The Philosopher's Stone, Issue 1

Reading Nigel Warburton's A Little History of Philosophy has inspired me to try and develop a general model of reality and my/our place in it. Using an ancient parable, if philosophers are touching different parts of the same elephant and describing their experience in very different ways, it should be possible to synthesize their part-models and describe the elephant itself.

This series is my attempt at doing that. I'm not a philosopher, I've just read quite a bit a philosophy and got in the mood to philosophise. Your comments may - or may not - help me to improve.

I'll use Hegel's approach of thesis - anti-thesis - synthesis, i.e. I'll describe every issue from three angles wherever possible and also add the achievements of modern science.

Issue 1

Perception, Ideas and Reality

Plato thinks our idea of a perfect circle is more real than all the perceived imperfect circles around us. In nature, there is no such thing as a perfect circle. Where, then, does the idea of a perfect circle reside? Appearantly, on some higher plane of reality, says Plato.

Aristotle thinks that the imperfect circles in nature are what really matters, and our idea of a perfect circle is an abstraction of them. Science uses perfect circles only to model the real ones and to enable us to perform calculations about them.

Kant thinks that we cannot perceive of reality as it is, we can only bend it to suit the structure of our mind. We don't even know whether what look like imperfect circles in nature are actually circles or something else. The idea of a perfect circle is in our head, along with the idea of squares and rectangles, numbers, etc. This is what Kant calls metaphysics, i.e. the human mindscape.

In light of modern science, Kant seems to be right. We do not and can not know Reality as it is. We can only sort-of-know what is available to us through our senses and intellect. And we can intuit some more. The idea of a perfect geometric shape is not on a higher plane of reality, not in outer space, but inside our head. Our brain is wired so as to enable us to process perceived information to our advantage, this is part of our evolutionary edge. The idea of triangles, squares, circles and numbers allows us to shape our surroundings and prosper. We only intuit that the ideas fit the imperfect real stuff, we have no way of actually knowing that.

But since our senses have evolved as an adequate means of survival, we can be sure that - much as they represent reality inaccurately - they are accurate enough for our purposes. We can't know what reality exactly is like, but we can come close enough to knowing it, so we shouldn't worry too much about sensual accuracy, i.e. the reality gap.

Example: a snake sees heat spots as opposed to coloured and textured surface, because having such vision enables it to attack the warm parts where there is blood to carry its venom so that it can prey, feed and survive. Should a conscious snake worry about what it's missing? Should it stress about the unknowability of ultimate Reality? If it needed further information to succeed in evolutionary terms, it would develop more sophisticated senses through spontaneous mutation. When the problem arises, the solution is usually available in a few generations. There is no point in worrying about how you'll cross a bridge that is nowhere in sight. Evolution will enable you to cross it when you reach it.

Evolution helps organisms develop capabilities to the extent they are needed, but it also causes them to streamline, i.e. shed capabilities when they are not needed, in order to minimise the survival effort and thus improve the chances of survival. A conscious snake concerned about not seeing more than heat spots may be comforted by the thought that some prior snakes may actually have seen colour and texture but lost the ability as it was not required.

Of course, the human mind looks ahead and worries about all the potential bridges that may or may not need crossing in some distant future. We think about long-term solutions, and having an ultimate model of Reality as it is, rather than a perceived and imperfect sensory model, would certainly help us address any challenge before it arises. But we also know we can't develop more sophisticated senses unless they are mandated by evolution, which should put our mind at ease about the reality gap. There certainly is a gap, but the challenge that will expose a part of it will also help us close that relevant part.

Conclusion: Reality is ultimately unknowable, and this is a verifiable theoretical limitation, but in practice, we can know Reality at any evolutionary point well enough to survive and prosper.