Intellectual Devotional, Day 6: Appearance and Reality

Josh here.  As Professor Miskatonic (PM) told you last time, we're reading through the Intellectual Devotional (ID) together.  I suggested we try having our conversations in a blog format.  My personal hope, both in the reading and the blogging, is that it helps improve my critical thinking skills, as well as my ability to write coherently.  In this age of instant messaging, texting, and informal emails, I've found that my writing has really suffered.

The topic of Appearance and Reality falls under the Philosophy category of the ID.  This is particularly difficult for me; my tendency is to try to think of things scientifically, not philosophically.  The text primarily discusses the beliefs of the "Presocratic" philosophers with respect to their views on the nature of reality.  It essentially boils down to: what we perceive isn't reality.  I'm more familiar with this concept couched in the terms of Platonic Ideals.  I'm going to make a mess of this, but Plato's contention was, for example, what we see as a 'chair' is a chair because it has some inherent property of "chairness."  We may never know a true "chair," just some approximation in our reality of one.  I came across this fun little article while reading up on these topics.

This is not quite what the Presocratics were talking about.  For example, the article discusses the views of Thales, who held that, no matter the appearance, all matter is in fact ultimately made of water.  While I don't think this is true, you could draw a parallel to modern science - we know that everything is not made of water, but we have strong evidence that there are some number of basic particles that form all of the matter around us.  Heraclitus, on the other hand, believed that everything is constantly in motion.  Again, I see a parallel with modern science; we know that the atoms that make up everything have smaller constituent particles that are moving all of the time!

As an aside, like PM, I've noticed the articles are pretty basic so far.  The ID's purpose appears to be to give you little nuggets you can throw out in conversation; my intent is to use the articles as a jumping-off point for discussion and thought.