Friday, May 10, 2024

"I Only Believe What I Can See"

It does not contradict logical axioms, and thus is logically possible, for there to be things which are physical and yet invisible to our basic sense of sight.  Indeed, all things like genes and electrons would fall into this category if they exist.  Alternatively, something could be visible and yet not physical: if a genuine ghost was to appear before me, it could only be nature be immaterial, but it would exist (I just could not know if it is real or not because of epistemological limitations).  Apart from actual or hypothetical examples, it is still logically possible for something to be unseen or visually inaccessible altogether and still exist.  Some people assume otherwise, saying that "I only believe what I see."  Despite often being brought up, asinine as it already inherently is, in contexts regarding theism, the issue is so much more important and broad than this.  The nuance of this matter is far beyond what fools bother to even wonder about.

Such people have a completely false foundation of their metaphysical philosophy (logical axioms, not either the universe or God, have to exist in themselves and are truly "obvious" due to their self-evidence).  First of all, since the nature of the logical axioms that are intrinsically true is obviously neglected or rejected by such fools, other sensory experiences have nothing to do with sight.  For instance, you do not see sounds or smells.  Thus, the sense of sight does not even suggest that the other senses exist, yet they are experienced regardless: experiencing something often only proves that the mental experience exists, however, necessitating nothing about the existence of external things.  Seeing something does not in any way mean it exists except as a mental perception [1].  Ironically, the only way to prove that matter exists at all does not involve sight [2]!  The only things that cannot not be true, more importantly, are not accessed through the sense of sight or the other such senses.


The intrinsic truths of logic, the only necessary truths there could be, are not physical or visible things.  They are true in themselves since them being false would still require that they are true, meaning they are true regardless of whether anything made of matter exists of all, though one does not need to discover such a grand ramification of logic's necessary veracity to realize that reason is an abstract thing (grasped by the mind, though it is not part of the mind).  Absolute certainty can only come from knowing logical axioms and other necessary truths of reason that transcend and yet underpin that which is visible to the sense of sight, which is itself not verifiable beyond the basic presence of visual stimuli.  One cannot prove from the sense of sight that what one perceives exists out in the word.

As for my own consciousness, I see on the sensory level with my consciousness.  My own mind could only be separate from whatever external world of matter exists.  Aside from the fact that consciousness is inherently immaterial whatever its casual relationship to the brain and rest of the body [3], otherwise, the physical world is not external (although, as mentioned, seeing something does not prove it exists in the external world).  I do not use my sense of sight to perceive my consciousness and most its contents, the qualia from visual experiences aside since they are by nature experienced through sight.  No, my consciousness, which has thoughts that do not correspond to visual stimuli of the present moment or recalled past at all, is a metaphysical prerequisite to seeing in the first place.  I can see my body with my sense of sight but not my actual mind.

Whereas the correspondence of much of my sensory experiences to outside objects or events is entirely uncertain, despite seeming probable, the existence of logic and my own mind are absolutely certain.  So too is the existence of some sort of uncaused cause [4].  Perhaps it is my own self--this cannot be proven or disproven--but either way, it is something that cannot be visibly seen.  The uncaused cause is directly or indirectly responsible for the creation of the material cosmos; whether or not I am the uncaused cause, I do not see this entity.  You also cannot see metaphysical space (not outer space, but the dimension that holds matter, without which there could be no universe [5]) only the whatever matter it contains that is within one's proximity.

In summary, many things seen with the sense of sight do not necessarily exist beyond one's consciousness, other sensory experiences already have nothing to do with sight, and the only things that actually can be proven to exist, such as logical necessities, one's own consciousness, and even matter itself, have nothing to metaphysically do with sight or are not epistemologically demonstrated by it.  As addressed here [2], the only way to prove that some kind of matter exists pertains to what logically follows from the sense of touch and the immaterial nature of consciousness, not from the visibility of seeming stimuli.  Plenty of things are also logically possible that might or might not exist and still are not visible, whether physical or immaterial.  Common beliefs about sight, metaphysics, and epistemology only reveal how incredibly stupid non-rationalists are.




[3].  See here, among other articles:


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