Metaphysical Musings

I dragged this essay out of my big wicker box. After the funeral on Saturday (which I will write about tomorrow), I just kept thinking about this one written in 1998. Metaphysics "If there is nothing of substance in the world, if the ground we walk on is just a mirage, if reality itself really isn't. . .what are we left with? What are we to hang our hat on? Magic. . .The stuff not ruled by rational law. . . and that may not seem to comforting, but stay with me here. . .What is the height of the irrational? What is the zip code of the mysterious?. ..Exactly. (Chris, Northern Exposure, Episode 23, 1991). Reality is subjective. Reality or being is what one perceives it to be. Reality is individualistic in nature and is based on where we have come from and is open to interpretation. It is also what one wishes to experience. One etches their lives out, and maps it, according to what one believes to be real. Our conception of the world lies on what we learn and what we have been told exists. We can never experience another humans reality because, we, ourselves are shrouded in our own ontological veils that serve as filters upon what we see and what we do not see. These veils are our grounding points from where we pivot. There are many facets to our own interpretation of reality, some of our roots are grounded by religion, or lack of. Some of our roots are grounded by experience or observation. The study of metaphysics is a valuable source of investigation, because it derives its own existence from one of our own building blocks, human reality. When two people stare at the night sky, and scrutinize it, do they always see the same thing? Probably not. Although human beings are made roughly in the same design, one may have myopia, colour blindness or astigmatism. We may have altered perceptions of what could truly be there. How can we truly experience another person's reality? We see different constellations, different degrees of blurriness and different slants to what could be considered as the same reality. There are variations in what is actually there and these discrepancies are based in our conceptions of the truth of what exists and what does not. We can only speculate. All we have are commonalities at best. We deem certain people as abnormal, crazed or psychotic. They behave against the "norm" or the human ideal of what is to be or to exist. We shudder when we watch what we consider a "bum" murmur to his or her self in a coffee shop. Yet we are mesmerized, morbidly fascinated by the surreal behaviour of "one of our own". We are fascinated because it is a glimpse into a different reality. We allow ourselves the privilege of naming the "bums" behaviour or reality , by running to our pocket edition of Abnormal Psychology and begin the process of labelling the aberration. We find solace in designation. We like to point our fingers at the strange. Yet what if those who are supposedly insane or nutty are actually experiencing a height reality or state of being than that of we (I use the term loosely) the normal , are accustomed to? Maybe those who strike poses on street corners or talk to their cafe mocha's are really in possession of supreme realities or states of being? Maybe we the "normal" are the deprived. One can look around themselves and believe in the reality of material objects. We can touch thing and know that they are there by sensation. We know that other people exist. Through our sensations we know that the tangible is what exist is. Or at least we think we know. (Check out the Solipsists). Our thoughts are made real through the process of interaction with others. Yet when they are thoughts are they real? Yes. They are real because they live within the host and the host realizes their content. Yet our perceptions still confine us to our idea of reality because perceptions again, are limited by our roots and our physical bodies. If we viewed a wolf spider with its multiple eyes, what spectrum of reality would the arachnid perceive? Multiple facets of one of our simplistic still life pictures. This would be real, this would be normal to the spider. Sometimes our limited perceptions give way to epiphanies of heightened awareness. Sometimes instances jump out at us, lash out at us from nowhere. "You of all people, Corinne, understand how profound things can be at the level of perception . ..The individual is the only reality. Whatever is, is. For you it maybe be a feeling of uncommon sensitivity, even intense focus, but an important stimulus nonetheless, even profound recognition" (Dowling 379) These shifts of realities leave us with only glimpses of what could be construed as higher realities or truths. These shifts allow for speculation and we try to give meaning to the unknown. The Zen Buddhist would name it as Satori, the Yogis as Nirvana, the drug induced as the Ultimate High. Higher consciousness is forced into interpretation and the label which we give to it. Sometimes reality shocks us and shatters our conceptions of what literally exists. Holling: I need some help form a man who understands women. . . .A significant thing happened to me the other day. I saw Shelly's feet for the first time. Chris: What, you never saw her feet before? Holling: Of course I have. . .I've held them. I've caressed them. . . Chris: Ya. Hollling: I used to gave at Shelly's feet and I'd see flowers, swans and- Chris: And children playing? Holling: That too, the point is, yesterday when I looked at Shelly's feet, all I saw were feet. The truth is I found them unattractive. . . .unattractive and very big. . .and inordinately large. Our previous experience molds our conceptions of reality. What we encounter in our journeys on the pat of live, are what give us our ideas of what exists and what does not exist. To the rich man, power may be something within reach, so power is real, in the sense that it is attainable. To the poor man, squalor may be something that is real because it is so prevalent in his everyday life, powerlessness is the bleak reality. To someone who has experienced a certain state of being, that state exists, because it is real to them. Empathy, or feeling anothers reality may only be extrapolation. We may be able to find reality in observation without experiencing the stimuli first hand. If we watch someone in a trance -like condition, we may be able to use extrapolation to understand phenomena that we, ourselves, cannot attain, and try to place ourselves in that reality. We do this by empathy, drawing from past experiences we can try to place ourselves in the experiencors position, but we will never truly experience the entire sensation. For most instances in everyday life, I do agree to some extent with Husserl's view on the natural standpoint. "Whatever holds good for me personally, also holds good, as I know for all other men whom I find present in my world-about-me. Experiencing them as men, I understand and take them as Ego-subjects units like myself, and related to their natural surrounding. But this in such wise that I apprehend the world-about-them and the world-about-me objectively as one and the same world, which differs in each case only through affecting consciousness differently. Each has his place whence he sees the things that are present, and each enjoys accordingly different appearances of the things. For each, again, the fields of perception and memory actually present are different, quite apart from the fact that even that which is here inter subjectively know in the common is known in the different ways, is differently apprehended, shows different grades of clearness, and so forth. Despite all this, we come to understandings with our neighbours, and set up in common an objective spatio-temporal fact-world as the world about us that is there for us all, and to which we ourselves none the less belong" (Husserl 384). Another factor which mold our metaphysical beliefs are those of religion. Religions guide us to what should and should not exist. Sometimes these ideas have become value judgements that have encrusted some realities. Some fanatically possessed religious people are so rigid in the belief system that they turn away from influences that do not cohere with their own beliefs. This shields them from the reality of existence. If they do not see certain things then those things do not exist. This leads to naive realism. The absence of God or a deity to subscribe to also leads one to organize a lifestyle that is congruent with Atheism. one who does not believe in God would assume that there is no heaven or hell. Therefore, the Atheist would live according to the belief that anything they do would not be considered bad or good in relation to a deity. They would not necessarily live life in a hedonistic fashion, but grounded in the notion of doing good for the sake of good doing and behaving naughtily for the sake of naughtiness. There would be no room for the "creation" myth , nor would it include a reality that would be complementary to the ideals laid out by any type of religion. I am resorting to a view of duality- metaphysical idealism, the view that both the material and mental beings exist. Our limitations of knowledge and experience only show a small cross section of what truly exists, our blinders are our sensory organs, our own experiences (be it observational or by directly experiencing the phenomenon), or by belief systems. Yet even in this categorization, this is limited. To have a focus on what categories exist, we are ignoring possibilities. In the process of categorization, we are only subscribing to what can actually fit into those categories. We again, are limited to our conception, perceptions and our linguistic capabilities. Our perceptions and our conceptions of and instance can be misguided or misinterpreted. Our language can only name things as they have been named before (to varying degrees). This can be seen through our inability to express concrete descriptions of what we saw in certain high stress situations, experiences with the paranormal, even everyday life. We are sometimes at a loss for words, because we don't have them. "When we think of a magician, the image that comes to mind is Merlin. Long white beard, cone shaped hat. The archetypal sorcerer. Well in one version of this Arthurian legend, the sorcerer retires. Checks out of the conjuring business, his reason, the rationalists are taking over. The time for magic is coming to an end. Well, old Merlin should have stuck around because those same rationalists, trying to put a rope around reality, suddenly found themselves in the psychedelic land of physics. A land of quarks, gluon's, and neutrinos. A place that refuses to play by Newtonian rules. A place that refuses to play by any rules. A place much better suited to the Merlin's of this world". (Chris, Northern Exposure 1991) As soon as one believes they have the right answer to what is reality, someone, or something comes along and breaks it down. Newton came, then Einstein, and now there is Hawking. We are able to believe in a concrete reality for only the time that it exists in our perceptions and our restricted understandings of it. For now I will back away from this reality and only subscribe to the idea: "I believe in everything ; nothing is scared / I believe in nothing; everything is sacred. Ha ha ho ho and hee hee" (Robbins, 415). Works Cited Datlow, Ellen and Windling Terrry. (Editors). The Years Best Fantasy and Horror. Tenth Annual Edition. St.Martins's Griffin. New York 1997 pg 379 Deuttch, Elliot. "Introduction to World Philosophies". Prentice Hall. New Jersey. 1997. 384 Frovlov, Dianne and Schneider, Andrew. Northern Exposure Episode 23. 1991 (various quotes) Robbins, Tom "Even Cowgirls Get the Blues". Bantam Books. USA 1976. 415