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Philosophy 100 Essay

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Submitted By jasonchen12
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In the world of philosophy, physicalism (materialism) states there is no other existence outside the three dimensional physical world and that everything is composed of and understood by physical properties. I dispute this claim for many reasons. Many of the changes in the physical world originate from non physical things such as abstract metaphysical thinking. Another reason is that many of the experiences of life we have cannot be grasped by physically. Lastly, we have to consider the possibility that there are dimensions and other higher intelligence that surpass the three dimensional perceptual constraints that we humans have. The physical world is composed of physical substances. With the addition of energy we have a physical world. Anything in our universe can be categorized and understood within physical terms, so the physicalist says. In this case, I disagree because some changes in the physical world are not caused by physical things but rather, by the metaphysical. There are, however, some exceptions like: an exploding star. A supernova is caused by the ceased production of fusion energy resulting in the collapse of the star under the force of its own gravity. I agree such things can be determined by physicists in terms of the physical. What I am arguing for is the potential and capabilities of the human viewpoint and its consciousness. Changes and various phenomena in our world come from strings of thought. In terms of living conscious beings, actions cannot spontaneous occur without an idea or thought. Writing a song, painting a picture, creating a work of art requires non-physical inspiration from metaphysical ideas. Feelings and emotions of fear, hope, anger, and the so sought after, happiness; where do these phenomena come from? Experiences such as these cannot be grasped with physical terms by the materialist. They are all of the mental realm in which only consciousness can generate and are not physical in the fact that it cannot be tangibly observed by anyone. If we can feel things that are not physical, does that not mean there is something outside the physical realm? Emotions such as compassion can cause people to act a certain way and give them the urge to help others. Emotions like jealousy and hate can cause people to misdeed and act unjustly. Physical events might be the cause of mental events but there is no denying that there isn’t any mental world apart from the physical. I would like to stray away from our world and our universe and come into question with the possibilities outside of our physical universe. We live in a three dimensional world with length, width, and depth. A two dimensional world would only consist of length and width. My question is how would a two dimensional being have any conception of a three dimensional world? It would have to bend all the laws of the two dimensional system and do away with most of what a being in the two dimensional world would know. In contrast, how would we conceptualize higher dimensions existing above our own? If there are two and three dimensional universes, there may well possibly be a four five six etc. universes as well. And if that is true, does that not mean the higher dimensions could possibly be non-physical? It would also mean we would have to change our perspective in order to fully conceive it. As suggested by the American philosopher Thomas Nagel, there is also a subjective factor, and probably more then one way, to understand the truth about our universe. Materialism may explain physics, but cannot explain subjective understanding. With the potential of many other possibilities outside our physical concept, the one idea that the entire universe is constructed by only physical properties is just a speck of dust out infinite possibilities. The ideas I have stated above are not perfect by a long shot. Some things I can conclude to have logical adequate grounds for proving physicalism false and some not so adequate. For my argument on mental events causing physical events, a proponent could have stated that it may have been chemical imbalances and electrical signals in the brain that cause the mental to have thoughts and ideas to execute actions on the physical. The same could also be said about the phenomenon of feelings and emotions. This could very well be an adequate counter-argument to my statements. On the other hand my statements about dimensions seem adequate enough because of the consideration of many other possibilities that could very well be true. Materialism does not take into account the perceiver and how that factors in to our understanding of the universe. The ideas of physicalism are not without its flaws. While some claims it makes have logical and sound assumptions, some do not cover completely of what can and cannot be true about the universe. I think if we are to advance our knowledge of everything, we must look deeper and consider all possibilities so we have a broader shot of unveiling the universe and its mysteries. It could very well be that the true road to knowledge does not lie in understanding the universe, but understanding ourselves.

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