What’s Really Going On Here?

Written 10/22/22

Published 02/29/24

Fundamentally, what is there? Is there any real stuff out there that we can point to and say it is "real" in any sense?

To answer this will require some simple assumptions but it shouldn't be a big stretch.

Creation

There are facts that are objectively given to be True. I am typing on my laptop. I exist. pi = 3.14. Nobody made these things up because they seemed subjectively pleasing, they are simply True by the very nature of their conceptual structure. Of course I'm on my laptop, of course I exist, I don't see how it could be otherwise. You can change

the base of counting to construct a new sequence which represents pi, you can even come up with brand new symbols to express the integers. But it will always point to the same value. You can't change that which these concepts point to.

If I said a unicorn is a horse with a horn, it does not point to anything physical that one might encounter in space and time, but the logic of the statement would be True

in some sense and this is understood as a socially accepted and valid concept. The fact that the concept is valid is True, as a "unicorn" exists as nothing more than a word, which points to a concept, which points to an imaginary animal. The fact that a unicorn does not exist is God's choice, hence Creation.

It is incredibly important to note the distinction between the SYMBOL and the THING ITSELF. Numbers, letters, concepts, these are all symbols. Creation is the thing itself.

Creation is True. Not because I said it's True, not because Aristotle said it's True, because it just is. The sun rises each day and the Earth is round. These are the kinds

of assumptions I am asking for. Work with me.

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On the other hand there is subjectivity, and chaos. What is the best song? What are all the things that could happen to me tomorrow? What is God? What is music?

All of these questions are bounded in some sense, in so far as they point to a particular idea which humans can more or less agree on very basic evaluations and definitions.

But this is where the consensus ends. There are infinite conceivable ways to go about answering any one of these questions. Some ways seem to be more reasonable or justified than others. "Free Bird" by Lynyrd Skynyrd is a good start on the first one. "Whiteboy" by Tom MacDonald is less good. You get the point. The numerous ways in which it is possible to measure or predict these concepts makes it impossible to justify any sort of objective Truth claim to any answer you might give.

Knowledge

There are symbols that reliably interact in particular ways. Language and mathematics are great examples. Humans have a unique ability to communicate using symbols, although this specficially refers to manmade symbols like numbers.

A symbol can be any form which interacts with a system in such a way that the system may "interpret," or perform operations on the given symbols and construct new symbols which represents new information. If I'm alone in the woods and I see a bear, the fact that the bear is there is simply True. The fact that I observe the bear to be a dangerous threat to myself and my experience is a construction of symbols.

The fact that I call it a "bear" is arbitrary and cultural, a product of symbols known as language. The fact that my brain processed the information and recognized the threat is the unconscious interaction of mental symbols and operations.

Observation

There are qualitative experiences which persistently occur. Colors, sounds, smells, the works. They are real. The evidence for this claim is somewhat redundant and yet somehow such an elusive natural construct from an external objective perspective. These experiences are the only constructs through which to interact with entities and forms.

Our ability to subjectively measure given internal states of consciousness is inherent to being alive, one might say given to be True. Our ability to objectively measure and predict these states, however, is shaky at best.

Colors and sounds, we are pretty solid. We can observe and manipulate these signals into complex patterns. Smell and taste, we understand the basic range of values that can take place in human consciousness, but we are not much better at differentiating other than creating a basic taste palette, experiencing something as good or bad, etc.

It is my firmly held belief that there is something incredibly fundamental about the dimensionality of conscious experiences.

For example, any color observed in the visual field may be represented on a 2 dimensional spatial plane, with 1 dimension of time and 1 dimension of color.

If you asked me to give this kind of information for any other sensory field, I simply could not tell you the answer. There is much work to be done.

Decision

There are events which occur as a result of conscious intention. I can type by moving my fingers. I can wiggle my arm. One could say that God or physics is doing the heavy

lifting and I am simply the observer, but these words are as arbitrary as the word "I." It may simply be observed that there are arbitrary decisions which must be made in

order to function in daily life, and my mind and body are vessels through which this decision occurs. I can wear the red shirt, or the blue shirt. Where is the source of

the ability to converge on one single answer when there is no information to give preference to any single choice? It must either be deterministic, where each decision of

each person's life is written into the fabric of the Universe to converge to a single timeline; or it must converge at some point within the mind of the observer.