Index 
Epistemology Senses
Things: I don’t KNOW anything, but I am pretty sure about a whole lot of things. This includes, with Descarte, that I am and that there are “things” (matter and energy) outside “me”. So “I” and something distinct from “other.” But in another way I am but an infinitesimally small part of the “other”, e.g. the earth, all matter on earth, the whole universe. So “I” and probably “you” and infinite other things “exist”. You and I can even identify and name some of them, like this pen and paper and the table I am writing on and the light that brings images to my eyes, and pressure differences that bring touch senses to my arms, hands and fingers to allow the writing. But these are also part of the “same thing” and the “infinite things.” So each thing: me, pen, paper, light, is both discrete and continuous, both separate and “part of”. Each “thing” is both unique (different from every other “thing”) and alike (identical to every other thing as being part of a whole made up of infinite other “things”). What makes a separate “thing” distinguishable? Well, simply perception? Or is it separate without a mind to classify it? Is it a separate in my head only or a more universal “spirit”? The age-old question! Materialists and Spiritualists. Well, I certainly create mental images of the “others” as distinct things, e.g. this pen and so it is. It has been manipulated by artiface to “manufacture” it from other “things”; each precisely identified itself to allow the making of this pen to precise specifications. But to my universe of sound, this pen is inaudible. So does it exist in the “sound” universe? The universe of molecules vibrating in the 20-20000 hertz range? Does that mean it only “partly” exists? Separately in sight, sound, touch, smell, and taste universes? Or does it take only one sense to “confirm” its existence as a distinct “thing”. (Physicists say any quantum interaction “collapses” the probability field). So the question is not, “Is existence materialistic (deterministic) or non-materialistic (spiritual)? but rather it may be both and neither, even at the same time, so the proper question is, “Is the world deterministic, spiritual, both or neither?" |