INTELLIGIBILITY OF EXISTENCE
Contents:
Why consider the question of intelligibility? Because by its nature, a volitional being must grasp its potential in reality to drive itself and thereby exist; the question of intelligibility helps it grasp whether it has the potential to know reality and thereby deal with effectively or not. In a real sense, the question of the intelligibility of existence is a matter of life and death.
An argument against a faith-based metaphysics
Consider if it does. On what basis would you argue for it? Firstly, you may point to observations about order and complexity. Order means that things act a certain way in certain contexts. Complexity means there exist a variety of distinct things in reality that act and interact in distinct ways. Hence, such observations presupppose the affirmation of identity and causality, i.e. the affirmation of the facts that (1) things are what they are, each distinct in and of itself, and (2) things act as they are, their behaviour being distinct to their identity. But an argument cannot presuppose the very things it tries to explain.
Secondly, you may point to the fact that believing in intelligibility on faith leads to effective action. Again, the identification of such a fact requires the affirmation that identification is possible, i.e. that facts are what they are, and certain causes (namely belief) lead to certain effects (namely actions aligned with the belief). Once again, even to validate intelligibility, you presuppose intelligibility.
Hence, we come to a clear conclusion: intelligibility is inherent in the affirmation of anything that exists, which means it is inherent in the affirmation of existence as such, which means it is inherent in the relationship between consciousness and reality, which means it is an inherent potential in the very fact of existence. Intelligibility, in essence, is the affirmation of identity and causality, and hence, it is a direct consequence of the very fact of existence.
Is this faith? No, it is self-evidence — something so inherent in existence that to deny it is to inevitably and demonstrably deny existence. Faith is the assertion of a claim as fact without independently grasping its correspondence to reality; then, self-evidence is not faith since it is the basic material given directly by reality to a consciousness. To reject the self-evident is to deny one’s own awareness of reality, which is the basis of any observation and thereby any truth.
An argument against epistemological subjectivism
Any part of reality has an identity and acts according to it, which means it exists in some logical and causal relationship to the rest of reality. Hence, any part of existence naturally reflects its relationship to the rest of existence in some form. However, a one-to-one correspondence is in no way necessitated. A creature having eyes does not mean the planet it lives on must have the power of vision, and a person having a mind does not mean the universe must be based on a mind itself. On the contrary, we observe that since everything that exists is necessarily something distinct in at least some respects, a one-to-one correspondence is never guaranteed on every level. Nonetheless, the parts do reflect the whole in some way: for example, the creature’s existence does reflect a lot about its planet, e.g. the nature of lighting on the planet, the air composition, some materials present on it, etc.
Again, this comes under epistemology, but since it is strongly based on the nature of consciousness, I shall speak of it here. There is a claim that everything we can ever know is what is within our consciousness, and thus, we cannot know reality as it is. This view ignores the source of the knowledge we acquire. Of course, everything that our consciousness holds is within consciousness. However, given the fact that consciousness has to begin with an input outside of itself, we have a clear, identifiable connection to a world outside our consciousness. How do we identify it? By identifying the conscious units that are irreducible to further conscious units. These units may be internal or external sensations and we can identify the source of these sensations by identifying their point of entry into our awareness. Note that here, “internal” and “external” are terms relative to our whole self (i.e. the integration of mind and body) on which our consciousness rests. Even if a sensation is internal, its source is still initially outside our consciousness.
Now, one may claim that since sensations can be replicated within our brain without the need for an actual object to be sensed, we cannot know whether our sensations are derived from the internal or the external world. Firstly, whatever these sensations are, they are some form of knowledge beyond our consciousness. Secondly, the claim that our brain is being misled in this way is arbitrary; it is conceivable, but is it actual? If it were actual, how could we know it or test for it? In truth, being arbitrary, this claim is outside the realm of cognition (arbitrary claims shall be further discussed in epistemology). The truth is that whatever is the starting point of our consciousness, it is derived from some part of reality outside it. What part that is, is up to us to find out using our consciousness. The fact remains, however, that we have a clear link between consciousness and the reality outside it.