Sociologists spend a great deal of time exploring the way culture affects
perceptions of reality. While it seems to some of us simply common sense
that physical reality is what it is,
Having a "background" like "mine" *for me* (note that I did not say: "like mine was", as if it would have affected all children the same way it affected me...) -- having such as background leads to a different perspective:
It seems to me awful that reality is the way it is, so I was attracted to anything that held out the possibility of deconstructing it (the only proviso being that the promise pan out: that it be a bona fide gold certificate and not just scrip).
"Reality" is just too bad to be true -- and, fortunately, the fact that its form is socially constructed opens some fissures in its adamantine refractoriness.
How real is real? -----------------
In _The Genesis of the Copernican World_, Hans Blumenthal has a difficult chapter about Kant, and especially about Kant's metaphor of having effected a "Copernican revolution" in philosophy. This is usually understood as an analogy to the way that conceiving the earth as rotating about its axis stands the old understand that the heavens revolved once each day on its head. THe philosophical analogy is that instead of reality dictating to us what it is, we dictate to reality what it is.
That clearly is not satisfactory. Reality bites.
Blumenberg puts the right words in Kant's mouth: He points out that the right Copernican analogy is with the way that Copernicus's explanation of the motion of the planets works: The apparent motion of the planets is neither entirely real (like the Ptolemaic theory thought the revolutions of the celestial sphere was) nor entirely an illusion of the oberver's perspective (like the revolutions of the celestial sphere become on the notion that the earth revolves around its axis but the heavens stand still). Instead, the apparent motions of theplanets are *partly* due to the *real* motions of the planets, and *partly* due to the motion of the earthbound observer. The Copernican model shows how both: reality and appearance, contribute to the apparent motions of the planets. In philosophy it is the same: Experience is not wholly our invention, and it is not wholly an external reality-in-itself that shows itself to us "as it is and that's that". As Blumenberg concludes: *that* is the use Kant *should* have made of Copernicus as an evocative symbol, but he [Kant], unfortunately, didn't....
That's another idea that was not in my social milieu of origin: That we can and should strive, in speaking (writing, etc.) to say better than those who came before us (e.g., for the student to speak what the teacher has not arrived to being able to think or say -- but the teacher can't grade that kiund of thing...)....
\brad mccormick
> sociologists and anthropologists have a
mountain of evidence to illustrate that our perception of physical reality is affected by our culture and particularly by language. Cultures do not have words for things that are not particularly important in that culture and people in that culture may simply not see certain physical things that are commonplace in other cultures.
For example: some Eskimo tribes have many words for different kinds of snow because snow is vitally important in their culture. In our culture we have one word for snow and if we want to indicate differences in snow we have to add an adjective-sticky snow, fluffy snow, etc.
Selma
----- Original Message ----- From: "Darryl and Natalia" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Selma Singer" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; "pete" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>;
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; "Harry Pollard"
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Saturday, May 31, 2003 3:13 PM
Subject: Re: [Futurework] new book
Hi Selma,
Darryl was reminded of a discussion on C.B.C. radio about the historical usage of colour definition. It was cited that people living in the jungle areas, for example, had most colours defined in terms of the green spectrum. In Europe, browns and yellows were emphasized, the Indian
&
Orient had yellows and orange, whereas Egypt, which revered the scarab, had various and most brilliant blues to define. Royalty traditionally had exclusive use of reds and purples, both for
class
distinction and accessibility.
How grey is seen will be dependent on your personal experience with the grey in question. If both parties are looking at the identical colour chart, then it is likely to be
perceived
similarly by most, but for the colour- blind or one third of men who apparently have difficulty and differences
in
the green/blue scales.
Emotionally, colours are perceived differently by virtue of your experience with them, and by virtue of societal implications & preservation. Colour therapy, of course, has a
huge
bearing on such a discussion.
Perception is always unique, which is why the idea of an objective
reality
within a chaotic physical universe is impossible. I get the feeling, however, that the colour grey has been raised as metaphor for a rather involved topic. What might that be?
Natalia
----- Original Message ----- From: Selma Singer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: pete <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; Harry Pollard <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Friday, May 30, 2003 6:53 AM Subject: Re: [Futurework] new book
questions for the group:
If the only language you know does not have a word for the color gray,
do
you think you will see the color gray? Will you see it as gray in the
same
way as someone whose language does have a word for that color and who
has
seen that color labeled as such? Or will it look different to a person
who
doesn't have a word for it than it does to a person who has a word for
it
and has seen the color with that label? Will it look more green or blue
to
someone whose language has a word for green or blue but not gray?
Selma
----- Original Message ----- From: "Harry Pollard" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "pete" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Thursday, May 29, 2003 9:35 PM Subject: RE: [Futurework] new book
Pete,
The only reality I can confirm is objective.
No-one can confirm subjective reality.
But, I enjoyed your post.
Harry ----------------------------------------------
pete wrote:
On Wed, 28 May 2003, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
when uncertainty becomes unbearable, faith provides solace.
Ed Weick [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] [wrote:]
Selma, I think you've put the matter very well. It reminds me of
Thomas
Merton's concept that, to understand God, we must depend on both
reason
and faith. In understanding who and what we are, we must let rational thought take us as far as we can possibly go with it.
With
each passing day or year, or with each scientific breakthrough, we
will
know a little more, but we will then increasingly recognize that
what
we
cannot know is much larger, perhaps infinitely larger since there
may
be
no boundaries, than what we can know. That is where reason ends
and
faith must take over.
Selma <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Singer [wrote:]
Hi Natalia,
I am familiar with The Course in Miracles; I have the book and
its
companion and did a little work with it some years ago; as you
say,
there are many paths to the same end.
I am not comfortable however, with the idea that there is no
objective
reality, although I doubt that my idea of objective reality is
exactly
like that of those who believe that's all there is.
I regard the subjective reality of Berkeley as possessing equal
validity
as the objective reality of western science, and I think the true nature of reality embraces them both in a synthesis beyond the apparent paradox our limited understanding perceives, analogous to the synthesis of wave and particle, or other such complements which abound in physics. The world of subject and object is a result of a symmetry breaking event analogous to that which brought the multiplicity of fundamental forces into being.
Furthermore, I applaud uncertainty, and hold that the position of agnosticism is the first step in understanding. You can't learn til you assume the position that you don't know. I see no value in abandoning that position in favour of faith. Rather, I promote the concept of active introspection, to replace agnosis with gnosis by direct experience.
As far as the "mind", there are problems with the precision of terms, and much is lost in translation from the philosophies of other cultures. The concept of "no mind" in Buddhism is not an endorsement of an objective reality of a western nature, rather a rejection of the arcane profusion of mental "worlds" in some other eastern philosophies. However, from the simple western perspective, one can say, to illuminate the nature of mind, that either you have one, or there is no "you", rather "you" are one of the filler bodies, extras added to the world to bulk out the crowd scenes, golems which have no experiences and no subjective existence, ie no one home. This is a useful distinction to introspect on, to explore the nature of the bare essence of being, which is where one can apply one's attention to pry open the secrets of the true nature of reality.
-Pete V
**************************************************** Harry Pollard Henry George School of Social Science of Los Angeles Box 655 Tujunga CA 91042 Tel: (818) 352-4141 -- Fax: (818) 353-2242 http://home.attbi.com/~haledward ****************************************************
-------------------------------------------------------------------------- --
----
--- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.484 / Virus Database: 282 - Release Date: 5/27/2003
_______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://scribe.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
_______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://scribe.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
_______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://scribe.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
--
Let your light so shine before men,
that they may see your good works.... (Matt 5:16)Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. (1 Thes 5:21)
<![%THINK;[SGML+APL]]> Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / [EMAIL PROTECTED] ----------------------------------------------------------------- Visit my website ==> http://www.users.cloud9.net/~bradmcc/
_______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://scribe.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
