Reason is our soul's left hand, Faith her right.
~John Donne

There are two well-known Latin phrases that state “CONTRA EVIDENTIA CREDO” and “CREDO QUIA EVIDENTIA”. Translated into English, these bring up the debate over “I believe despite the evidence,” versus “I believe because of the evidence”; in other words, faith versus science.

In today’s technology-based existence, it is sometimes difficult to define that contentious line between the very contrasting worlds of naturalism and supernaturalism. On one side, it’s very easy to see how people often need tangible confirmation for things; it’s difficult to believe in something when your convictions are based purely on faith alone. On the other hand, when an individual is so deeply rooted in their faith (whether it be devoutly religious or more spiritual), it’s a thorny situation to try to persuade them into anything scientific that contradicts their committed beliefs.

When it comes to society, as Clark points out, “in the realm of faith there is often little agreement”, so it’s necessary to base societal standards on what is at hand—the concrete, scientific evidence. As most politicians see it, it’s reasonable to ethical values influenced by faith, but when it comes to a public whose beliefs vary from Christian to atheist, it’s fundamental to their success to stray from religion and ground political stances solely on rational facts, something available to every citizen no matter what beliefs they hold.

In my opinion, the best route to pursue is that of pragmatic empiricism—a practical reliance upon experience. It acknowledges a view of “this world naturalism”—you know what you’ve experienced; it doesn’t try to answer all the questions, but agrees that we all live in the same world and thus have much in common; and it focuses on “reality-based” issues that of direct significance to us in the here-and-now (a very important motto for me as previously mentioned), without having to agonize over the clash between the colliding worldviews.

Albert Einstein seemed to put it best when he said, “All religions, arts and sciences are branches of the same tree. All these aspirations are directed toward ennobling man's life, lifting it from the sphere of mere physical existence and leading the individual towards freedom.” Ultimately, it doesn’t boil down to which view is accurate (naturalism or supernaturalism), but that they all unite at the core to reward us all with the choice to have an independent will and a vibrant passion for life.

"I can't control my destiny, I trust my soul, my only goal is just to be. There's only now, there's only here. Give in to love or live in fear. No other path, no other way. No day but today."

Johnathan Larson

“A famous philosophical argument says that, if the future were real, then it would be fixed now, and we would not have the freedom to affect that future. Since we do have that freedom, the future can't be real.”

I suppose that the future is psychologically real in the sense that we can perceive ‘yes (as far as we can hope) tomorrow will come, and life will continue. However, can the future ever be physically real? For, isn’t it true, that once it becomes physically real, it will then have transformed into the present?

I believe that at one point the past was real (of course, technically speaking, it would then have been called the present…), but I’ve never seen a positive example of someone living in the past. To my thinking, it’s impossible to get back what has already happened; and, therefore, it is fairly damaging to live such a life advocating only the past.

It’s also vital to take a few other things into consideration when mulling over such a topic. First of all, we must reflect on the multitude of definitions for “real”: it can be something that is tangible and existent, (advocating the Presentist theory), something that absolutely occurred (supporting that the past is, in fact, real), or something actual as opposed to possible or potential (again encouraging the Presentist theory…the future could never be actual as it is only a potential because it hasn’t happened yet).

Now if that’s not puzzling enough, it’s crucial to also consider the question of choice versus fate/destiny. If one advocates that choice is what determines your path, then they will most likely take on the Presentist viewpoint—all we have is today and the choices we make now will influence what tomorrow brings. If one supports the idea of a predetermined destiny or fate, on the other hand, then they will probably conceive the future to be a very real entity—your path has already been laid out for you, and therefore, it is not simply a possibility but an actuality.

Personally, I believe that our path is crafted by a combination of both choices and fate. I think that we have a general direction that we are meant to head in (somewhat of the idea that we are born to be inherently good or evil), but also that we choose individual ‘off-roads’ through the many choices that we make (whether good or bad); and it is these choices that ultimately determine our end. I prefer to live a life encouraging a somewhat Presentist outlook. To some extent, I believe that we can only recognize and accept present objects and present experiences to be “real”; and that we, as “conscious beings”, must be innately aware of the extraordinary brilliance of our experience in the here-and-now.

“During history, a variety of answers have been given to the question of whether time is like a line or, instead, like a circle.”

One of the most prominent debates on the topic of time is over whether it is cyclical or linear. Advocates of the cyclical theory give the evidence that events have reoccurred throughout history. Is it possible that this is true? Or do minor disparities in each event make each ‘recurrence’ unlike any other, thus supporting the linear theory?

I believe that, broadly speaking, the cyclical theory holds true—everyone is born, goes through childhood, adolescence, adulthood, old age, and ultimately returns to dust. When taking a closer examination, however, the cyclical theory is far off—I may go through the general stage of adolescence, but the experiences I undergo are vastly different from those my parents or grandparents may have gone through; the world is constantly shifting, times are changing, and thus, each individual’s experiences and perceptions of the universe are uniquely exclusive to them.

The Hebrews created the view that times progresses from event to event in a linear method—not precisely a straight line, but at least aiming towards some objective and the goal is always the predestined future (for those religious beings, a destiny determined by a higher being). To demonstrate this, recall some typical Biblical stories—sins always have inevitable consequences and ethical choices constantly result in positive outcomes.

On the other side of the spectrum, the ancient Greeks, Chinese, Aztec, and Mayans as well as the Hindu culture accepted the cyclical theory as true. They believed that, in time, the beginning always leads back around to the end, at which point the cycle starts again. Time is intricately entwined and events recur throughout history.

So which theory is the “ultimate truth”? There will never be a definitive answer to that question. All that we can know is that, if time is in fact “real”, all we can do is wholly live the life we have (whether we are passing through time, or if time is passing us). As someone once wisely advised, “Live life fully while you're here. Experience everything. Take care of yourself and your friends. Have fun, be crazy, be weird. Go out and screw up! You're going to anyway, so you might as well enjoy the process. Take the opportunity to learn from your mistakes: find the cause of your problem and eliminate it. Don't try to be perfect; just be an excellent example of being human.”

What then is time?

What then is time? If no one asks me, I know what it is. If I wish to explain it to him who asks, I do not know. ~Saint Augustine

As certain as it is that 8:30 will arrive to spoil every morning of my existence, time is a very bona fide part of my life; only my experience of it is subjective. Human beings surely lead frenzied lives, but examine the rest of surrounding existence; there is a universal clock guiding everything from the cosmos, to nature, and even highly superior living things that contemplate the actuality of time itself.

I suppose that it’s fully acceptable to deem psychological time as relative; the existence of physical time, however, is absolute and can be witnessed all over. Everything we know and do is, in essence, nothing without the concept of time. To our ancient relatives this would have all appeared as supernatural; but through evolution, humankind has deciphered the multitude of cyclical patterns through the years. Animals are quite aware of when it is time to voyage south, when to hibernate, the ideal times for harvesting or reproducing; solar and lunar eclipses recur on a sequential schedule. Time is a piece of the essential composition of the universe, a dimension in which events happen in succession. All living things—from the simplest to the most advanced—have a primary notion of time.

It’s true that psychosomatic time was fashioned by man; it is a completely human mechanism for managing our day-to-day living. Physical time, on the other hand, has been around since the dawn of creation. Essentially, modern man is really a creation of time. Those pesky numbers on the clock counsel us when to work, sleep, and eat. We have affixed unreal articles and numbers (February15, 2008) for the exclusive intention of helping us in our understanding and measurement of time, but to disprove its physical authenticity is absurd.

Although physical time is the only sort of time that can be demonstrated as real, psychological time is essentially the only thing that matters to an individual’s conceptions of the world. A point in time that may have been exceptional to me, may be completely insignificant to another—no two people will have the same exact experience of psychological time (although their physical time experience will be perfectly alike). No one can ever really grasp what time is; but then again, can anyone really 'know' what anything is? For all we know, everything may be nothing.

"All that we are is the result of what we have thought. The mind is everything. What we think we become."
-Buddha

Say the color of these words:

Red Green Blue

Blue Red Blue

Now again...

Red Green Blue

Blue Red Blue

This is the Stroop Task—a psychological test that shows our tendency to read words faster than we can name colors.

In my opinion, this test deals with the brain…things relating to mental fortitude and adaptability. Scientific studies have shown that the left side of the brain functions in a logical way while the right is the intuitive side. If it’s possible for the right and left brain to function independently of one another, then it’s easy to recognize how to distinguish between science versus experience, intuition and gut feeling, and the physical brain versus the mind and soul.

Through the utilization of a medical example, it’s possible for a person to be completely brain-dead, yet their mind is still active. Patients have woken up out of years-long comas and been able to recollect certain meaningful instances that (while at the same time that they were said to have zero brain function) occurred, such as the encouraging and healing words of a loved one. Oftentimes, these subjects have also encountered collisions with the noumenal realm, experiencing phenomena such as “the light” or contact with a love one who has passed.

To say that the mind and brain are not two separate entities is like saying the word reads green when it clearly says red. Mind-independent reality deals with those things that are fully separate from every human mind—cats, trees, rocks, etc.—they exist not because we conceived them, but simply because they are; this, however, is quite different from saying all of these such entities are independent of the brain. The brain deciphers these things as they are, while the mind opens up the creative juices and interprets them for what you wish/are taught to see.

It’s completely understandable to think of a brain-independent mind, but it’s slightly more challenging to conceive of a mind-independent brain. The mind, in my opinion, is the dominator—it can clearly alter your brain’s perception of things by taking into consideration other factors, such as learning from experience and the ‘knowledge’ of others. The brain tells you facts, while the mind is a more comical branch that plays games with your thoughts and emotions.

As our brain plays the Einstein, the mind is entertaining our inner Picassos. Like the legendary phrase tells us, “it takes two to tango”; to be wholly functional and intellectual as a being, it’s necessary for the mind and brain to serenely coexist. As H.G. Wells once stated, “The forceps of our minds are clumsy things and crush the truth a little in the course of taking hold of it.” It’s up to us to distinguish between reality and perception, facts and feelings, Einstein and Picasso.

Everything you can imagine is real.

~Pablo Picasso

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If I'm correct in my thinking, the aim of philosophy is to spawn thought-provoking and captivating credos; and the aim and fascination of our existence, as seemingly insignificant beings, is to remain forever curious of the supposed bodies and entities surrounding us, perpetually pursuing new theories to answer the ever popular "Who, what, when, where, and why" series. Personally, I believe that experience is the ultimate source for the construction of reality; every individual conceptualizes their own theories through their five senses--what they feel, see, hear, taste, and smell-- and through what they are told from others.

Although it is ultimately true in it's breakdown that each individual is responsible for their own thinking (von Glasersfeld), I also find it to be true that people will inevitably be influenced by others—friends and family, society, media, culture, religion—there will always be outside forces seducing us towards alternate conjectures. It is accurate to believe that two people can hold similar views on certain topics, but no two individuals will ever hold perfectly identical outlooks on the multitudinous perceptions and conceptions of life.

I’d like to recall a story (or if I may call it riddle of a sort, relating to von Glasersfeld's speculations on apples, which i mention in Q&A #2) that I discovered a few weeks ago: In a first-grade classroom, a teacher holds up an apple and asks the children to describe the characteristics of apples. Most of the children say they are red or yellow or green, sweet or bitter, smooth and shiny; one little boy, however, proclaims that they are white. The teacher and all of the students declare that they have never seen a white apple. The boy, adamant in his statement, however, refuses to be swayed. When pushed to explain where he’s seen such an apple, the boy picks up the teacher’s apple, takes a bite and holds up the white inside to the class…”See! It’s white!”

We can never prove that anything, in reality, actually exists the way we perceive it. For all we know, the way in which we just perceived something as we saw, heard, felt, taste, or felt it, could be utterly opposing to the next person to come along. Or, from another viewpoint, that which we just observed could vanish (cease to exist) as we know it, the instant we turn our back. As pointed out on the first day of class, how do we know if the back of a door really exists if there is no object there to perceive it? Or, how do we know that when we shut the closet door, if our shoes remain there or enter into some noumenal alternate universe?

To synopsize my proposition, the actuality of “real” objects and knowledge, in essence, is only an invented understanding of our individual and communal conceptions and perceptions through an experienced existence.

A Mirror-like Distortion

The human understanding is like a false mirror, which, receiving rays irregularly, distorts and discolors the nature of things by mingling its own nature with it.

~Francis Bacon

Life’s beauty lies in one simple truth: we generate the questions of the cosmos; and we can find the answers to the questions we create…most of the time. It’s human nature to find effortless satisfaction in breaking apart that which we cannot explain to try to find an answer to the ultimately unanswerable questions. It’s somewhat of a childish egotism to posit that we hold all the answers. Everything in our material existence is infinitely complex, yet insignificantly isolatable at the fundamental core. There are some things in nature to which we will be able to uncover one definitive answer. Take for example the crashing of waves on the ocean shore; it would be inconceivably unfeasible to assume that, as elementary beings, we would ever be able to calculate a solitary moment of waves in the water or that specific instant that they boom on the shore. It’s impossible to slow down or stop time in order to analyze the wave; yes, we can discern the central elements of it, but we will never have an absolute understanding of its entire existence.

At our stage of evolution, there are certain things that a higher power designates as too intricate for us to know and accept without refute and chaos. True, there will always be an aspect of chaos in our nature; but it will never reach its height as long as we keep in mind that there will always be an indubitable amount of uncertainty. The products of such unknowns will forever be encouraging and constructive as they keep beings thirsting, constantly active in a pursuance of auxiliary knowledge.

Each organization maintains an attractive chaos, a striking air of the unpredictable. And vice versa, each chaos is delightfully, and paradoxically, structured. No being (to my limited knowledge) has all the answers to existence. All we can do is accept this as the one truth to be utterly accurate, and that, in essence, we are all identical in this one core facet of our framework.