Reality is a Rainbow

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Reality is a Rainbow

Is there a demarcation boundary between instinct and reason? Is there a demarcation boundary between anything between here and the Big Bang? Is demarcation boundary a part of nature or is it a necessity of human comprehension? Is category a fact of nature or is category a necessity of human comprehension? Is anything different in kind from anything else? Is everything different only in degree from everything else?

I conclude that demarcation boundary is not an essential characteristic of nature but is an essential characteristic of human comprehension. Everything is a seamless flow from the Big Bang to now. Only in our mind do we have a difference in kind.

I wrote the first two paragraphs of the OP several days ago and only 24 hours later did I fall off my horse. Lightening struck and I realized, finally, what I had written. This realization has led to a large number of connections for me. I was convinced of certain fragments of knowledge and only when I was knocked off my horse did I find these fragments became a synthesis that I shall have to realize by writing more essays.

To recognize as true that reality is a rainbow allows me to comprehend the error of classical metaphysical realism, which is the foundation of Western society's comprehension of reality. This may not be true for you but it is true for me.

Reality is a rainbow but we humans perceive reality as a myriad of containers! We perceive reality as containers because our "gut" tells us so and because classical metaphysics tells us so. Reality without demarcation boundaries means that everything is a seamless reality from everything else. It means that everything is not a kind of thing with its own necessary and sufficient nature but that all reality runs together and it is only in our minds that these containers exist.

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A rainbow is an optical illusion. There are no colors in the sky. They are a result of sunlight being fractured in tiny drops of moisture, and it is the eye's angle towards the drops of moisture to the sun that determine where the rainbow is. But to someone standing at another location the rainbow will appear elsewhere.

Also, when you see a rainbow your back is always to the sun.

So I agree if what you mean is that the reality we percieve is a rainbow.

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Re: Reality is a Rainbow

coberst wrote:

... it is only in our minds that these containers exist.

Cyracuz wrote:

... when you see a rainbow your back is always to the sun.

As long as you perceive containers your back is always to something.

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Western philosophy emerged in the sixth century BC along the Ionian coast. A small group of scientist-philosophers began writing about their attempts to develop "rational" accounts regarding human experience. These early Pre-Socratic thinkers thought that they were dealing with fundamental elements of nature.

It is natural for humans to seek knowledge. In the "Metaphysics" Aristotle wrote "All men by nature desire to know".

The attempt to seek knowledge presupposes that the world unfolds in a systematic pattern and that we can gain knowledge of that unfolding. Cognitive science identifies several ideas that seem to come naturally to us and labels such ideas as "Folk Theories".

The Folk Theory of the Intelligibility of the World
The world makes systematic sense, and we can gain knowledge of it.

The Folk Theory of General Kinds
Every particular thing is a kind of thing.

The Folk Theory of Essences
Every entity has an "essence" or "nature," that is, a collection of properties that makes it the kind of thing it is and that is the causal source of its natural behavior.

The consequences of the two theories of kinds and essences is:

The Foundational Assumption of Metaphysics
Kinds exist and are defined by essences.

We may not want our friends to know this fact but we are all metaphysicians. We, in fact, assume that things have a nature thereby we are led by the metaphysical impulse to seek knowledge at various levels of reality.

Cognitive science has uncovered these ideas they have labeled as Folk Theories. Such theories when compared to sophisticated philosophical theories are like comparing mountain music with classical music. Such theories seem to come naturally to human consciousness.

The information comes primarily from "Philosophy in the Flesh" and http://www.wku.edu/~jan.garrett/302/folkmeta.htm

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coberst wrote:

Cognitive science has uncovered these ideas they have labeled as Folk Theories. Such theories when compared to sophisticated philosophical theories are like comparing mountain music with classical music. Such theories seem to come naturally to human consciousness.

Is mountain music less "true" than classical music?

"All men by nature desire to know".

By nature. By virtue of being that singularity that is brought forth by nature, -which is the very thing his reason is trying to encompass, man desires to know.

Unless we believe that order and symmetry can grow out of chaos, we are bound to accept that this seeming systematic sense that nature makes is in fact real. Maybe it's something we apply in the experience, but it is important to remember that the entity experiencing is in every way a part of nature equal to everything it experiences.

I guess what I mean is that to say that there is systematic order is not an assumption, although any considerations concerning the attributes of this system may be.

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Cyracuz wrote:

coberst wrote:
Cognitive science has uncovered these ideas they have labeled as Folk Theories. Such theories when compared to sophisticated philosophical theories are like comparing mountain music with classical music. Such theories seem to come naturally to human consciousness.

Is mountain music less "true" than classical music?

"All men by nature desire to know".

By nature. By virtue of being that singularity that is brought forth by nature, -which is the very thing his reason is trying to encompass, man desires to know.

Unless we believe that order and symmetry can grow out of chaos, we are bound to accept that this seeming systematic sense that nature makes is in fact real. Maybe it's something we apply in the experience, but it is important to remember that the entity experiencing is in every way a part of nature equal to everything it experiences.

I guess what I mean is that to say that there is systematic order is not an assumption, although any considerations concerning the attributes of this system may be.

I know little about music so I do not know what "true" means in the world of music.

Nature has nature's order and creatures have creature's order. Any similarity is the result of the fact that creatures will not survive if their order is not in tune with nature's order. Beyond that is a matter of conjecture.

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I can't say I agree, Coberst. Creature's order, as you put it, is nothing but an extension of Nature's order.

Leaf is not tree, and tree is not leaf, but a leaf cannot exist if there was no tree on which it grew. And the leaf cannot become more beautiful or more apt at it's purpose than the tree had it in itself to make it.

Similarly, Creature's reason, or more specifically human reason, can never escape from being Nature's reason before anything else. There is no real boundary between Nature and Man.

So in a way our capacity to reason is a great gift we have recieved.
An interesting question then might be, what has this great gift given us?

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Reality is a Rainbow

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