Is There Any Absolute, or Ultimate 'Reality?'

[JackDaydream]

I am raising this as a metaphysical question, but it involves so many questions including the epistemology aspect of the known and the unknown. How much can we know and what remains as unknowable? We have various angles of thought ranging from the knowledge of science and the tool of language for analysis. On the other hand, we have metaphysics, and how much can the understanding and thinking of metaphysics be useful for an understanding of reality. How may the concept of 'reality' be understood as an aspect of personal experience or in connection with a wider scheme of reference? How do we consider the relative in relation to the absolute, or are these merely abstract concepts?

[stevie]

Is There Any Absolute, or Ultimate 'Reality?'
How much can we know and what remains as unknowable?
how much can the understanding and thinking of metaphysics be useful for an understanding of reality. [?]
How may the concept of 'reality' be understood as an aspect of personal experience or in connection with a wider scheme of reference?
How do we consider the relative in relation to the absolute, or are these merely abstract concepts?

It appears as if you would want to cover all philosophical and psychological questions in one thread.
Question 1 refers to whether calling something "ultimate" isn't merely relative convention, too.
Question 2 refers to the justification of concepts like "reality" and all other metaphysical concepts.
Question 3 refers to subjective vs obvjective.
Question 4 is redundant.

These are my associations reading your questions.

[JackDaydream]

@Stevie

I like your breakdown of my question. I am probably doing too much thinking and realise that it is not possible to answer everything in one thread, However, I am trying to strip philosophy down to the bear essentials and I am hoping that my question may spark some interesting thinking . As a basis we could ask what we mean by 'reality', and I am sure this has many meanings from the personal to ideas within scientific perspectives. This shows how vast the question is, as an aspect of language and the metaphysical assumptions of the idea.

[JackDaydream]

@Stevie

I have just looked at your answer again and see that you have said my fourth question is redundant. Counting it through, I think that you must be referring to the issue of the relative and absolute. Surely, how we think about details in relation to wider schemes of analysis must be important. So, what did you mean?

[PoeticUniverse]

How do we consider the relative in relation to the absolute, or are these merely abstract concepts?

There is either an Absolute or none (see Relationism).

[JackDaydream]

@PoeticUniverse

I think that my idea of the relative in relation to the absolute is about partial knowledge in relation to a higher level of knowledge. I think that it may be questioned whether there are levels of knowledge which transcend our own subjective perspectives. However, there is a whole tradition of knowledge of knowledge going beyond our experiences going back to Kant's idea of a priori knowledge and Plato's ideas of Forms. We have moved into a sphere of thinkers which embraces uncertainty, but I do believe that it is also important to consider whether there are any essential aspects underlying experience. You say , 'There is either absolute or none', but of course even the concept of the absolute needs scrutiny. But the underlying question may be what lies behind experience and whether there is any underlying order, and what is this? Can it be described by religion or science? I am really asking about the nature of the unseen behind the veils of what we see in life.

[Sy Borg]

I am raising this as a metaphysical question, but it involves so many questions including the epistemology aspect of the known and the unknown. How much can we know and what remains as unknowable? We have various angles of thought ranging from the knowledge of science and the tool of language for analysis. On the other hand, we have metaphysics, and how much can the understanding and thinking of metaphysics be useful for an understanding of reality. How may the concept of 'reality' be understood as an aspect of personal experience or in connection with a wider scheme of reference? How do we consider the relative in relation to the absolute, or are these merely abstract concepts?

The difference between science and metaphysics is that the latter is unreliable due to the significant subjective components. It's like comparing a gold mining rig with a single prospector, digging by band. That prospector might come across the most significant nugget in the gold field, but the chances are much more likely that the company will find the vast majority of deposits.

A number of major scientific discoveries came from the intersection of orthodox science and metaphysics, with scientists breaking through knotty problems in their field in their dreams (https://www.famousscientists.org/7-grea ... in-dreams/) or with creative imagination, as in Einstein's breakthrough in relativity. In these examples, top-notch technical understanding is blended with the open-mindedness to utilise all mental potentials, not limited by dogmatic materialist ideology. That is, these thinkers realised that we have capacities we don't understand and had no ideological block from using them, but that was not the basis of their discovery, rather a conduit for a broader understanding of their existing knowledge.

Intuition works, but it's not reliable, so metaphysics seems to make the greatest impact when intimately linked with reliable and deep knowledge of the field being considered. The use of intuition when one does not know or understand existing science is a crap shoot that often results a person's "discoveries" being either wrong or old news.

It's easy to do. Before Google I had many "inspired" ideas that I thought others hadn't considered. After Google I realised that my "awesome original ideas" had been already thought of by, say, 23,680 others (that is, those who'd bothered to post online and had been indexed), and more deeply and eloquently than I'd managed.

[JackDaydream]

@Sy Borg

I am definitely not opposed to science and I see your point about information on the internet being able to guide and refine our intuitions. It is useful to be able to back up ideas with firm ideas thought out by others, and it can be like diving into the collective unconscious. However, I think that knowledge is still partly a personal quest and is not simply about accessing information, because it involves depth of understanding and insight which cannot be found simply in books or online. It does appear that metaphysical speculation is becoming considered secondary to science, like an appendix to it.. Nevertheless, even science is bound up in models and theories, which are extremely important but they are representations and not reality. I realise that what I am talking about may be more the quest of the mystic, and how this interplays with the pursuit of philosophy.

[3017Metaphysician]

I am raising this as a metaphysical question, but it involves so many questions including the epistemology aspect of the known and the unknown. How much can we know and what remains as unknowable? We have various angles of thought ranging from the knowledge of science and the tool of language for analysis. On the other hand, we have metaphysics, and how much can the understanding and thinking of metaphysics be useful for an understanding of reality. How may the concept of 'reality' be understood as an aspect of personal experience or in connection with a wider scheme of reference? How do we consider the relative in relation to the absolute, or are these merely abstract concepts?

The difference between science and metaphysics is that the latter is unreliable due to the significant subjective components. It's like comparing a gold mining rig with a single prospector, digging by band. That prospector might come across the most significant nugget in the gold field, but the chances are much more likely that the company will find the vast majority of deposits.

A number of major scientific discoveries came from the intersection of orthodox science and metaphysics, with scientists breaking through knotty problems in their field in their dreams (https://www.famousscientists.org/7-grea ... in-dreams/) or with creative imagination, as in Einstein's breakthrough in relativity. In these examples, top-notch technical understanding is blended with the open-mindedness to utilise all mental potentials, not limited by dogmatic materialist ideology. That is, these thinkers realised that we have capacities we don't understand and had no ideological block from using them, but that was not the basis of their discovery, rather a conduit for a broader understanding of their existing knowledge.

Intuition works, but it's not reliable, so metaphysics seems to make the greatest impact when intimately linked with reliable and deep knowledge of the field being considered. The use of intuition when one does not know or understand existing science is a crap shoot that often results a person's "discoveries" being either wrong or old news.

It's easy to do. Before Google I had many "inspired" ideas that I thought others hadn't considered. After Google I realised that my "awesome original ideas" had been already thought of by, say, 23,680 others (that is, those who'd bothered to post online and had been indexed), and more deeply and eloquently than I'd managed.

SB!

Nice post. I agree with some; disagree with others... . There is a bit of a false dichotomy going on there in that the reasoning you mentioned about physics and meta-physics is not accurate. First:

….metaphysics means the study of topics about physics, as apposed to the scientific subject itself. Traditional metaphysical problems have included the origin, nature , and purpose of the universe, how the world of appearances presented to our senses relates to its underlying " reality" and order, the relationship between mind and matter, and the existence of the will. Clearly science is deeply involved in such issues, but empirical science alone may not be able to answer them, or any meaning-of-life questions.


As philosophers, the irony is that by merely commenting on the OP question we are engaged in metaphysical meaning-of-life questions. And meaning of life questions involve the subject and object. The subject is the metaphysical part, which has its own truth.

Accordingly, denying its significance relative to science is a false dichotomy, not only because it requires a subject-person ( who has a consciousness/self-awareness) to advance a given physical theory, but more importantly, intuition plays a significant role in testing theories through synthetic a priori propositions from the intellect. So science fails us as to the reasons of how, what, why, where did we get those conscious qualities of "intuition" (the sense of wonderment itself) to begin with as those things have little biological survival value (when emergent instinct is all that's needed to survive in the jungle).

The example most germane to the argument there is that we don't need knowledge of the laws of gravity to evade falling objects in the jungle. Nor is gravity itself physical much less quantum fields, not to mention qualia and other metaphysical features of conscousness... .

Feel free to poke holes of course... !

But back to the OP, the question of 'ultimate' reality could easily fit into the logic associated with the concept of metaphysical idealism. It seems like the most logically necessary place to start. In layman's terms, (in opposition to your argument about objectivity-objective reality- generally speaking) one's own subjective truth is all that really matters, ultimately, as sense perception and intuition can only come from the subject's mind, the perceiver. Perhaps one question there becomes, on a binary scale (depending on the circumstances), which truth's appear to be more significant in the apperception of reaity; objective truths or subjective truths (?).

[Steve3007]

I am raising this as a metaphysical question, but it involves so many questions including the epistemology aspect of the known and the unknown. How much can we know and what remains as unknowable?

By definition, we don't know.

We have various angles of thought ranging from the knowledge of science and the tool of language for analysis. On the other hand, we have metaphysics, and how much can the understanding and thinking of metaphysics be useful for an understanding of reality.

It seems to me that metaphysics is not something separate from science and the tool of language, as you seem to be saying it is here. Arguably the laws of physics themselves are metaphysical. They're certainly not physical objects.

How may the concept of 'reality' be understood as an aspect of personal experience or in connection with a wider scheme of reference?

I'd say that reality is the thing which causes our sensations to have things in common with each other. We believe that the reason our sensations have things in common is that they are sensations of something that exists independently of our ability to sense it, such that it would still exist if the sensing didn't happen. That something is what we call reality.

How do we consider the relative in relation to the absolute, or are these merely abstract concepts?

Relative refers to properties of things by comparison to other things, such that they would be meaningless without those comparisons. Absolute refers to properties that are meaningful without those comparisons. Properties like position and velocity, for example, are relative in the sense that it's meaningless to talk of the absolute position or velocity of an object.

[Nick_A]

Jack

I am raising this as a metaphysical question, but it involves so many questions including the epistemology aspect of the known and the unknown. How much can we know and what remains as unknowable? We have various angles of thought ranging from the knowledge of science and the tool of language for analysis. On the other hand, we have metaphysics, and how much can the understanding and thinking of metaphysics be useful for an understanding of reality. How may the concept of 'reality' be understood as an aspect of personal experience or in connection with a wider scheme of reference? How do we consider the relative in relation to the absolute, or are these merely abstract concepts?

Can fractions exist without the whole? Can colors exist without them being within the vibrations of white light which includes all colors? Can the lawful fractions of existence we experience as a process, begin without a source? Some say yes but I don't see how it is possible.

The queen is the most powerful piece on the chess board but without the king there is no game. Without the Source there is no lawful process of existence

[Sy Borg]

I am raising this as a metaphysical question, but it involves so many questions including the epistemology aspect of the known and the unknown. How much can we know and what remains as unknowable? We have various angles of thought ranging from the knowledge of science and the tool of language for analysis. On the other hand, we have metaphysics, and how much can the understanding and thinking of metaphysics be useful for an understanding of reality. How may the concept of 'reality' be understood as an aspect of personal experience or in connection with a wider scheme of reference? How do we consider the relative in relation to the absolute, or are these merely abstract concepts?

The difference between science and metaphysics is that the latter is unreliable due to the significant subjective components. It's like comparing a gold mining rig with a single prospector, digging by band. That prospector might come across the most significant nugget in the gold field, but the chances are much more likely that the company will find the vast majority of deposits.

A number of major scientific discoveries came from the intersection of orthodox science and metaphysics, with scientists breaking through knotty problems in their field in their dreams (https://www.famousscientists.org/7-grea ... in-dreams/) or with creative imagination, as in Einstein's breakthrough in relativity. In these examples, top-notch technical understanding is blended with the open-mindedness to utilise all mental potentials, not limited by dogmatic materialist ideology. That is, these thinkers realised that we have capacities we don't understand and had no ideological block from using them, but that was not the basis of their discovery, rather a conduit for a broader understanding of their existing knowledge.

Intuition works, but it's not reliable, so metaphysics seems to make the greatest impact when intimately linked with reliable and deep knowledge of the field being considered. The use of intuition when one does not know or understand existing science is a crap shoot that often results a person's "discoveries" being either wrong or old news.

It's easy to do. Before Google I had many "inspired" ideas that I thought others hadn't considered. After Google I realised that my "awesome original ideas" had been already thought of by, say, 23,680 others (that is, those who'd bothered to post online and had been indexed), and more deeply and eloquently than I'd managed.

SB!

Nice post. I agree with some; disagree with others... . There is a bit of a false dichotomy going on there in that the reasoning you mentioned about physics and meta-physics is not accurate. First:

….metaphysics means the study of topics about physics, as apposed to the scientific subject itself. Traditional metaphysical problems have included the origin, nature , and purpose of the universe, how the world of appearances presented to our senses relates to its underlying " reality" and order, the relationship between mind and matter, and the existence of the will. Clearly science is deeply involved in such issues, but empirical science alone may not be able to answer them, or any meaning-of-life questions.


As philosophers, the irony is that by merely commenting on the OP question we are engaged in metaphysical meaning-of-life questions. And meaning of life questions involve the subject and object. The subject is the metaphysical part, which has its own truth.

Accordingly, denying its significance relative to science is a false dichotomy, not only because it requires a subject-person ( who has a consciousness/self-awareness) to advance a given physical theory, but more importantly, intuition plays a significant role in testing theories through synthetic a priori propositions from the intellect. So science fails us as to the reasons of how, what, why, where did we get those conscious qualities of "intuition" (the sense of wonderment itself) to begin with as those things have little biological survival value (when emergent instinct is all that's needed to survive in the jungle).

The example most germane to the argument there is that we don't need knowledge of the laws of gravity to evade falling objects in the jungle. Nor is gravity itself physical much less quantum fields, not to mention qualia and other metaphysical features of conscousness... .

Feel free to poke holes of course... !

But back to the OP, the question of 'ultimate' reality could easily fit into the logic associated with the concept of metaphysical idealism. It seems like the most logically necessary place to start. In layman's terms, (in opposition to your argument about objectivity-objective reality- generally speaking) one's own subjective truth is all that really matters, ultimately, as sense perception and intuition can only come from the subject's mind, the perceiver. Perhaps one question there becomes, on a binary scale (depending on the circumstances), which truth's appear to be more significant in the apperception of reaity; objective truths or subjective truths (?).

Fair points, Meta, my reference to metaphysics was more based on common (mis)conceptions than the technical definition.

Perhaps metaphysics exists because there are so many important phenomena that the Standard Model can't explain, such as life, consciousness, the BB, gravity, dark matter, dark energy, the centre of black holes and neutrino mass, amongst others? That's most of reality. We cannot just shut off our curiosity about these parts of reality just because we are not as removed from our basic simian ancestry as we like to think.

I have thoughts regarding the origin of intuition. Our senses receive vastly more information than can be consciously processed. So what happens to the discarded information? My guess is that their affects pool up to form general impressions, with only the details consciously attended.

Have you thoughts on math in context? Like intuition, math can create imaginary models with no known physical correlate, but it can also probe more deeply than experiment-based research.

[Belindi]

3017Metaphysician wrote:

But back to the OP, the question of 'ultimate' reality could easily fit into the logic associated with the concept of metaphysical idealism. It seems like the most logically necessary place to start.

I have found this to be the case, since I recently tried moving from Spinozan dual aspect monism to absolute idealism. Spinozan monism is entirely rational of course, but absolute idealism is an easier ontological base for picturing the absolute. I think it is easier (certainly easier than materialism)because minds, especially minds devoid of the self concept, are unlike matter not bound by dimensions of space and time and so can be imagined from the absolute aspect of the absolute/relative dichotomy.

In the present dangerous state of climate change, absolute idealism presents us with a theory of existence that is good for helping us to cooperate and to have the courage necessary to make huge economic changes.

Helpful graphic images of the Absolute can be found in some science fiction and certain other creative images in the Romantic tradition.

[Steve3007]

I am raising this as a metaphysical question, but it involves so many questions including the epistemology aspect of the known and the unknown. How much can we know and what remains as unknowable?

By definition, we don't know.

Just a bit more on that first question from the OP. It seems clear to me that, by definition, we can't know how much we don't know because if we knew that we'd know something about it. (We'd know how big it is). Not only that but, of all the stuff we don't know, we can't possibly know how much of it we might know at some point in the future and how much of it we could never know. (This is all sounding a bit Donald Rumsfeld).

That latter category of unknowns has sometimes been described by analogy with chimpanzees and quantum mechanics. It's been pointed out that chimps not only don't understand QM, but they don't know that there is anything to not understand and never will. It's not as if it's some piece of knowledge that is waiting to be discovered. It will, we can say with reasonable confidence, never be discovered. (With apologies to any chimps who do actually understand QM). The point of the analogy is to illustrate that there may well be things that are the case about the world (facts about it) that we can never discover. There may be an infinite quantity of them. We can never know. So (most people would probably say) don't worry about them.

[JackDaydream]

@3017Metaphysican

Hello Meta,
I have been thinking about what you wrote on science and metaphysics and I believe that it is complex as the relationship between the two is interconnected. I know that as a young child was so puzzling because I had so little scientific knowledge. I believe that a 'missing link' is religious thinking and, for many that has been replaced by science. I was taught the account of creation in the Bible by my parents and I can remember being so confused when I first learned the theory of evolution. Some of my education was at a Catholic school and it did seem that some of
the teachers were trying to reconcile religious and scientific thinking.

I believe that a lot of the question of how we think about 'reality' is dependent on our entire worldview. It is so much about juggling what appears to be subjective, objective and inter subjective aspects of knowledge. There is the world of immediate experience and narratives told amongst social groups as well as that contained within the news, as well as books and the internet.

I believe that metaphysics is at the centre of all thinking even if people do not acknowledge it. The physicists come from basic assumptions, but, also, all psychological models and ones within the social sciences begin from premises about the nature of reality. There are viewpoints which range from idealism and naturalism, but they are all based on metaphysics, and there are likely to be such varying perspectives according to historical and cultural contexts. There is a difference in Western and Eastern metaphysical assumptions, and probably subtle shades in between. Our basic empirical and theoretical background inform our starting point, our searches and research, and interpretations of what we find may challenge our thoughts about reality. It appears to me to be an interactive relationship between reality 'out there' and the construction and descriptive accounts.