Eventually, there will be an interaction between everything we know at a given step. The result of this interaction – the complex, whole situation at any given moment – then again forms the basis for further development and interaction.

This is starting to get complicated and chaotic. It sounds unrealistic that we should be able to unravel such a complexity, doesn't it?

Of course, because we lack the mechanism, that is, how something can develop from one to the other and play along with everything else.

The mechanism must also explain how the abstract, subjective and material are connected and interact.

It must be valid at absolutely all levels and in all contexts.

You might think this mechanism must be something extraordinary, new and unknown or incredibly intricate and incomprehensible.

The world appears to be an extremely complicated place with so many categories, levels and dimensions that the whole thing is unmanageable.

How should it be attacked?

What knowledge and methods do we have to understand such complexity?

An alternative is, again, reductionism.

We possess an enormous amount of knowledge about what happens at the quantum level in physics. Researchers are looking for a «Theory of Everything» (ToE) that unites everything we know about fields, particles and natural laws. The hope is that when we can show how everything is connected in the microscopic domain, we can explain everything else from there.

If we ever find such a ToE, often called «The God Equation», we have probably only found a solution for matter and physical phenomena, what we call physicalism.

We are still faced with the formidable task of explaining everything subjective and abstract, and not least consciousness itself – and the underlying, unmentionable (by definition): that which experiences, the Experiencer.

We have no good ideas on how this can be done from such a starting point.

What other possibilities do we have if we reject reductionism and physicalism?

« Previous Next »