As a university physics student, I learnt that the way in which we observe an experiment ultimately determines a large portion of the experiment's outcome (this is especially true of quantum and relativistic physics). At first, this principle seems goofy, silly, and downright unrealistic. But eventually, with enough professorial and mathematical encouragement, the unintended impact of observation became my established world-view.
Applying this trait of physics to the real world, I reason that since everyone perceives reality differently we will all have a different experience of reality. And because we measure/understand reality based on our experiences, the whole concept of "reality" or "the real world" quickly dissolves into an infinite spectrum of realities that can only be grouped by their commonality. Every individual "reality" being determined, at least in part, by the observer, his or her background, ideology, and personal history.
I am not the first to see the connection between Einsteinian physics and post-modernity. The power of observation, which is what I understand post-modernism to be, drove notable physicist/mathematician Alfred North Whitehead, to turn to philosophy and theology after the collapse of Newtonian physics in the early 1900s. Whitehead's book Religion in the Making is well worth the read for the way it tackles comparative religious study, and if I recall correctly, one of the first books of that academic discipline.
But what, I can hear you asking, is the connection with antiquity?
I was reminded of Einstein and the importance of one's perspective when I compared two books I am currently reading: Egypt After the Pharaohs 332 BC-AD 642, and The Last Pharaohs - Egypt Under the Ptolemies, 305-30. The former views the Ptolemaic dynasty as a break from Egypt's pharaonic tradition while the latter sees them as a continuation of that tradition. Both studies take into consideration the same histories, the same papyrological evidence, but their approach to the Ptolemaic kingdom differs, one from the shores of Greece and the other from the temple in Memphis. They agree on the facts, but disagree about their interpretation and their meaning.
So, which study reflects the reality of Ptolemaic Egypt? Well, that all depends on your perspective.
From my perspective ...
ReplyDeleteThe "commonality" of which you speak can be regarded as basic reality, can it not? If there is something that binds all the disparate perspectives together, can it have some kind of macro-level authority? (a group effect: an emergent property/higher-level reality ... the same way that Newtonian physics can indeed in a repeatable and accurate way describe certain physical events on the macro scale. Or, in chemistry, there are question: at what point is water really water? Can you really describe water's behaviour by looking at one molecule of water? Something that is only true and observed at a group scale, but is nonetheless true.)
Following your analogy, if we allow any kind of "basic reality" or "commonality" in the door, then I think we've allowed what we can call truth - not that we always know the whole-truth, but that it is. (Not a Platonist "forms," but a whole-truth reality here.)
So in this sense, despite the different interpretations offered by the two books on Ptolemaic Egypt, there was a reality called Ptolemaic Egypt. So, presumably one of the books is nearer to representing it accurately than the other - or perhaps they are equally far off, or simply discussing different parts of the same evidence. The interpretations are half-truths, but they do not preclude the existence of a whole-truth. This is where, as far as I can tell, the Whitehead and the Wightman disagree.
My old philosophy prof Dr. Paul Bogaard had interesting things to say about this stuff, and would say it better than I can.
Thoughts?
-Martin
While it may make sense that the most common experiences of reality ought to be regarded as true, and in many cases this may seem like the best alternative; however, I am uneasy with a democratic determination of reality.
DeleteAllow me an example: ghosts.
I imagine that the majority of Canadians, if polled, would say that ghosts do not factor into their experience of reality, so they do not believe ghosts to be real. Since we want to claim that the most common experiences constitute "reality", we may be inclined to declare with the populous that there is no such thing as ghosts.
The problem comes when we conduct that same poll in first century Palestine (we will have to relay on historical recreation and imagination). The belief in ghosts was wide spread and would likely have been an unquestioned reality within their worldview, so the vast majority of people living in that time and that place would have responded that ghosts factor into their experience of reality. Therefore ghosts do in fact exist.
Do ghosts exist or not? All I am able to say (hiding behind my shield of post-modernity) is that ghosts have not not factored into my experience of reality, so I can neither confirm nor deny the existence of ghosts as an absolute statement. I am left with only a relativistic statement.
I'm not sure my statement is in any way coherent, but here goes ...
DeleteI can agree with your unease regarding truth by democracy. That's not what I was intending to champion. May I rework your ghost example for a moment? I shall.
As a person becomes aware of the concept or notion of ghosts, a truth about ghosts emerges as a property. Not that the person necessarily knows the truth about ghosts (or even has a way of knowing it), but ghosts, as an idea, come into existence for that person. So, the person may say "yes, ghosts are real," "no, ghosts are not real," or "I'll never know for sure." But the person is aware that a truth about ghosts exists, simply by having become conscious of the concept of ghosts.
By awaking to the idea of something, we force reality upon that something for ourselves, and share that reality with others who have the same consciousness. It doesn't mean we know the truth about it, it only means we know that there is a truth about it of some sort or another.
So, I'm disagreeing with the final statement in your post. We can say we don't know which account of Ptolemaic Egypt is true or closest to true. We could even say that we cannot know which account is true - that there are no valid ways to find out what truth is. But truth doesn't depend, in any sense, on our perspective.