You can never explain the physical world

You can never explain the physical world, it's like explaining a magnet. You can explain what it does, but no scientist on Earth will ever be able to explain how it attracts other magnetic matter. But you can probably come to a point where every physical behavior is written down. Still the big question will be unanswered, the question of why it all exists? Only when the non-physical world is acknowledged we can begin to answer those questions.

Thoughts?

Perceptive.

And that is the realms of quantum mechanics, the connection at the most intimate levels of matter and non matter.

It is also the realms of the 'spiritual', the connection at the most intimate level of matter and non matter.

I am sensing convergence and not before time!

a reply to: ParanormalGuy

I think that's well said. Science itself can be EXTREMELY myopic. It's all a tremendous mystery, and the denial of the mystery doesn't solve it.

The Electric Priest

Science explains the specific actions and reactions in numbers. Why things do the things that they do has no explanation other than something greater than it is responsible for the actions and reactions, properties and values. The entire Universe is a physics chain of command structure.

But if 'intention' only exists where there is consciousness, then a universe that wasn't conscious wouldn't have a 'why', right?

So what if you cant explain it?

Why ask the question?

a reply to: Biigs

Ask it as a koan.

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Science is a tool to understand the how.

As far as the why..that is a matter of philosophy (or theology).

But why does there have to be a reason? maybe it truly is just a random cosmic accident and there is no point or consequence behind anything. If this is the truth, then the physical attributes is all there is to explain, as ultimately why it exists is simply because "it just does, it always has, it always will".

I like to entertain the possibility that there is some greater structure we are unaware of (call it what you will), but I think that's because I have a desire to know the answers of things that are simply unsolvable (for now).

I think that scientific models must contain the assumption that they are only approximations for reality, however, if the model works and is reliable to a certain degree, then it is acceptable.

Perhaps this approach would be favourable to trying to pin down the exact physical mechanisms behind the universe.

It has long been my belief that this 'reality' is naught but a persistent illusion. I have felt a great disconnect between 'me' and 'it' for as long as I can remember. In fact, when The Matrix came out in '99, it blew my teenage mind; it was at that point I realised that others must see the same thing, too.

As for the why... well, ain't that one of the greatest mysteries? I do love me an enigma

originally posted by: ParanormalGuy
You can never explain the physical world, it's like explaining a magnet. You can explain what it does, but no scientist on Earth will ever be able to explain how it attracts other magnetic matter. But you can probably come to a point where every physical behavior is written down.

Good opening post.

Another way of looking at what you are getting at is that, no matter how much we can describe even the simplest of objects, even know its exact atomic structure, and all of its processes and functions - we can never know what it actually IS. What IS it? All descriptions, etc., can only approximate it, but these never tell us what even a single thing actually IS.

We are, at a most fundamental level of mind, Not-Knowing. I hesitate to say "Ignorant" around here, but that is indeed the case at our mind's most fundamental level. The mind can never know what anything IS. The mind is ultimately "Ignorant".

originally posted by: ParanormalGuy
Still the big question will be unanswered, the question of why it all exists? Only when the non-physical world is acknowledged we can begin to answer those questions.

When one discovers what everything is a modification of, that question does not arise as a real question. It is only to the mind as a knower trying to know the known, that this question arises as a "real" question.

Thanks for the thread.

a reply to: ParanormalGuy

Only when the non-physical world is acknowledged we can begin to answer those questions.

They've been acknowledging the non-physical world for millennia. The problem is it doesn't exist.

originally posted by: LesMisanthrope

They've been acknowledging the non-physical world for millennia.

Correction: they've been experiencing it and then making empirical claims about it. That's why it is the basic theme of mythology. It's a universal experience, and It's stood the test of time. The non-physical world is experienced, and then becomes wrapped up in a wide variety of metaphor.

So, it stood the test either because it has evolutionary advantage, or because it's true, or both.

Sometimes people try and fail to experience it. Sometimes those people get frustrated and turn into cynical naysayers.

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a reply to: BlueMule

How do you experience it if it is non-physical?

a reply to: LesMisanthrope
It's not like there are two (or more) worlds in reality - it is one Event. There are apparently unlimited numbers of worlds that represent different modulations of the conscious light-energy that Reality is.

So the gross physical world has a graduated subtlety to it that more and more becomes what is considered "non-physical" - but that is a misleading label, because the subtle world (of subtler "matter") is still experienced by the subtle aspect of our body-minds.

a reply to: LesMisanthrope

How do *I* experience it? In metaphorical terms, I wait on the beach like a pearl-diver who can't swim. Grace or whatever brings pearls up to me.

How would *you* experience it? I have no idea. I guess you don't.

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a reply to: BlueMule

How do *I* experience it? In metaphorical terms, I wait on the beach like a pearl-diver who can't swim. Grace or whatever brings pearls up to me.

How would *you* experience it? I have no idea. I guess you don't.

Experience what exactly?

a reply to: LesMisanthrope

Oh, not that again.

You are unreasonable to expect exactness. You can't explain the physical, you can't explain the non-physical, and you can't explain anything inbetween. So you either have a psychology that can go past the misguided desire for exactness; that can dance in the heart of paradox and metaphor... or you have a psychology that can't.

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a reply to: BlueMule

Oh, not that again.

You are unreasonable to expect exactness. You can't explain the physical, you can't explain the non-physical, and you can't explain anything inbetween. So you either have a psychology that can go past the misguided desire for exactness, or you have a psychology that can't.

Then why are you explaining this to me?

a reply to: LesMisanthrope

Oh, I don't know. Maybe I'm bored. Maybe I like a challenge. Maybe I think there's still hope for you, that you can learn to settle for inexact answers, and take a leap of faith. Maybe your baseless assertions and mistakes annoy me. Maybe all of the above.

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