> This illustrates the scope of experience we apply to the world. I have never seen a color of running, but somoeone has. Synesthesia is very real and to those who possess it, there is a color of running.
Subjective properties are not objective properties. Synesthetes perceive subjective interpretations of objective properties. The perceptual distortions enabled by psychedelics are also not reflecting objective properties of the world, but subjective properties related to the information processing in your brain.
The point is that you and I may not be mentally equipped to observe reality in a way that shows underlying purpose.
There's the assumption that the thing yields its purpose when inspected.
Consider a screw driver. If you and I see it but lack the knowledge of context into which it was created (driving screws) we would say it is obviouslymechanical, obviously designed and manufactured. A screw driver (or other mechanical apparati) don'thappen by accident. But no amount of inspection, theorizing, or philosophical discourse would yield its purpose or its use cases to us.
We assume, by looking at the universe, that it (the thing) will yield to us purpose or reason for being. We can't get that information about the universe from the universe. We need to step back and consider "where did the universe come from". The context of origin may yield the purpose of the thing.
"We assume, by looking at the universe, that it (the thing) will yield to us purpose or reason for being. We can't get that information about the universe from the universe."
Unless you can ask the universe about the universe, which some people think they can.
Even if they're right, though, I'd argue that you could never know if you got the truth from the universe, if it was lying, or if you were just deluded.
People can find meanings in all sorts of things and in all sorts of ways. Doesn't mean they're right.
> People can find meanings in all sorts of things and in all sorts of ways.
I've been grappling with this recently. Specifically the question of "What amounts to fantasy and superstition and what reflects reality?" Pyschedelics is a rabbit-trail followed from here, as well as the idea that "nothing is actually real, this is just a simulation". And following those is the idea "reality is what you make it" and "you are God". But those conclusions run up against things that we cannot change like death and taxes (the taxes part is a joke, but only kind of). We're left with a dissonance of "all is illusion" vs "there exist things that we cannot change and things that are consistent outside of ourselves".
If we were in a dream-state and there was not actual object permanence then I'd agree with the conclusions of the religious pyschedelics crowd, as well as the all-is-illusion crowd. (Except there's some math from quantum physics that shows things don't exist unless you look at them...[0] or something like that. Conversations like this make me wish I took more comprehensive notes.) So I guess it is all an illusion until we touch it. :D That reminds me of the early graphical rendering method "culling" where if something isn't in the rendered field-of-view (FOV) then it doesn't get passed through the graphical pipeline.
How this informs the quest to extract meaning from the universe, I don't know.
This is a bit of a rabbit trail by itself. I do wonder at the fabric of existence from time-to-time, but I don't wonder at the purpose of it all -- religious convictions being what they are to me.
"What amounts to fantasy and superstition and what reflects reality?"
I don't see how we can ever really know. We only ever have access to our own experience. How could we ever find out what the world is really like beyond our own "subjective" experience?
"Pyschedelics is a rabbit-trail followed from here, as well as the idea that "nothing is actually real, this is just a simulation". And following those is the idea "reality is what you make it" and "you are God". But those conclusions run up against things that we cannot change like death and taxes (the taxes part is a joke, but only kind of)."
Who's the "we" that can't change that?
Some believe that our "true self" is the universe itself or god, and we are just deluded in to thinking we're separate individuals. In that view death is illusory as the universe or god don't die, and taxes and everything else about the world is created by the universe or god (ie. by your "true self").
There are many other views too, even if you reject yourself being god or the universe, that consider everything in the world (including death and taxes) as illusory. Many mystics, for instance, considered the material world to be illusory and the heavenly world or the world of god (or of "ultimate reality") to be real.
"We're left with a dissonance of "all is illusion" vs "there exist things that we cannot change and things that are consistent outside of ourselves".
Do we really need to be able to control the world for it to be an illusion?
If we're, say, brains in vats, then we might just be fed our illusory experience and be unable to change it.
"If we were in a dream-state and there was not actual object permanence then I'd agree with the conclusions of the religious pyschedelics crowd, as well as the all-is-illusion crowd."
I don't see why you'd need any kind of object permanence either for the world to be an illusion.
Also, one's belief that there's object permanence could itself be yet another illusion.
Descartes' I think therefore I am has become a cliche, but it is profound. I can chuck any questioning about whether I actually exist or not. How do I know that I exist? Well, because I am thinking.
It's at this point all I (we?) can know with probability 1, metaphysically speaking. We could just be a brain in a box, stimulated to believe we are alive in this world. But at core, we (or at least I) do exist, brain-in-a-box status notwithstanding
As for the rest, well, act as if it's all real and things will go better for you.
> Descartes' I think therefore I am has become a cliche, but it is profound. I can chuck any questioning about whether I actually exist or not. How do I know that I exist? Well, because I am thinking.
This is a common mistake. Cogito ergo sum actually assumes the conclusion by asserting the existence of "I" while asserting that "I" exists.
The fallacy-free version is "this is a thought, therefore thoughts exist". Still profound, but it does not prove as much as you think.
This is more of a tautology disguised as an argument, as the word "is" in that sentence already indicates existence.
So that sentence can be rephrased as "this thought exists, therefore thoughts exist". Well, yeah, but that's not saying much... also the premise is arguable, since what do you even mean by "thought" and "exists", and how do you know either?
A bit more fundamental would be "experience is" (without trying to break up experience in to artificial distinctions like "thought" and "non thought").. better yet is just saying "is" or pointing, and best is simple silence and basking in existence itself.
If you only intended to metaphorically claim that running may have a colour as some kind of thought experiment, then that wasn't apparent from your description. You literally said that synesthetes experience "worlds of understanding" to which we don't have access, thus implying that they are perceiving something real. That just isn't true.
As for the metaphor itself, "side-stepping" it simply shows that there is no known or valid analogue to what you're trying to describe, which should raise skepticism as to its validity. You're basically asserting Russell's teapot.
Either what you're describing can be materially observed, or it cannot. If it can be observed, then it will be discovered by empirical means. If it cannot, then there is no reason to posit its existence and it can be dispensed with.
Subjective properties are not objective properties. Synesthetes perceive subjective interpretations of objective properties. The perceptual distortions enabled by psychedelics are also not reflecting objective properties of the world, but subjective properties related to the information processing in your brain.