Imagine that you are sitting inside a room. You will likely say that there is a space, inside which there is a planet, in which there is a country, inside which there is a city, inside which there is a house, inside which there is a room, inside which the body is currently situated. If …
Realism
Material vs. Spiritual Realism
In the last post, I described the sense in which Vedic philosophy is realist—a soul moves in a space of meaning-states called childhood, youth, and old age (higher) and hungry, thirsty, lusty (lower). All these states are fixed and eternal, but the soul’s connection to these states is temporary. Western material realism instead claims that …
Properties, Values, and Measurements
One problem that has repeatedly bothered me for the last decade is the distinction between physical properties, their measurements, and the values of properties that are discovered during measurement. I have flip-flopped in my understanding of the problem and what might be a solution. I will use this post to describe the problem and what …
Models and Reality
During recent online conversations with commentators, I heard a refrain about science: science is only a model, it has nothing to do with reality; our models may get closer to reality over time, but we have no way of knowing that they have gotten to reality, nor do we know that they will eventually get …