On the other hand, what can the minds of mere mortals on this one particular planet awash in the vastness of what may well be a multiverse, know about an ontological explanation for existence itself?
And I have yet to come across an argument that even pins down definitively if what we do think we know is not that which we could only have ever thought we knew.
Whatever universe we’re in HAS to explain the things we KNOW…
For example, we know we’re capable of reason, learning, growth, self-improvement… we can’t logically live in a universe in which we can’t do the things we CAN.
Then back to the autonomous aliens noting that while we think we are capable of doing this of our own free will, we could never have not done it. Human logic in a wholly determined segment of the universe being no less an inherent toppling over of matter. As though it were just another agglomeration of dominos set up by whatever can be known [ultimately] about the ontological nature of existence.
We’re trying to find a way to conceptualize our universe so that it fits what we know about it… Not trying to figure out what we CAN know based on our conception of the universe
That would beg the question of how we know we’ve got the right conception… leading to epistemic nihilism.
Which seems to be the trap you keep falling into… “I was never able to NOT know, what I was compelled to believe I know”
Actually, what I am trying to do here is to take yet another “general description” like this one out into the world of actual human interactions.
For example:
Given what is in fact unfolding now in, say, the Trump scandals, how do we determine conclusively whether what we think about the choices being made here are 1] being intertwined in a universe as we imagine it [autonomously] to be or 2] that the universe as it actually is, is, instead, compelling us to think what we do.
My connundrum here is that I – “I” – have no definitive capacity to know for sure which one it is. Then I can only confront the arguments of those who think otherwise.
All that being said, let me ask you this: Do you see some contradiction in both believing everything happens for a reason and believing our thoughts can be reasonable?
I personally fail to see any contradiction…
Well, how can there be any contradictions at all in a wholly determined universe? If what we believe about reasonable thoughts is only that which we were ever able to believe about them then that is wholly in sync with those alleged immutable laws of matter.
But even if we can freely choose to distinguish between reasonable and unreasonable thoughts, would we not have to take this back to all that can be known about existence itself? An existence in other words that includes human autonomy.
Or is that actually unimaginable? Like speaking of human autonomy in a world where God does exist and He is omniscient.
How can there be immutable laws of matter in a universe where matter has evolved into minds able to choose freely to think otherwise? Able to think things that are not in fact true. Now that is some really, really strange matter. But: is that what human consciousness has in fact come to be?
But here I am back to my own mind swirling and whirling about – unable to anchor itself to anything definitive.
So if indeed we’re in a kind of deterministic universe, we’re clearly in the kind where we’re determined to think reasonably… and even when we don’t, there’s a reason for it.
That all seems very congruent with the human experience to me…
We rarely ever think of ourselves as doing or thinking things for no reason…
We think only as we are compelled to in a universe consisting of matter only at it is compelled to be. “Reason” is just a word human minds were compelled to invent in order to explain those aspects of existence it notes to be highly correlated. But that is not the same as coming to grips with the actual cause and effect forces that encompass existence itself.
Right?
What I believe you are asking, and no one here can provide an answer to, is whether or not we are made of more than matter… I don’t know the answer any more than you do.
Exactly. Is mind “matter plus”? How do we account for mindless matter evolving into mindful matter that may or may not be autonomous?
I don’t know that we can account for it fully… it’s mostly speculation at this point, it seems to me.
Me too.