(Continued from volume 1)
Searching for the essence of reality is not an easy task, yet there are morsels of intuition which suggest us that its birthplace may be closer to one's soul than anything else. The hard part is to identify this heart of meaning and present it in a way which can be formulated in a language which we can comprehend on a rational basis.
Firstly, let us ask ourselves: "What are the building blocks of reality?" In other words, what are the conceptual ingredients which comprise the set of all possible definitions that can be classified as either "real" or "unreal" outside of any particular context?
There are myriads of theories in academia which proudly give their own answers to this kind of inquiry. Some of them claim that material phenomena (such as laws of mechanics) are the essence of the universe, and that mental activities as well as their ensuing qualia are mere byproducts which emerged out of physical interactions. Others, on the other hand, claim that everything originates from psychological phenomena because even the most materialistic entities (e.g. a solid object) reveal their existence only when they are being perceived by a conscious agent.
There are other groups, too, who rather prefer to avoid taking sides. Some say that both the mind and body possess their own shares of existence, implying that there is some kind of parallelism between what is happening in the psychological realm and what is happening in the physical realm. Others tend to suggest that these two aspects of reality are nothing but two sides of the same coin, which may be characterized by the word "monism".
But before plunging into a typical rigmarole of sophist wordplay, let us retain our sense of decency which encourages us to reason in terms of concepts in their purest form, rather than trying to build layers upon layers of groundless abstraction designed to gratify pseudo-intellectuals whose ego demands its throne in the midst of a jungle of meaningless technicality.
I will first describe to you the limit of my faculty of reasoning, for it is crucial for one to clearly state the boundary of one's intellectual capacity in order to be able to assert the validity of at least a subset of one's worldview. Clearly acknowledged ignorance speaks more truth than all-knowing stupidity.
At the core, my thoughts are the only ingredients from which I am able to formulate my arguments. Without thoughts and their ensuing process of thinking, I can neither define nor prove anything. And if I cannot prove anything, the purpose of this writing will vanish into nothingness. Thus, I have no choice but simply begin my line of metaphysical reasoning from the assumption that my own thoughts are some kind of self-proclaimed existential entities, since it is pretty much as far as my definition of existence can go. This is my limit, and any statement I happen to prove under such a constraint must be bounded by such a limit.
It may be claimed that there is something called "external reality" whose intricacies dwell outside of my domain of thoughts, yet it is pointless to ponder upon it as long as there is no way for me to conceptualize it.
Some people may say that I must be quite narrow-minded if I assert that my thoughts are the only sources of what one could refer to as "reality", since there are also intuitively understood phenomena (such as consciousness) which are antecedent to thoughts themselves.
To this facet of reason, I would say that an isolated bubble of intuition should stay within the realm of intuition only, and not dare to trespass the fortified wall of logic.
On a personal level, for sure, I do feel that I am a conscious being, detached from the rest of the world by means of this mysterious sense of self-awareness of mine which can never be observed anywhere else but within my very self. And some people use this unique angle of impression to back up their claim that there is this thing called "consciousness" which partitions the universe into two distinct types of beings - those which exist inside of one's consciousness, and those which exist outside of it.
Will this dichotomy even make sense, however, if we admit that consciousness itself is not a clearly defined idea in the first place?
I feel that I possess consciousness, yet this is just a feeling. I cannot prove its existence, nor can I tell what it is at all, which means that consciousness is not something which can be defined. All I can say is that I just "feel" it, and as far as my reasoning goes, there is no method through which I can expand my domain of thoughts beyond this crude expression. And since consciousness is undefined, it will be logically fallacious for me to say that "consciousness exists". A statement whose procedure of evaluation depends on an undefined parameter must be expected to be undefined, unless there is a peculiar reason to presuppose that the idea of "undefinedness" itself, when applied to such a statement, provides a way to yield a definable result.
(Will be continued in volume 3)