[size=200]We Only Imagine The Existence Of the Physical: Dropping The Bomb On Secular Materialism [/size]
[size=90]“All we can mean, in talking about physical
objects or nonphysical objects (if there are any)
…is what experiences we would have in dealing with them.”
-Arthur Danto, Connections To The World[/size]
[size=150]Everything known to exist[/size][b]: bacteria, viruses, galaxies, jungles, slums, tornadoes, urine, feces, blood, etc. may or may not possess an external world/ non-mental form continuing to exist in the absence of any and all consciousness, but let there be no mistake: consciousness exists, and as such everything listed above for sake of argument have, in reality, a phenomenal form. That is, galaxies, jungles, slums, mafia hitmen, gangbangers, tornadoes, urine, feces, blood are also composed of the substance that makes up our subjective experience (if not, how are they subjectively experienced?) , as opposed to a non-mental substance believed to exist independent of the existence of consciousness.
If one believes that consciousness comes into and goes out of existence, there must exist a subjective counterpart to every external world/non-mental object, with the subjective counterpart a distinct existence from (albeit a representation of) it’s non-mental counterpart. Thus (if one believes in the existence of the non-mental) objects exist in twos, not ones: there is an external world, non-mental galaxy (viewed through the Hubble telescope, for example) that would continue to exist in the absence of any and all consciousness, and there is the visually perceived, subjective experience of the galaxy by a particular being, with the subjectively experienced galaxy taken to be perception of (or one and the same as) the external world, non-mental galaxy. However, secular mythology concerning the nature of death conceptually “proves” that there are two existences claimed as one: subjective experience of a galaxy can suddenly and instantaneously cease to exist (if the perceiving being dies while viewing the galaxy from the telescope) while the external world, non-mental galaxy continues to exist unaffected by the disappearance of someone’s perception of it.
Thus, if secular mythology in regard to the distinction between consciousness and the physical is true, two distinct existences are claimed to be one : there are phenomenal (subjectively experienced) galaxies and non-phenomenal galaxies, phenomenal jungles and non-phenomenal jungles, phenomenal bacteria and non-phenomenal bacteria, phenomenal and non-phenomenal viruses, feces, blood, saliva—and so on. The real world at least is known to contain subjective experience (by the fact that one subjectively experiences), thus everything known to exist (through knowledge gained by direct experience) possesses at least a phenomenal form; thus every object known to exist is composed of whatever it is that composes subjective experience, as objects exist in the form of how they appear and feel to a particular conscious being.
Existence, then, manifests itself in the form of a particular person and what that person experiences. Empirically, conscious persons are the only things known with certainty to exist. [/b]
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLKkBcjb4pg[/youtube]
[size=70]Film: Old School, DreamWorks Pictures 2003[/size]
[b]Anything not an existing conscious person or what that person experiences is only imagined by conscious persons to exist.
Thus if someone perceives and holds a cup, the person gains certain knowledge through direct experience that the cup exists, but the cup, empirically, only exists in the form of how it appears and feels to that particular person, as opposed to the cup in it’s (inconceivable) non-mental, external world form in the absence of any and all subjective experience. Supposedly, the non-mental cup is the cup the individual holds in her hand, but if this is true, is the non-mental cup hiding beneath the subjective experience of the cup, such that in the event of a sudden disappearance of the wielder’s consciousness (i.e. the individual suddenly drops dead while holding the cup), subjective experience of the cup magically winks out of existence, leaving behind it’s non-mental twin (perhaps still in the grip of the dead wielder’s corpse or lying by it’s side)?
But no matter how deep one digs under the surface of subjective experience (in search of it’s non-mental twin…“Keep digging, men–it’s in there!”)— one finds only subjective experience. Where is non-experience or non-mentality? If the cup in one’s hand is also the external world cup, non-mentality must be within what the conscious being locally experiences, as supposedly there is a non-mental analog to hands and cups. Unless consciousness and the physical occupy distinct universes, the non-mental and mental must occupy the same space and time. We know the mental exists, but we imagine the non-mental exists, and we imagine the non-mental to lie at the center of our experience.
Having no concept of non-mentality (as we only experience and conceive of things as they are subjectively perceived or experienced by someone), and with non-mentality inaccessible to conscious experience (as it is not subjective experience nor composed of whatever makes up subjective experience–and thus cannot “show up” in subjective experience composed of subjective experience), non-mentality is, upon rational reflection, an imaginary entity claimed to exist—granted “honorary existence” based upon a skeptic’s denial of the existence of a world containing only consciousness.
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[size=150]Of Occam’s Razor And Non-Mentality
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The nature of the world is divided among Mentalists and Non-mentalists. Despite the fact that: (a) objects in the real world exist only in the form of how they are experienced by a particular individual, (b) subjective objects are not one and the same as their external world counterparts (if those counterparts exist), and: (c) anything not composed of or an aspect of the subjective world of a particular individual is only imagined to exist, natural philosophy is divided and governed by one of two beliefs:
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The belief that only subjective experience or mentality exists
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The belief that an additional non-mental substance definitely exists, and underlies the existence, structure, and disposition of subjective experience.
[b]However, it is a fact of life that the non-mental, in spite of the possibility or the reasonableness of its existence, is imaginary. That is, it is something we must imagine exists, given that the non-mental is something that is not subjective consciousness. The very existence of consciousness, or the conscious mind, bars it from perception of that not composed of whatever makes up personal consciousness; the conscious mind is a closed system devoid of the non-subjective. Everything within the conscious mind or encountered by the conscious mind must appear in a phenomenal form capable of being perceived or experienced.
(This is obvious even from secular mythology that the physical brain is the arbiter of all experience: in order to visually perceive galaxies or jungles, there must exist within the brain neurons prepared before-the-fact to produce (upon electrochemical demand) private, personal perception of a galaxy or jungle: compare these “neuron-created” galaxies and “neuron-created” jungles to galaxies and jungles not created by the brain; the purported non-mental galaxies and jungles existing beyond the pale of consciousness).
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[size=150]Occam’s Razor[/size]
“The process in which we are engaged is the search for rational evidence for or against intelligent design. It does not suffice to say that intelligent design is possible, and proponents of intelligent design have no right to re-cast the question as one in which the non-existence of intelligent design must be proven. Within the framework of Occam’s razor, intelligent design is an added hypothesis and the proponent’s burden is to demonstrate why it is necessary to make this hypothesis. I have argued that no evidence or rational argument for intelligent design can be found in either the data or the theories of modern physics and cosmology. If the hypothesis of intelligent design is to be discussed in science classrooms, then good science methodology demands that we make clear that this is an uneconomical hypothesis that is not required by existing scientific knowledge.”
-Victor J. Stenger, Intelligent Design: Humans, Cockroaches, and the Law of Physics
[b]Why, the same can be said of the existence of the physical (the non-mental). The same reasoning applies in perfect analogy: Stenger’s reasoning behind the probable nonexistence of intelligent design applies equally to skepticism concerning the existence of the non-mental. Within the framework of Occam’s Razor, the non-mental, because it must be imagined to exist and because it must be imagined to mimic the content of visual perception, is itself an added hypothesis to the experienced world, and one can argue that (in particular) no evidence or rational argument for the non-mental can be found in the data of the depth and ubiquity of subjective experience (see cup example above). Phyiscalists and Materialists are born skeptics of the possibility that only consciousness exists, and are convinced that there must be more to reality than conscious minds. The Physicalist and Materialist then imagines, and asserts, the existence and nature of this added element–going so far as to insist this imaginary property is responsible for the existence of the subjective world.
In contrast, Idealism, Solipsism, and Phenomenalism (to a fault) remains within the framework of Occam’s Razor, eschewing the additional “baggage” of non-mentality. The Physicalist and Materialist, however, is nagged by a “ghost reason” insisting something else is going on, that the non-mental somehow exists. But this phantom form of reason fails an empirical leg to stand upon, supported only by a nagging, phantom suspicion that reality is somehow not purely phenomenal. Bolstered by this suspicion, the Non-Mentalist begins to suspect that perhaps humans are indeed gifted with revelatory knowledge, such that a mental activiity, like suspicion, intuition, or even logical imagination, is somehow a way objective reality “whispers in one’s ear” to indicate that one has seized furtively upon the truth.
Empirically, only subjective experience exists. But never fear, says the Non-Mentalist, our minds somehow possess the power to see beyond the obvious to the secret realm of non-empirical truth, with such truth in existence because of the existence of our belief in it’s truth.[/b]
[size=150]…TO BE CONTINUED…[/size]
