to Colourful Vision—-

I would say–Absolute Truth (source, God, Spirit, Consciousness–Tuth with a capital T) is all there is! We do hold or own truths and think that is real. It is merely a point-of-view. Absolute Truth is what all manifests from in our seen, heard, and felt world we walk through and experience.

“our brains run virtual reality software” I imagine this is metaphor, and a great one. It appeals to me, and that’s how I choose most of my beliefs, based on their appealing qualities. I can accept the software, but I wonder who programs it?

“evolution selects for a “good enough” approach” I have little knowledge of this quality of evolution, but it moves me to ask if evolutionists study why that would be? Why not shoot for excellence, here? What first occurs as a reason is efficiency. I suppose it’s more efficient to select for “good enough” if that moves the species forward, rather that spending endless time and resources on improvement.

“…experience or observation…must be UNIFORM, READILY DEMONSTRATABLE, REPEATABLE, and PREDICTIVE” –when taking the empirical approach, do you mean? Yes, indeed. I just believe there are other ways of studying phenomena. Science has its own set of rules which work well within it. I think where I differ with hard scientists–and again these are only my beliefs–is that for them its rules define ALL reality. I can’t see any way we can know this.

“…is profoundly untrue, no offence.” None taken! In fact, I thank you for pointing this out. I generally don’t like to make statements like this sound as if they were fact. They are, actually, only my opinion. This one slipped through.

“..more than welcome to imagine a world beyond this one, but science studies THIS one.” Yes, of course. I looked back at my post, and what I said was that I enjoy imagining a world beyond the GAME, not beyond this WORLD. If, as I suspect, the WORLD (which we perceive and experience through our virtual reality software) is a part of a larger game, than it’s easy for me to imagine the game being put away after playing. The game is there, sitting on a shelf in some closet, but its rules apply only during gameplay. Now I agree many would find this a ridiculous notion. On the other hand, “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.”

“Isn’t it the case that whenever man has struggled to explain anything, he posits a supernatural explanation first, and THEN replaces it with the natural one later?” That’s a fascinating question, and I honestly don’t know whether that progression has a long and demonstrated history. You’ve certainly given me something to think about here, and I state my intention to look into it!

“…you seem to leave the realm of reasonable knowledge and appeal to faith.” I can see why you might suppose this, here. I also further surmise that this wouldn’t be a good thing in your view? Actually, I mentally run far, far away from faith-based opinion. I don’t think faith justifies anything at all, although it can be a great comfort to some. I rather base my musings upon philosophical inquiry and intuition. What I like about philosophy is that I’m allowed to play with ideas, and I can attempt to justify anything I like that way. I will grant you that this last does leave the realm of reasonable knowledge.

I will often argue with myself, but rarely with others, as I believe (here’s the intuition again) that each of us has our own unique filter through which to view our reality. I wouldn’t dream of trying to deny anyone theirs.

As I’ve stated elsewhere on this blog, my own purpose for “MusEditions” is totally self-indulgent. I find, in exploring ideas in this way that I learn more about what I think. I’m full of opinions, but I don’t always know why and what they are. I come away from these writings with either deeper convictions, or transformed ones. I’m thrilled when thoughtful writers such as yourself stop by to offer challenges, support, or further inquiry. Thank you so much for your expansive remarks!

Contrary to some commenters on this post, I think our cognitive faculties are fairly reliable. They are not infallible and perfect, because evolution selects for a “good enough” approach; being able to perceive your surroundings accurately is invaluable to survival. There are things humans have not (nor needed to) evolved to perceive, like atoms, or x-rays etc.

The “software” running in our brain, like I say, is not infallible, which is why it can be deceived by optical illusions. For that matter, the refraction of light through water can shorten and misplace the REAL position of say, a fish, swimming below. This is a limitation of eyes that are dependent on light to see (which as far as we know is all eyes in the world). I wouldn’t say because of this that we should be skeptical about the reliability of our senses! It is reasonable to accept the truth of our senses most of the time, and that is good enough for every day living, (or at least it has been for evolved mammals such as ourselves).

Now we come to science, which allows us to extend our senses to perceive what we otherwise wouldn’t be able to. What it means in science to observe or empirically test, is to measure or detect by means of experience. By experience, that could be: see, hear, smell, scan etc. The difference with science is that the “experience” or observation, must be UNIFORM, READILY DEMONSTRATABLE, REPEATABLE, and PREDICTIVE.

That is why this statement:

There is as much belief and faith involved in the practice of science as there is in the practice of religion.

…is profoundly untrue, no offence.

Anyone is more than welcome to imagine a world beyond this one, but science studies THIS one. Perhaps this is another universe beyond THIS one, but do we need to imagine any other universe to explain anything?? I don’t think so. Isn’t it the case that whenever man has struggled to explain anything, he posits a supernatural explanation first, and THEN replaces it with the natural one later?

The only way I would “know better” is from having had experience with handling a mask in the past

Yes; experience is often a good guide in forming beliefs and making decisions. What we should be aware of however, is that our experience is filtered by our preconceptions! Which means you may ‘experience’ a ghostly chill in the room, whereas I just realise that the window has been left open.

You know what masks are and what they are like. After seeing the optical illusion above you could withhold judgment, or form a reasonable belief based on your experience and rationale.

All I can “know”, at this point, is that there is something I trust more than observation to define my reality.

If by “observation” one means: what I have personally seen with my own eyes and nothing else, I would agree with you. This is the route of dire skepticism. We are justified in believing in things we haven’t personally experienced (depending on the belief of course).

If however, by “observe” you mean that which has not been demonstrated to exist by uniform human experience, (and especially science), I would disagree with you; as here you seem to leave the realm of reasonable knowledge and appeal to faith.

C V, Wow, two comments on one post! Thanks–it must really have caught your attention. “…If this is the case then there is no absolute truth…” If, indeed. I don’t know if we can know for sure, but it’s certainly suggestive of that. When I watched the video, there didn’t appear to be anything going on but a man turning a mask on a stick. He seemed to indicate that there were no special effects, but we don’t know that for sure, either! I’m tempted to get my own mask to see if I can “try this at home”. Perhaps it needs to be filmed for the illusion to appear?

Ah, Will, your response is most poetic. Yes, observation is in the eye of the beholder. And the machines need us to interpret the data. And we need each other to keep beauty alive. Thank you very much for your thoughtful comment.

Colourful Vision

Colourful Vision