Blind monks examining an elephant
I am constantly in awe by how easily our biology hoodwinks us into believing that human perception depicts reality. We evolved to sense the world ‘out there’ in a way that served survival. There is no reason to assume this coincides with sensing how ‘the world out there’ truly is any more than a bat’s ultrasonic hearing informs it about the true nature of ‘out there’. At best, the senses that a species evolves only convey a sliver of the big picture. The blind men and the elephant parable comes to mind. These guys are tasked with knowing what an elephant is by touching only one part of the elephant, e.g., ears, trunk, legs, tail, etc.
Actually, I am even more amazed at my amazement about this, or that I even realize it. Of course, that realization itself must be part of the biological hoodwink as well, which leaves me dumbfounded. At times, My mind is that of a fool – how blank!, as chapter 20 puts it. This looks like the future for physicists as well. Google [It’s Likely That Times Are Changing MINKOWSKI]. In the end, a Taoist point of view may be the only viable point of view that remains standing. Chapter 14 implies why… Dimly visible, it cannot be named and returns to that which is without substance.
Sorry, I am getting altogether too metaphysical.
But what I meant to ask, provocatively, was: “Why do you think there is a reality outside of yourself?”
Everyone would say that there is something “real” which exists outside of their mind. (It seems ridiculous to argue about that, but I believe that some Idealist philosophers do.)
But our belief in some external reality seems a little paradoxical to me since our idea of “reality” and “out there” are mental constructs of ours. So it’s a kind of tautology, isn’t it? (A “meta hoodwink”). It’s the quantum paradox that has got me going on this.
I was just trying to go somewhere with this vis a vis the Tao, but I think I’m rambling.
Huh? What makes you think that I think there is something ‘out there’ that maps to my concept of reality? Just the opposite, in my view. What I see ‘out there’ maps what is ‘in here’. What I see ‘out there’ mirrors what I feel ‘in here’. From this vantage point it is easy for discernment to penetrate the four quarters and yet be capable of not knowing anything.
You are implicitly assuming a Realist position as part, perhaps, of a “meta-hoodwink”.
Never mind any potential mismatch in your perception of reality and what reality is really out there: What makes you think there is something out there that maps to your whole concept of reality?
Idealism seemed mostly killed off in the last century, but when I look at (decades-old) issues of things like ‘causality’ and ‘consciousness’ in quantum physics, I sometimes wonder if Kant and Bishop Berkeley might be having a chuckle.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idealism