The Unseen Light; the Unheard Sound

There is a mildly humorous question which asks, when I close the refrigerator door, how do I know that the light goes out?

 

A related matter is expressed by the poetic maxim that, “A tree which falls in the forest when no one is around, makes no sound.” 

 

Both of these make a distinction between a physical event, and its perception.  We may assume that a tree that falls in the forest produces air vibrations, but sound is produced only when those vibrations result in someone hearing.

 

The basic question involves the relationship between objective reality and subjective reality.  The bias of the physicalist is to believe that the only reality is physical, and that subjective perceptions of reality are not themselves a separate reality, for they do not modify what is real.  In other words, the brain is objectively real, as are its reactions to other objects, but those reactions (perceptions) are simply other phenomena in physics.

 

On the other hand, there are those who say that only perceptions are real, and that physical reality is simply a concept produced by subjective thought.  We perceive colors, for example, in terms that cannot be expressed in objective terms, neither in words nor in mathematics.

 

This “either/or” mindset has resulted in two opposing philosophies, that of Physicalism and that of Idealism.

 

The Idealist has a strong argument from the outset.  He correctly points out that the only thing of which we can be sure is that we are conscious, or the famous maxim, “I think, therefore I am.”

 

This philosophical argument made strong inroads into physicalism with the advent of quantum physics.  Well-established experiments give strong indications that material things exhibit physical properties that are affected by, or even defined by, conscious perceptions.  Without conscious perception, physical reality is said to exist only as a formless void of probabilities, an abstraction.

 

However, the physicalist rebuts the interpretation of these experiments, affirming that it is the underlying physical reality, not its perception, that dictates the behavior of matter.  To the physicalist, thought and perception are physical interactions between atoms which, upon death or dissolution, cease to exist except as dispersed energy that has no consciousness.

 

The debate can go on endlessly, because both sides are absolutist, and insist that they are right, and that the other is wrong.

 

The truth does not lie in the middle, but off the chart.

 

The fundamental reality is neither consciousness nor matter, but reality itself.  Consciousness and matter interact with each other.  Neither is a product of the other, but rather, both are aspects of a hierarchy, a grand architecture of reality.

 

The central reality is unknowable.  How could it be otherwise?  Can the finite encompass the infinite?

 

While we cannot (of course) know the unknowable, we can receive knowledge from it.  We can receive it only in the amount which is beneficial for us, and only according to the capacity with which we are endowed.

 

As regards this, we can know (not of our own knowledge, nor as a result of our own intellect) that there is a Supreme Being, and that He has endowed us with three of His attributes:  Life, Consciousness and Free Will.

 

We can know that He created heaven and earth, the twin realities of spirit and matter.  He created us, and did so for a divine purpose.  We can also know that, because we have free will, we can choose whether to follow our divinely assigned destiny, or to rebel against it.

 

We rebelled, but our Creator did not abandon us to our dismal fate.  All the rest remains shrouded in divine mystery, but bit by bit we are guided along a difficult and painful path of sorrows, toward an eternal destiny that is more than worth our efforts.