On continuity of experience

Postmodernism can be reduced to absurdity in so many fun little ways, but I thought of a particularly interesting one recently. I doubt that this is new, but it's still an intriguing argument.

First, a little background. Postmodernism, for the purposes of this analysis, is the idea that "there is nothing outside the text." Picture a short essay, say on the superiority of Lincoln-Douglas debate over Team Policy. The contents of this paper are, according to postmodernism, entirely a matter of interpretation because no extra-textual (Yes, I just made up a term. No, I don't care.) data or context exists. My interpretation is just as valid as yours even if one of us were to assert (gasp!) that the paragraph proves that Team Policy is superior.

According to postmodernism, the entire world is like that paragraph. It has no meaning beyond what we assign it as individuals, and no one individual's assertions are any more or less valid than the next's. No higher or absolute truth exists. A few problems do exist here. The most obvious, of course, is that even the claim that no absolute truth exists is an absolutist claim. Slightly more subtle are postmodernism's other flaws.

And so we come to my argument. Tag this one as the argument from continuity of experience. If you throw a rock at me and manage a hit, I will experience pain. Trade sides with me and I bet you'll feel the same. We both would rather not be eaten by bears. Such experiences are uniformly unpleasant. Similarly, we both probably like clean air, chocolate, and the song "There's No One As Irish as Barack O'bama." This implies that our minds function in similar ways, in turn suggesting that there is some uniform constant that forms a reference point. Even if it is merely biological in nature, such a constant is immutable and not "subject to interpretation." This is the first half of the argument, namely that our minds deal with reality in similar ways. The second, and more forceful, aspect of the argument is simply that the rock you just threw nailed me right between the eyes. You can apologize next time you see me. From your perspective, the rock traveled in a parabola from hand to mark. From my perspective the rock traveled in a parabola from hand to mark. Then blackness. The point is that this event was obviously independent of perspective and interpretation. You were able to take an action that I then perceived. Thus our minds engaged in interaction via some sort of medium (the medium that allowed conveyance of your intent to throw the rock to my perception of your intent). This medium, I postulate, is called reality, and it changes only when acted upon and not with "interpretation."

Treating reality as a medium through which minds interact is an interesting idea. I'm probably not the first person to think of it, but it still has some interesting implications even beyond a refutation of postmodernism. If reality really is simply aether for the conveyance of data, then some credence goes to the philosophy of Berkeley, who asserted that an object only exists insofar as it is observed. I think he is close. He claimed that the world continues to exist when you close your eyes because God is still watching. Hmmmm.... I think it may be still more fundamental. Let us progress from philosophy to theology.

First postulate: God created us to love him. Love, according to Augustine, requires that we make a decision. A decision requires that we possess information.

Second postulate: Such a decision is inherently heuristic because we cannot know God fully in our present form. If our form were changed so that we could fully know God no decision would be necessary. (Who would turn away from God revealed in His majesty?) This decision must be based on limited or incomplete data.

Third postulate. A means of limited communion must therefore exist between God and Man to allow the conveyance of knowledge of God without total exposure.

Fourth postulate: The universe provides exactly such a medium. God reveals His attributes to us in limited form through the universe. We gain fleeting but awesome glimpses of His skill in design, of His omnipotence, and so on.

Fifth postulate: The universe (Scripturally, nature) was corrupted by the Fall because Man's ability to commune with God was damaged by our sin nature. The cataclysm extended from the direct connections of the soul to God to the indirect link through Creation.

I am not an expert or ordained theologian. I have no degrees (although you might be wise to trust me less if I did). This is merely a though experiment and should not be regarded as teaching. But it is an interesting and perhaps helpful way of looking at the world. Suddenly any philosophy (and there are postmodernists and existentialists who claim to be Christians) that denies the absolute nature of reality starts looking a bit odd. Once matter becomes an absolute aether, the external world takes on an interesting purpose.