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Is physicality all that exists? Are there intrinsic properties to the physical?
- Thread starter osgart
- Start date
Pete in Panama
Active Member
This reminds me a bit of a convo I had a while back where a mechanic was asking why we were talking about all this spiritual nonsense when the "real" world was stuff like concrete and hard stuff.
My job at the time was as a civil engineer & I explained that concrete to me was not the real world cause I could wave my hand & it'd all disappear; ok, I'd write a change order & the workers would come over & bust it out --to me it's the same thing. To me the hard part was bringing about an agreement w/ people. Like, getting the owner, the contractor, the designer all to agree on something & dang it was like pulling teeth.
No way around it, it's people's feelings that count for everything in this world, it's whether we all got the spirit of cooperation or not; nothing else really matters.
My job at the time was as a civil engineer & I explained that concrete to me was not the real world cause I could wave my hand & it'd all disappear; ok, I'd write a change order & the workers would come over & bust it out --to me it's the same thing. To me the hard part was bringing about an agreement w/ people. Like, getting the owner, the contractor, the designer all to agree on something & dang it was like pulling teeth.
No way around it, it's people's feelings that count for everything in this world, it's whether we all got the spirit of cooperation or not; nothing else really matters.
Because that's how "what's physical" is defined.
Establish that something exists beyond what we currently accept as real and physical and the understanding of "physical" will expand to include it.
I know how the label "supernatural" is used in practice. It's a junk concept.
Twilight Hue
Twilight, not bright nor dark, good nor bad.
I think physicality is layered and multi-faceted.
A way to understand what I mean would be looking at a landscape in scale. Things change entirely as one goes down into the smaller micro scale as well things changing as upper macro scales which could be infinite in depth and height as the linear scale we are familiar with.
Sometimes I think physicality and space are variables and what is solid is also space as confusing as it might sound.
exchemist
Veteran Member
What is "aboutness"? It does sound awfully like ballocks to me.
osgart
Nothing my eye, Something for sure
What is "aboutness"? It does sound awfully like ballocks to me.
Well consciousness would be a property of aboutness.
Surely not everything that is real can be measured in solely physical terms.
osgart
Nothing my eye, Something for sure
I guess I'm a physicalist, but not a strict materialist then.
6% of the universe is matter that we can recognize. What of the other 94% of the universe? There's no directly detecting the stuff that I've heard of.
Dark energy (~68%) and dark matter (~27%), apparently.
Does something have to be directly detected to be physical?
Wandering Monk
Well-Known Member
It should be at least potentially detectable, that is, not in some realm that can never be falsified.
osgart
Nothing my eye, Something for sure
I never thought so. Space I like to think is abstract, and that abstract entities do exist.
I'm not sure what you mean. Even with our current state of knowledge, we can see measurable physical effects of both dark matter and dark energy.
What more than that are you looking for, exactly?
Wandering Monk
Well-Known Member
Nothing more. Obviously those physical effects are detectable. But theists begin with the assertion that there is a realm that is not physical, where God dwells. Because that assertion is not falsifiable, it can't be falsified
But in the realm the physical, everything is at least potentially falsifiable given the tools.
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
I do not know that and I do not believe it. I believe that this physical world is unreal compared to the spiritual world, like a shadow stretching out. It seems real to us because that is all we are aware of, but once one has awareness if the spiritual world the physical world seems very temporary and unreal.
“The world is but a show, vain and empty, a mere nothing, bearing the semblance of reality. Set not your affections upon it. Break not the bond that uniteth you with your Creator, and be not of those that have erred and strayed from His ways. Verily I say, the world is like the vapor in a desert, which the thirsty dreameth to be water and striveth after it with all his might, until when he cometh unto it, he findeth it to be mere illusion.” Gleanings From the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, pp. 328-329
osgart
Nothing my eye, Something for sure
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
Why not buy in, it does not cost anything?That's really cool trailblazer! But I don't buy in!
I don't, I just don't know of a way to verify the reality of anything outside my head that isn't physical. Our only access to the world beyond what's happening between our ears is our senses. So we have no way to verify something that's not detectable by our senses, even if it's really there.
osgart
Nothing my eye, Something for sure
Lol.Why not buy in, it does not cost anything?
Because everything that exists must be physical in nature. Physical to me is the abstract and the concrete. Abstract things can't be clutched or grabbed by anything. Concrete things can only exist with an abstract background.
To say something is non physical is something that goes unproven forever without the proper experience to able know and deduce it.
osgart
Nothing my eye, Something for sure
Maybe non locality is that experience though!
osgart
Nothing my eye, Something for sure
The capacity to love or be honest has an existence. How do you suppose such capacities exist?
Love and honesty, as I understand them, are labels we use to describe physical conditions in the world. If I say something that I genuinely believe is true, that is an example of honesty. The only way I would be able to determine the existence of honesty (outside my own head) would be to use my senses to observe the communication of other people and whether they mean what they say (which we observe and measure in a variety of ways). I have no clue how I'd verify that honesty exists somewhere in the world without use of my senses.
An analogous situation exists for love.