“Tell me one last thing,” said
Harry. “Is this real? Or has this been happening inside my head?”
“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?”
“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?”
In the previous article, we
observed that when the foundation for what we scientifically treat as “reality”
was examined, in essence it boiled down to the treatment of magnitudes. Hence,
in order to ascertain whether there are other ways of viewing the world, we
need to ascertain how we cross the threshold from perceptions, which have a
magnitude attributable to them, and those which do not. Before that, however,
there is something that is to be clarified: how successful are we, really, in
our dealings with magnitudes?
The treatments of magnitude,
which can be connected with reality, have a good standing in our eyes as far as
the treatment of velocities and geometry is concerned. In order to develop a
good standing in all the rest of the areas of the natural sciences, certain
assumptions have been made, following which, the whole treatment is again carried
out. Hence, any relations between magnitudes that science discovers are
unaltered in this description. And surprisingly, we observe that ALL the
quantities that are measured ultimately have to do with velocities and
geometry.
To elaborate… what, indeed, is
mass? To perception, when we touch a “mass”, we cannot push through it
completely with our fingers, in other words: movement is stopped. That, in
reality is the perception. This degree of incompressibility is given a name,
“mass”, which offers us no further information regarding its nature. When we
then COMPARE these masses, we again use velocities and geometry, where a
weighing scale has to remain unmoving, in a certain configuration. The
measurement of a “charge” is the same; it depends on the movement of bodies
when they are rubbed. The measurement of temperature is the same; it is the
LENGTH expanded by a volume of mercury. The color of light is measured with
respect to the wave-LENGTH, or counts per second. Hence, we can reduce all
magnitudes essentially to their motive and geometric properties, but no
further. That, indeed, is real measurement throughout science, that of lengths,
time periods, and geometries.
So we identify that a threshold
has been crossed, again and again, each time whenever new phenomena have been
encountered: they have been reconfigured in terms of measurements of those
kinds, and given rise to an “offspring”, a personal perspective, which lies
beyond understanding. When certain phenomena were encountered, the concept mass
was added, whose essential nature we do not know, and when certain other
phenomena were encountered, some other property had to be postulated, in order
to make measurements! Follow that up with charge, temperature, magnetism,
electricity, color, luminance, reaction rates, radiation, sound and so on with
all the “fundamental quantities”, and you have the entire structure of the
sciences following the same pattern:
Perception => Assumption +
geometrical measurement.
We gain a new fundamental
quantity, at the cost of knowing its real nature. So, we have to be clear on
this, we do not necessarily KNOW anything about the different quantities which
we see around us except for the part where they can be converted, in some way
due to their nature, into geometrical quantities. That development was masked
from us due to the different “fundamental quantities” which have been
postulated, in order for us to deal with them as we could. What we know, hence,
is how to connect perceptions to geometry and movements. There starts, and
ends, measurement as we know it, as the only fundamental quantity.
In fact, it is seen that the understanding
of the natural sciences among students proceeds similarly. With kinematics
(geometrical and speed measurements), due to experience, there is very little
trouble for anyone who understands mathematics. With Newton’s Laws, and
mechanics with the concept of mass, life is a little trickier but is still
reasonably “intuitive”, as after introducing mass, it is again kinematics all
the way. Enter charge, and current, and things get complicated, and by the time
one reaches virtual photons, one cannot recourse to experience at all, and it
is not rare to see a student give up in despair at this point (if not before).
This is a natural consequence of introducing a new assumption, at every step of
the way, to convert a physical quantity into kinematic status. Now, if this is
the foundation for perceptions which are observed and accepted by all,
naturally the foundation for perceptions which lie beyond our senses but have
to be “thought out”, is even shakier!
Hence, we do not need to look far
in order to decide where we are dealing with something more than quantities: it
is already widespread right at the root of the sciences, but was masked. That
fact was important to establish our knowledge right at the outset.
For the next part, we merely have
to look for a perception that is different from a velocity or geometry.
Let us examine a particular
situation. A person is walking to his office, and decides to think about the
previous day while he is at it. He hence recalls a particularly humorous
situation from the previous day, and laughs quietly to himself. What indeed was
the stimulus, the sensation, which brings about the laughter? A memory,
naturally. Which goes to show that the person has perceived the event but not
in terms of magnitude, as there is no way for it to be measured, at the
moment. Of course, one could have recorded the event previously, but at the
moment our friend laughs, there is nothing with which one could measure the
occurrence. In taking the facts as they exist, we must take the following
stance:
Memory->Perception->Laughter.
This is the direct experience.
Now, if we bring in the assumption that only perception of magnitudes is
primary, then we would alter the chain as follows:
Memory (=unknown chemical
process) -> Perception -> Laughter
However, as mentioned in the
reasoning before, that would imply:
(unknown chemical process) ->
Perception
But if an unknown chemical
process gives rise to a perception, then the perception of chemical processes
themselves is due to unknown chemical processes. Reductio ad absurdum. So
instead of this route which dead-ends, we would do well to stick with our
original train of thought:
Memory -> Perception ->
Laughter
Nothing within the perception
itself tells us that a memory is more or less objective than the perception of
the length of a ruler. The criteria for objectivity in this realm may exist, which
need not at all be geometrical. So this is where one must stand firm with the
logic developed so far and explore, without allowing any assumptions to force
our perceptions into any mould. Indeed, we are now at the exact same position
as a blind man touching an unknown being, and even though it might appear that
we are leaping off the cliff of certainty, we must resist the temptation of
reducing an elephant to a snake.
