If weâre talking about highly unexpected phenomena, then I think that this analysis is putting the cart before the horse. Look at it this way: The theory of materialism (in all of its forms) pushes us toward the idea that there is a sharp distinction between the mental and the physical. That is to say, it pushes us toward thinking that what exists objectively exists in space and time from the point of view of all observers and that what doesnât meet those criteria is a hallucination. However, we are already familiar with phenomena that fall in between the cracks of those distinctions. The best example is a rainbow. đ We speak of rainbows as though they had an extent in space â and indeed, we can take photographs that seem to prove that to be true â yet, their extent in space is illusory because it changes with every (physical) point of view. As we know, no person has ever yet found the end of a rainbow. Nevertheless, if you are standing next to me, I can point to a rainbow and you will see it. Thus, with respect to how the phenomenon maps onto our language, it is impossible to answer the question of whether it has an objective physical existence. We grant rainbow the status of having an objective physical existence because they can be studied in a laboratory. However, if we are discussing phenomena of a more exotic nature, phenomena that we have not been able to study in a laboratory, then we should acknowledge the possibility that complications in our ability to map language onto reality could create problems when we attempt to use Bayesian probabilistic reasoning.
I guess that my point is that the question of whether âalien aircraftâ physically traveled from another planet to Earth is a different question than whether there was an âintelligently controlled shared hallucinationâ. And if you are an idealist (as opposed to a materialist), then you might say that everything we collectively see and can objectively measure is a âshared hallucinationâ, in which case, the question of what is ârealâ becomes complicated because it is no longer a black-and-white issue. The idealist and the materialist, alike, are always going to be coming back to the same four questions, though: What can we categorize? What can we explain? What can we predict? What can we control?
If weâre talking about highly unexpected phenomena, then I think that this analysis is putting the cart before the horse. Look at it this way: The theory of materialism (in all of its forms) pushes us toward the idea that there is a sharp distinction between the mental and the physical. That is to say, it pushes us toward thinking that what exists objectively exists in space and time from the point of view of all observers and that what doesnât meet those criteria is a hallucination. However, we are already familiar with phenomena that fall in between the cracks of those distinctions. The best example is a rainbow. đ We speak of rainbows as though they had an extent in space â and indeed, we can take photographs that seem to prove that to be true â yet, their extent in space is illusory because it changes with every (physical) point of view. As we know, no person has ever yet found the end of a rainbow. Nevertheless, if you are standing next to me, I can point to a rainbow and you will see it. Thus, with respect to how the phenomenon maps onto our language, it is impossible to answer the question of whether it has an objective physical existence. We grant rainbow the status of having an objective physical existence because they can be studied in a laboratory. However, if we are discussing phenomena of a more exotic nature, phenomena that we have not been able to study in a laboratory, then we should acknowledge the possibility that complications in our ability to map language onto reality could create problems when we attempt to use Bayesian probabilistic reasoning.
I guess that my point is that the question of whether âalien aircraftâ physically traveled from another planet to Earth is a different question than whether there was an âintelligently controlled shared hallucinationâ. And if you are an idealist (as opposed to a materialist), then you might say that everything we collectively see and can objectively measure is a âshared hallucinationâ, in which case, the question of what is ârealâ becomes complicated because it is no longer a black-and-white issue. The idealist and the materialist, alike, are always going to be coming back to the same four questions, though: What can we categorize? What can we explain? What can we predict? What can we control?