Which Aspects of Life Cannot be Fully Explained or Known?

[JackDaydream]

I have been wondering this when reading and thinking about discussion on the thread which I wrote, ' Is it Metaphysics or Science Fiction'?' The areas which I think are difficult to explain include are whether there is any transcendent reality beyond the physical, what happens at death, and how body and mind come together to make consciousness. We do not know how the spark of life or of consciousness becomes manifest and origins of existence fully.

I am not suggesting that it is not worth considering and speculating on such issues. However, it may be that both theories in science and explanations within religious worldviews are attempts to fill in the gaps but I am wondering to what extent they may do so. So, I am asking you what you think will always remain as unexplained or unknown?

[Nick_A]

I have been wondering this when reading and thinking about discussion on the thread which I wrote, ' Is it Metaphysics or Science Fiction'?' The areas which I think are difficult to explain include are whether there is any transcendent reality beyond the physical, what happens at death, and how body and mind come together to make consciousness. We do not know how the spark of life or of consciousness becomes manifest and origins of existence fully.

I am not suggesting that it is not worth considering and speculating on such issues. However, it may be that both theories in science and explanations within religious worldviews are attempts to fill in the gaps but I am wondering to what extent they may do so. So, I am asking you what you think will always remain as unexplained or unknown?

"There is no logical way to the discovery of elemental laws. There is only the way of intuition, which is helped by a feeling for the order lying behind the appearance." Einstein

The universe is logical but only a few have the quality of consciousness essential to remember and understand it. But yes, I agree humanity has the potential to grasp the meaning and purpose of our universe and Man within it.

[JackDaydream]

@Nick-A
Intuition may grasp for ideas, but, surely, this only results in basic sketches of potential ideas and models for understanding, which may require further means of verification. I do not dismiss intuition but it is likely to have certain limitations. For example, the idea that the earth was flat may have been an intuition but it proved to be wrong. So, intuitive ideas may only be helpful until those based on the facts can be established which may or may not back up the intuitions.

[Nick_A]

@Nick-A
Intuition may grasp for ideas, but, surely, this only results in basic sketches of potential ideas and models for understanding, which may require further means of verification. I do not dismiss intuition but it is likely to have certain limitations. For example, the idea that the earth was flat may have been an intuition but it proved to be wrong. So, intuitive ideas may only be helpful until those based on the facts can be established which may or may not back up the intuitions.

Intuition and wishful thinking are not the same. Intuition is the ability to remember elemental truths which have been forgotten. Once it has been remembered a person can learn by the rational mind how it manifests in the world under the sun

The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.
Albert Einstein

Technology and its obsession with the rational mind and imagination has deadened the intuitive mind for all but the few who keep it alive in the world

[JackDaydream]

@Nick-A
Do you think that rather than there being advances in knowledge and understanding that human beings have lost the intuitive grasp of understanding? I know that certain individuals in ancient times were able to think in an extremely sophisticated way, but the majority of the people may not have been able to access education in the way that people can today. But, there is the question as to what extent philosophical understanding is progressing or going backwards? Or, perhaps it is just that people answer and think about the recurrent questions in different historical and cultural contexts. However, the juxtaposition between rationality or intuition is interesting because it is more common to compare rationality with emotive perspectives.

[Nick_A]

@Nick-A
Do you think that rather than there being advances in knowledge and understanding that human beings have lost the intuitive grasp of understanding? I know that certain individuals in ancient times were able to think in an extremely sophisticated way, but the majority of the people may not have been able to access education in the way that people can today. But, there is the question as to what extent philosophical understanding is progressing or going backwards? Or, perhaps it is just that people answer and think about the recurrent questions in different historical and cultural contexts. However, the juxtaposition between rationality or intuition is interesting because it is more common to compare rationality with emotive perspectives.

A person could write a book on those questions: But, there is the question as to what extent philosophical understanding is progressing or going backwards?


First of all, I take the Simone Weil view of progress:

“Nothing can have as its destination anything other than its origin. The contrary idea, the idea of progress, is poison.”

The being of Man or his essence is dual natured. His lower parts arose from the earth while his higher parts giving man his potential for consciousness descended from above. Progress is not the result of learning more facts but rather experiencing and remembering ones origin. An evolved human being will have remembered their origin through noesis and able to apply it below. An evolved human being would have a seed of a soul that receives from above and gives to below and grows in the process.

The human condition has made it so that rather than the lower parts or appetites serving the higher, the higher now serves the lower. Reason is ruled by appetites. The more knowledge of facts grows, the less is the desire to put them into a higher perspective and in the direction of our source.. The result is facts without meaning and devolution.

[Sy Borg]

I have been wondering this when reading and thinking about discussion on the thread which I wrote, ' Is it Metaphysics or Science Fiction'?' The areas which I think are difficult to explain include are whether there is any transcendent reality beyond the physical, what happens at death, and how body and mind come together to make consciousness. We do not know how the spark of life or of consciousness becomes manifest and origins of existence fully.

I am not suggesting that it is not worth considering and speculating on such issues. However, it may be that both theories in science and explanations within religious worldviews are attempts to fill in the gaps but I am wondering to what extent they may do so. So, I am asking you what you think will always remain as unexplained or unknown?

It it impossible to say what will always be unknown. It may be that those in the future will unravel all of our current mysteries but, in doing so, they might open up new mysteries we'd never imagined. The ancients, for instance, could never imagine the question of whether black holes existed, as was the case early in the 20th century.

In terms of technological progress, there are two huge roadblocks. One is the question of how to achieve timely interstellar travel. The other is whether it will be possible to digitise, and thus preserve, human minds. Despite my earlier reservations about predicting the future, it is difficult to imagine humanity achieving these two major milestones. It would seem more likely that machines will do all long-haul space travel, and that non-human (or multi-human) structures will achieve functional consciousness, albeit not quite as we know it.

[stevie]

... So, I am asking you what you think will always remain as unexplained or unknown?

Ultimately everthing because ultimately valid knowledge is itself a speculative metaphysical conceptual object. I'd like to refer to my categorization in the context of the topic 'knowledge and belief* because I think it applies also in the present context. So 'knowledge' from my perspective always is the convention of a particular thematic collective and is nothing other than a collection of contextual linguistic expressions available as speech or text.

[Bradskii]

I have been wondering this when reading and thinking about discussion on the thread which I wrote, ' Is it Metaphysics or Science Fiction'?' The areas which I think are difficult to explain include are whether there is any transcendent reality beyond the physical, what happens at death, and how body and mind come together to make consciousness. We do not know how the spark of life or of consciousness becomes manifest and origins of existence fully.

I am not suggesting that it is not worth considering and speculating on such issues. However, it may be that both theories in science and explanations within religious worldviews are attempts to fill in the gaps but I am wondering to what extent they may do so. So, I am asking you what you think will always remain as unexplained or unknown?

Nothing.

We have only just climbed down from the trees (we still actually snarl when we're angry). We can only send fellow creatures as far as the nearest satellite. The furthest we have sent any man made object is barely outside our own solar system.

It is literally impossible to conceptualise what we are capable of. Literally. Because we are built only to judge the arc of a thrown rock. To estimate the distance to the next mountain. So in one sense we won't 'know'. Maybe we'll never know. Maybe we'll never truly understand how far a million light years actually is.

But we have no limits.

[chewybrian]

The only thing that surely can't be known is what *can* be known. Surely future folks will know and explain things we have yet to even consider. To do so will require new knowledge, technology and understanding that is not yet available to us.

As such, it is pure speculation to decide what we will or will not discover in the future. In the spirit of pure speculation, I will say that we may never understand what consciousness is. I don't think it has any material presence (though there many correlations with material things). Therefore, we have no basis for investigating and experimenting with consciousness itself, even as we are always moving on with understanding the correlations.

[Pattern-chaser]

I am asking you what you think will always remain as unexplained or unknown?

Those wholly-metaphysical speculations, such as 'Are we brains-in-vats?', will surely remain unknown, as there is no evidence available that might confirm or deny them. There are other examples where the future appearance of new evidence seems implausible, but might happen. These will remain unknown until such time as that evidence makes its appearance.

Is that all you're asking, or is there more?

[Pattern-chaser]

But we have no limits.

Do you mean to say that there are no externally-imposed limits to our progress? If so, I would have to agree.

But if you mean we can achieve anything we set our minds to, I would not agree. I am worried by this New Age guff we fill our kids with in school, and as we raise them to adulthood: "You can do anything you want to; there are no limits to what you can achieve." This leads, IMO, to severely depressed adults who feel they were promised the world, and are devastated to discover 'it ain't necessarily so'. Not everyone can be the President, even if they tell you otherwise.

[EricPH]

I know that certain individuals in ancient times were able to think in an extremely sophisticated way, but the majority of the people may not have been able to access education in the way that people can today.

We might know more about black holes now; but that only raises more questions. The extremely sophisticated wisdom of today; will not find the answers you desire in our life times.

[JackGreek]

Aspect of life that cannot be proved (therefore not explained or known)
1. That life is Physical (vs. fully mental)
Let me define "Physical" as used here: Is composed of, or is dependent on, non-alive things (un-perceiving particles and/or energies).
I believe that the statement: Life is fully Mental, at least has hope of provability/demonstration.


Because any demonstration that shows that Life is Physical can be argued that the experience of the demonstration was purely mental.
Conversely, an endless counter-argument would be that the mental experience was based on a physical thinking apparatus (a brain).
However, I believe there is a remote chance to prove Life is Mental, but no exit from the endless "which came first: mental or brain ?" for the Life is Physical argument. (But any remote chance proved is then law.)

Let me define an aspect of "prove" as used here: subjectively understood through an experience (like a scientific demonstration) that is believed to be understandable by all who are given a similar experience.

An Aspect of life that makes this question hard is: can an observer observe themself? I believe there is a chance for this if life is mental.

[HJCarden]

I have been wondering this when reading and thinking about discussion on the thread which I wrote, ' Is it Metaphysics or Science Fiction'?' The areas which I think are difficult to explain include are whether there is any transcendent reality beyond the physical, what happens at death, and how body and mind come together to make consciousness. We do not know how the spark of life or of consciousness becomes manifest and origins of existence fully.

I am not suggesting that it is not worth considering and speculating on such issues. However, it may be that both theories in science and explanations within religious worldviews are attempts to fill in the gaps but I am wondering to what extent they may do so. So, I am asking you what you think will always remain as unexplained or unknown?

Examining the status of things that are unknown or potentially unknowable is a crucial part of many potential answers to this question. When we ask ourselves what it means when we describe something as unknowable, a conundrum of sorts arises. With a little probing, I believe that we would expose that we do not even know what we don't know. If someone tomorrow was able to tell you what happens after your death, more and more questions would come to light. Say we do go to a heaven of sorts. Is God an old gray-bearded man, or a trans woman as some instagram infographics have informed me? So it seems to me that no matter how much "truth" we can uncover, we will always be able to generate more and more unknowns. Somewhat paradoxically, it might be that there is a multiplicative effect at play, in which the greater our knowledge is the amount of things beyond our reach grows exponentially.

Which lead to my question in response to your question, do you think that this paradox is a condition that is created by the human mind, or that there truly is simply so much potential "truth" to be uncovered in the world that our minds have barely scratched the surface of it (and therefore when we gain knowledge we realize that there is even more that we don't know)?

Excited to hear your and other's thoughts on this question.