Not so hidden in the Cave allegory, & Plato’s theory of
Ideals lies the “deepest reality”.
From this deep reality comes the Ideal Cat and an Ideal Human, which in
part enabled both Greek and Abrahamic Mythology to flourish. This top-down, idea first, mind’s eye view is ambitious;
it is also quite non-precise; that is to say, it is false!
Why did Plato abandon precision? We could make a guess as to why, but doing
so would inherently abandon the point of this post. Interestingly we can use Plato in an example of precision:
The world, alas, is not made according
to the mathematical principles in the way that Plato guessed.
While this sentence is true, the opposite is also true:
The world is made according to mathematical
principles, as Plato guessed.
Demanding Precision; that is back to the subject, Plato
declared a mutually excluding relationship between Realism and Precision. In many ways the pre-Newtonian Western world
accepted this fragmented perception, priests and philosophers thrived on the
separation. Until, this theory-heavy,
data-lite worldview began to give way to the Scientific Revolution
(1550-1700). The historian Alexandre Koyré
described this new demand for precision as such:
To abolish the world of the “more or
less” the world of qualities and sense perception, the world of appreciation of
our daily life, and to replace it by the (Archimedean) universe of precision,
of exact measures, of strict determination.
The Scientific Revolution can be looked at as a change in
discrimination, and, more importantly, an acceptance of what realism is. Newton wrote:
To explain all nature is too difficult
a task for any one man or even for any one age . . . ‘Tis much better to do a
little with certainty & leave the rest for others that come after you than
to explain all things by conjecture without making sure of anything.
Those following Newton in time took to this task, the
upheaval spun into electromagnetism, Special and General Relativity, the
transistor, and the GPS guiding the Boeing 777 to the runway, which I am
currently setting in while writing these words.
We really do stand on the shoulder of giants!
The result of, the product of, this new bottoms-up,
theory-lite, data-heavy world is that humans became free to break from the
idealism of both Plato and religion.
This break from idealism was evident in a discussion I read last week
between a Christian apologist and colleague of mine. The Christian apologist was ecstatic to
declare he has “Amazing answers to probably the single most coming question
atheists have [with theism].” The
question he was seeking to answer is “If God is good, then why is there so much
evil in the world.” While the Christian
was very excited about sharing his new ideas on the subject with an Atheist
audience; he was missing a much larger issue – atheists are no longer looking
for an answer to this question, we are no longer bound in the ideal based world
Plato provided us (we are free to leave the cave so to speak). A 21st-century thinker has the
benefit of understanding religion from the viewpoint history provides us; we
know why gods were created. We know
when and where the Yahweh god stories developed after the late Bronze Age collapse,
and we know why this story line was adopted after Jerusalem’s surrender to the
Babylonian Empire. We also know when,
why, and how the Jesus myths were created, and why this particular dying and
rising god grew into a new religion. We
no longer have questions for gods; rather our questions are focused on history
and human nature; why we do what we do.
Unfortunately for the Christian apologist, he didn’t take the time to
understand his audience.
The Realism and Precision presented by the great minds of
the Scientific Revolution resulted in the end of a period, the period when
philosophical perspectives on reality came from a priest. Today we all have the ability and the benefit
of having no set pre-judgments on reality.
We study realism, and the result is whatever the result it. We do not have an emotional connection tied
to the result because Plato’s Idealism has been replaced by Realism and
Precision.
There is a priest one isle over on the plane where I have
been writing this blog. I can’t help but have a curiosity about how he may struggle with the question that the
Christian Apologist was providing an answer for. Should I ask him? Should I open up issues for him, or just leave
him be? Maybe he is happy in his mind’s
eye. . . . How do believers reconcile
reality with the myths they have been taught to believe? The answer is it takes a lot of philosophy;
it takes an institution based on Idealism.
I wonder, how many generations does Plato’s top-down data-lite (data-less) Idealism have left?
Philosophers (including religious visionaries) have long
employed thought experiments to rationalize their positions. Thought
experiments do not have the ability to prove anything. However, they can create
beautiful ideas. Ideas large populations
can follow. Can Realism and Precision
produce the same concepts of beauty that mysticism does? Frank Wilczek, winner of the Nobel Prize in
Physics, discusses the problem in A
Beautiful Question:
Newton’s method of Analysis and
Synthesis also goes by another name: reductionism. . . .Reductionism has a bad
name, not least because “reductionism” is a bad name. The word’s plain implication is that when you
have understood something, by the method of Analysis and Synthesis, you have
somehow reduced it. Your rich and
complex object is “no more” than the sum of its parts. For that
matter—and here, close to home, is where it gets disturbing—perhaps you
yourself, and those you love, are “no more” than collections of molecules just
doing their thing, which is behaving according to mathematical rules.
You can see how focusing on realism can leave the romantic
quite empty. John Keats, an English
Romantic poet, wrote among other things “In the dull catalogue of common things
. . . will clip an Angel’s wings, Conquer all mysteries by rule and line, Empty
the haunted air . . . Unweave a rainbow . . .”
While Keats was never a fan of reductionism, other’s such as Carl Sagan
took the same information and turned it into beauty. Keats’ line “Empty the haunted air” is
exactly the task Sagan took on in his book The
Demon-Haunted World. While Keats
viewed the “catalogue” of realism as clipping an Angel’s wing, Sagan visualized
science’s catalogue as a candlestick in the darkness.
Sagan, Frank Wilczek, Brian Cox, Richard Dawkins, Lawrence
Krauss, Jared Diamond and others have provided a framework in our contemporary to
find beauty in the relativity, symmetry, and reductionism of Realism. An increasing population is embracing
Precision of Realism. However, one cannot
deny the fervor that still exists in billions of humans for Plato’s top-down
data-less Idealism. It will be
interesting to see which path we choose, and what leaders we choose, in the
next year and the next decade.
