the key is what arguments and premises have turned into, and the door, or the unlocking of it, is what conclusions to arguments and premises have turned into. It's all a simple step now: use the key, unlock the door, and he can then enjoy the state of ultimate quenching. I wouldn't be surprised if along the road to the door, his argument and theories lead him through some spiritual experiences, lead him through confrontations with inner demons, and perhaps at some point it turned into a quest to know God, etc. After all, speaking from a psychoanalytic perspective, a lot of philosophical stances or opinions do have some rather personal underlying reasons for holding onto. I really doubt that a philosopher holding views on one side or another of some world renowned topic or issue is absolutely free of personal biases or emotional rootings for his conviction. Hardly is it ever the case that a profound belief system is adopted due exclusively to its logical merit. As such, anyway, if one is going to undertake the quest for ultimate quenching, one is no doubt going to have to come face to face with his/her own subjective biases (otherwise he can't reach ultimate objectivity), and at that point, in order to pass through that stage, one will need to undergo some self-analysis and then self-therapy. As you can see from that, it might very well follow into spirituality. And believe me, one cannot continue on passed a certain point in such a quest unless one is going to be open to spiritual possibilities. Furthermore, it is not enough to operationally define spirituality as a means to fulfill this criterion. He/she will encounter deep meaning in his quest unlike the meaning he/she might have expected. Actually, I should rephrase that: I'm not saying that whatever the experience may be, it is something different from what he/she expected, but something more than what he/she expected. The ultimate quenching is still an answer, a theory if you will, cognitive and logical all the same, but the catch is that all quenching theories have these properties and so this alone can't make the ultimate quenching unique. But neither can it be anything other than cognition and theory for then it wouldn't really serve as a genuine answer to a, albeit ultimate, philosophical question. What is needed to make it unique among quenching theories is that it be cognitive and more, some higher form of thought, but still thought nevertheless. No ordinary thought has the capacity to quench ultimately. Therefore, I now recapitulate what I mean when I say that the more one advances or evolves in thought, the less like thought the experience becomes. I mean to say the more thought becomes, but it still appears that the more over and above everyday, normal, hum-drum thought the experience becomes, the less recognizable as originating from thought it ends up being. This is the intended point I wanted to make about evolving thought, but as for simple changing or deviating thought (like in the case of going from X to A1000), the metamorphous may very well be an unanchored alteration.
Returning to the model of dimensions, and taking into consideration that we are talking about qualitative change here in addition to quantitative change, that means that the best model for thought going through this process is along a curved dimension. When you go from thought X to Y to Z and so on, it wouldn't be as if you slowly feel your thoughts changing. It's not like the effects of a drug-that is, you carry on a conversation awaiting the high to hit you, and it gradually comes upon you. No, it's not like the dimension of thought which you are traveling along is gradually moving in a perpendicular direction, yet remaining straight as an arrow. Drugs like cannabis are like this: when you're high, all your thoughts are on the same dimension, so you can go back and forth along it, and they'll all be "high" thoughts. When you're sober, they all remain on the "sober dimension." When you're in the transitional state, you are taken from sober to high. When you go from thought X to thought A1000, the dimension remains stationary but curved. You have total control over your thoughts and what state you want them to be in. Nothing's driving them to change. They only change because of how one leads to the other-that is, the "change" seen in the consequent thought that doesn't appear in the antecedent is the effect of what the antecedent concludes. In other words, the change occurs because of rule 3.
An example of this would suffice. Take human thought about 500 years ago. The main world view at that time was Christianity. It is no longer today. Today, science is primarily the mainstream thought. How did this change occur. Well, imagine being an average citizen. You truly believe in the holy scriptures, you believe in God, you "feel" connected to Him, you "know" what to expect in the afterlife, and that's all that's needed to explain the universe. What if suddenly, a twentieth century time traveler came into your time and implanted in your brain some kind of device or other, that fed you all the up-to-date scientific knowledge of the late twentieth century. It's all fed into your head in a matter of minutes. You would be taken through a five hundred year process of scientific discovery and revelation in the time it takes to read a news paper article. Imagine the experience! It would certainly feel like the new knowledge you gained is something different-higher-than what you know of as thought. Could we say that you'd feel "enlightened"? A higher plane of understanding? Take history into perspective. Now, as it probably was, not too many people of the 15th century pondered long hours about the meaning of life, their own religion; not too many sought understanding and insight. It wouldn't be much different from today. But there were undoubtedly some who yearned for it, like our philosopher on a quest for ultimate quenching. What do they have to start with? Their own religion? Okay, let's say that's so. Does their religion say that there's a deeper purpose to life? Indeed it does (or at least it does not object to it). To them, seeking the meaning of life is equivalent to finding God or connecting with Him on a spiritual plane, for that course of action would make the most sense according to the world view at the time (i.e. Want to know the meaning of life? Look to God!). Now, some, attempting to understand their universe better, take the road of empirical observation. This is not necessarily an alternative to the religious road to understanding. The quest to find God may have been the ultimate goal for these scientific revolutionaries, but lost for a place to start, looking towards the immediate world of objective and empirical existence was warranted. I mean, this is a failsafe method, because you are guaranteed to find something. All it is, after all, is looking for yourself to see what is there, what the truth really is. This is, at the very least, the act of collecting some solid facts to use as a basis, so that you can say "So then, we can't doubt that this is true. Now what else can be said?"* However, in actually history, this was heavily motivated by a strong anti-religious movement, but it is important for the sake of my argument to realize that this was not necessary to undertake science as a means for deeper understanding. But even if it hadn't been so laden with such disdain, eventually, as the nature of science seems to be, feelings of antipathy towards religion would creep up, as it did. Science would proliferate fecundities of answers to burning question and it would be very reinforcing to the population. Moreover, its findings would contravene old fashioned beliefs about the nature, history, and structure of the universe. In history, science seemed to have the upper hand against religion for two reasons: 1) for providing fuller, more sound, and more parsimonious understanding, and 2) for providing stronger and more undeniable evidence. Thus, here we have the reason why religion was eventually forsaken for science. But anyway, after the centuries rolled by, the scientific expedition began to encompass their whole world view. What happened was that they began to feel the greater understanding of the universe they were looking for, but at such a slow rate no one ever regarded it as a spiritual uplifting to a higher plane of enlightenment. Think about the concepts they were contriving: particle charge, fields of electrons, electrical currents, electromagnetic waves, chemical reactions, and soon came quantum physics, relativity, black holes, galaxies, fourth dimensions, superposition, the Big Bang, etc. Now think about these concepts for a minute. True, no longer was anybody thinking of supernatural or spiritual phenomena going on, but these concepts, natural as they were thought to be, were still not your everyday, solid matter, common stuff, Newton type things. We're talking about invisible waves that travel through space, things and processes that go on at a level too small for us to see, or too big or far away, a quantized basis for energy, but true enough, they do go on. Rocks, and trees, and air: these are all "normal" or "familiar," even during the middle ages. But these new scientific concepts are rather trippy or ghost-like, in that we don't see them but they're there. Secular? Or are they the New World's contemporary products of the human imagination, trancendental constructs we use to have something to believe in. The one thing about them, however, that justifies their truly evolved status is, unlike in medieval times, we can understand how they work. In fact, we see them as necessary (i.e. we understand that they are caused to be there). And there's even insights into the social sciences. Today, when we look back 500 years ago, a lot of us (those who are particularly interested in this scientific world view) assess the religious beliefs of the time as psychological. That is, human beings concocted beliefs in God, an afterlife, a transcendental realm, for the sake of security, the need to understand, fear of death, need for meaning, you name it (I've heard them all). These human phenomena are themselves conceivably possible today thanks to Freud and other psychoanalysts who contributed the concept of the unconscious and its defense mechanisms. This is likewise another abstract and unobservable construct like those of the natural sciences. Such a notion of making up our own religions in our heads was inconceivable back then (ergo, religion must be true).
In other words, we look back on the scientific revolution as an "awakening". It's almost as though we became conscious of reality, or at least, a little bit more conscious; a higher level perhaps? We perceive the past and our beliefs as a big illusion, that none of it was true, yet we still perceived that there was a meaning to be attained, that there was higher understanding beyond the profane world. That part was the only true part. In fact, that was the part that lead us to the higher level (scientific understanding). It did so because it followed rule 3. That is, if you venture on a quest to find something, indeed you will find something (I leave it up to you to figure out how that relates to rule 3). That quest for understanding was the door that lead us into the scientific world view. So, it's almost as if our illusions, as false as they were, were right about there being a higher level of understanding. There had to be something about our old world view that had merit, otherwise how could mental evolution be channeled from the old to the new? Our present scientific view had to derive from something we trusted in back then.
I feel I should express a disclaimer: I do not, in general, regard any religious beliefs, Christian or otherwise, as false. I am not making any claims here. In fact, I am in no way atheist. But I am using a view, without casting any truth value to it, as an example that so happens to work with the topic at hand. Personally, I see our present scientific level of understanding as merely a phase in the grander process of mental evolution. In fact, I speculate that we might just possibly return to some kind of religious view, plausibly even Christian, a little further down the road, only this time, it will be "true" understanding or "genuine" belief instead of belief based on the will to believe just to avoid some unbearable truth or a thriving thirst for understanding. It will accompany a level of understanding of the universe that is even higher than our scientific vantage point. It won't contradict it per say, but supplement it. And we probably won't reject the idea that medieval religious belief was all fabricated by the human mind; that too will most likely remain the view, but in some mysterious way, we will begin to see everything in a more spiritual or "elevated" way. Again, think about our Christian fellow from the 15th century being pumped up with 20th century knowledge. Condense all the above description of slowly grasping higher and higher levels of understanding into a matter of minutes, and you've got the experience of this poor chap.
Now, as you can tell, my view on history parallels Hegel's dialectic model (except for the fact that mine has nothing to do with dialects). Hegel believed that history was an "unfolding" of the "Absolute Spirit". He recognized that history is filled with struggles between classes, religions, ideologies, etc. that often result in wars and revolutions. These he called "dialects". History is divisible into stages which are characterized by specific conflicts between classes of people. There's the "thesis" which is the mainstream view or ideology of the time, and the "antithesis" which is its adversary. They struggle for a while and then result in revolution or war. After that they "synthesize" and every synthesis marks the beginning of the next stage which is characterized as a higher level of understanding. History is ultimately leading through these dialects to reach a point when no more struggles occur, and at this point we will have realized the Absolute Spirit. Now, my view on history is quite similar; I do see history going through certain stages (religion leading into science is one case in point) that are ultimately leading to something like an "Absolute Spirit," the highest level of awareness and understanding. However, unlike Hegel, my view has no dependence on dialects. Evolution of mind can progress gradually (and that way more assuredly). Also unlike Hegel, I don't believe that 19th century Germany had achieved Absolute Spirit. But as for the rest, the "unfolding" aspect of the process is the most emphatic in my version of it. As our minds evolve qualitatively, we mustn't forget that quantitative change still does occur. Our minds and brains have been on a steady course of growing complexity since the beginning of our species, and so the process of mental evolution is not only an augmentative change, nor just a random-like qualitative change, but an integrated unfolding-like development. That is certainly what the transition from medieval European thought to modern scientific thought appears to be-that is, in the context of looking back and seeing an "awakening" (or shall I say a renaissance).
Even though the time scale we are dealing with here is quite grand, it is not grand enough, I think, to be an example of evolutionary thought change. During the last 500 years we have only gone through a cultural change, so it is a better example of neural network change (of the thinking part of the brain).
The next question is predictable. I have just asserted a kind of apocalyptic theory on the future of evolution. What lies ahead for us? The possibilities are unimaginably great. How many stages are left? Two? Three? You might be surprised. Just to give you an idea of how incomprehensible the possibilities may be, I will explain something called the "magnifying glass effect". But before I do, try to imagine something. Imagine if that young fellow from the pre-scientific revolution era could have imagined that an understanding of the universe could have been so much greater than his religion would have him think. According to him, there was creation in the beginning, there is the hierarchy of God and the angels in Heaven and demons in Hell below, and a just retribution in the afterlife. It can't be much more complex than that. Sure, he may have some pressing questions or notice some glitches that don't quite make sense, but any rectification of them would not seriously alter the general world view he has. If only he knew.
Let's say you take a line of dots.
There are twenty of them within the parenthesize. Now place a magnifying glass over them. What do you see?
Those zeroes mark the dots in magnification, and the curved parenthesize, the edge of the magnifying glass. Notice that because of the magnification, the number of dots appear to be less-that is, whereas there were twenty in the first set, there appear to be only twelve in the second set. The other 8 are blocked off by the edge of the magnifying glass. A better analogy that would better suite what I'm trying to convey here would be a gradual magnification of the dots. That is, the dots would appear largest in the middle where the magnification is centered and gradually decrease in size as they moved farther out. In that context, nothing would be blocked out but it would still give off the illusion that there are less dots than there really are. It seems less because most of our attention is focused on the center dots and the periphery dots seem so condensed into each other that they almost appear to be one (or at least not as many as there actually are).
Now, such an effect does not only occur with actual magnifying glasses, but with a lot of other things too. One example, is when you are walking down the side walk and you look down at your feet and see all the detail in the sidewalk (i.e. cracks, pebbles, weeds, bumps, insects, etc.), but a mile down the street, you can see but a shade of gray in block form, a shade of green for grass, and only green sticks as trees. From your vantage point, the amount of detail over the entire sidewalk is extremely less than it really is. How about the incredible size of the universe? It has been recorded to be at least 26 billion light years in diameter. Because such an enormous size is unimaginable without sacrificing images of accurate to-scale sizes of average sized objects (like other people), we can never really grasp the true enormity of the universe. What I'm talking about here may not at first sound true, for I myself have, on many occasions, imagined the entire universe without difficulty, but never being able to compare it with a normal sized object without first adjusting my frame of reference. This is an impression I'm talking about. Just to give you a clue, practice this thought experiment. The galaxy is 28 000 light years in radius. The calculations which yield the number of kilometers this amounts to is astronomical. For the past month, I have been, in a way, running a thought experiment in my mind just to give me the true breadth of how much this is. For the past month, I have been imagining travelling through the galaxy at the speed of light (and believe me, by my calculations, this would look unbelievably fast), and for that whole time I have not moved a nano-meter on any map you'd find of the Milky Way. You could even try the experiment yourself at twice the speed of light. The speed of light is 300 000 km/s. This would make passing the Earth look somewhat similar to passing a road sign on the high way. So you can imagine how far you would have traveled along that highway over a period of one month! And that's still nothing on the scale of the size of our galaxy. Imagine the whole Universe which contains billions of galaxies which are separated by hundreds, and sometimes thousands, of galaxy sized gaps. The crucial thing is this: only after undergoing that thought experiment am I able to grasp how huge our universe actually is. True, I have imagined the universe before, but only in picture, not in size.
The magnifying effect has to do mostly with this impression, the impression of overpowering greatness, a greatness you never expected because you couldn't imagine it. Always, whenever such greatness is presented before us, we must take it in through a magnifying glass. Right now, we are in the scientific age, and even if you believe me and my theories about other possible experiences of mind yet to come, that doesn't mean you can truly grasp what is to come after the scientific age. Take, for instance, pre-Einsteinian physics. That would be classical mechanics. The laws of classical mechanics seem all together common sense. All motion is linear for any distance no matter how big, there is a constant amount of matter in the universe and there is a constant amount of energy and neither one converts to the other, space and time are linear, light is a wave phenomenon and doesn't succumb to the influence of gravity (thus, no black holes), etc. The question of relative motion was not new when Einstein introduced it; it had always hung around in the background. It was seen as a minor glitch, but nothing that would seriously alter the foundations of classical mechanics, for classical mechanics seemed too common sense to be uprooted by such an insignificant inconsistency. Yet this was the very pipe line that lead to a revolution in physics when Einstein's theory of relativity penetrated the mainstream. I have experienced modifications in my own conception of the world when models of one sort or another didn't seem to fit the bill. The experience is rather like this: when we consider that our models of reality are subject to change, we always imagine that they would be slight. Indeed they are at first, but the thing is that slight changes or needs for modification always pop up here and there, often enough because of the first change. If I change one aspect of my own inner representation of the world, it's undoubtedly going to have some effect on something else associate with that aspect. Then, because of that effect, two more minor repercussions occur to yet other parts of the whole model. Then a few more, and before you know it, the whole thing collapses, or perhaps is discarded for something totally new and revolutionary. Who knew that one tiny leak in the roof could lead to an entire collapse of the edifice? That is what happened to classical physics, that is what happened to the medieval religious world view, and that is what very well could happen to our contemporary way of experiencing reality. These slight potentials for change are often so rarely noticed that they are subliminal, yet they can have gigantic effects. And it is this illusion that any change is going to be so minor (because our present view seems so whole and complete), that prevents us from expecting a perpetual change far longer into the future and far more dramatic than we actually do expect. As I say, these minor calls for modifications always show themselves here and there, always, so the evolution of thought is never ending. And remember what we're talking about here: evolution of experience, the whole mind, not just cognitive theories of the universe. You can't imagine what might happen. Cave ins due to leaky roves happen almost instantaneously, without expectation. I dare to suggest that we could very well be swept away into a warped frame of mind, very suddenly, very soon, due only to the simple process of reconstructing our world views.
Imagine what kind of views are actually out there. We know there's western religion, there's eastern religion (which is distinct enough to call it a unique view in itself), there's several tribal religions, there's science, anti-Christian, nihilistic and existential views, and even my own mind-matter theory could qualify as a world view, but not much more. One is apt to ask "What more could there be? Haven't we covered the basic views that man can come up with?" I beg to differ, and I wouldn't make such a bold statement without first affirming that I'm not looking at my own particular view through a magnifying glass. The types of potential views out there could be as various and deviant from ours as all the far out galaxies are distant. I'm sure you never considered the implications of this paper before today, so there you go-a case in point. Could you imagine, if all this science we are familiar with is really a bunch of brainwashing? What if whatever the forces were that lead us into this scientific era were really demons that the Christian era would have accurately predicted, and that none of our science is true, that all of what the orthodoxy says is true? Or trippier yet, some kind of bizarre metaphysical system that we have never even imagined. And remember, that this isn't some kind of weird experience being implanted in our heads or some virtual reality illusion; it's just brainwashing-that is, just persuasive talk that convinces you about the way things are. When you consider that all the science we are taught in school is only trusted based on word of mouth, and that half of our science is based only on theories that some guy construed in his head and suggested to a very suggestible society, this possibility doesn't pass unnoticed. I don't mean to bad mouth science, but I'm just keeping the discussion open to the possibility. After all, it serves to put our present world view in the light of the magnifying glass analogy. Could the truth really be that remote from what we would have expected? Who'd have thought?
*In fact, Newton himself thought that physics was the road to understanding God.
