If, reality is mental construct (and it provably is; i.e. made from/by mind), then reality is intelligently designed (axiomatic) and therefore we can practically call it God. However, if you want me to leave the word "God" out of that, I have no problem with that. I'm perfectly happy just calling reality intelligently designed.
It's this I have a problem with mostly, the 'reality is a mental construct . . . therefore Intelligent Design'.
Reality of the mind is not the same for everyone. Ask somebody suffering from mental illness about their reality, or the demon-haunted world of the theist for that matter, reality exists outside of our minds and provably so by way of technology which can describe reality in an entirely unbiased and functionally objective way. A Geiger counter measures something our minds cannot detect, so where is mental construct for the existence of things which can only be proven as existing when we develop and employ tools which have capabilities we do not possess?
Reality, The Universe and how it actually functions, versus our imagined reality full of erroneous and flawed perceptions. Where is the provable mental construct of the actual reality of The Universe? There isn't one because we have yet to develop the vast depth of knowledge required to know all of reality in order to accurately paint it as a mental construct. Instead we imagine our own personal realities, and that's not Intelligent Design in the sense of the theistic 'God', that's simply the sentient intelligence of our functioning brain, purely subjective psychology/neurology and, what's more, not at all the topic of conversation for this thread which is related to the discussion of the 'reality' which is The Universe. Well, that and the arbitrarily assigned characteristics of a monotheistic God able to exist outside our Universe by way of anything we care to imagine, frankly.
Great post.
Responding sequentially:
1) Okay, thank you for specifically highlighting the problem.
2) I agree, and I acknowledge that "reality of the mind is not the same for everyone." I'm actually a mental health professional and I've worked with hundreds of people who have varied histories of psychosis.
The data on psychosis is inconclusive to the extent that it is unknown whether "internal stimuli" such as hallucinations have a real component. In Western cultures, the overwhelming opinion is that it is hallucinations are purely a fabrication; many Eastern and tribal cultures believe there is some concrete basis. A theoretical explanation for this alternative conclusion is that the sense of a psychotic individual may be "tuned differently," so-to-speak, such that they are able to perceive what others cannot, kind of like tuning a radio dial. What's particularly interesting is there does seem to be evidence of this. For example, Stanford anthropologist Jeremy Narby discusses the depth and accuracy of botanical knowledge of various tribal cultures who claim that their knowledge was obtained through direct communication of "spirits" dwelling in some other realm which (they also claim) is only perceivable to tribal shamans or those who partake in the ritualistic consumption of hallucinogenic substances (e.g. ayahuasca, tobacco, etc.). Specifically, Narby notes that, as a result of the vast number of possible combinations and permutations of Amazonian plant species, the assumption that these cultures obtained such botanical knowledge through chance combinations is untenable. Personally, I am undecided on the issue.
With regards to the Geiger Counter, I would say it is irrelevant as both the Geiger counter and the data it collects are both perceived via the mind. To this end, technology is an extension of mind, and accordingly technology can act as 2nd-order means of perception (by invoking a technological -- but still abstract -- metric by which to measure real phenomena). These findings align with findings of the famous Double Slit Experiment which indicate that
the wave-function collapses in both the presence of a human observer, and in the presence of a technological observer even when no human observer is present.3) You bring up several issues in your last paragraph here, so I feel compelled to deconstruct it a bit:
Reality, The Universe and how it actually functions, versus our imagined reality full of erroneous and flawed perceptions. Where is the provable mental construct of the actual reality of The Universe?
You're asserting several components, here: 1) Reality/Universe has a true nature of function, 2) Our "imagined reality" containing flawed perceptions and interpretations thereof, and 3) "correct" perceptions and interpretations thereof (and you're asking where #3 is).
Would it be fair to assume from these statements that you are a Positivist, and that accordingly the scientific method is the ideal in knowledge acquisition? Please correct me if I am wrong in that assumption. If my assumption is true, first you need to reconcile the concept of a Positivistic Universe with the sameness-in-difference principle of logic stating that any two relational entities 'x' and 'y' must reduce to a common medium, specifically because this fundamental principle
a priori disproves the assumption of a Positivistic Universe.
But maybe you don't assume logical principles must necessarily extend to reality. If that's the case, then instead you must reconcile that belief with the stability of our perception of reality which self-apparently indicates a logical relationship between the perceiver and the perceived. If you make the assumption that the truth is there is a Positivistic reality, then you must concede that reality is inherently logical (because logic is a predicate for truth). Because logic refers to the rules of valid cognition, you must then explain how reality is inherently logical in the absence of a mind/intelligent designer. If, on the other hand, you make the assumption that there is no such thing as a Positivistic reality at the highest level of truth, then you would be conceding the argument to me.
And, I would say the "provable mental construct of the actual Reality of the Universe" is the construct which is self-evident at all times to any perceiver. My personal belief is that reality is a theory of itself, and so through continual perceptual and interpretive refinement, reality continually refines itself towards self-actualization. I basically think reality is trying to know itself. Consider, again, the self-evident process in which reality confirms itself. Specifically, some parts of reality (e.g. us) perceive and acknowledge the existence of other parts of reality (e.g. anything not us). I would go so far as to make a $1 million dollar bet for someone to provide a real-time example of the confirmation of any real phenomena in the total absence of any mind or perceiver (human or otherwise), and I will would give him the rest of his natural born life to do so. Sure, I'd never win the $1 million under those terms, but I'm confident I wouldn't lose it, either. In exactly 100% of all cases in which reality is confirmed to exist, mind is present. There has never been a case where the existence of reality has been confirmed in the absence of mind. You invoke an unnecessary assumption and thereby violate Occam's razor when you suggest that reality continues to exist in the absence of mind. It's simply better to conclude that there is no applicable statement that can be made to reality in the absence of mind as it still accounts for all data but wields exactly zero assumptions.
There isn't one because we have yet to develop the vast depth of knowledge required to know all of reality in order to accurately paint it as a mental construct.
Here, I beg to differ. I find Christopher Langan's CTMU theory found at
www.ctmu.org to be infallible (so far). I'm well aware of the critiques his theory has received, most notably that he uses "naive set theory" as opposed to formal set theory (a critique that is reconciled in his theory).
You don't need to know all of reality (especially because the only reality which is relevant to you is that which you are perceiving right now). But, you do need to know all of logic's limitations and boundaries. Again, logic is a predicate for truth, and so by understanding the boundaries of logic and relating those boundaries back to real phenomena, what we are actually doing is creating a sound framework for modeling reality in terms of mind. If you believe your mind is real, then this is critically important because any comprehensive theory of reality needs to explain all real phenomena, including your mind.
Understanding this framework is more important than understanding any real phenomena simply because any and all real phenomena can be included within the framework. Thus, the framework serves as a fundamental, general model of how reality is continually refined and defined.
Stemming from this last point, there has been a gradual shift in the scientific community away from testable hypotheses towards model development. The reasoning is pretty simple. Aside from the strong case of philosophers who note that scientific falsification is imperfect, a model only needs to meet several definite criteria: It needs to comprehensively explain all that it models, must be internally consistent, and must be externally reliable. Any model that meets these criteria is a sound model.
A model of reality in terms of mind does just that. It explains all real phenomena including mind, their interplay and relationships, and even itself (by modeling the process by which the model itself is constructed). Furthermore, any attempt to deny the model actually reinforces the model, specifically because your denial of the model was created by the exact process described in the model.
Instead we imagine our own personal realities, and that's not Intelligent Design in the sense of the theistic 'God', that's simply the sentient intelligence of our functioning brain, purely subjective psychology/neurology and, what's more, not at all the topic of conversation for this thread which is related to the discussion of the 'reality' which is The Universe. Well, that and the arbitrarily assigned characteristics of a monotheistic God able to exist outside our Universe by way of anything we care to imagine, frankly.
On the contrary, our perception, interpretation, and subsequent definition of reality is self-evidently intelligent designed, and it's similar to the process of intelligent design in the sense of the theistic God, but at an infinitely smaller scale. I believed I've described my reasoning for this belief several times elsewhere on this forum, so I'd rather not repeat myself unless you specifically request that I do.
What I will briefly say, however, is that I again would suggest looking at that which is self-evident. When you perceive something, you invoke a fundamental metric which catalyzes the process of defining reality. When you perceive real phenomena, you must make a decision -- does it exist or does it not? If you can't choose either option, then you don't know whether it's there or not, or what it might be if it is. Think of it this way: through perception, you process and render otherwise unintelligible information intelligible. If information is unintelligible, there's simply nothing relevant to say about it whatsoever. If I hand you a CD and ask you to define its informational content, you wouldn't know where to begin unless you first stuck it in a CD player and hit play. The CD player renders the information into definable sounds...music. There would be absolutely no possible or logical way to assert the existence of that music prior to its rendering and subsequent definition.
Finally, I am frustrated (not at you, just in general) that I must again repeat that at no point do I begin with any presumption that God exists, nor do I ascribe any arbitrary characteristics or assumptions about what God may be prior to concluding that an intelligent designer exists. The process *must* begin by proving that a logical limit(s) of theorization exists and what that limit(s) might be. It *must* begin this way because logic is axiomatically a predicate for truth.
