The Known and the Unknown

If a man takes a drug that causes him to have an hallucination of a pink elephant, we often say that he saw something which does not exist. Actually, when we say this, we do not mean that elephants or pink do not exist. We simply mean that no physical elephant or pink thing appeared to the man when he had his hallucination.

Do we mean then that the hallucination itself does not exist? We cannot mean this either for the simple reason that the man actually saw a real mental representation of a pink elephant. We can never contend that mental representations are not real because we only have mental representations of things that are useful and actual. Mental representations are always real for the same reason that a picture of an elephant is as real as is a physical elephant.

We never have mental representations of unknown things except by means of a logical inference of the possibility of their existence. Such logical inferences can be either true or false combinations of real ideas. For example, Leucippus and Democritus inferred the existence of an unknown thing called an atom. They did this by logical speculation about real things that they did know about such as motion, space and matter. As it turns out, modern science has discovered that their combination of real ideas that produced the idea of the atom was a true combination.

On the other hand, some theorists once postulated that space was filled with a substance called ether. When experiments proved that ether does not exist, then the idea of ether became equivalent to the idea of nothing. The combination of real ideas that produced the theory of ether had proven to be false. Only the combination and the idea of ether was false. The theory itself comprised only real and true ideas.

All of the basic elements, that which Locke called the simple ideas, that appear within the realm of conscious experience are always real. They are real because consciousness raises them above the level of nothingness, and because consciousness happens to be that sole necessary dynamism that establishes reality. The only false ideas we have result from false combinations of real ideas.

It matters little whether we know only our ideas about reality or directly know reality itself. In either case, our conscious experiences are all real, and if there is a thing-in-itself behind reality, then it is unknown, and therefore, cannot be real. All that matters is that which affects conscious experience. That which does not affect conscious experience does not matter, and cannot matter until such a time as it does affect consciousness. The unknown cannot matter because it can only affect nothingness.

If there were no consciousness, then all would be unknown and reality could not exist because absolute nothingness would prevail. Leucippus and Democritus could speculate about the existence of atoms only because they had minds that they could use to form a true combination of ideas. Those who postulated the existence of ether could do so only because they had minds that they could use to form a false combination of real ideas.

The only falsity within reality is that which equals nothing. Therefore, in the absence of consciousness, only absolute nothingness could non-exist. For these reasons, within absolute nothingness ether would be equal to atoms except in one respect. Atoms would possess potential reality only if there existed an intelligent consciousness capable of knowing them. In the absence of all consciousness, both atoms and ether would be equal to absolute nothingness.

That combination of real ideas called God would be false if God, like ether, could be proven to be nonexistent. But God must be a true combination of real ideas because if He did not exist, then reality would have been equal to nonexistence prior to the existence of finite consciousness making it impossible for it ever to become real.