the universe in my head
neil talking to the sun
I was thinking, walking with Neil on the Maui shores, about how I move around in my head to different subjects, like "Emily" and "my job" and stuff. And each subject has its own associations and related sensory and informational data. All of which are memories, i.e., relevant to what's in my head, but not relevant to this place at this time.
So I was thinking about how the world according to me is actually contained inside my brain (in what form, I don't know; I think that was an earlier post that never got satisfactorily answered), and my brain is in my head! Like, I already knew that the world as I see it is actually the world according to me, as opposed to you, but I never had thought about the physical location of those ideas. My head! So I am seeing a tree, and not only am I seeing the tree according to my visual and cognitive interpretation, but the tree itself is entirely (physically) separate from that interpretation.
neil with a rainbow
It was a nice musing, because it illustrated how if, at a given time, I shift the way I choose to see or focus on something in my brain (e.g., Do I care about this person? Can I forget this information?), it changes only what I am thinking about at that time anyway. Only the way things are arranged in my head.
I am still working on application. Maybe when I watch the State of the Union address tonight I will first try to erase any preconceived ideas from my mind and give the president a blank slate, although not yelling after 5 minutes may be well beyond my philosophical ken.
19 comments:
I'll pay you $20 if you can watch for 20 minutes with no preconceived notions.
That's $20 in your head, natch.
While eating hot and sour soup tonight, I thought of, and spoke of, you.
i'm addicted to preconceived notions
that was neil. the speech was OK, notwithstanding the fact that the president appealed for bipartisan decision making, then framed complex issues as, either you're with me or your with the terrorists. I also was taken aback when the president went out of his way to speak against gay marriage, especially since he later spoke against the spread of AIDS. Fidelity (hopefully) is one of the key points of marriage. Anyway, the speech had a lot of nice domestic ideas that it would be lovely to see go into effect. I shall remain optimistic.
What's interesting about the relationship between brain world and real world is that it's a marker for mental illness. The perceptions of a schizophrenic lean toward "the world is what I have in my head" so that makes me think mental health has to do with a balance struck between one's own perceptions and an objective view of things, e.g. clearing one's mind before watching Bush. However, one's perception of objective reality is still totally based on what's in one's head, such that the perception of Bush sits next to a particular religious or political belief which filters what he says next and colors its interpretation.
I feel like I'm in over my head....
Interesting points about compatible beliefs and filtering. I think the nice part is to realize that because your "reality," however objective, is really your "interpretation," or filtering, you can believe and see things pretty much however you want to, because it's just your interpretation, any way you slice it. I can be sad, I can be mad, I can paint it with stripes ... so what. In a way, there's no "higher truth" to grasp for. There's just different things to see.
I think truth absolutely exists. Two plus two equals four, regardless of how I perceive it.
So - math aside - what other truths are absolute?
Death and taxes.
All right, I'm back, because more than a flippant response is deserved here. I don't think this is the right forum to go into religious truths, but it seems fair to me that there many, many other absolute truths to be identified, religion aside. One being, that death follows life. Also, there are laws of nature that fall into the absolute truth category--e.g. matter is neither created nor destroyed. That's about as far into physics as I go...I dropped AP Physics in scaredy-cat fashion just before the AP test. Anyway, I am trying to say that you can't really push math aside, because it, with science, are in everything in this universe.
So if I don't push mathematical truth aside, how does that help me cope with George Bush? We get to vote every 4 years?
"Two plus two equals four, regardless of how I perceive it."
you might also say that two plus two equals four because of how you/we perceive it. truths like basic math may or may not be "objectively" true independent of perception, but i think it's important to consider that the condition of knowing certain things to be true is reached via perception/observation. if i remember my pragmatism correctly, 2+2=4 can rightly be said to be "true" even if in some unimaginable future paradigm it no longer works, because right now it always works. and i don't think this is quite relativism because it is saying that things can be true (even if in a way relative), just rejecting the pragmatically unuseful notion of big T truth since belief in such a thing necessarily requires faith (and not reason), right?
If something is True, capital T, then it is true even if everybody believes it is not true. Belief or faith doesn't make something true. Truth makes it true.
are you saying that perceived truth is based on reason, whereas "objective" truth is based on faith? I think that is an interesting idea, especially when you're talking about concepts that are subjective anyway, such as "threat." It is interesting when a perceived truth is presented as an objective truth and processed as such by the listener, which I think is part of the conflict about our entry into Iraq. "Saddam Hussein posed a threat to our national security." "Threat," I think, is an interpretation of S.H.'s stated sentiments, plus his ideology-based policies, plus his past violent activities (toward parties not associated with the U.S., plus his potential support for hostile parties, plus his potential access to hostile weapons, plus his potential to strategically use those potential weapons against us. Equals a lot of potential and not a lot of proof.
emily-
ok, well i'm not sure i'm equipped to handle that one, but, to clarify, my point was not at all to say that truth is relative. 2 and 2 is 5 just might be objectively True, but i/we can only say that it is true as far as we can tell (other evidence could come along..). Truth (note the big t) is therefore an abstract concept, unattainable because of the limits of the human intellect. There might be extremely good reasons to believe it exists, but this is finally just belief.
of course i meant 2+2=4. i've had the radiohead song in my head all day!
Sooo- objective Truth is not necessarily abstract but can be what's just beyond our understanding when our perceptions are wrong... like it was Truth that the earth was round (sort of) when everyone's senses told them it was flat. In that way Truth doesn't relate to faith, it's grandly indifferent to what we believe. It's out there waiting for us to get it. In science we seem to catch up periodically and what had been abstract becomes observable and measurable.Perceptions then match the objective - except when the objective facts are dismissed for reasons of faith (and fear).
I like that.
might be right, but w. james specifically argued against this view. if all signs point to the earth being flat then the earth is flat. he has a pretty compelling argument for why the big just-waiting-to-be-discovered universal Truth idea doesn't add up.. but i can't remember exactly how it goes. maybe i'll reread and make a new post.
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