This is known as the “theory-ladenness” of observations ( Hanson, 1969/2018). This fruitful approach of science is based on observation of the external world and theoretical models of how these observations can be accounted for, as every observation is always dependent on a theoretical model we have of our world and the predictions such a model makes. The issue became more complicated with the advent of quantum physics, but with some rounding and assumptions, one can derive classical physics from quantum physics and can still use the general approach of classical physics to all macrophenomena, from chemistry to biology and neuroscience ( Primas, 1981, 1994b). It operated on idealized material particles in mutual exchange of energy and their movements. This was, by and large, the success of the approach started by Galileo, Descartes, and Newton ( Burtt, 1932 Descartes, 1954 Fischer, 2015 Maxwell, 2017). In order to arrive at reliable knowledge, the scientific epistemological model has started from the assumption that the material world consists of material particles only and has restricted itself to discovering the forces that act on these and the laws that govern these forces. This is partly due to the fact that this scientific model has originally restricted itself to understanding the material world. Our scientific model of understanding the world has been very successful if we consider the progress we have made in understanding our natural world around us. If we consider our world to consist of material entities only, then what we need are methods of discovering these entities and making sure we reduce errors and insecurities in describing the nature of these material entities, how they are related, what they consist of, etc., to a minimum. This is easy to see, and in the introductory part of this essay, I will describe this relationship between ontology and epistemology. Such an epistemology might help us with various issues, such as good theoretical and other intuitions.īackground-Epistemology is Tied to OntologyĮpistemology, our understanding of how we arrive at knowledge about the world, and ontology, our understanding of what the world consists of, are intimately tied together. This would entail a kind of contemplative science that would also complement our current experiential mode that is exclusively directed to the outside aspect of our world. For if consciousness is coprimary with matter, then we can also use a deeper exploration of consciousness as happens in contemplative practice to reach an understanding of the deep structure of the world, for instance in mathematical or theoretical intuition, and perhaps also in other areas such as in ethics. This then also entails a different epistemology. I propose such a complementarist dual aspect model of consciousness and brain, or mind and matter. The phenomenology, though, demands some sort of non-local model of the world and one in which consciousness is not derivative of, but coprimary with matter. These have a robust empirical grounding, although we do not understand them sufficiently. This ontology is insufficient to explain the phenomena we are living with-consciousness, as a precondition of this idea, or anomalous cognitions. This has become associated with the ontology that matter is the most important substance in the universe, everything else-consciousness, mind, values, etc., -being derived thereof or reducible to it. With the historical development, experience has come to mean only sense experience of outer reality. Then “experience” meant both inner, or first person, and outer, or third person, experience. Historically speaking, there was a more comprehensive notion at the cradle of modern science in the middle ages. Currently, the dominant ontology in science is a materialist model, and associated with it an empiricist epistemology. Ontology, the ideas we have about the nature of reality, and epistemology, our concepts about how to gain knowledge about the world, are interdependent.
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