Well What do we know

 Who knows where the road goes, but only time will tell?

The more one knows the more we realize what we don’t know.     

But what can we say we know and how can we know for sure? – As the song says in answer -only time will tell!! -Enya 

Who can say where the road goes
Where the day flows, only time
And who can say if your love grows
As your heart chose, only time

So I will just start from a point in time to throw you back some ideas.   

What do we know?   

One might say it doesn’t help us much to talk about things we don’t know, although exploring the mysterious fascinating world of quantum mechanics might make us aware, at this most basic level, we haven’t got any idea of what reality is. That is, other than a few probability theories, we are in the dark so to speak. Of course you can shine some light on it but it’s a highly technical subject that some folk might not like to discuss.  But on the more positive side that might also prompt us to remain humble about the vast amount of knowledge we rather obviously aren’t aware of. That is as it seemingly exists unrecognizable on the other side of the physics coin, not so influenced unless things either go very, very fast or are equally very small. Maybe one day there will emerge a credible quantum general theory of relativity amongst the thousands of attempts that infiltrate the internet today.   

No doubt knowledge will accelerate in line with our journey into space, but herein there remains the question of being in the world. What do we know about this?  Starting out with Kierkegaard we have his idea of being that we know to be in balance in the world and avoid falling despair. The later period existential thinking questioned the validity of talking about subjects and objects.  But is this the wrong philosophical approach? How do we know? - Jumping ahead, Richard Rorty in his ground-breaking ‘Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature’ suggests to us we now know both analytical philosophy, theories of knowledge, all privileged representations and epistemological considerations are all flawed concepts. How would we know this?  – Mostly from common sense? There is no special knowledge you can gain from just philosophy as such, but you can get a better appreciation from an expanded narrative and through intuition and interpretation.     

He therefore posits the future of philosophy and religion lies in introspection or intuition and the expanded narrative.

My own view is I think there is an elegance of thinking about life as in the Heidegger’s idea of just opening the latchkey to being in the world. How do we know this?  – because we know we are trapped in this world or universe as no one has as yet returned from some other world!  So we know that it is a valid way of looking at our existence through the latch key idea. 

In other words we don’t have to think about opening the latch key in the world which involves dealing with all of the equipment that makes up the materialistic world we inhabit, since, by inference, the balance revolves around just being in the world.

This we know that being in the world must be a spiritual or sacred experimental world that we inhabit but can't see but rather can only be experienced. We know our Individual interactions will all be different as there are no boundaries other than those we chose to impose, by necessity, as mortal human beings, as they relate to one's mind's representations. This is almost like the world of quantum mechanics that we can’t see properly, but it is no less real. We know it is real but we don't have any real knowledge of it other than some surface observations.  

So, summing up, there will be similar experiences we can all share, which will be our ongoing work in progress so to speak, but we can’t ever know for sure what is going on in another's mind or even our own. Consider what is now known - roughly 2 billion decisions made virtually all for us within that complicated circuitry of the brain and emanating from the subconscious.  

So we know we can express this in our ongoing narrative which underpins a meaningful existence. 

Not that I wish to express all of this in a negative way, but rather to contend we know that it is only a misty, glassy like grip that we have on reality. That means, in humility, we turn to the ancient myths, allegorical references and stories that help shine a light on understanding how to live within this entrapment. As a side issue, the anxiety arising from living today under Coved 19 could find no better source than to turn to Kierkegaard, who turned anxiety into a positive that enables one to seek a deeper understanding of who we are as in the self and to lift ourselves out of despair. 

It means the future of philosophy and religion must increasingly rely on introspection to become more intuitive, since the redeemer lives on but in the modern day context of spiritual experiences now. Thus anxiety might be seen as a good thing, within reason, not to be excessive, but for the opportunity to experience that whooshing feeling on daily walks, to be uplifted by that spiritual experience. In the beginning was the word which was the logos that became our reality to become flesh so we have to deal with being in the world as best we can. That is just as we always have done with varying degrees of new found expression that give rise to the full range of emotions. We know they tell us the truth about ourselves but not the truth as such to which some degree of subjectivity forever holds sway.  

So, as we open the latch key to possibly uncover the essence of deep space and take a few pictures they remain just mental representations. We know the same mirror image of nature, which sees things in varying ways, also exists just as we co-exist with her. We know every invention was already present in one form or another almost identical form already resplendent in nature. But we know we can’t talk about consciousness in any meaningful philosophical way because we don’t understand it. We could talk about that though. 

Hence we don’t have to be tied down to rationality, we can turn to listen and contemplate the mystics, whether they be of eastern, western or indigenous origins.

Depending upon our culture we find resonance maybe with Sufi/Christian wisdom streams, all incorporated within the framework of our philosophical or religious underpinnings. In that respect I need to try and define it a bit by noting that mysticism potentially is a method of knowing separate to the knowledge or the knower in question. Aligning that idea to something more tangible one might posit the idea of a mystical experience can be the actuation of our various gifts to discern how we feel about something deep within us, which applies universally to everyone. 

Within this context one can talk about the idea of knowing that is intuitive and in that sense, it is in common with all mystics, to offers the opportunity of sharing in those gifts to the extent we choose to exercise our freedom. But that is not to say we have mystical experiences which we can rationally refer to at any time or that mysticism is a method to potentially override other valid methods of acquiring future valuable knowledge.

Rather we might feel energized or mindful as in ‘Mindfulness’ that allows us to gain new knowledge without the restraint or imposition of ideologies presupposing necessary outcomes. A way of quiet reflection.   

One can find mysticism as embraced by the Australian aborigines.  That is resplendent in the origins of mysticism thought to reside in their dream-time creation where all living things were believed to be made co-dependent and reactive to one another in one inseparable land.

In conclusion I tentatively agree with Richard Rorty, the future direction of philosophy depends mostly upon introspection or intuition and the expanded narrative. That intuitive way of knowing is no less valuable than rational streams and in fact the 2 might see as inextricably linked.

Hence the philosopher’s self-image, the foundational type thinking and the idea of any privileged representations just melt into the vast cooking pot of ideas. That means we can have interesting conversations about these things without feeling obliged to come up with definitive answers.