AstroAg17 said:
I need clarification on your last sentence . Do you mean that our feelings and desires can be informative on reality, or do you mean they can be informative about how we understand reality? I agree with the second phrasing, but not the first.
I guess technically since we're part of reality the first phrasing is true, but our feelings shouldn't be viewed as a causal mechanism for anything other than our own actions.
1) I agree that our feelings are unlikely to be a causal impact to anything outside of our own mind and actions.
2) I am not really focusing on the feelings / beliefs of an individual, but mostly arguing that it is acceptable to consider those universal desires and emotional connections of man when trying to understand both the physical universe and the reality that we live in.
Our understanding of the natural world doesn't do a perfect job of explaining all of our experiences. Why can't human beings simply live out lives of contentment? Why does there always have to be something more? Why is the attraction to music so universal? Why can I feel someone standing behind me that is staring at me? Where do all my missing socks go after I put them into the dryer?
In your reality, everything can be explained with an understanding of forces of nature, and any hypothesis to the contrary is DOA. Our decision making process is 100% deterministic based on our genetics and past experiences, even if our own consciousness protests this as impossible. But, such an approach shuts down part of our reality that might actually lead to a better understanding of the Universe, and/or a better understanding of ourselves.
There is a mostly universal belief or hope that there is something out there outside of these four dimensions we live in. We can collectively
feel that something else, along with the beauty of whatever we are inside of our beings. One could chalk that up to pre-programming due to Darwinism, but that is only one possible answer. To dismiss all other possibilities outright because they are not easily explained by science feels to me like a cop out.
I am arguing that it is acceptable to believe that there IS something more outside of what we perceive our universe to be with our senses, and that there is sufficient evidence to support that belief, even if it cannot be proven. Our understanding of the universe is not sufficient enough for me to one can prove that there is not something else out there. In the event that neither side is provable, the existence of near universal beliefs along this line are acceptable evidence to consider.
