Well, in a wholly determined universe, it would seem that how we think we look at things is actually the only way that we were ever able to look at things. On the other hand, in a very different universe, certain mndful matter [like you and I] would instead have at least some meausre of control over how we look at [and interpret] things.
Depending on the context. And the extent to which we are able to demonstrate that what we think we know is in fact true.
This sort of thing is embodied in dasein. Given the life that she lived, she has come to think this. And, in thinking this, it comforts and consoles her. Now she will resist mightily any frame of mind [like mine] that might upend it.
Back to Watts…
I agree that the evolution of somethingness from whenever it began [if it even began at all] reaches the point where seemingly mindless matter becomes “life”. And that life evolves further into minds. And minds evolve further into “self-conscious” entities actual able to know this.
But: How on earth to explain it?
Watts gives it his best shot. But as with so many other philosophical and scientific narratives out there we have no way in which to either verify or falsify his speculative claims. Let alone to take his assumptions down to the molecular level. And then to finally connect the dots [definitively] between the very, very small and the very, very big.
We can only applaud those like Watts who do grapple with it seriously and then make their leaps of faith by way of their own particular “explanation”.
Sure we can go “the other way” and argue that minerals are just another form of consciousness. And then take that back to the fundamental building blocks of matter/energy itself.
But how do we go about setting up the experiments to prove it? What predictions can we make about our own behaviors given the assumptions that Watts make? Do they allow us to more rationally judge our own behaviuors and the behaviors of others?
I don’t know. But that’s my point. I intuit on a visceral level that I do. But how then is my “gut feeling” here connected to a definitive explanation of existence itself?
It’s like, on a certain level, we all recognize that seemingly ineffable/inextricable gap between “I” and “all there is”; but some like Watts are still able to convince themselves that they really have come the closest to bridging it. And, again, from my frame of mind this is more a manifestation of human psychology instead. In considering his own “metaphysical assumptions” you can’t help but note how certain he seems to be regarding his conclusions. His narrative sounds like another rendition of pantheism to me. The universe is everything and we [and everyone else] are “at one” with it. Can only be at one with it.
And you can’t get a broarder foundation onto which to anchor “I” than that, right? You may have come to the realization that you don’t exist but better that one than none at all.
From my frame of mind human psychology seems most plugged into belief itself. It’s not what you believe but that you are able to believe. In something. Something that is bigger than the infinitesimally tiny speck of existence that “I” is in its 70 odd year journey to oblivion. Then the even more intriguing possibility that this belief itself is but another inherent manifestion of the laws of matter themselves.
True. Once you go this far out on the “something instead of nothing” limb all of our speculations become bascially innocuous. And precicely because the answers seem to have so little [if anything] to do with the lives we live from day to day.
But I don’t like the hole that I am in. And I don’t know that there isn’t an answer to be found. I don’t even know if “I” have any autonomy in groping to find out.
And then the connection between that and the parts that seem very serious indeed.
In a wholly determined universe the difference is only what it ever could have been. What seems random is only an illusion. But in probing this how do we determine that the probing itself is not just another inherent component of matter unfolding and interacting only as it ever can?
Thus applying equally to both Republicans and Democrats. And to both the advocates of human autonomy and the advocates of hard determinism.
But they are robots because they could never not be robots. Or, given some measure of human autonomy, there is always the possibility that in a world of contingency, chance and change a new experience, a new relationship or access to new information and knowledge, could result in them changing their minds.
That this is doesn’t happen very often [in an autonomous world] reflects what I construe to be the “psychology of objectivism”. People seem hard wired to believe anything that allows them to anchor “I” to one or another moral and political foundation. And however one uses his or her “noodle” here, the parts about dasein, conflicting goods and political power don’t go away. “I” is still seen by me to be an “existential contraption”.
And the conservatives have their own rendition of “low-level thought” re the liberals.
What does that really have to do with the manner in which I construe “I” as an existential contraption shaped and molded out in a particular world in which behaviors are in turn able to be construed and judged in conflicting ways? Unless human beings are mechanisms programmed by nature to choose only what they are never able not to choose?
My guess: your conclusions are predicated on a set of assumptions that ultimately are unable to be either entirely verified or entirely falsified.
At least not with respect to an actual context.
People like to do different things. Assuming some level of “free will” why do they often choose different [sometimes conflicting] things? Is there a way to figure out the things they ought to choose? I root that in this: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=176529
Because they are in fact able either to demonstrate that their own default position reflects the most rational starting point or they are not. A God, the God, my God is either there to be grasped by all rational/virtuous human beings, or, instead, No God is.
In fact though, pertaining to this particular context, there does not appear to be any definitive conclusions reached. But in the either/or world there do appear to be many such contexts. The default frame of mind is able to be reconfigured into actual engineering feats or in actual technologies.
Not so in the is/ought world. And not so regarding quandaries that neither science nor philosophy seem able to pin down.
Thus:
And I am willing to accept certain proofs because they seem to be backed up [demonstrated] as that which all rationaly men and women would seem obligated to believe.
That’s really all there is until an ontological explanation for existence is able to be established as the mother of all default positions.
There are contraptions in the either/or world that can be grasped and utilized by all able to grasp and to utilize them objectively. For example, the medical contraptions used by obstetricians to either bring an unborn baby into the world or to abort it.
But what scientific contraptions are available to them in order to decide when the unborn actually does become a “human being”? And what ethical contraptions are available to them when deciding if abortion either is or is not the right thing to do?
There are things that are applicable to all flesh and blood human beings who find themselves in the context that we call an “unwanted pregnancy”.
Distinctions can be made here, in my view. Not all contraptions are created equal. But some do seem applicable to all of us.
In other words:
No, I’m speculating that with regard to what we think we know here and now about all of this, there is a fundamental gap between that and and all that can be known given a wholly comprehensive understanding of existence itself. And I’m speculating that with regard to what we think we know here and now about all this, we do not seem able to grasp definitively whether we are even able to grasp what we think we know about it autonomously.
But, in the interim [whatever that means], there appear to be relationships that can more readily be demonstrated to be true for all of us. In whatever manner in which one chooses to understand the meaning of the word “objectively”.
In other words, re the world of mathematics, the laws of nature, empircial interactions and the logical rules of language.