on the Nature of Reality.
Five senses; an incurably abstract intellect; a haphazardly selective memory; a set of preconceptions and assumptions so numerous that I can never examine more than a minority of them – never become conscious of them at all. How much of total reality can such an apparatus let through ?
A Grief Observed, C.S.Lewis
One of the strongest philosophical motives is the desire for a comprehensive picture of objective reality, since it is easy to assume that that is all there is. But the very idea of objective reality guarantees that such a picture will not comprehend everything; we ourselves are the first obstacle to such an ambition.
The View from Nowhere, Thomas Nagel
Material Reality.
George Berkeley (1685-1753), Bishop of Cloyne, was a sometime philosopher who contended that material objects existed only through the act of being perceived. The objection to this, of course, was that if everyone in the world closed their eyes at the same instant the world, as experienced by each individual, would cease to exist. “Not so”, said Berkeley, because all the world was under constant surveillance by God and thus every material object would “continue to be” even though it was not being observed by any human being. This astonishing proposition, described by one writer as a philosophical sleight of hand, was, according to Berkeley, a substantial proof of God’s existence.
Although Berkeley’s views were considered in some quarters as taking British subjective-idealist philosophy into the realm of insanity he does, in fact, make some quite interesting observations. For example, he argued that “we do not perceive material things but only colours, sounds etc., and that these are mental or ‘in the mind’.” 1 Whilst a number of his subsequent arguments are somewhat controversial this initial proposition does have some validity today. The current level of knowledge about the nature of material things leads to the view that what is perceived and re-constructed in the mind is not necessarily what exists. In a scientific sense reality, as being factual or true, may be a great deal different to what we perceive it to be. In philosophy the term reality has come to mean that which continues to exist independent of human awareness. Thus science and philosophy are saying more or less the same thing.
What Berkeley began Hume extended and, in so doing, effectively brought his mode of philosophy to a dead-end. David Hume was born in 1711 in Edinburgh and at the comparatively early age of twenty-four began to write down his philosophical ideas. By the age of thirty he had completed what Bertrand Russell considered to be his best work. Hume began in the empiricist tradition, that which proposes that all our knowledge is acquired through experience, and suggested that, in his view, all experience is gained as a result of perceptions. “All the perceptions of the human mind resolve themselves into two distinct kinds which I shall call impressions and ideas.....Those perceptions which enter with most force and violence we may name impressions; and under this name I comprehend all our sensations, passions and emotions, as they make their first appearance in the soul. By ideas I mean the faint images of these in thinking and reasoning.” 2
Hume expands on his theory of impressions and ideas by subdividing them into simple and complex categories: “Every simple idea has a simple impression which resembles it; and every simple impression a correspondent idea. All our simple ideas in their first appearance are derived from simple impressions, which are correspondent to them, and which they exactly represent.” 2 He goes on to define complex ideas which need not resemble impressions as perceived but which, on being analysed, can be shown to consist of elements of simple ideas. In other words Hume could be said to be linking complex ideas to imagination whilst simple ideas based directly on impressions are related to memory.
By means of rigorously maintaining his stance on impressions and ideas as being the only certain basis for our knowledge Hume effectively demolishes the foundations of many matters which had previously been taken for granted. We never actually experience physical objects but only gain sensory impressions of them in our minds. In other words the reality of objects is ‘internal’ - a mental process akin to that described by Berkeley. Similarly there is no impression which corresponds directly to continuity or passage of time. Events simply occur one after another. Even with regard to cause and effect Hume argued that there was no logical reason why a particular effect should follow a particular cause. The fact that these events had taken place in a particular order many times in the past was no guarantee that they would continue to do so in the future. Piece by piece Hume cut away at the edifice of science. Initially taking an empiricist approach he gradually became more and more sceptical as he moved the centre of his attention from science to self and ultimately to religion. In one aspect with regard to the latter he argues against a belief in miracles on the basis that human nature takes a misleading delight in things that amaze. “Upon the whole the Christian Religion not only was first attended by miracles, but even at this day cannot be believed by any reasonable person without one.” 3
Bertrand Russell considered Hume to be one of the most important philosophers because he developed to its logical conclusion the empirical philosophy of Locke and the idealism of Berkeley. By developing his work he stated, in effect, that reality exists only in the mind as a series of perceptions or impressions. He built a self consistent argument which Russell considers to be a favourite target for metaphysicians to refute. But as Hume effectively repudiated material reality so too did he seek to repudiate the idea of Self. He argued that no person could perceive his own Self, and thus, there being no impression of Self there could be no idea of it. However : “The sceptic must assent to the principle concerning the existence of body, tho’ he cannot pretend by any arguments of philosophy to maintain its veracity. Nature has not left this to his choice......Whatever may be the reader’s opinion at this present moment...an hour hence he will be persuaded that there is both an external and an internal world.” 2
So both Berkeley and Hume retreat into the skull when it comes to defining an individual’s apprehension of the world around them. Berkeley proposed that perceptions of material things was entirely in the mind whilst Hume claimed that all knowledge was based on impressions, derived simple ideas being related to memory whilst combinations of simple ideas - complex ideas - are related to imagination.
The second quotation prefacing this essay is by a contemporary philosopher, Thomas Nagel, and expresses the view that the quest for objective reality is made all the more difficult by human subjectivity. The inference is that we cannot be sure that we can be entirely objective about material reality when the assessment is being made by an individual who is the centre of his own, unique, material and mental worlds.
Unlike Hume who sought to repudiate the Self, Popper states clearly and unambiguously that the Self exists. 4 Buddhists would probably disagree with this, of course, but there is some substance to the view that the Self, ephemeral though it might be, does have an existence so long as there is a biological infrastructure to support it. Popper justifies his proposal by suggesting that, if it were possible to carry out a successful transplant of the brain, one would effectively be carrying out a transference of the mind and of the self and it is difficult to see how this would not be the case.
Besides disagreeing with Hume on the question of Self, Popper goes on to take issue with both Hume and Berkeley by offering the proposition that, far from being an entirely mental experience, reality manifests itself in what he calls three Worlds. His arguments are both seductive and imaginative and, at one and the same time, manage to dispose of the basic propositions of radical materialists and radical spiritualists. Both radical materialism and radical spiritualism provide simple solutions to the mind-body problem. The former stance denies the existence of mental processes i.e. all body – no mind; the material world is causally closed, and the latter stance, as we have seen in the proposition of Berkeley, denies the existence of matter. Central to Popper’s argument is the suggestion that we can accept things as real if they can be shown to causally act upon, or interact with, other material things that are evidenced as being real.
Popper’s Three Worlds are arranged with world divisions numbered hierarchically from 0 to 6, in what he calls stages in cosmic evolution. He expresses the view that from division 1 onwards things have evolved in the universe about which no predictions could have been made always assuming, of course, that there was someone around who was capable of making predictions. (My italics)
The first is “World 1 - the world of physical objects”, a place in which the dynamic laws of classical mechanics and quantum mechanics hold sway. A place in which physics and chemistry interact, where particles and waveforms and materials are the stock in trade of the high priests of science who have some influence on the way this universe manifests itself to the rest of us. The main hierarchical divisions in World 1 are:
0 Hydrogen and Helium.
1 The heavier elements, liquids and crystals.
2 Living organisms.
Some aspects of Popper’s World 1, of course, have enjoyed a mind-independent existence since the moment the universe was created. Scientists tell us that the universe we see today has evolved over billions of years from the initial products of a vast explosion popularly known as the “Big Bang”. However, theories about these material things are not required for us to take them for granted or to otherwise accept them. A rock appears as hard to us and will cause as much pain if dropped on the foot regardless of whether or not we believe it to be as it appears. Objects of ‘external, mind-independent reality’ such as hydrogen atoms and mountains are part of World 1. But so too are aeroplanes and railway trains although neither of these latter objects could be considered to be mind-independent. Each of the latter objects owes its existence initially to human mental activity that is subsequently translated into a material object.
The second is “World 2 – the world of subjective experience”, this is a purely mental world, the subjective sense of Self , the “all that it means to be me” of Daniel Dennett, the cares and joys, hopes and aspirations, the memories of past events and plans for the future. Each of us has a separate sense of this ‘internal reality’ that is a multifaceted confusion of thoughts and emotions uniquely our own. The main hierarchical divisions in World 2 are:
3 Sentience (Animal Consciousness)
4 Consciousness of Self and Death
Finally there is “World 3 - the products of the human mind” in all their possible forms. This world includes “ stories, myths, tools, scientific theories (true or false), scientific problems, social institutions and works of art.” 4 The main hierarchical divisions in World 3 are:
5 Human language. Theories of self and death.
6 Works of art, science and technology.
Popper uses the example of a book to show how an object can be related to each of the Three Worlds. The book itself of course is a material object comprised of cardboard or leather, twine, paper, ink, glue etc., and, as such, clearly belongs to World 1. While the structure of the book might change between editions, or as the result of being published in another country, the content of the book – its subject matter – does not change because it is a product of the mind of its author. As such the book content properly belongs to World 3. The content however has its origin in World 2 where it arose in the imagination of its author. Other examples of World 3 ‘objects’ might include the Welfare State, a social institution that tells us something of the nature of our culture. Whilst the Welfare State is not tangible in the sense of being a material object it is, in fact, tangible in the sense of being able to be grasped by the mind. It is a mental object that has been, and is, translated into physical action by the government and its servants. In this sense it is undoubtedly real in Popper’s terms because it is causally mediated through World 2. We might also include Stonehenge and St Paul’s Cathedral both of which represent manifestations of religious fervour in ancient and more recent times. The existence of these latter material edifices (as with aeroplanes and railway trains) demonstrates an interaction between World 1 and World 3 in that they are undoubtedly material products developed by activity of the human mind and, as such, undoubtedly owe something to the mental selves of their designers. Popper would say “…to the pluralist these are material instances, embodiments, of World 3 objects … mediated by mental and partly even conscious, World 2, events.” 4
Although there are currently a number of individual philosophers, and groups, which continue to support some form of idealism, Berkeley’s and Hume’s views on reality are largely discounted nowadays. There are, however, still adherents to Popper’s contemporary proposals viz a viz reality. This despite one noted philosopher’s view that Popper’s work in this area is “somewhat discredited.” However, it seems to me that if one is looking for a place to start in an assessment of reality one could do a great deal worse than begin with Popper because we all have direct experience of two of his Worlds; the mental World of self and the material World of physical objects. We do not have to accept the materialist view that solid material objects in this latter World are paradigms of reality. Indeed we are aware nowadays that solid material objects are not necessarily what they appear to be. Popper too does not suggest that solid material things are ultimate. “On the contrary, in the light of our knowledge about physical forces, events and processes, we may discover that material things, especially solids, are to be interpolated as very special physical processes in which molecular forces play a dominant role.” 4
Popper’s proposals regarding World 3 have been the subject of controversy since they were first published. Indeed the question arises as to whether World 3 objects can be considered to be real. Popper suggests that the entities which we conjecture to be real should be able to exert a causal effect on the prima facie real things, - that we can explain changes in the ordinary material world of things by the causal effects of entities conjectured to be real. “World 3 objects can be real in the sense that they can causally effect changes or materialisations in World 1. As World 3 objects they may induce men to produce other World 3 objects and thereby act on World 1. Interaction with World 1 – even indirect interaction – I regard as a decisive argument for calling a thing real.” 4
If they were to accept the existence of World 3 objects at all materialists would argue strongly that they properly belong to World 1. Materialists would say that all things realised since creation existed as latent possibilities having been pre-formed or pre-established from the beginning. Popper was scathing of this view saying that it was either trivial or a mistake. “It is trivial that nothing can happen unless permitted by the laws of nature or by the preceding state; though it would be misleading to suggest that we can always know what is excluded in this way. But if it is suggested that the future is and always was foreseeable, at least in principle, then this is a mistake, for all we know and for all that we can learn from evolution. Evolution has produced much that was not foreseeable, at least not for human knowledge.” 4
Even in the macro world of our own perceived reality there are difficulties in explaining away those aspects of reality which appear to be constructed inside our own heads.
As humans we have five senses which contribute towards our understanding of the world in which we exist. These provide the sense-data reality which is applicable to each of us, one set of sense-data reality for each individual. Clearly there is a considerable degree of overlap between each set of SDR because of the agreement we share with one another about aspects of the world around us. Equally there are disagreements which are largely influenced by the weighting given by an individual to his or her sense-data input. As an extreme example of this consider police witness statements about events at a crime scene. These can often present conflicting evidence taken from sincere individuals, anxious to help, whose interpretation of events may be influenced by factors as diverse as the state of their health at the time or the probable outcome of an unconnected domestic problem. Psychologists will argue that these kind of differences between individual perceptions can be explained, quantified and categorised to the extent that investigating officers can apply a different weighting to the evidence and so arrive at a series of corroborative stories. Be that as it may, there is the evidence of the individual who is prepared to swear under oath that he saw what he saw, and because he saw it with his own eyes, at the time the event took place, then it must be true.
Good eyesight, therefore, is an important attribute. Those who are blind or partially sighted suffer a huge disadvantage over those with normal sight because vision plays such a significant role in our apprehension of the world around us. If nothing else it boosts our self-image by providing data on our spatial position. But of course, it does much more than that. The old saying that ‘A picture is worth a thousand words’ was not coined facetiously. Vision is arguably the most sensitive of our senses and is capable of the greatest discrimination. But whilst it is also probably the most complex it is by no means foolproof.
Light emanating from the sun is a form of electromagnetic radiation and is known as white light. When passed through a prism this breaks down to form the visible spectrum that ranges from violet, having a wavelength of nominally 400 nanometres, to red which has a wavelength of nominally 800 nanometres. There are, in addition, components that have wavelengths greater than and less than those quoted. These are respectively, infra-red and ultra-violet, neither of which are visible to the human eye. Objects become visible to us when they reflect into the eye the light falling upon them or when the object itself radiates light. But before the light entering the eye reaches the retina, or light sensitive part of the eye, it has to pass through a series of structures known collectively as the refractive media. The effect of the refractive media is to project a greatly reduced image, upside down, on the retina. By adjusting the curvature of the lens we can focus on objects in the far distance or those which are extremely close, within a few centimetres, to the eye. The cells comprising the optic layer process the image focussed on the retina. There are two forms of photosensor known, on the basis of their shapes, as rods and cones. The rods react to all wavelengths of visible light and are therefore unable to discriminate colours. Their principle function is to perceive differences in light intensity. The cones, on the other hand, come in three versions that enable them to specialise in colour discrimination. One version is sensitive to red/yellow, another to green and another to blue/violet. Since the cones, collectively, have sensitivities to the primary colours in the visible spectrum then, depending on the strength of the stimulation received by the cones (and thus on their output) the retina is capable of seeing all possible colours. The distribution of the photosensors on the retina is uneven. Of a total of five million or so cones the greatest density (about 150,000 mm2) is in the central part of the retina, the macula lutea, the most sensitive part of the structure. The density of cones falls off rapidly as the edge of the retina is approached. At the extreme edge of the retina there are no cones at all. Rods number about 120 million. At the edge of the retina their density is about 30,000 mm2 and this increases to about 160,000 mm2 as the centre of the retina is approached before falling off rapidly close to the macula lutea where there are no rods at all. Rods are much more sensitive to light than are cones. For this reason most people are unable to discriminate colours in low light conditions.
Signals from the left hemisphere of the retina in each eye are transmitted to the left visual cortex at the back of the brain. Similarly, signals from the right hemisphere of the retina in each eye are transmitted to the right visual cortex. It is in the visual cortex that the signals from the retina receive their penultimate processing. Here the brain re-constructs an image from the components transmitted through tens of millions of nerve fibres. Here the tiny, upside-down, two-dimensional image is enlarged, turned the right way up and given a three-dimensional characteristic. It is here too that the image receives the first stage in its interpretation. It is believed that symbolic parts of an image may be referred to the language centre in order that its meaning may be clarified. Other forms of image are understood on the basis of intrinsic or learned memory and are likely to be accompanied by appropriately conditioned responses. For example an image of a fierce animal is likely to induce a feeling of fear and an inclination to escape. The speed of interpretation of a visual image is remarkable particularly when elements of the image are moving. Navigating a car on a busy road, for example, requires constant adjustment of driver actions in response to the speed of other traffic and changing road conditions. That this can be done for the most part accurately and without incident is made the more remarkable by the fact that it is relatively easy to show that the eyes can be fooled into seeing things that are not there, or into not seeing things that are there.
Psychologist Roger Shepard coined the phrase “Perceptual Ambiguity” as a means of describing the function of the eyes, and the brain, when they are fooled into perceiving one thing although it is clear that they are looking at something quite different. In his fascinating book Mind Sights 5 Shepard identifies, and uses his skills as an artist to illustrate, a whole range of examples of this phenomenon. In particular he cites the example of the trapezoidal room designed by Adalbert Ames Jr. The Ames Room represents a well-known means of misleading the perception of those who look into it through a strategically sited peephole. Essentially the floor, walls and ceiling slope away from the viewpoint in such a way that a person in the room, and closest to the viewpoint, would be jammed against the ceiling whilst, if he/she was standing in the remotest corner from the viewpoint, the ceiling would be way above his/her head. If two people of similar height, and known to the observer, are placed in the room in the aforementioned positions, and viewed through the peephole, the room will appear to be rectangular and the person furthest away from the peephole will appear to be a dwarf. The fact that the observer has conscious knowledge of the people in the room will have no bearing on the way in which the room, and the people in it, are perceived. Shepard points out that the perception of a rectangular room in these circumstances is not due to the simple proposition that the perceptual mechanism selects an interpretation with which it is most familiar. He says, quite rightly, that the observer’s experience is probably that rooms have varied more widely in size and shape than people have. We have to look much deeper for an explanation and, in Shepard’s view, this is because “the perceptual system has internalised the most pervasive and enduring regularities of the world.” Part of this is due, he believes, to genetic internalisation through natural selection with additional internalisation in each individual through learning by experience.
So here we have another contemporary scientist who seems to endorse Popper’s view that we have an intrinsic memory, or inherited knowledge, which would appear to be in the genes and which is able to influence how the brain interprets some types of perceived image. But there’s more! Shepard thinks that it is not necessarily that the learned internalisation of the expected size and shape of a particular species is the prime mover in this case. Rather it is an altogether deeper internalisation involving sharply defined facts concerning “the geometry of three-dimensional Euclidean space.”
The results of psychological experiments in visual perception appear to endorse the view that the brain is able to provide alternative interpretations for what the observer actually sees. It is not that the image is wrong rather, it is the brain selecting an interpretation that appears to be a “best fit” between the intrinsic memory image and the image projected on to the visual cortex. This is not the same mechanism at work as in the case of the police witnesses cited previously. In the current case the interpretation is made at low level and the observer will not generally be consciously aware that there is a choice in the matter. The police witnesses however made a conscious decision to interpret the incident on the basis of what they believed that they saw.
Another interesting fact concerning visual interpretation is that the brain is capable of providing additional material to enhance or complete an image projected on to the visual cortex. This can be demonstrated quite easily in relation to the so-called “blind spot” in the retina. The optic nerve enters the retina, or more correctly leaves it, at a point called the optic papilla where, because of the density of the axons, there are no photosensory cells. This part of the retina therefore plays no part in the creation of an image. The method of demonstrating the existence of the blind spot has been well documented and is reproduced below. Copy and print out the illustration, or use the image on the screen, and follow the instructions in the following paragraph.
View the image/illustration upright approximately 30 cm in front of the right eye. Close the left eye and look directly at the cross. Move the page/head gently back and forth until the dot disappears. The disappearance is due to the fact that the image of the dot is being projected on to the blind spot in the retina. Close the right eye and repeat the experiment with the left eye, this time looking at the dot, and manoeuvre the page/head until the cross disappears.
By means of this simple experiment both eyes can be shown to have a blind spot and the question arises “Why is there not a ‘hole’ in our field of vision ?”. The traditional response to this is that blind spots are not sited in identical places in the eyes and therefore different parts of the field of vision are projected on to the blind spots by each eye. What is missed by one eye is made up for by the other. This is a very reasonable explanation but, by the same argument, closure of one eye should therefore result in a ‘hole’ appearing in the field of vision of the other eye. It doesn’t of course and the reason is that the interpretative activity at the visual cortex assesses the make up of the image surrounding the blind spot and fills in the space to match the adjacent area. Since the blind spot is some way from the macula lutea the ‘made-up’ part of the image is offset from the central, and most important area of the image. It may therefore contain small errors of interpretation which are unlikely to be noticed because they are not, and can never be, at the focus of attention.
Quite apart from the anomalies of interpretation it is clear that what we see of the world is limited by the capability and sensitivity of the organs of vision. We know, for example, that human eyes are not sensitive to ultra violet. There is some evidence, however, that bees are able to discriminate ultra violet. The evidence came about as a result of an investigation into the ability of bees to aim unerringly towards the nectar and pollen in flowers that are comprised of a complex petal structure. It was found that if these flowers were illuminated by ultra violet light that they presented a ‘runway’ from the periphery of the petals to the heart of the flower. Observation of the bees showed clearly that they were homing in on the runway and following it to its source. The inference is that bees are able to make use of reflected ultra-violet from the flower to guide them to their food. Quite incidentally it also says something about the flowers which are able to adjust their pigmentation in precise areas so that it can reflect ultra-violet to bees, and perhaps to other insects also, and ensure their pollination in return for the reward of nectar. This represents a fairly high order of symbiosis between plant and insect. It also shows that humans, even at this macro level, are not fully aware of what there is to be seen of the world around them.
So, if we are unable to see, at a macro level, all that there is to see of the immediate world around us; if the visual cortex is able to add to an image to ensure its completion and if we can be misled into interpreting an image incorrectly can we ever really believe our eyes ? Are we being led inexorably to the arguments propounded by Berkeley and Hume that reality exists only in our heads subject to the vagaries of our mind activity ? I don’t think so. There is clearly a material reality external to us that exists independently of mind and, one might also say in this day and age, in spite of mind. There is also an external material reality that exists as a result of mind activity and there is not a shred of evidence to suggest that either of these realities will disappear if the world population closes its eyes at the same instant, or ceases to think or to imagine. With regard to external objects the accepted philosophical stance is that to suggest that something is mind independent is to move towards realism; to suggest that something is mind dependant is to move towards anti-realism. At either extreme lies insanity. We have to find a middle way and learn to accept that our sensory perception of the material world is relative to, and appropriate for, our position in it. In the case of vision our perception of the world is subject to the limitations of our image making mechanisms. If we wish to see beyond our normal boundaries then we have to resort to the use of mind dependent material objects such as microscopes, telescopes or night sights to enhance the view. The use of such instruments may go some way to increase our knowledge of the world around us but they are by no means entirely necessary to ensure our survival in it. Similarly it is interesting to learn that molecular forces play a significant role in determining the hardness of solid objects but that knowledge will do little to sway our sensory perception of the object. We have seen, undoubtedly, that there are constraints placed on our ability to apprehend the external material world. Human eyesight is probably a great deal less keen than that of a bird of prey, and we are aware that total reliance on it can be misleading in some circumstances. Our sense of smell is a great deal less acute than that of a dog and our hearing has a smaller compass than that of a bat. To adopt another phrase from the electronic age, the sense data reality we perceive is actually a form of virtual reality. Despite this we are remarkably well adapted to survive in the world and to make a success of our survival.
Cultural Reality.
In the essay on consciousness I proposed that consciousness evolves as the corollary of learning language and that language evolves with the conscious need to express ideas. We might therefore infer that consciousness and language are mutually requisite. It seems clear that social behaviour and culture are corollaries also because both are based on conscious intent and both need language to identify the various institutions set up in the name of culture.
We have seen that Popper’s World 3 is the world of products of the human mind, such as stories, myths, tools, scientific theories (true or false), scientific problems, social institutions and works of art. World 3 therefore, almost by definition, is the world of culture and its objects are of our own making although they are not always the result of planned production by individual men. So in World 3 there are some objects that require the introduction of a form of collective intentionality, a prerequisite of any form of social institution.
Collective intentionality represents an interesting departure from the rather self-centred “gene survival machine” image of the human body presented by Richard Dawkins 6 and others. The “selfish gene” concept embodies the powerful proposition that every living creature on earth is motivated to feed and to reproduce to ensure the survival of its genes that thereby attain virtual immortality. The human species is no different from any other species in this respect. Whilst it might be argued that the term selfish is hardly applicable to a gene it can certainly be applied to individuals who carry the genes that motivate them to seek replication of their self-image by copulation. Reproductive activity is very much a selfish activity - a way of looking out for one’s own advantage by satisfying lust. It is part of what is accepted as a competitive struggle all across the animal kingdom. The same degree of competition, if applied to other aspects of life, can lead to disintegration of social relationships with others. People will become less co-operative and less trusting in the way they interact with each other. Despite these negative aspects competition is actively encouraged in some life activities and is considered to be a commercial attribute necessary to success that, in the West, tends to be equated with the acquisition of money or power. In this sort of climate collective intentionality is something of a paradox unless it can be shown to bring collective benefit to those sharing the intent.
In the twentieth century Western world we are born into a culture in which interactive social institutions have been long established and which we tend to take very much for granted. While we might quibble about the cost we rarely question the function of the utility companies that bring energy and fresh water into our homes and which dispose of our waste yet if, overnight, these facilities were withdrawn our society would soon be in a parlous state. There is evidence that the provision of fresh water to townships and the removal of human waste are facilities that have been available at least since Roman times. The establishment of these facilities must have arisen as a result of collective intentionality and a collective recognition of the health benefits to the townspeople. And better health means longer survival, a fact that is not in any doubt today. At rock bottom, of course, longer survival means more opportunity to reproduce. Could this be interpreted as the selfish gene getting its own way again ?
Marriage is another long established social institution. In the West marriage is monogamous and justified only on the basis of love although, in religious and civil law, it is a contractual relationship for the purpose of begetting and raising children. Coincidentally it provides a form of domestic security and freedom to indulge, without stigma, in sexual activity with the chosen partner. It also removes, or greatly reduces, the competition to reproduce mentioned above and thereby improves the climate for co-operation between individuals in a social group.
Plato, the best known and most widely studied of the ancient philosophers, initially had very different ideas on marriage and the family. In part six of the Republic he says; “…that our men and women…should be forbidden by law to live together in separate households, and all the women should be common to all the men; similarly, children should be held in common, and no parent should know its child or child its parent.” 7 What Plato is advocating here is a system of eugenic breeding in which selected men and women would be allowed to mate to order, and in order, to produce “good citizens” to be looked after by the state until they are old enough to play their full part as “Guardians” as they were called. (Something similar was proposed by Adolf Hitler when the development of a true Aryan race became part of the Nazi racist ideology.) Clearly, Plato was aware that such an arrangement would lead to difficulties. Later in the dialogue he admits that “…sex is perhaps more effective than mathematics when it comes to persuading or driving the common man to do anything.” 7 Plato believed that marriage and direct parental responsibility were a threat to social order because family loyalties would detract from community loyalty. While there may be some truth in this latter view I believe that Plato’s overall thinking was flawed on the place of marriage in society because he seems to underestimate the fact that the competitive urge to reproduce exists in all humans and not just those who are chosen by the Rulers to breed. Furthermore he may have been unaware that an unlimited sharing of sexual partners could result in an outbreak of venereal disease of epidemic proportions. Witness the current AIDS crisis in parts of Africa. As a matter of fact, when Plato was in old age he revised his view on marriage quite significantly. In his last major work, the Laws, Plato develops a constitution and a new set of laws for an imaginary colony or state. He approached this work very seriously as witnessed by the wealth of detail given, both in the laws themselves and the punishments to be imposed for transgressions. Contrary to the views expressed in the Republic, family life was considered to be very important in the new colony with a duty of marriage imposed on all citizens. The details of the laws on marriage are astonishing and include such considerations as age at marriage, dowries, adultery, homosexual affairs, marriage guidance and infertility. To ensure that couples lived virtuously and in conformity with the law the marriage had to be supervised by officers appointed by the state. His abandonment of the ideals set out in the Republic seems to indicate that Plato had finally realised the value of marriage and family life as a stabilising influence on society.
In other societies and cultures different forms of marriage are recognised and accepted because of the social service they perform. For example, in a society in which there is a significant surplus of women a polygynous marriage may be appropriate. Similarly, a society that has a surplus of men may favour polyandrous marriage. In both cases the effect is the same, a diminution of the competitive mating instinct and therefore a more stable society.
Another social institution that can have an enormous effect on our lives is that of money. The global economy is based on money. The amount of money we have will determine the kind of house we live in, the type of food we eat, the kind of education and health care we can provide for our families. In short almost everything that we deal with on a day to day basis has, at rock bottom, some relationship to money. Money, or the lack of it, causally mediates most facets of our lives. So, by Popper’s definition, money, as an institution, is real. Certainly the ten pound note in my pocket is real in the sense that it is a World 1 material object comprising some paper, ink and a bit of silver foil. And it looks quite legal, signed by the chief cashier of the Bank of England who promises to pay the bearer, on demand, the sum of ten pounds. Suppose I put this promise to the test and take my ten pound note into a bank, present it to the cashier and demand ten pounds. There are several possible results to this test, plus one more if you count being thrown out of the bank. I may be given another ten pound note, or two five pound notes (which carry the promise to pay the bearer, on demand, the sum of five pounds), or a variety of coins stamped with values which, together, add up to ten pounds. In other words I have achieved absolutely nothing by this test and the promise to pay me the appropriate sum is an empty promise. It occurs to me therefore that when we talk about money we talk about a belief in value. That belief must be held by everyone for the money system to work and, if they all so believe, then the concept of money value becomes a social institution even though the money itself is intrinsically almost valueless. The notes and coins that we accept today as money have evolved from the ancient system of barter where goods and/or services were exchanged for other goods and/or services. This form of commodity barter resolved into an intermediate stage where one half of a transaction was replaced by rare items such as gold, silver or precious stones. A final stage of the evolution occurred when the rare items were held in safe keeping by a trusted individual who would issue the owner with a piece of paper which promised to redeem the rare items in return for the piece of paper. This, of course, was a contract that defined the liability of the banker to the owner. So our modern notes and coins are effectively contracts with only a nominal, actual worth. They represent a form of universal barter medium that can, in theory, be exchanged at a bank for the specified value of whatever commodity the world banks agree should be the exchange medium. Currently this happens to be gold. This arrangement seems to be reasonably tidy and will work very well providing we all continue to believe that our ten pound notes retain their perceived value of ten pounds. But what if they do not ? When the amount of money in circulation is balanced by the reserves of gold in a vault somewhere there is little problem. But what if the people who manage the economy choose to print more money, and release it into circulation, than can be redeemed by the gold reserves. The result of such an action would be to have the immediate effect of decreasing the absolute value of our ten pound note in proportion to the excess amount of money printed. I believe that this situation may already exist but with little practical effect because the collective belief in value is so entrenched. In other words money, as an institution, remains real because we believe it is real and because, whatever its true value, it has a major causal effect on our lives.
The Law is a social institution that touches all the citizens of a country to a greater or lesser degree. The term law, as I have used it here, should be taken to include all those specialist components of the major law groups i.e. Statutes, Civil Law ( including Common Law) and Criminal Law. Moral Law as it relates to criteria for right action is not a subject for this consideration.
As with many other long-standing social institutions, the law is taken for granted and behaviour within the law accepted without question in most circumstances. The law provides a stabilising influence to a country by setting out rights and rules of conduct for its citizens. The intention is that it should apply to all citizens in an even-handed way. In common with money it is a pervasive institution which has an effect on most facets of our lives, sometimes almost without our knowing it. For example, a driving instructor not only teaches the skills necessary to control a motor vehicle on the road but also aspects of the current law as it relates to motor vehicles. Driving on the correct side, adherence to speed limits, procedures for overtaking another vehicle and giving way at major road junctions represent a small proportion of the Rules of the Road that are promulgated to promote and ensure safe passage for all road users. For the most part these are common sense rules derived from reason, as indeed all law is expected to be. The Oxford Companion to Philosophy suggests that “Law is somehow an institution or product of human reasoning, and addressed to human reasoning.” 8 Because of its pervasive nature the law is necessarily complex and interacts with a number of other social institutions that serve to establish and preserve the law. For example the government is a legislative body with the power to enact statutes and introduce them into the law. The government in a democracy is an instance of collective intentionality at work because it is the will of the majority of voters that the government of the day is in power. The police force, together with the prison service, are institutions designed to preserve law and order and to pursue, prosecute and administer punishment to those citizens who transgress against the law. Finally the judiciary, together with its infrastructure of barristers and solicitors, is an institution designed to administer and dispense justice under the law. All these organisations exist by virtue of common consent because they help to safeguard the rights of citizens as well as ensuring their conformity of conduct.
In the United Kingdom the Welfare State is another major social institution which undertakes, with variable success, to provide for the security and welfare of its citizens. Social insurance was first provided in the UK prior to 1914 but the first fully comprehensive scheme was not implemented by the Labour Government until the mid 1940s. The purview of the Welfare State includes free medical care, insurance against sickness and unemployment, old age pensions, child benefit and housing benefit. There can be few citizens of the United Kingdom who are not touched in some way beneficially by the Welfare State but at an ever increasing burden to the taxpayer. This is a factor common to all those countries operating a form of Welfare State and is exacerbated by the fact that, in the industrialised countries particularly, there is a rise in the proportion of persons aged 65 and over to the actively employed population. This has been a noticeable trend since the mid 1970s and will have, of necessity, to lead to changes in the way that the social benefit funds are derived and distributed. What is unthinkable however is that, in a civilised society, change should lead to a return to the grinding poverty and deprivation experienced in the past. Democracy and common intent will see to that.
In a complex society there are many thousands of so-called social institutions having distinct degrees of importance. Some, like the Boy Scouts Association, have been in existence for a great many years and have achieved a huge following together with international status. Other localised groups for example, a village art club, may have relatively short lives because they serve a limited number of people. But, large or small, all these organisations or institutions demonstrate aspects of collective intentionality and all are subject to change. Cultural reality as we know it is fragile and impermanent.
Change is a major factor that has an influence on reality and we have to accept that most of reality, as we perceive it, is impermanent. Within the broad concept of cultural reality a process of evolution is taking place. The ideas of one individual or social group may take precedence over the ideas of another and, by decree or with common consent, some aspect of cultural reality will assume another guise. Take, as an early example, the British monetary system started by Offa (757-796), King of Mercia. Offa established a new currency in the form of silver pennies, 12 to a shilling-240 to a pound, bearing his name, title and portrait. The principles governing Offa’s currency were well received and maintained by successive monarchs, with no break in continuity for over a thousand years, until it was metricated under Edward Heath’s Conservative government on 15th February 1971. The monetary system may be due for another change soon if the United Kingdom chooses to join other European countries in the adoption of the Euro, an alternative, metric unit of currency. Similarly, the Imperial system of weights and measures, another British social institution, was used in the United Kingdom for centuries. The system was known as Imperial because it was largely brought into use as a result of enactments by the reigning monarchs. It was Henry I, reigned 1100-1135, who decreed that a yard measure was to be the distance from the tip of his nose to the end of the thumb of his outstretched hand. Henry III, reigned 1216-1272, decreed that three barleycorns laid end to end should be the standard length of one inch. Henry III also established the pound weight (roughly equal to the Roman libra, hence the abbreviation usually used for the pound of lb.) as the weight of 7,680 grains of wheat. He further decreed that the weight of a penny should be equal the weight of 32 grains of wheat, that the ounce should weigh 20 pennies and that 12 ounces should make up a pound. Thus the 12-ounce pound was really a monetary value and the £ symbol is also an abbreviation of libra. Henry VII, reigned 1485-1509, standardised pound weights and yard measures that were stamped as to their accuracy and placed in the safe keeping of the treasury. These standards have undergone change also, in the interests of accuracy, the latest for the pound occurring in 1844 and for the yard in 1855. With the adoption of metric currency in the United Kingdom during the 1970s a move was made to introduce metric weights and measures also. Since the mid-seventies these have run parallel with the old Imperial system of weights and measures although, from that time onwards, metric weights and measures have been taught exclusively in most schools. From 1st January 2000 it became illegal in the United Kingdom for traders to advertise goods for sale using the old system of Imperial weights. It is clear that the longevity of a social institution offers no protection when the requirements for conformity demand change.
The institution of Law undergoes continuous change as new statutes are created or as experience or precedent demands. The principal edifice of Law remains, however, and it is the social institutions of lesser importance that may come and go completely as collective intentionality waxes and wanes. As event succeeds event in the world, man gains experience in the new situation created by the latest event. That experience may be sufficient to change his intentionality and that of his fellow citizens similarly experienced, thereby instituting change. We all learn from experience and most aspects of our cultural reality are derived, in the first place, from shared experience.
It is not unexpected therefore that cultural reality in its broadest sense undergoes change because advances in science and technology, and other forms of knowledge, can profoundly affect the way we live. There would be little point in undertaking any form of research and development unless there was a general willingness to extract some advantage from it. The aim is to put appropriate new ideas, new materials and new practices into use in order to improve the quality of life.
External, mind-independent, material reality is also impermanent and subject to change. At the macro level mountain rages are thrown up and erode away, rivers create new courses, coastlines change shape and lava fields turn into fertile ground. From time to time some of these large scale topographical features are changed by localised catastrophes but, for the most part, changes occur with great slowness so that they are often difficult to detect within the average human life span. Even the atom of hydrogen, the most prolific in the universe, is subject to change by conversion into energy, conversion into heavier elements by fusion or by chemical combination. A factor common to all these changes, as with changes to cultural reality, is time. Time is the dimension of change. Newtonian time was fairly rigidly defined and could be divided neatly into past, present and future. Time “flowed” in only one direction – forward to the future – and was common throughout the universe. The Newtonian world view presented a time which identified a series of events, a series of nows occurring in a tidily ordered succession. Newton’s time was part of the structure of the so-called classical mechanics that remained in force for almost 200 years until the revolution in thought that took place in the early part of the twentieth century. Einstinian time, introduced in his special theory of relativity, was initially incomprehensible to proponents of Newton's view. Einstein's time is essentially flexible and related to motion and to gravity. The experience of time is tied fundamentally to an individual’s frame of reference so that my experience of time will not necessarily be the same as yours. Even more bizarre is the quantum universe with time appearing to be even more flexible and with time’s arrow seeming to point in all directions. So, from whatever angle we approach time it has profound implications for the nature of reality however we perceive it.
The final word on reality, therefore, has to come, not from philosophers, but from scientists such as Bohr and Heisenberg who argue that, in an absolute sense, reality is essentially indeterminate, there is nothing that can ever be known. Some philosophers would agree with this, of course, both Sanches and Kant saying much the same thing although from a less verifiable standpoint. Despite his involvement with quantum mechanics Einstein argued strongly that such an indeterministic reality was beyond conception, an argument which gave rise to his frequently quoted remark that “God does not play dice with the Universe.” Notwithstanding Einstein’s towering intellect, the weight of evidence does seem to point to the indeterminancy of the quantum universe and thus the question arises as to what is the factor, within that universe, that gives rise to the formation of material objects? And, on the other side of the coin, for those objects which are so formed what happens to the countless other possibilities that exist, or existed, at the quantum level ?
Karl Pribram’s musings that the universe might be entirely organised in the frequency domain almost certainly has some validity on the basis of our current knowledge of the structure of matter. We can marvel at the steady advances of scientific knowledge but if our sensory apparatus can distil from this domain the sensations of sound and taste and touch and smell and visual imagery then it is these that provide the most tangible aspects of our world. The absolute material reality is primarily of academic interest and knowledge of these matters is unlikely to make any significant change to the way we perceive the world. Sensory experience, despite its shortcomings, provides us with the perception of a solid material world that can bring us great joy. Perhaps we should be content with that.
To know reality you have to know beyond knowing.
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Bibliography ... on the Nature of Reality:
1 History of Western Philosophy: Lord Bertrand Russell, George Allen & Unwin. 2nd edition 1961
2 A Treatise of Human Nature: David Hume, Book I, 1739
3 Philosophical Essays Concerning Human Understanding: David Hume, 1748
4 The Self & its Brain: An argument for interaction. Karl Popper & John Eccles, Springer-Verlag 1977
5 Mind Sights. Roger N.Shepherd, W.H.Freeman & Co. 1990
6 The Selfish Gene. Richard Dawkins.
7 The Republic. Plato, Penguin Classics 1987
8 The Oxford Companion to Philosophy. Ed: Ted Honderich, Oxford University Press 1995
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