Quote from another thread 'Do noumena exist?' ..... ( to go to that thread, click on the little gray arrow in the quote box )
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Originally Posted by Robert  ....... I would like to suggest that qualia is a better term for what you are describing. I would say that noumena is a property of a thing that cannot be perceived by our senses. A thing is, in reality, different from what we perceive it to be.
The phenomena then is how we experience the thing through our senses. The qualia is what emerges in our minds as our subjective experience of this organism/environment interface. |
If the word 'Noumena' is in essence the opposite of the word 'Phenomena', where the word phenomena means that which our five senses perceive, then the word noumena must mean that which we cannot perceive with our five senses.
But this then poses the question, what is there that we don't perceive with our senses. I would suggest that in the absence of our senses that which we perceive would be very, very limited. Like growing up in a dark room where you are not allowed to even touch the walls.
Phenomena, it would seem, is the richer of the two. Feeding our imagination with variety of the universe around us. As well as providing the facts, or the true reality of all which is 'outside' ourselves.
The following story is taken from the Wiki ....
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Mary the colour scientist knows all the physical facts about colour, including every physical fact about the experience of colour in other people, from the behavior a particular colour is likely to elicit, to the specific sequence of neurological firings that register that a colour has been seen.
However, she has been confined from birth to a room that is black and white, and is only allowed to observe the outside world through a black and white monitor. When she is allowed to leave the room, it must be admitted that she learns something about the colour red the first time she sees it — specifically, she learns what it is like to see that colour
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Mary's experience is a '
phenomena', the idea, and eventual writing of the analogy of 'mary' could not have occurred without the qualified existence of some form of '
noumena'
ergo: they both exist, but phenomena alone reveals reality
For the Spiritual among us, this means 'Trust in God, but tie your camel first' .
cool bananas ... greg