Just this ...I toy with the idea that there are many important phenomena in the world, which play a crucial causal influence in the way we view the world, but which we utterly fail to detect because we are human beings and not God (or angles, or intelligent aliens) .
I have no way to prove this, but wanted to get a few reactions.
Any thoughts? — Manuel
Like terra incognita or playing chess (or go), in the *naturalistic view, every un/known un/known is "hidden in plain sight" out in the open and is, therefore, a function of how we look and what we look for, or our discursive practices (i.e. search procedures).A - Some are oblivious (i.e. naive) because, for them, any distinction between map and territory is invisible (e.g. common sensists à la 'water to swimming fish')
B - Some conflate, or confuse, maps with the territory (e.g. idealists / anti-realists / anti-naturalists).
C - Some speculate (i.e. project) that maps constitute a "higher" territory that regulates map making which is separate from the "lower" territory to which map users-followers belong (e.g. platonists-cartesians-kantians / super-naturalists).
D - Some* re-cognize (i.e model) the limits of maps, or that maps are distinct abstractions – not separable entities – from observable features of the territory (e.g. naturalists / atomists / spinozists / pragmatic fallibilists).
Thus, the appeal of self-flattering biases which prefer images to facts, believing to knowing, ideals to reals – "there must be more to existence than (this existence)" to "existence is gratuitous" – transcendence (the soul) to immanence (flesh), etc. — 180 Proof
Path of least cognitive effort for a start – images are subject-dependent whereas facts are subject-invariant/resistant. Images easily flatter (or expedites) self importance, etc. — 180 Proof
So, yes, we may have a fragmented picture of reality but, interestingly, our bodies are, let's just say, in the thick of everything going on, not just in your immediate vicinity, but also in the entire universe itself. We should then, in principle, be able to sense everything that's happening in the cosmos. Do we need to evolve sense organs or is the mind/brain, by itself, adequate (ESP)? I dunno, you tell me. — TheMadFool
↪SoftEdgedWonder An image, not a fact. Thanks for making my point. :smirk: — 180 Proof
That is to say, our exposure to any object in the world, is so brief, quick and fleeting, that only very brief exposure leads to an image which we have no reason to believe exists "out there", as far as manifest reality goes. — Manuel
If we evolve aspects of our brain (or sense receptors) we could have more acute perceptions. As is the case of people who have 4 light cones instead of the traditional 3. — Manuel
If we evolve aspects of our brain (or sense receptors) we could have more acute perceptions. As is the case of people who have 4 light cones instead of the traditional 3. — Manuel
So I get your drift, but I'd be cautious. — Manuel
Well, that's the thing. Some suggestible people already (claim) to see ghosts, demons, angels, without any extra cognitive faculties. In fact, I suspect all of us did if you go far enough back in our history. — Manuel
Well, if you want to go that route, you'd probably want to say that these are natural phenomena as in the end, all processes are. Yes, the brain is the end point of it all, but that doesn't mean we should give much importance to phenomena which have been repeatedly shown not to be what people claim: things belonging to a different reality outside of nature. I don't think that's coherent.
At best you can say ghosts are like hallucinations. Which is fine. But I don't think these things "expand" our mental or sensible faculties, in fact, they fit into the ones we have.
Why stop at ghosts? We then need to grant literal existence to not only the Abrahamic God, but to Satan, the Flying Spaghetti monster and everything else. I think it muddles our ontology.
It would be more helpful then to develop an ontology of fictional entities and include all the characters of all the novels in the world, which are as real as ghosts. You can do that if you wish, but it would be an infinite task, just a list of all possible mental entities.
But these things don't add to the faculties we already have. — Manuel
How do you know ghosts and the like are fictional? What if you added a sense organ to the existing five and with that detected the presence of what people have been calling ghosts? What then? — TheMadFool
I toy with the idea that there are many important phenomena in the world, which play a crucial causal influence in the way we view the world, but which we utterly fail to detect because we are human beings — Manuel
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