Phil forum : Off-topic -- The Fifth Dimension
Posted: Tue May 26, 2020 5:48 pm
This is a new thread spun-off from the Why Philosophy thread.
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussi ... rmation/p1
I don’t think you’re sorry at all. — Possibility
Sorry. I've changed my mind. I will waste a bit more of my Time dimension on this off-topic digression --- for my own edification.
I'm currently reading a Kindle book by Bernardo Kastrup, More Than Allegory. It's talking about the "transcendent" realm that is revealed in religious myths and mystical visions. "These are transcendent truths, for they escape the boundaries of logic, time, and space. . . . Where the intellect stops intuition picks up. We can sense truth even if we cannot articulate it in words . . . Unreliable as this sense may be, it is our only link to a broader reality." I've just begun to read the book, so I'll reserve judgement til I can see where he's going with this.
Although he doesn't use the actual word "dimension" to describe the mythical & mystical transcendent realm --- presumably above & beyond the sensible boundaries of the four-dimensional space-time universe --- some of his other terminology reminded me of this thread. Since I couldn't get any direct answers from Possibility about the nature of those postulated multi-dimensions in our off-topic discussions, I'm assuming the vague evasive answers indicate that they are knowable only by Intuition rather than Reason. Although Kastrup is a computer scientist, and presumably uses Reason in his mundane work, when discussing Transcendence, he calls Reason the "obfuscated mind". So, he asks about Intuition, "what can it know about nature that the intellect cannot?" He explains that intuition works with emotional Symbols, not rational Facts.
After raising some perennial philosophical questions, he says "the possibility that presents itself to us is that our neglected obfuscated mind . . . could offer us answers". Later, he makes an ambiguous statement : "although this transcendent view is not literally true, it is potentially truer than anything our intellects could possibly come up with." Are our metaphors & allegories & myths somehow more real & true & meaningful than the mundane facts of science & reason? That seems to be the point of Kastrup's book. If so, how do we discern Truth from Error among the thousands of myths in the world. Is Truth whatever feels good? As Joseph Campbell said, "follow your bliss!" If so, Islamic terrorists believe they are following their bliss to Allah's Paradise, while non-Islamists think the murderers and rapists are taking a short-cut to Jehovah's Hell.
At the beginning of this thread, I took the posts of Possibility seriously, assuming that the invisible transcendent dimensions referred to, would eventually be related back to the visible mundane world of physical senses, and the "obfuscated mind". But eventually, I began to wonder if I was being punked. Whenever, I requested specific information, all I got was assurances that the vaguely defined Higher Dimensions actually exist in some sense. But I remain none the wiser for all my efforts to understand what the mysterious Referent of "Higher Dimensions" might be. Is that failure due to my bad faith or to that of the proponents of invisible parallel worlds?
As a recovering Fundamentalist Christian, I no longer take assurances of invisible or transcendent domains on faith. But, based on my Enformationism worldview, I have concluded there must be One Transcendent "dimension" : Enfernity (Infinity & Eternity), which is timeless, spaceless , and dimensionless. Hence, as Kastrup said, it's beyond "the boundaries of logic, time, and space." Which is why I make no claims to know anything about that completely abstract non-reality. We can only discuss that imaginary concept in terms of metaphors & allegories, based on our sensory experience, and our rational evaluation. And nothing we say about it is literally true.
Referent : the thing that a word or phrase denotes or stands for.
Bad Faith : acting inauthentically
Dimension : a measurable extent of some kind, such as length, breadth, depth, or height.
How do we measure non-spatial dimensions --- with feelings? Do we know them with spiritual eyes?
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussi ... rmation/p1
I don’t think you’re sorry at all. — Possibility
Sorry. I've changed my mind. I will waste a bit more of my Time dimension on this off-topic digression --- for my own edification.
I'm currently reading a Kindle book by Bernardo Kastrup, More Than Allegory. It's talking about the "transcendent" realm that is revealed in religious myths and mystical visions. "These are transcendent truths, for they escape the boundaries of logic, time, and space. . . . Where the intellect stops intuition picks up. We can sense truth even if we cannot articulate it in words . . . Unreliable as this sense may be, it is our only link to a broader reality." I've just begun to read the book, so I'll reserve judgement til I can see where he's going with this.
Although he doesn't use the actual word "dimension" to describe the mythical & mystical transcendent realm --- presumably above & beyond the sensible boundaries of the four-dimensional space-time universe --- some of his other terminology reminded me of this thread. Since I couldn't get any direct answers from Possibility about the nature of those postulated multi-dimensions in our off-topic discussions, I'm assuming the vague evasive answers indicate that they are knowable only by Intuition rather than Reason. Although Kastrup is a computer scientist, and presumably uses Reason in his mundane work, when discussing Transcendence, he calls Reason the "obfuscated mind". So, he asks about Intuition, "what can it know about nature that the intellect cannot?" He explains that intuition works with emotional Symbols, not rational Facts.
After raising some perennial philosophical questions, he says "the possibility that presents itself to us is that our neglected obfuscated mind . . . could offer us answers". Later, he makes an ambiguous statement : "although this transcendent view is not literally true, it is potentially truer than anything our intellects could possibly come up with." Are our metaphors & allegories & myths somehow more real & true & meaningful than the mundane facts of science & reason? That seems to be the point of Kastrup's book. If so, how do we discern Truth from Error among the thousands of myths in the world. Is Truth whatever feels good? As Joseph Campbell said, "follow your bliss!" If so, Islamic terrorists believe they are following their bliss to Allah's Paradise, while non-Islamists think the murderers and rapists are taking a short-cut to Jehovah's Hell.
At the beginning of this thread, I took the posts of Possibility seriously, assuming that the invisible transcendent dimensions referred to, would eventually be related back to the visible mundane world of physical senses, and the "obfuscated mind". But eventually, I began to wonder if I was being punked. Whenever, I requested specific information, all I got was assurances that the vaguely defined Higher Dimensions actually exist in some sense. But I remain none the wiser for all my efforts to understand what the mysterious Referent of "Higher Dimensions" might be. Is that failure due to my bad faith or to that of the proponents of invisible parallel worlds?
As a recovering Fundamentalist Christian, I no longer take assurances of invisible or transcendent domains on faith. But, based on my Enformationism worldview, I have concluded there must be One Transcendent "dimension" : Enfernity (Infinity & Eternity), which is timeless, spaceless , and dimensionless. Hence, as Kastrup said, it's beyond "the boundaries of logic, time, and space." Which is why I make no claims to know anything about that completely abstract non-reality. We can only discuss that imaginary concept in terms of metaphors & allegories, based on our sensory experience, and our rational evaluation. And nothing we say about it is literally true.
Referent : the thing that a word or phrase denotes or stands for.
Bad Faith : acting inauthentically
Dimension : a measurable extent of some kind, such as length, breadth, depth, or height.
How do we measure non-spatial dimensions --- with feelings? Do we know them with spiritual eyes?