(no subject)
These are the things I think and read about. Take the poll before you read.
Poll Do you believe that there are things that exist that we cannot possibly know about?
On Empiricism, Dead English Guys, Souls and Ghosts
I'm saying some things lately that I feel really weird about saying, but I'm convinced that it's actually helping to look at things in different ways. I'll get that in detail in a second. (Skip to the purple text after the cut if you're just curious about the main idea.) Basically, I'm trying to be perfectly willing to revamp my belief system as information is presented to me. It's kind of a, "everythings on the table until you take it off" strategy.
(skip this part if you don't have all goddamn day)
I've been shown that I'm an empiricist, which means that I think knowledge only comes from our sensory experience. I hold this to be true because it is only through our conciousness that we know the world around us and it is impossible to step outside of that veil of conciousness when we consider anything. By conciousness, I do not mean to differentiate between waking and dreaming life, I think both are still under one's umbrella of "conciousness" as I'm using it here. I also do not believe that any creatures are born with innate or divine knowledge, in such that there is some kind of universal code written into your brain when you are born that is anything beyond "animal" instinct, which is definitely thousands of years of adaptation and undeniable considering how animals just KNOW things, but is just one layer of the seriously complex layer cake of your mind. A cake is a bad comparision, maybe if that cake came with portals in it to connect the levels and take you to weird huge microlayers. Anyway, because all knowledge comes through the senses, we can use observation via either our own bodies or through instrumentation to observe the universe and make predictions about it. These predictions are the result of the scientific method, which uses reproducibility (the same for everyone who observes it) to determine the probability of future events based on past outcomes, and I give weight to theories that are based on such evidence. Hume would classically argue that there is no guarantee that the future will resemble the past and that such induction relies on induction itself (which is circular) but I have not been given one tiny shred of evidence that it ever hasn't or ever will not. If gravity works the opposite way tomorrow, I think we will have to restructure the scientific method. (Humes's problem of induction itself: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/induction-problem/ Hume thought that probable reasoning itself has no goddamn justification. Very interesting. Hurts your brain and makes you go, uuugggh, just a little bit. This is kind of why we turn everything into math or statistics in the 21st century. I do think there is wiggle room here and it's hard to come up with a number of times you have to observe something before you know it's definitely going to happen again the same way next time, but this is how we operate on a "common sense" level in real life. We are trying to predict that the hot stove that has burned us in the past when we touched it will burn us again in the future, should all details be the same. You'd say a reasonable person would not do the same thing twice and expect a different result. As for the "the same for everyone who observes it aka the reproducibility bit, once you get past variables we can control for it becomes a cognition problem.
The Part You're Probably Actually Interested In:
So, the thing I said that I thought was weird and I thought I would never say (and tried to retract but couldn't because I still agree with it) was basically that there are things that we might not ever be able to know, no matter what - and that doesn't give us the kind of evidence to give grounds for rational belief that those things do not exist.
Which is funny to me It's just... it's super heavy. I said those words and I meant them.
I've seen glowing balls in space and I still dont accept the "reasons" for their existence I've been given; in fact, I would love to deny that I ever even had the experience of seeing them in the first place as evidenced by my willingness to forget that I ever did. I experienced them. I used to love astrology, both kinds of astrology - The "back of the Valley Advocate" kind and the "real" www.astro.com kind that uses your birth down to the second. I think this is, in part, why I am so fascinated with circadian rhythms and omics and systems in general - the interplay between the very, very big and predictable and the very, very "insignificant" nodes.
I don't read my horoscope anymore unless it is yesterdays and I compare that to what happened in my life and how I responded to it/feel about it. Post-hoc. I feel like it gives you a sense of an "objective" viewpoint on something that is usually entirely subjective (how you dealt with your day) and that can feel really comforting. Objectivity is a very stable, comforting thing for me. It says, I didn't insert myself into this reasoning - but technically you always, always have - no matter what. You'll never get away from the subjectivity that is your conciousness.
I used to believe in ghosts but it is very hard to believe in a ghost when you don't believe in a soul. I don't think there is some kind of mind-body Cartesian dualism, where your soul (or whatever you want to call a mind) can exist seperately from your physical body. I'm using the 'moving knife' story from my past for this ghost scenario, which if you don't know about I don't want to go into detail about but I was alone except for sleeping children and the only way a thing could have ended up on my chair was if i put it there or if a ghost put it there. I was shook because I knew I didn't put it there. Now, I just mostly feel like anything "spooky" is/was either me doing things on autopilot and not remembering that I did them or some other explanation. This actually frightens me when it happens, because who wants to reconsile the fact that you zoned out so completely and were still functionally able to move around/do things, including grabbing sharp objects?
The immaterial (mind/soul/ghost) either has to be able to interact with the material or I would need to have interacted with it.
There's no room in my ideas of how the physical universe works for ghosts or souls independent of bodies. Is this because there never has been any evidence that they do exist? This evidence would have to require observable interactions with the physical world to be able to document empirically, which is impossible because ghosts/souls are immaterial - therefore ghosts and souls cannot be definitely proved or disproved to exist via scientific observation/empirical testing.
But I just said that there could be things that we are incapable of knowing, which does not mean that they do not exist. It just means that they do not interact with the physical universe as we are able to observe it, either currently or maybe forever.
"Why stop at ghosts mina, why not believe in all-powerful omnipresent god(s)?", my jerk-brain says.
I'm not saying that these entities do not have any effect on a person's cognition, as belief is effective in ways regardless of the thing's existence in any other form other than someone's belief in it. I have an ok picture of cognition (read: not a psych major) and a tiny understanding of neuroscience from both a medical and philosophical point of view, I understand that we have not mapped the brain and we might not ever be able to fully understand even if we do have a very, very detailed roadmap of the brain and the electrochemical goings-on there.
Is it all quantum spook?
At best, I remain skeptic. At worst, I feel like I pick on people who have "gone off the deep end" (chakra stuff in place for medical attention) because I identify with their skepticism in the nature of knowing what is real and what is not.