Video Transcript: What is a Theory of Reality?
Let's come back to the idea of getting a Christian theory of reality. We've seen now how assuming different divinity beliefs can lead to very different views of what math is about and how it's to be done. Not just adding a column of figures, but the theories of math, and how it works and why and whether it does. To what extent, let's take this and transfer transpose it to theories of reality. Theory of reality is trying to find the basic nature of everything. That means every everything that we would call creation that Christians would call creation. God's not a theory. We're not making a theory about God. It's about creation, the universe, the cosmos, the multiverse, whatever term you want to use for it. And over the years, I made this point earlier, people have distinguished the kinds of characteristics that they observe this reality in which we live to have. So people have observed that it has quantity. And we've cooked up a number theories to represent the quantity. And then we look for laws to hold among those quantities. We have observed that things have spatial characteristics, they have size, they have shape, they have location, they have kinetic properties as well are able to move or be moved. And they're physical, they have properties such as solidity, mass, weight, density, some have biotic properties, they also are alive. They include all these others, but the biotic is added, they carry on life functions they carry on metabolic processes. Some of those, not all of them are also sensory there, since they perceive feel the most plants go here, most animals go here. There's then also the the aspect of logic thing, things not only are governed by logical laws, they cannot both be and not be in any sense at the same time, in the same sense at the same time. But that guides our thinking, our thinking has to be guided by not contradicting ourselves. Because nothing no thing can actually contradict itself. It can't both be and not be in the same sense. At the same time. There's an historical or formative aspect of the world as we experience it. I explained this a little earlier, history is the past formative control that humans have exercised over nature, we, whenever we take a natural material and make something new, we have been engaged in this kind of practice. And one of the first things humans do that with is language, we take sounds or marks, and take them make a symbolic system in which they represent something else. And that's what makes real society possible. And then we also get social relationships, relationships, such as respect, deference, honor or dishonor. There are when when society arises, we noticed that it also has an economic aspect there. Things really are valued. Objects are really subject to the law of supply and demand and diminishing returns and other such norms. Notice that there's a difference here between the way these lower aspects obey laws and the way the upper ones do. Lower aspects are bound to the laws and can't break them. There's no way we can break a mathematical spatial physical law. As the order of these these kinds of properties. As we ascend up the list, the Law Order is looser. When we get to here with the logical it's not only that things really can't break the law of logic, the laws of logic, but
then they become norms for our thinking. objects may not be able to be and not be in the same sense at the same time. But we can make mistakes, we can construct a theory that actually has a contradiction in it. But if we don't recognize it, we're not aware of it. So this becomes a norm for thought. A norm means it's an order that's natural to these kinds of this kind of properties, but which is possible for humans to violate. Humans can also violate linguistic norms, social norms, economic norms, but they're, the norm comes back and shows itself because if you if you violate the linguistic norm, what you say isn't clear and people don't understand you correctly. You violate a social norm. You may be ostracized. Violate an economic norm and you'll go broke. We have juridical norms. laws we make about justice. We experience things and actions to be just and unjust. That's not our invention. The laws that try to deal with that and ensure justice and punish injustice are our inventions. But there's a real juridical side to human life. Aesthetic when we recognize that something is beautiful, just as an example, ethical, when we find that some things are loving or not, I'm going to identify the ethical or moral aspect of our lives with the human love life. Whereas the, the juridical has to do with what is just or unjust. The ethical has to do with what's loving or unloving. And then finally, there's the aspect that I called juridical, we were over these pretty quickly a bit a while back. So it helps us may help you to hear them again, Juridical has to do with the trustworthiness of things. And at the upper end of the juridical, I'm sorry, of the fiduciary, at the very upper end is what we trust most, and what we trust to be most trustworthy. And that coincides with whatever we regard as self existent. So that kind of trust is called faith. Faith is trust, that's unconditional, we trust what we trust to be unconditional is thereby, regarded as self existent, our trusting of it is called faith. And that faith is not blind, it's not a blind leap into the dark, by any means. So these are what we have to work with, in a theory of reality. So the interesting thing to us from the standpoint of these is that objects types of objects exhibit different combinations of these. Just take a quick look at one a couple of examples. I'm going to leave this up now for the rest of our sessions. And let's point out that these different items on this list are supposed to be kinds of properties, with their laws, kinds of properties, quantitative properties, with quantitative laws to hold among them spatial properties with spatial laws to hold among them physical properties, with physical laws that hold among them, and so on logical laws, and so forth. And I'm going to take the ordinary English word aspect, and press it into being a technical term, these are going to be called aspects of reality. There are aspects of reality that we experience. That's how we know about them in the first place. But take a look at this and see if it makes some sense to you. If I take an object, such as a rock it seems pretty obvious that the rock has quantity. occupies space is capable of moving and has physical properties such as a hard tensile surface. It's very dense, and there's a lot of weight to it. The Rock however, is not alive, it doesn't perceive it doesn't
think, it doesn't create artifacts, it doesn't speak. And yet there's a sense in which these other aspects are aspects of the rock also, the rock does these things has these properties whether anybody knows it or not. So I'm going to say that it possesses those properties actively. As opposed to possessing others passively. That is, the rock is not alive. But it can be the object of a living things. Needs desires can be part of its nest. This can be the rock the seagull drops the clams on to open them. It can be a tiny rock that a bird swallows and it goes into its gizzard and helps to grind its food it takes part in a life process without itself being alive. So it's passively biotic. Similarly, the rock doesn't perceive. But it can be perceived. It doesn't think. But we can form a concept of it. It doesn't. It doesn't form artifacts, but it can be formed so as to become one we can take the rock and carve a statue out of it. That's the beginning of looking for a theory of reality of looking for a way to get the natures of things. And our first step will be to say that we're going to accept these, this list and which which people with which people have worked for centuries, and we're going to look for the ways that things are governed by the laws of those aspects, actively or passively. And the first proposal was going to be that everything in creation, everything in creation functions under the laws of all these aspects, and has properties of all the kinds, either actively or passively. That's a stunning reversal of the history of non Christian thought, which has always taken one or two of these, and says, This is the divine and everything is either this or caused by this. And we're trace all with causal efficacy to these two, this one or two things. No, this says, Oh, they're all kinds of things. So they have all kinds of properties. And they're governed by all kinds of laws. Does a rock, also function passively in the juridical aspect? Oh sure, that rock can be part of my property I own it. That rock could be a murder weapon, a piece of evidence in court. What about ethical? Well, the rock doesn't love or be kind and be merciful to other things. But the rock could be something I hate. It could be the object of my love, or hate, I just love the way this rock goes into the garden, it really makes things look great. Or every time I walk, try to walk past that thing, I stumble over it, I'm gonna hit the sledgehammer and bash it one, get really good at it. So I'm not tripping over it. It can be the object of my love or hate, it can also be an object that I trust in some respects. I trust to stand up to the weather and continue to be part of that garden and making it look good. Of course, it would be definitely positively weird. If you trusted that rock above all other things, and thought that it was the most real thing that generated everything else. In that case, it would be a divinity to you. And you would be regarding the rock is divine, and the source of everything else. That's positively strange. People have done strange things, when it comes to that. It's not too far from what some tribal religions have been like. There are tribal religions that have deified very odd things. So we'll talk about that as well, but can you see this as a way to start? That's the opposite from what you want to do is some part of the cosmos. The world in which we
live, was divine, had Divine Self existence, and generated everything else. So here, we're saying no, the only thing that's divine and generates all of these is God. And God doesn't come into the theory, God's not a postulate of the theory. Because we believe in God, we're going to theorize we're going to philosophize this way. And we're going to look for how things function with with respect to the different kinds of properties and their laws. So let me just make a comparison here quickly. A plant would have one additional aspect in which it functions actively. It's actively alive, it carries on metabolic processes. Does it feel and emote? I don't think so. I know some people suspect that may be true. But so far as we know, feelings and sensations are require a certain neural network to exist, we don't know of anything that actually perceives, or feels without that kind of a nervous system. So I'm going to say it functions only passively in that aspect. And logically, we can form a concept of it and we can form it into something else, and we can give it a name, and so on. Now Dooyeweerd's theory when it comes to animals, he says that the animal will be represented this way. It has its functions in a sensory way, the plant does not the animal perceives, feels, reacts. And then he says that the logical is true only of humans. But I've got to say that I'm convinced that at least some of the higher animals have some logical function. I think you probably all know about Coco the gorilla, who was taught the deaf sign language, and has carried on conversations with her handlers. They asked Coco what she wanted for her birthday, she signed a kitten. So they got her a kitten. And she signed my cat good. I think that certainly shows an abbreviated some vid. logical ability and linguistic ability. So I'm Not willing to draw the line where Dooyeweerd did, I think you can go higher. We notice, however, that Coco neither Coco nor the other apes that have been taught this sign language, they're not able to ask questions. You ask them a question they can they can answer it. And ultimately do. But they can't frame a question. They can't understand the hypothetical. If this were this way would you want, they can't get that there are all kinds of very narrow limits to this. But it's real. And I don't see that it hurts anything, we will go ahead and work with a theory. We're going to find that this isn't the only sort of bridge that lets us zero in on the nature of things around us. Dooyeweerd's going to propose at least two more. And then we're going to see that this will give us an account of the nature of artifacts as well as natural things. Something insofar as I know hasn't even been tried since Aristotle tried it and gave up. Hope you're getting this. Take a look at it again. Read the assignment. And we'll meet again and I'll review it.