John W. wrote: <snipped>
To a certain extent each observer must observe his private world, although in many/most(?) cases the experience is, no doubt, similar amongst observers.
Since I basically agree with the entire reply, I have little to add. My only comment might be, 'what are the philosophical and scientific consequences of our mere indirect contact with a presumed reality?' and Ricardo F. wrote: <also snipped>
Let me add some other [questions]: What is conscience [consciousness?] . . .
This question is perhaps the second greatest, right behind: Why is there something instead of nothing? The scientific method of addressing the question has been to assume that consciousness is a phenomenon somehow generated by the brain, (What else is there?), and begin searching for the mechanism. But after hundreds of years of searching, countless 'theories', and continuing claims of 'progress' and 'discoveries', we remain no closer to a definitive answer than we were when we first made the assumption. The problem is that consciousness is totally different from the material of the brain, the meat that is assumed to generate it. When we claim that consciousness originates in the brain, we are claiming that something can come from nothing, which is magic. (There is no consciousness in ordinary matter.) I am far more comfortable picturing the brain as a kind of radio receiver that detects a universal field of consciousness and focuses it into the sub-units that we call our individual self-awarenesses. Those who wish to do so may consider the universal field of consciousness to be their God. Another extremely difficult question is: What remains the same from day to day, while the contents of the mind and material of the brain constantly change? The most immediate answer would be to invoke an unchanging soul or spirit. But science does not admit the existence of such entities, and wanting to appear at least moderately scientific, I must state that I have no idea.
. . . If it [consciousness] is inmaterial, how is it that it controls the body? . . .
From the scientific viewpoint the question is even more perplexing. It is assumed that the brain creates the mind that controls the body by controlling the material of the brain -- a circular argument that goes nowhere. There is also a conflict with causality. The physical universe is assumed to be a closed system. If what controls the brain and body is not physical, there is a physical effect without a physical cause, a clear violation of the principle of causality.
. . . What is matter?
This is another puzzling question, made even more puzzling by the discoveries of quantum mechanics. Regardless of which model we use, reality at the quantum level is so alien to our intuition that it is beyond comprehension. By using numbers, we can create models of what goes on down there, and thereby make predictions, but we shall never achieve an intuitive image of things like atoms -- an image which would match the image we have of the physical world. We have discovered that we live in a material classic world composed of immaterial quantum building blocks. This is the same as discovering that we live in a house composed of the idea of a house. It is one massive puzzlement! Jim (the puzzled fractalist) Muth