Tag Archives: what is the observer

Man’s Identity is Not a Matter of Science (PART 2)

General Philosophy, Identity, individualism vs collectivism, Man's Ability, Metaphysics, Objective Relativity, Physics and Metaphysics, ,

The previous article understandably warrants an explanation of the observer’s physical form, and how it can be rendered rationally distinct from the Self of the observer (i.e. Man qua Man/the Individual qua the Individual—the state of singular consciousness).

[Note:  Assume that a reference to the observer is a reference to man…as opposed to God, who indeed may be considered an observer, but who possesses his own unique metaphysical characteristics which aren’t particularly relevant to this article.]

The body, though I submit is corollary to the Self, is not ostensibly absolute, but rather empirical…that is, observable, where the Self is not, because nothing absolute can be observed, only reasoned.  (The Self certainly can be proven to exist, but not by using an empirical standard, but rather a philosophical one.). The observer’s body clearly exists, but is not absolute; it is relative to other bodies and objects.  The Self, however, being absolute, is not relative.  It is constant.  And thus, here I have already asserted some of the differences between the Self and the body which belongs to and empirically represents the Self in the environment (i.e. the universe on the whole).

Again, the Self is absolute, having no empirical form…no physical beginning or end.  The human body we can observe as being born and dying—as beginning in a specifically and empirically defined form and likewise ending.  Though we may speak of “ourselves” as one and the same with our bodies in common parlance, and as being born and later dying; as coming into existence and leaving it; as not being, then being, then not being, again, the philosophical truth is that the Self—that absolute essence of man BY WHICH the distinction between “I” and “other/everything else”  can be made in order that the universe and the reality therein may be referenced TO a CONSTANT—contains NO frame of reference for a beginning and/or an end; a birth and a death; not being, being, and then being again.  And further, we must include one’s body as part of the “everything else” which is distinct from the absolute singularity of the Self.  To me, the proof of the spirit/body, or consciousness/body, or mind/body dichotomy is the empirical reality of the body as an object which is relative to other bodies and other objects, and the necessity of a Constant so that those objects, including the body, which absent the Self are utterly relative, can be referenced and therefore defined.  That is, be given their own specific reality and existence by being NAMED according to the observer, whose essence is the Self.

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Neither one’s birth nor one’s death can be experienced, because one who IS, according to his essential absolute Self, possesses no frame of reference for NOT IS.  BEING, itself, at its root, cannot experience NOT BEING.  What IS cannot transition to or from an IS NOT.  We claim that we are born and therefore must die (where “we”,  or “I”, is most commonly made the equivalent of the body instead of the Self) because these things are observed empirically, as though empiricism is the plumb line for truth, instead of reason.  Yet none of us can know birth or death—that is, BEING as a function of the ABSENCE of BEING—except by second hand observation, and cannot EVER experience the absence of being because we simply have no frame of reference for it.  It is infinitely beyond our existential capacity to know.  Ironically to some degree, birth and death do not technically meet the definition of “empirical” because there can be no DIRECT observation nor experience of them; they cannot physically/experientially EXIST to us.  And yet we speak of them as though they are indisputably a matter of fact, even though they cannot be proven true by any rationally consistent STANDARD of fact.  They are neither empirical nor are they essentially rational. They are abstract notions that are useful in some superficial contexts, but they are not in any way absolute truth.

Man simply cannot claim the reality of his existence in an unaware state, because it is only by awareness that he can make any claim at all. There is no such thing as pre or post conscious man.  “Man”  by any rational physical or philosophical definition, even using the “objective empiricism” of science, implies OBSERVATION, period.  Man is categorically the observer in his essence, never the observed.  He is therefore not a thing of science, but the author of it.

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Unconscious natural laws cannot beget man’s mind…his consciousness, for the simple reason that they do have any frame of reference for it.  Consciousness has no meaning to that which is entirely unconscious—these laws cannot create what is mutually exclusive of them.  Further, in such a case, where man’s mind is a function of natural law, man could never devise any notions like “birth” or “death” because he, being a function of the absolute and INFINITE process of natural law, could not concieve of anything like an ENDING to what IS—that is, his own essence….his Self.  Perpetual natural law must create only that which possesses its own perpetual frame of reference.  For man to thus even THINK (his thinking a product natural law according to science) about a beginning or an end to himself contradicts the very root of the INFINITE and ABSOLUTE processes of natural law.

However, the Consciousness, or the conscious Self, CAN create the ABSTRACTION of natural law, because it—that is, the Self, that is, the observer—serves as the reference for the otherwise utterly relative objects in the environment which he observes.  And by his infinite conscious reference, he can create any concept he likes to describe this environment, even a “beginning” or an “ending”, because this is precisely what the Self, being the source of conceptualization and consciousness, DOES.  It abstracts, giving meaning and purpose to the otherwise purposeless, meaningless, and utterly RELATIVE environment in which its body resides.

The meaning and purpose of all things is a product of conceptualization…indeed, the declaration that a thing IS is a product of conceptualization.  This ability of man, unique to him amongst all living things, is why he claims consciousness.  The ability to conceptualize, which I submit is the fundamental essence of man’s identity, declares what IS, and thus declares what IS DOES, including “being unconscious”.

Consciousness implies the ability to conceptualize (and vice versa), and conceptualization, in order to be relevant and meaningful, implies reason, which is simply the non-contradictory integration and combination of concepts in order to form TRULY meaningful ideas.  And it is from reason then that we get truth, which is the rational definition of what IS and what IT DOES.  From truth we get ethics.  Ethics is simply the designation of what IS and what IS DOES in terms of meaning—meaning at root implying morality, which is the purview of ethics.  Another way of saying this is that ethics describes the essential MEANING of what IS and what IS DOES.

Which begs the question:  Means to whom?

And thus what we are really asking is:  What is the MEANINGFUL reference for the TRUTH of those things which are said to exist?  In other words, who makes truth true and meaningful?  Moreover, assuming that science declares objective truths regarding nature, to whom does it owe its objectivity and its truthfulness?  By what reference is the reality it describes rationally and meaningfully real?

The answer is the observer.  And the observer is I.  It is You and Me.  It is the Self.  Man qua man.

END.

 

 

Man’s Identity is Not a Matter of Science (Part One)

Identity, Metaphysics, Objective Relativity, Physics and Metaphysics, reason, , , ,

Obviously science is useful…clearly its efficacy is there for all to see, for thousands of years. But science can only describe that which is observed, it cannot describe the observer.

The importance of this cannnot be overstated.

Without the observer, there is no frame of reference by which to describe reality scientifically. That is, absent the observer qua observer (i.e. the observer not described and defined by the very scientific processes he is observing) the question begged is: to what or to whom can we reference the machinations of the universe which are said to be governed and defined according to the processes of natural law? Absent the observer, how are all object actions and interactions not infinitely relative? For example, does the earth really revolve around the sun in a universe which has no fixed boundary unless there exists an observer to say it is so, with respect to the needs and the expediencies of HIS vantage point?

The answer is no, it does not.

And neither does the sun revolve around the earth.  The relationship between sun and earth is infinitely relative. Absent the observer, there is no fixed location of ANY object in a universe which possesses no fixed boundary.

I submit that the only non-relative entity in existence which thus can serve as the reference for the (otherwise) infinitely relative movements (action/interaction) of objects in the universe is “I”.  That is, the sense of one’s utter Self…the IS of You and Me…the Root of one’s being. Self. This is the only immovable, fully absolute existing Plumb Line to which all scientific laws can be referenced, and thus it is the Self of the observer by which these laws receive every ounce of their relevance. Absent the Self-aware observer, it is impossible that scientific truths can be known, and therefore impossible that they be called true. That which is not known cannot be declared true—for it cannot be true if it is not true TO a CONSCIOUS reference; if it is not true TO ANYONE, then such a “truth” is wholly irrelvant…which, “irrelevant truth” is a contradiction in terms. A truth which can never be shown nor proven nor applied TO ANYONE is simply a truth which is not true.

And it is the observer, and only the observer, who knows and declares and applies. Truth is Knowledge and Application (relevance), and both of these are a function of the observer, period.

Science, then, if it is indeed true and also contains truths, is thus necessarily a function of the observer, and not the other way around. It is not a matter of discovery, but description. That is, scientific law is not found, it is created…by the observer. The conscious observer, by his powers of conceptualization and therefore language, rooted in the “I” of Individual existence, creates scientific truths from reason. He defines, in rationally consistent ways, to and from himself, that which promotes himself…that which is for himself, so that he may promote his own existence and his own root existential Truth, and absolutely so, according to the (utterly reasonable) metaphysics which demand him. A law of nature, then, devoid of the reference of the observer, is not discovered, as though an ethereal and transcendent natural “process” which resides in some utterly theoretical inky black nothingness beyond and ironically exclusive of man and his universe creates some kind of meaningful relationship between the completely relative existent objects in that universe. The observer, by the reference point of Self and by his powers of conceptualization and language, percieves his environment and gives definition and meaning to the relative relationships between and amongst his body and all other objects which act and interact with each other in that environment. Because of the observer and his absolute and immovable frame of reference of Self, the relationship between objects and all of their infinite parts is utterly relative no more, and thus can now be named, defined, and given purpose. The observer makes nature true, not the other way around. Indeed, the observer creates like God, or as God, perhaps…he by his nature brings into being a universe which otherwise cannot exist, because it can possess no Truth apart from him. And that which has no Truth can likewise have no existence; to say that something IS, which is the sole convention and prerogative of the observer, is the most fundamental truth claim of them all.

Relativity: A very interesting philosophical paradox

Objective Relativity, Physics and Metaphysics, , ,

Absolute relativity—that is, relativity absent a reference from which to observe it and organize the implicit relationships—actually precludes relative distinctions between objects, which precludes relativity itself. In other words, unreferenced to a non-relative observational constant, relativity is not relative, it’s infinite.  But of course infinity is purely a concept, because what is infinite cannot exist because it cannot be given a place or a time and thus cannot be defined.  And yet if relativity is referenced to an observational constant, then it’s not actually relative.  Meaning that there is no relativity qua relativity.  Relativity becomes, itself, relative TO the observer.  Meaning that the observer decides what relativity is, and absolutely so, at any given moment, depending on how he chooses to define it according to himself.

In other words, relativity, like infinity, is a concept.  Neither of these things are actual.  And yet if the relative relationships between the objects the observer conceptualizes are not actual, and if the observer possesses a body which is likewise a relative object with a relative relationship to other objects which is not actual, then how does the observer actually observe anything in order to conceptualize it? And if relativity is not a thing, and thus everything is infinite, but infinity cannot exist except conceptually, then what is anything? What exists? How is reality even possible?

So here is where we leave it, the paradox only to be unraveled by throwing out the metaphysics that the giants of history have given us, replacing them with much better, more rational metaphysics that we who stand on their shoulders might devise.  For those who stand on the shoulders of a giant may see things that the giant cannot see, and because of that knowledge build him a step stool.

Infinity cannot be infinite and relativity cannot be relative without the observer.  But they cannot be “infinity” and “relativity”, respectively, with the observer, either.  And yet, they are both necessary to the definition of the observer, himself, and to his purpose.  Thus we know that relativity, infinity, and observer are symbiotic…are corollary.  But how? And What?

The answer is Ability.