On the night that I became aware of the quality of the train noise, clickety-clack, clickety-clack, clickety-clack, I did not actually know the word "qualia". At that time of my career, I haven't done much research into the phenomenological dimensions of this universe. I was simply trained as a physicist, with some diversions into biology. The encounter with the word itself came a few months later, when I was reading a book on neurophilosophy. Only then did I realize that the problem that I bumped into was quite an old one, occupying the minds of philosophers and philosophically oriented people for many years.
Although I did not know the word "qualia", as I listened to the train noise, it became suddenly clear to me that the approaches of the physical sciences, in which you try to describe the events in this world in terms of numerical equations, cannot be applied to the origin of the quality of the noise that I was listening to. You may be able to Fourier-transform the sound waves, and discuss the frequency spectrum. That kind of logic, however, would not explain the origin of the phenomenal quality of the sound that was reaching my consciousness. It was clear that, there was a "hole" in the physical description of the universe as we know and experience it. And the hole was rather large once you notice its existence.
2 comments:
Dear:Mr.Mori
You are always a beautiful professor.
If it notices the hole measure which is is very big,
it will fix in something other way.
I learned it from you.
It means "present".
There are will and love in this universe.
Your fatal recognition, "there should be somthing 'external' to the physical description of the universe"(from your yesterday's blog), and "the hole" in today's entry, seem to suggest that you are trying to get out of your own belief as a physist, or to challenge to look at the world from the outside of your prior knowledge.
You are encouraging people by suggesting to carry out "Dappan" (getting out of the old accustomed social group, of old self, in wider sense), I admire the way you yourself try to show us as the role model of what you are always persuading.
While my intuition that this universe is too complicated to be numericlly described has not changed since I was perhaps 13 or 14, I have always tried to look at the world "scientifically" by collecting knowledge from different books and articles.
It would have been much easier and I could have been much happier if I could have "fallen" into one particular belief or religion.
I would try however, to follow the difficult path until the day I find the truth about the existence of this world, and of myself (by always challenging to change old rigid way of thinking).
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