What is the correlation between the abstract and the concrete? What symbolic or deductive knowledge corresponds exactly with the concrete knowledge learned from sensory experience? (original Quora question)
Based on the source provided, the questioner desires an answer that is also an ontological argument, that is, an argument for the existence of God. I have noted elsewhere that I take such arguments to be an exercise in pretense.
The difficulty with arriving logically at the kind of correlation you reasonably inquire about comes from blind acceptance of force-based and relativistic physics infused over the last half century with awe-inspiring trickery and illusion at the level of the unseeable. Logic that provides better correlation than that — correlation between the abstract and concrete — can arise in that physics’ shadow, as a sort of logical relief.
To bring such logic out of the shadows, out of mere relief pattern reality, we must embrace a forceless yet real (non-probabilistic) basis for existential dynamics. With that, the very nature of existence infuses the concrete with abstract, slight-of-hand brilliance. When a conception applicable within physics meets that criteria, the door also opens to grasping the connection to symbolic and deductive meaningfulness, which is capacitated by its very nature to arise not only in existence but in our understanding and experience of it given the right context and focus.
A caveat however: I prefer the term meaningfulness to knowledge in the context of this question as the later carries a pretense of proof and proof is not consistent with all sensory experience. Conviction (strong belief) towards a given meaning, on the other hand, is acceptable as a neutral stance. It does not necessarily carry such a pretense. Conviction is of course a traditionally religious, rather than scientific stance. Thus, lack of pretense itself is a barrier to those entrained to defend scientific objectivity, religious credulity, or both, and yet seeking a complete answer to the questions being posed.
Original publish date Nov 28, 2017