13. Is There a Way Out?
After breezing through the different philosophies, their problems and paradoxes, where do we stand now? Did we even get close to answering the What Is? question? No, we didn’t. Every puzzle we solve leads us to more puzzles. Every assumption that explains one property of our experience seems to struggle with the others.
Here is the situation described from a bird’s-eye view. Our mind is trying to explain the world and the mind itself. The problem with explaining anything is that the explanation we give usually needs an explanation itself. If we keep asking for an explanation for the explanation, it will lead us to an infinite regression. This is what the Münchhausen trilemma says. So, any system we build to explain reality will have one of the three:
- Brute statements taken to be facts.
- Self-referential cycles.
- Acceptance of infinite regressions
Say you want to use God as an entity to explain everything. The mind asks where does God come from? Who created God? Say you think today’s best physics - the Standard Model - is the final word to explain reality. The mind asks why do these particles have the properties we say they have and why do they exist the way they do?
If the mind wants to avoid this infinite regression, either it has to accept the brute statements as facts without explanations or build self-referential cycles. For example, some say God just exists without needing a cause (a brute fact); some say God is self-existent (a self reference); a few, like the mathematician Cantor, pictured God as a kind of endless infinity (Infinite regress).
The mind is never satisfied with the brute statements. Self-references come with a lot of paradoxes and create an infinite loop themselves. So, the only way to avoid an infinite regression seems to be to swallow our pride and accept brute statements. Or embrace these infinities and self-references.
It is not totally bleak though. The world we perceive does follow some patterns, which allows us to at least disprove some philosophies. And that is what we humans have been trying to do for millennia. We have empirical knowledge about the world we perceive which along with our rational knowledge helps us discount some possibilities that are logically inconsistent as impossible.
But things don’t seem to be as straightforward with the mind. Empirical knowledge of the mind is trickier. The mind is the very tool we use to observe anything, so studying it isn’t like pointing a telescope at a planet.
The I, the sense of self, feels lasting, unitary and unchanging. But the physical world keeps changing and matter can be broken down into smaller and smaller pieces until we hit the minute fundamental particles, which also behave like waves. That, along with the Hard Problem of Consciousness makes it hard to explain the mind in terms of physical entities. But if we decide to use non-physical entities to explain the mind, we run into other problems.
- If the physical brain is not what gives rise to the mental experience, and there is some entity external to the physical world, how do you know who has a conscious experience? All humans? Only some humans? Some animals too? There is no way to know because we don’t know anything about this external entity.
- How does this non-physical entity interact with the physical world that seems to follow laws? If a non-physical entity can influence this physical world, surely we would have noticed events which don’t agree with the physical laws?
Irrespective of the philosophy, there is also the question of free-will. Is it real or illusion? If it is real, where does it come from?
While empirical knowledge allows us to at least filter out some explanations of the world, it doesn’t seem to help much with the mind. Either way, we aren’t escaping the infinite regression that I pointed out originally. Not to mention the paradoxes and potential infinities we see around us in space, time, and even when we try to construct definitions of truth. Considering the situation, what options do we have?
Don’t know. Don’t care.
Do you even need a philosophy that explains the nature of reality? Billions of people have lived and died without needing one. So why bother? Just get on with your life without thinking too much. Let’s party!
Compromise and pick a complete philosophy with brute statements
Build yourself one or pick an existing philosophical system that has a lot of brute statements which are taken as fundamental truths. Remember that all of these have some uncomfortable moral implications that you have to grapple with.
- For example, you can pick physicalism and brush away the problem of qualia using brute statements. But how do you handle the identity problem? You can worry about it when human cloning and teleportation really become a thing.
- If you pick dualism, you have to face the uncomfortable question of which animals, insects or microorganisms around you really have the mental substance/property. Or you could just not care.
- If you pick idealism, you still face the same question as dualism. Which animals, insects or microbes are having a conscious experience and aren’t just zombies in the dream.
Just remember, every complete system buys its completeness with a brute fact you have to live with.
Embark on the search - Embrace the infinities and self-references
Admit ignorance, then commit to the search. Tackle the infinities and self-references head on. Swim in the paradoxes of self-references. Chase those infinities. Keep asking why, keep testing, keep refining. Every paradox you untangle and every assumption you expose is real progress, even if the final answer stays out of reach.
Maybe you will find that the mystics were right and there is a way to access the Absolute Truth. Maybe you will find some way out of the infinities no one else has ever thought. There is a high probability that you will never find an answer at all. But the search itself is worthwhile and is a lot more fun than people think.