If Bernardo thinks, as I do, that space and time (and presumably matter) don't exist, where does that take us? As has been intimated earlier on this thread, many of us on this forum tend to think in a way that's influenced by the conflict between perception and our philosophy (and also, possibly our transcendent experiences).
There's no way round it: we definitely perceive what we perceive. Materialists shape their philosophy around these perceptions; dualists, for whatever reason, think there's something aside from perception, and may believe in a God who set the universe in motion.
Idealists, having the same perceptions as anyone else, struggle to reconcile them with a belief that perception leads to an illusory picture of reality. I recently had a bit of a tiff with Bernardo (didn't fall out with him, of course:)), because he seemed to be averring his faith in science. However, if he's an idealist, and doesn't believe that space/time/matter (STM) exist, science is undermined because it's predicated on their existence.
He's right that language implicitly assumes STM. Right that it is difficult, despite conviction that Source consciousness (Mind At Large, MAL) is the origin of all, to explain reality in terms of ordinary language; perhaps impossible except by by recourse to symbol, allegory, myth, poetry.
How come some of our physics seems to model reality--in at least some degree--successfully? How can it do this if it's so misguided? My working hypothesis is that what we perceive is
the consequence of our apparent dissociation from MAL, and that this leads to the seemingly compelling impression that the world is physical rather than ideational.
Hence--even if we're idealists--we may find ourselves thinking in terms of elementary particles and fundamental forces, and wondering how to explain all of reality in terms of those. We may still unwittingly be thinking in terms of their somehow being the
cause of all the phenomena we perceive, rather than the
effects of the dissociation of MAL.
Idealism completely turns ordinary thinking on its head. Elementary particles and fundamental forces (STM in other words) become not
causes, but
percepts that can be mathematised and become seemingly predictive--at least until they reach the limits of their explanatory power. At this point, we are still left with the same questions we've always had, and the usual promissory notes of materialistic science.
It's not, I don't think, that MAL actively
creates natural law; more that what we
call natural law law is really just a physicalist interpretation of what happens when MAL chooses to dissociate itself. The enterprise of science should be about investigating the apparent patterns and regularities that result from dissociation: be about attempting to
describe and
utilise those.
However, it all too easily becomes an end in itself; its deficiencies are viewed as the result of current understandings which, over time, will be refined and eventually completely able to explain all. Whilst it's true enough that we've become better at science, and that it's enormously useful to us, it doesn't actually
explain anything at a fundamental level. Its ideas that X causes Y causes Z only work over a restricted range, but are extrapolated way beyond their capacity to explain.
I'll give an example: If you've 20 minutes to spare, please watch this video:
If Halton Arp is right, the quasars aren't very distant, very bright objects with enormous red shifts signifying their immense recessional velocities. They're actually much closer, and their red shifts aren't explained by recession, but by their intrinsic properties. But if that's true, then the whole of current cosmology is undermined. There's no such thing as the big bang, inflation, dark matter, dark energy, and so on. A whole theory depends on one mistaken idea: that the only source of cosmological red shift is due to the Doppler effect.
However: do we ever find ourselves speaking of the universe as if it certainly has a finite age? Even if we are Idealists? And do we ever tie that in with our philosophical musings on the nature of things? The Doppler effect certainly exists--just listen to a train approaching and passing you at a station; and it can certainly be explained in terms of waves of sound or light being emitted by a moving object. That said, it could be a serious mistake, with huge implications for cosmology, to then apply it to the interpretation of the appearance of quasars.
I tend to find Halton Arp's observations compelling, and conclude that for all we know, the universe could be eternal; that cosmology is seriously screwed up; that if we can be so wrong about that, we can certainly be wrong about other things, even when they seem to work and be so consistent. It's in the nature of mathematical physics to try to ensure consistency across a wide range of phenomena, but if somewhere along the road we interpret something incorrectly, the knock-on effects can be huge. On the upside, as much consistency as possible is preserved; but on the downside, we end up with increasingly implausible explanations.
Even if Arp's understanding turns out to be better than current consensus and becomes accepted, we'll likely just shift cosmological paradigms; doubtless some scientists will still favour materialism and find some way of hanging on to it. Me personally, I'm past the point of having much faith in science; I think it's like a hand puppet that is pretending to be the puppeteer.