Science and spiritual intuition

In this essay, I engage with the question: Is spiritual awareness or intuition possible? I argue that such an awareness may be conceived of as a real possibility within the context of quantum physics. This continues my presentation of a Judaeo-Christian worldview which ascribes a spiritual dimension to our world. 

The ancients believed in spirits and gods as well as some kind of spiritual intuition or awareness which connects humans with such entities. In ancient societies, spiritual guides were assigned the role of establishing contact with that world [1]. Within the Judaeo-Christian view, the Spirit of God, as well as all sorts of spirits, are operative in that world. Although communication with all spirits, including the spirits of the dead, were prohibited, they believe that God's Spirit through some kind of spiritual intuition was able to "move" the Hebrew prophets in their writing of the divine Scriptures. Traditional Christians also believe that God "speaks" to them through His Spirit in their daily lives. In general non-religious people and atheists do not believe in the spiritual world (spirit world), soul (spirit) or spiritual intuition.

The basic question seems to be: How would we know whether the spiritual realm, spirits and spiritual intuition (awareness) exist? Since these are outside the reach of our sensible intuition (and by extension, empirical confirmation), there is no way to "prove" the existence of any of these. What is possible, however, is that in the progress of science these would in time become accessible in the context of indirect empirical studies within the context of quantum physics.

Although scientists do not have empirical access to the (pre-measurement) quantum realm - once measurement takes place the entities no longer exist in that kind of quantum mode which belongs to the "quantum realm" - they have various ways to indirectly establish whether particular things exist in that realm and one may suggest that all of the above may in time come within the reach of scientific inquiry. Although there would be various metaphysical interpretations regarding such observations, the view presented here would at least have the advantage that such predictions were made beforehand. This implies that we may develop this conceptual framework into a viable hypothesis that can be brought within the scientific domain.

In my view, the existence of the spiritual realm, spirits and spiritual intuition together present the basic ingredients of a spiritual worldview in which about all religious people believe (although I work from a Judaeo-Christian perspective, these concepts are not particular to Judaeo-Christianity). I previously suggested that we use the Kantian metaphysical conception as the point of departure - using it as a theoretical model or hypothesis that may be tested insofar as the study of such things becomes possible in the framework of science [2].

In this regard, I showed that Kant's noumenal realm, which was based on the corresponding Platonic conception, originally went back to the spiritual realm [3]. In line with this perspective on the noumenal realm, Kant situates the soul in that realm and calls it the "noumenal self" [4]. I showed that all the characteristics of this realm have been confirmed in the context of quantum physics [3] and also that we may conceptualize the Kantian soul in this context as a quantum body (existing outside proper space-time) [4].

In this essay, I proceed in showing how another aspect of that ancient spiritual worldview, namely spiritual intuition, may be conceptualized in the context of quantum physics. Again, I use the Kantian metaphysics as the point of departure. Now, however, I move beyond the Kantian position which only incorporates sensible intuition (and not spiritual intuition) in his philosophy. I show how Kant's philosophical system may be expanded to include spiritual intuition and also how (as before) that may find an application in the context of quantum physics. As such I present a viable conception of such intuition which is in line with contemporary quantum physics. This may serve as working hypothesis guiding scientific research in this regard.

Spiritual intuition in philosophical tradition

The idea of spiritual intuition or awareness entered Greek philosophical tradition as early as the 6th century BC in the time of the Pythagoreans (maybe even earlier). In their view, the "higher soul" is the seat of the intuitive mind and the "rational soul", which they considered secondary, is the seat of discursive reason (they also distinguished the non-rational soul, responsible for the senses, appetites and motion). For the Pythagoreans, the word "nous" ("mind") referred to an ability of the soul. As such it did not only had reference to an intellectual ability but also - and even more importantly - to some kind of intuitive apprehension or awareness of the invisible world.

Plato also understood the soul in such terms. Although Plato's view is often taken as merely referring to our intellectual understanding of the "invisible world" of our thoughts, he seems to have had a more basic kind of perception of such a world in mind. One should not forget that Plato mentions in the Phaedo - in the context of the dialogues between Socrates and his friends - that he takes the view of the mystic Orphics regarding such an invisible world as the point of departure for his own view of that world. In fact, one may assume that this was how the "invisible world" entered Greek philosophical thinking in the first place, i.e. as originating from the idea of the spiritual world [3]. As such Plato mentions that our perception of the invisible world is through the "eye of the soul", which seems to go beyond a mere conceptualization of such a world.

What happened in Platonic philosophy (even though the neo-Platonists always accentuated this mystic side), especially in later Western tradition, is that the noumenal world and the intuition that we as humans may have of it was collapsed into an intelligible world that is grasped intellectually in some way (through an intelligible intuition). Rationalists such as Rene Descartes (1596-1650) believed that our concepts originate in the Platonic forms that exist in that intelligible world. As such concepts were considered to be the only things that are truly real. That is why the rationalists discarded empirical data as untrustworthy.

Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), however, rejected this rationalist view. In his philosophical system, no intellectual intuition of that world is allowed for humans. In his thinking, only God can have such an intellectual intuition of things existing in the noumenal world. Humans only have access to the phenomenal world through their senses. They may think about things that may exist in a noumenal realm, but there is no way in which they may know that such things exist because they do not have an intuition that allows for that. Kant writes in his famous Critique of Pure Reason (called the first Critique) in a section called "Phenomena and Noumena": "room thus remains for some other sort of intuition... [but] we are acquainted with no sort of intuition other than our own sensible one" (B343). For Kant, all concepts must be synthesized with sensible intuitions for knowledge to become possible - and since humans do not have an intellectual intuition, the noumenal or supersensible world (if it exists) is totally unknown to them.

I showed in another essay [5] how the move in Western philosophy to collapse the noumenal into the intellectual and taking the noumenal intuition of early Greek tradition merely as an intelligible intuition has led to a divorce between the phenomenal and intelligible realms. When reason became enthroned, the possibility of some noumenal awareness of a supersensible realm was discarded. But is this correct? I argued that this was a reductionist move which did not allow for the extreme complexity of our human existence. As such I proposed that we may actually conceptualize how such an intuition is possible - even within the Kantian conceptual framework.

Kant developed a regulative metaphysics in which we may conceptualize what the world beyond our senses may be like - even though his conceptual view was not a dogmatic metaphysics. Such a metaphysics is not established through our understanding but through reason (in its regulative role) as a hypothesis. Although Kant's purpose with the first Critique was also to establish the limits of reason (and therefore the futility of the dogmatic metaphysics as presented by the rationalists) he also allowed for the legitimate use of reason beyond our sensible reach insofar as that is only problematically considered - as regulative ideas (guiding ideas).

The question is how such noumenal intuition may be introduced within Kant's regulative conceptual system. Although Kant thought that we cannot conceive of such an intuition, he was not in principle against such a possibility. In fact, Kant mentions that we cannot assert that no such intuition exists (A255/B311). Kant just did not know how one may conceive of such an intuition in his philosophical system. Since then, our knowledge has increased a lot and another possibility that is compatible with his system did, in fact, open up. 

Noumenal intuition within Kantian philosophy

In Kant's philosophy, all our interaction with the world takes place through our senses in which empirical objects are presented within space and time. For Kant, space and time are the basic a priori "forms" of our human sensibility and all sensible intuitions are given within these forms. As such, space and time are also the "forms" of appearances, i.e. the form in which appearances (in the phenomenal world) are presented to us as humans. Insofar as we perceive the world around us, all perceptions are always within the framework of space and time. So, how would one introduce noumenal intuition in the Kantian system?

Kant distinguished between the space and time as the forms of intuition - through which we experience the world - and space and time as concepts. Insofar as (geometrical) space and time are concepts, they may be applied to "empirical space" and time in the same way that concepts (in general) are applied to empirical intuitions in his system (which allows us to make a determinate judgement whether something is such or not). Empirical space refers to the way in which empirical objects determine the form of space through their magnitudes and relations (A431/B459). The same principle applies to time. 

Many possible concepts of space may be constructed in this way and Kant did not restrict what he called "ideal" (conceptual) space/time in any way even though only Euclidean space was known to him. As such, there is no reason why his philosophy should not be compatible with non-Euclidean space (such as Riemannian geometry used in general relativity) or abstract Hilbert space used in quantum physics. In my view, we may rework the Kantian system to be compatible with general relativity or quantum physics (quantum field theory) when we introduce a space-time manifold in the context of his conception of ideal space/time. 

We may think without contradiction of any possible abstract mathematical space or space-time which may apply to the noumenal realm - which may be conceptualized in correspondence with the quantum realm. In this regard, the quantum realm corresponds with Kant's noumenal realm which is also beyond empirical reach (see [3]). In this context, the Kantian conception of ideal space/time (as mere concepts) may be applied to the quantum realm even though that realm is beyond empirical access in its pre-measurement phase. 

At this stage, I am only concerned with quantum mechanics. The unique feature of quantum mechanics is that abstract Hilbert space is combined with proper time. Within the Kantian system that would mean that ideal space (as an abstract space concept) is combined with proper time. Kant did not foresee this possibility, but there is no reason why such a concept cannot be introduced within the Kantian system. The question is: what are the implications of this for the Kantian way of thinking? How is the Kantian philosophy expanded through this reworking thereof? 

In the first place, this provides a way to bridge the gap between Kant's phenomenal and noumenal realms. The divide between these realms had always been a major drawback in Kant's philosophy since no human interaction with that realm is allowed in his system. The result was that this realm was reduced to a realm of belief - something that religious people believe in but which can never be confirmed or denied through science. In my reworking of the Kantian system, we do not only find a conceptual link between these realms (that they may be conceptualized as interwoven in certain contexts) but also that humans may have some kind of experience of that realm through noumenal intuition.

When we take the noumenal realm as the quantum realm, then from a quantum mechanical perspective this means that we may become aware of quantum entities insofar as these are presented within our time intuition (even though they are not presented in our space intuition). This would happen when our quantum bodies (souls) interact through quantum interactions with our natural bodies. We would be able to become conscious of such quantum interactions in proper time if humans have such an awareness.

God and man connecting: Michelangelo in the Sistine Chapel (1508-12)

Although we do not know at this stage if humans do indeed have such a form of intuition in line with the suggestion given above, it may very well be the case. This would mean that humans have another kind of intuition than the sensible one, which would allow for some kind of spiritual experience over and above our sensible experience. Insofar as we take the noumenal realm as our first interaction with the spiritual realm [3], this would constitute a spiritual intuition. 

Although I do not prove that such a quantum or spiritual intuition exists, I show how it may be conceptualized as a real possibility. In the Kantian conceptual framework, this may serve as a regulative idea (hypothesis) that may guide scientific research into this matter. Although this idea has to be presented within a detailed conceptual framework that includes both physical and quantum bodies, the basic idea underlying such interaction is quite clear. As such this kind of intuition is no longer merely a vague idea that religious people believe in, but a philosophical concept that is consistent with contemporary science.

Within the Judaeo-Christian worldview, this opens the door for an understanding of God's revelation in Scripture that is consistent with our scientific worldview. Although the details of God's working through his Spirit in the hearts and minds of humans would probably forever be beyond our human understanding, we may at least grasp how that is possible. 

Conclusion

In this essay, I focus on spiritual intuition. If we allow that our engagement with the quantum realm is, in fact, our first scientific step in exploring the spiritual realm and that humans may have a quantum body which compliments their physical bodies and which may continue existing after death, then it seems very likely that we as humans would have some kind of spiritual intuition that allows for some kind of communication between these two spheres. Although I did not present any proof at this stage that such intuition (or even spiritual bodies) exist, I do show how we may conceive thereof in the context of contemporary science. 

Science has progressed a lot over the last two hundred years. Many of the things which Kant included in his metaphysics which was originally rejected as untenable - such as a noumenal realm governed by spontaneity instead of mechanism - have been confirmed in the context of quantum physics where determinism had been proven to break down. I believe it is just a matter of time before the existence of the soul as a quantum body which is somehow interwoven with our physical body, is also confirmed (albeit only indirectly - just like any quantum entity in its pre-measurement phase - since it is beyond the possibility of direct empirical confirmation). 

In the same way that the possible existence of a quantum aspect to our human existence (i.e. a soul) has become a viable scientific hypothesis, the possibility of quantum (spiritual) intuitions may be so the presented. Although the existence of such intuitions would be extremely difficult to establish, they would nonetheless in time come within scientific reach.

Notes

[1] Today such persons are called "mediums". In my view, they, in general, do not interact with the dead but with the psyche of those who knew such persons. In this regard, they may actually use the kind of spiritual intuition that I discuss, but only in connection with living persons.

[2] Part 3 of this series

[3] Part 4 of this series

[4] Part 5 of this series

[5] Is the spirit world more than an idea?

I previously argued in essays on this blog (before 2014) that Kant's noumenal realm finds its conceptual application in the framework of the higher dimensional realm theorized by theoretical physicists. Since then I have reworked that hypothesis into a more substantial position in which the quantum realm itself is taken as confirmation of Kant's noumenal realm. The second position is much stronger because it does not only involve the quantum realm as a reality (instead of the mere theoretical possibilities presented by quantum theorists) but also because higher dimensions are just one way among others in which the quantum realm may be conceptualized. 

[6] Prof. Brian Josephson has proposed that quantum entanglement may explain telepathy. Although this is by no means confirmed to be the case, it is nonetheless an example where a form of spiritual intuition is understood in the context of quantum mechanics. My reworking of the Kantian metaphysical framework provides a philosophical framework within which these things may be understood and studied.  

Author: Dr Willie Mc Loud (Ref. wmcloud.blogspot.com)

Dialoguer

The author is a scientist and philosopher (PhD in Physics, MA in Philosophy). He writes on issues of religion, philosophy and science.

Science and God. Part 1: The problem of spontaneity in quantum mechanics

Science and God. Part 2: Science and our restricted human understanding

Science and God. Part 3: Science and metaphysics: in search of Russell's teapot

Science and God. Part 4: Science and the spiritual realm

Science and God. Part 5: In defence of the soul

Is the spirit world more than an idea?

The ancients believed in an invisible world in which spirits and gods are to be found. In the Judeo-Christian tradition, this is referred to as the spirit world. The concept entered philosophical tradition with Plato, who reworked it into his intelligible world of forms. Later, the philosopher Immanuel Kant also incorporated a "noumenal realm" in his philosophy. With the strong accentuation of the rational in the Platonic-Kantian tradition, something that the ancients affirmed was lost, namely the possibility of having an intuition of that world. Once this happened, the noumenal realm became nothing more than an idea - a realm beyond experience that religious people believe in. Something that the sceptical scientific mind could not accommodate. But with new developments in theoretical physics the possibility arises that the ancients could have been right after all. 

Since early times peoples from all over the world believed that an invisible world exists next to our own visible world. They believed that that world is occupied by gods and spirits. It was typically referred to as the "other world" and cosmic domains like heaven (as the abode of the gods) and the underworld were believed to be situated in that world. We find reference to it in the earliest writings of people like the Sumerians and the Egyptians. In fact, it seems that all ancient peoples held the belief that such a world exists. The Greeks and Hebrews also believed in it - their views played a formative role in the Judeo-Christian conception of the spirit world. The ancients even believed that we have some type of intuition directed to that world.

The idea of such an invisible world had a great impact on the thinking of the Greek philosopher Plato (5th to 4th century BC). In fact, his idea of a "world of forms (or ideas)" originated from the age-old belief in an invisible world. In Plato, the invisible world of the ancients is reworked into an intelligible world - a world that is only accessible through thought. He distinguished between the visible world of our senses and the intelligible world. Although he believed that that world is only accessible through thought, he nevertheless still held that it is a (the only) real world.

Later generations of philosophers followed Plato's lead in discerning an intelligible or noumenal world (from the Greek word "nous", meaning mind).  The greatest of them was the philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724-1804). The idea of a noumenal world differing from the phenomenal world featured prominently in his philosophy. Although he rejected the Platonic idea that we could access that world in thought (he rejected the possibility of humans having an "intelligible intuition" thereof), he still held that we can think it. But, according to Kant, we can have no "knowledge" of that world. This, however, did not stop him from thinking that such a world could really exist - he envisioned it as underlying and giving form to the phenomenal world.

The Platonic move to envision the invisible world as an intelligible world eventually had the opposite outcome that he intended - it led to the rejection of the possibility that such a world exists. How did it happen? Once the possibility of having any intuition (that is, a sensing without the use of rational processes, an immediate awareness) of that world was rejected (in Kant), it became nothing more than a mere idea - an idea of something beyond the senses that religious people "believe" in. Since nothing in science gave the slightest reason to believe in such a world, a general consensus developed that such a world does not exist.

But was Kant right? Do we not have any intuition of a noumenal world? Such an intuition would imply some type of experience of that world - which is in fact what the ancients affirmed. What is more, theoretical physics now also envisions a world very much in accordance with the Kantian idea of the noumenal world - but one that is real and which could in principle be accessible in some kind of experience.

Plato's intelligible world

Why did Plato redefine the invisible world as an intelligible world? The reason is simple. Socrates, Plato's teacher "discovered" reason. This led to one of the most important shifts to ever occur in Western thought - the accentuation of reason as the most important of all human faculties. It dawned on these men that reason is what makes us distinctly human (animals cannot reason). We can even through reason control our animal passions (therefore reason guides us to the virtuous life). In Plato's opinion, the human mind ("nous") should be viewed as a thinking ability - he equated it with intelligence. This ability is seated in the human soul, that part of humans through which they have access to the invisible world. Therefore that world - the one that is accessible only through thought - is to be understood as an intelligible world.

This Platonic move - to equate the invisible world with the intelligible - is clearly observable in his Phaedo.  In the dialogues between Socrates and his friends, it is mentioned that he takes the view of the mystics (the Orphics), in which the invisible world played an important part, as the point of departure (as a "metaphor") for his own view. Two different worlds are distinguished, namely the invisible and the visible realm. The invisible realm is called "the realm of the absolute, constant and invariable" whereas the visible world is always changing. In this last respect, Plato follows Parmenides of Elea (b. c515 BC) who argued for two worlds, one that is the real world and which is eternal, indivisible, motionless and changeless and the other that is the world of our senses, which is a world of "appearances".  Plato furthermore distinguished two types of things which belong to these two different worlds, namely the invisible (the forms) and the visible things.

According to the dialogues in the Phaedo the soul belongs to the invisible world: "Since the soul is invisible, it belongs to the eternal invisible world... When it [the soul] investigates by itself, it passes into the realm of the pure and everlasting and changeless; and being of a kindred nature, when it is once independent and free from interference, consorts with it". True contemplation is not with the eyes, but with the soul - or, more precisely, with the intellect. In this regard, we read: "We are in fact convinced that if we are ever to have pure knowledge of anything, we must get rid of the body and contemplate things by themselves [i.e. as they really are] with the soul by itself" and "the man who pursues the truth by applying his pure and unadulterated thought to the pure and unadulterated object... Is not this the person, Simmias, who will reach the goal of reality, if anybody can?".

In Plato's writings, the human mind (nous) has a direct intuitive understanding of the invisible realm. Again this view goes back to Parmenides who argued for a dualism wherein nous describes an intellectual perception, which should be distinguished from sense perception. But was this how the earlier Greeks, in general, viewed the mind? As mentioned in the Oxford dictionary, the Greek word nous meant "mind, intelligence, intuitive apprehension". Although the Greeks allocated both understanding and intuition in the mind, there is no reason to believe that they viewed the intuition directed to the invisible world solely as an "intellectual" intuition (this view originated with Parmenides).

It seems that the Greeks allowed for a direct intuitive awareness of the invisible world, which is only then (as a secondary move) brought to understanding. The Pythagoreans, for example, seem to have held the opinion that we have some intuition of that world in the deepest essence of our being and that our thinking (even in reference to that intuition) is only secondary. They distinguished between 1) the higher soul, seat of the intuitive mind, 2) the rational soul, the seat of discursive reason and 3) the non-rational soul, responsible for the senses, appetites and motion. Even Plato often refers to a perception of the invisible world (for example, through the "eye" of the soul) which seems to be more fundamental than the thought thereof (why use the metaphor of "eye" if it is in fact the act of thinking that should be accentuated). The overall move in Plato's philosophy - and the Western philosophical tradition derived from him - was, however, to collapse the noumenal into the intelligible.

Plato's opinion on the relation between the worlds changed through the course of his writing. At first (in the Phaedo) the "invisible world" is viewed as a separate domain where human souls go between lives (and where the gods live), but in the Republic the "intelligible" world (as it is now called) is more closely connected to our own world (we can see that in the metaphor of the cave). This (our) world is somehow dependent on the real world for its existence (where the forms for the phenomena in this world is situated). In the Timaeus, the real world (of unchanging being where the forms are situated) underlies this world (of becoming) in a very real sense in that it gives form to it.

Kant's noumenal world

Kant lived many centuries after Plato but his reworking of the Platonic position produced one of the most important philosophical traditions since Plato. He lived during the height of the modern epoch - also known as the age of reason. Not only was reason accentuated more than ever before (in accordance with the Platonic-Aristotelian tradition), the discovery of empirical science demonstrated the practical possibilities of reason in a powerful way. And in science the sole focus is on the world of the senses. This now became the "real world". But even in the face of this new focus on the sensible world, Kant stood his ground in affirming the possibility of the "noumenal world". Kant was a Christian and believed in the existence of a spiritual world. And following Plato, he distinguished between the sensible (phenomenal) world and the "intelligible world", also called a "noumenal" world (which for Kant is supra-sensible, i.e. transcending sensible experience).

Kant's most important work, The Critique of Pure Reason, focuses (in the spirit of the age) first of all on our interaction with the sensible world (in contrast with Plato's focus on our interaction with the intelligible world). He shows how human thinking and sensing are interacting to establish "knowledge" of the sensible world. For Kant, the only knowledge possible is of this (sensible) world. He rejects the Platonic position that we can have any knowledge of the noumenal world. But this does not stop us from thinking the noumenal realm. The Critique distinguishes between the human faculty of "understanding" which get its content from the senses and "reason" which is quite independent of the sensible world and can think intelligible things. But Kant's goal with this work is to establish the limits of what reason can achieve.

Although Kant mentions that direct "intelligible intuitions" of the noumenal world is in principle possible, he argues that this is not something that humans have (God can have them). We can ask: But why didn't he allow for possible intuitions of the noumenal world other than intelligible ones? The reason for this is possibly because Kant was influenced by the Platonic move to view all intuitions of the noumenal world as intelligible ones. Kant's distinction between the sensible and intelligible (supra-sensible, noumenal) worlds therefore also incorporates a dichotomy between experience and intelligence. Kant assumes that all experience is sensible. He did not allow (as many ancient peoples seem to have done) for the possibility of an inner non-sensible experience directed to the noumenal realm. Although he did not exclude such noumenal intuitions in principle, he thought that we are not acquainted with such intuitions. He writes in the Critique of Pure Reason in a section called "Phenomena and Noumena": "room thus remains for some other sort of intuition... [but] we are acquainted with no sort of intuition other than our own sensible one" (B343).

As far as our understanding is concerned (to the extent that it is directed to the sensible world), the noumenal world is "empty" - we cannot gain any knowledge thereof. As far as reason is concerned, however, we can use reason, especially "practical reason", to argue for certain things about the noumenal realm. Starting with the Critique of Pure Reason, and developing his ideas further in his other two Critiques (of practical reason and the power of judgement), Kant developed an extensive view of the noumenal world. In the second Critique, he argued that we need the noumenal realm to account for our moral nature, our ability to make moral laws and act according to them. In the last Critique, Kant takes the noumenal world as the ultimate ground for our world, being ultimately responsible for the design of the whole spatio-temporal world. In this, he follows Plato in the Timaeus. Kant's noumenal realm is the supra-sensible ground of all phenomena, wherein the form-giving dynamic spontaneity (freedom) which gives form to the phenomenal world, is situated. Humans as well as nature are grounded and partially situated in the noumenal realm.

Science and the noumenal world

Towards the end of the modern epoch the Kantian affirmation of the existence of a noumenal realm seemed to be superficial. How can we ever show the existence of a realm of which we cannot have any experience. It's like defining something in such a way that it is beyond experimental proof and then affirming its existence in accordance with your Christian view. For the modern mind, which was so smitten by the power of reason, and who believed that science can give all the answers, this seems to be an excuse to keep believing in the face of scientific discovery - which seemed to confirm that the world is nothing more than the sensible world. Therefore a consensus developed that such a world could not exist.

Those days are, however, long gone. Gone is the days when it was believed that the human capacity to solve all problems and ultimately understand everything was around the corner. The centuries during which scientists affirmed that they would be able to understand everything in the not-too-distant future has lead to a new consensus (even though many scientists still hold to the modernist view), namely that this view should be taken with a pinch of salt. The world is extremely complex. More complex than modern man could ever have imagined. Today, scientists except ideas that were frowned upon only a few years ago, for example, that dark matter and dark energy exist. In their efforts to develop an unified theory that could integrate all the basic forces of nature, theoretical physicists are even postulating the existence of a higher dimensional realm that are interwoven with our own three dimensional sensible world. Scientists are confronted with the fact that it might just be possible that we would never be able to fully fathom what reality is like.

This development is in accordance with the position of some existential philosophers who rejected the modern efforts to establish reason as the sole arbiter of existence. Some like Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900), developed an anti-Platonic, anti-Kantian position. He argued that we should affirm our earthly existence and embrace our inner drives - we must not bow to reason and fight against our true nature. In his opinion, all talk of another or noumenal world is the result of mankind's (especially religious people's) inability to cope with the here and now. They cannot cope in this world - and therefore developed the idea of another world where they would be happy. The post-modern philosophers took Nietzsche's views as the point of departure to develop an anti-modernist perspective in matters concerning the nature of morality, truth and reality. Other philosophers like Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855) followed a different route - he rejected the efforts to fathom all of existence through reason. He affirmed the reality of the Christian experience even in the face of reason's onslaught on the supernatural. In a sense, he rejected all efforts to reasonably establish the ground for the Christian faith (and our experience of the spiritual).

What I propose is that although we cannot reject reason's ability to fathom existence, we should at the same time affirm it's reductionist nature. In it's efforts to understand reality, reason has to construct models, establish approximations, formulate reductionist concepts. This is in fact what the Copenhagen interpretation confirmed for quantum physics - we can only have a partial concept of the reality that we study. This is where Plato and Kant have fallen short - in their efforts to rework the invisible (spiritual) realm as an intelligible realm, they have been reductionist. They have not been able to sufficiently account for those intuitions of that realm that the ancients, and many religious people throughout the ages, have affirmed to exist. Kant excluded the possibility of such intuitions in his philosophy - even though it is possible (in my opinion) to incorporate it therein. For him, all experience is sensible - but what about the possibility of non-sensible (or supra-sensible) experience of the noumenal?

In spite of this, Kant's conceptualization of the noumenal realm shows remarkable agreement with the higher dimensional structure of the universe that theoretical physicists postulate. These dimensions are very small and not accessible to our senses - they are supra-sensible. But they are interwoven in the structure of space. They underlay the phemonenal world as the form-giving part of the cosmos. All nature are in some way grounded therein - also are we as humans. Although most particle-structures could have parts in both realms, it is in principle possible that at least some particle-structures exist solely in that realm, implying the possibility of a whole world unknown to our senses existing next to our own without us knowing it. It is possible that humans have a part situated in higher dimensions (corresponding to what has traditionally been called the soul or spirit) that co-exists with our physical bodies. This description does not only closely agree with Kant's ideas about the noumenal realm, they affirm the possibility of a real spiritual world.

Conclusion

During the modern epoch, people thought that they have finally arrived and that the ancients were primitive and without true knowledge. In our day there is a new appreciation for the views of those people. They experienced something about the world that the rational mindset has conditioned us to reject as something unreal. They believed in some type of intuition directed towards that world that religious people from all around the world has continued to confirm in their everyday experience (not only Christians; there is no reason from a Christian point of view, why other religious experiences are not also directed to the spiritual world). One of the reasons why so many religious people have never bought into the modernist framework is because their own experience proved the opposite. Although many scientists are eager to (again in a reductionist way) ascribe all such experience to people's psychology, most Christians, for example, have a subtle, but distinct, awareness that their experience of God goes beyond themselves.

The one thing about the noumenal world that is especially interesting, is that Kant's formulation thereof corresponds so closely with scientific notions about a higher dimensional realm that co-exists with our own. It seems that through pure reason he was able to in a remarkable way foresee the eventual scientific formulation of models that describes the world as much more than a sensible world. Although this could (once proven) confirm the power of reason, his philosophy at the same time should always remind us how reductionist reason is. We should use reason, but we should also trust our deepest spiritual intuitions about our own experience in the world. Both reason and such intuition should be our guides in this world. Without such intuition, humankind will wander as a person in the dark, groping towards a destiny without hope.

Author: Dr Willie Mc Loud (Ref. www.wmcloud.blogspot.com)

See also:
The God Impulse (life after death?)
Kant's noumenal realm reconsidered in the light of contemporary developments in physics