(H) The True Significance of Ideas.

If we return to what Descartes said a few pages back, he said:
‘All up to the present time I have accepted as most true and certain I have learned either from the senses or through the senses; but it is sometimes proved to me that these senses are deceptive…’

Sometimes it may seem that the senses are deceptive, for example, if we put a pencil in a glass of water it seems broken at the waterline, but in reality it isn’t. It might be argued on this basis that the perception is inaccurate to reality. However, in reality refraction occurs: the angle of the light rays is altered when passing through water. This refraction is consistent in nature, such that the Archer Fish, (toxotes jaculatrix) is able to account for refraction and shoot down over-flying insects with a jet of water. Indeed, the existence of evolved life, exhibiting such behaviours, not only demonstrates that reality is consistent in nature, but shows that perception is accurate to reality.

We can describe plants, organisms that interact with the environment in a manner conducive to survival as a function of their physical form, as having functional intelligence. Animals also have functional intelligence, for their physical form enables them to survive, but unlike plants, animals interact with the environment through behaviour, and therefore also have behavioural intelligence.

While a functionally intelligent plant survives merely by being what it is, a behaviourally intelligent animal must adopt forward facing strategies for survival, acting in anticipation of things to come in order to survive. For example, a bird must build a nest before it lays its eggs. The behaviourally intelligent organism must be ahead of the game, acting in anticipation of things to come in order to survive.

Both functional and behavioural intelligence speak of a reality that is holistic and consistent. It is inconceivable that organisms could have survived or evolved were it otherwise. The way plants use sunlight to convert water and carbon dioxide into carbohydrates and oxygen shows that a consistent set of chemical relationships must exist. Similarly, the way oxygen is carried in the blood to the brain and muscles shows these chemical relationships must be consistent – but behavioural intelligence also demonstrates a consistent set of physical relationships; that the animal is able to move through space, and time, accounting for gravity and so forth, in order to grab that branch rather than plunge its death, in order to shoot down an over-flying insect, or whatever is required to survive.

Clearly, local environmental conditions change, and organisms are either able to survive or not, but the underlying physical and chemical nature of reality must be consistent for the function or die algorithm of evolution to generate biological forms that exhibit survival intelligence. Thus the senses must be accurate to reality on two levels. The senses must be functionally intelligent with respect to reality – in that they are formed from the physical stuff of reality in such a way as to function, and they must be behaviourally intelligent, in that they must enable the animal to execute forward facing strategies for survival. That so, what is the nature of the apparent deception Descartes observes?

In his book ‘A Theory of Social Action,’ Talcott Parsons insists:
‘It is fundamental that there is no empirical knowledge that is not in some sense, and to some degree conceptually formed. All talk of ‘pure sense data’ or ‘the unformed stream of consciousness’ is not descriptive of actual experience but rather a matter of methodological abstraction…In other words, in Professor Henderson’s phrase, all empirical observation is ‘in terms of a conceptual scheme.’ (p.28)

Imagine for example, the different experiences of two people seeing the same meteor shower, one an astrophysicist, the other a woman whose boyfriend has just that moment proposed marriage. The astrophysicist is likely to see the heat induced oxidization of ferrous rock, while the woman may very well see a good omen – that is unless it were a woman astrophysicist whose boyfriend had just proposed marriage, in which case she might experience both understandings of the phenomenon.

Nevertheless, what we see depends upon how we interpret sensory perception – and this is Descartes mistake. He sets up what he expects to see as the truth, and then assumes his senses must be faulty when reality does not conform to his expectations.
But if evolution is so intimately related to a reality of a consistent nature, why should the ability to interpret perceptions develop, when it might so frequently lead us astray?

In order to answer this question we need to look at the ‘ought from is’ argument – a philosophical staple first raised by David Hume (1711–1776), the same problem that G.E. Moore describes as the ‘naturalistic fallacy.’ Hume noted that many writers make claims about what ought to be on the basis of statements about what is, beginning by stating a number of related facts, and then, without pausing for breath, nor with solid grounds in reason, shift the argument into ought mode. Moore insists that logically, no set of statements about reality contain within them sufficient information to necessitate a moral position.

Given this argument, part of the reason it’s necessary to interpret perceptions in terms of conceptual schemes is that perception, while accurate to reality, is always limited. In the first place perception is limited to certain portions of the visual and auditory spectra. Beyond that, in common sense terms we can suppose a limit on how far we can see – though in reality, sight is essentially the passive receipt of light, that if the source is sufficiently illuminated, there is no limit. Similarly, the theoretical limit upon the scale of visual perception, summed by the uncertainty principle of Quantum Mechanics is reached long before the impact of a single light wave/particle will alter the object of perception, so we can safely assume a limit upon the size of things we can see. A limit to the quantity of perceptions has equal appeal to common sesnse yet is equally problematic to define, in that what we count as perception might refer to all the light reaching the back of the eyeball – or could be defined as that to which attention is paid.

Nonetheless, perceptions are clearly limited in a number of ways, and thus it’s necessary to supplement these limited accurate perceptions with conceptual schemes; theories of reality embodied in the physical structure of the brain, that fill in the gaps, so to speak – as Dr Jonathon Miller suggests in his book ‘The Body in Question’:
‘sensory input provides symbols or clues that enable the brain to choose between its alternate models of reality.’ (p.338.)

Above, where Daniel C. Dennett discusses the validity of the theory of evolution he says: ‘Like Gulliver tied down in Lilliput, it is unbudgable, not because of some one or two huge chains of argument that might – hope against hope have weak links in them, but because it is securely tied by hundreds of thousands of threads of evidence linking it to virtually every area of human knowledge.’
This is a very astute idea of truth, for it accords absolutely with an evolutionary conception of the human being, limited accurate perceptions reconciled in terms of conceptual schemes, and a holistic and consistent reality. In order to understand these relationships better, we can schematize them:

The vertical axis describes a holistic and consistent reality, in theory constituted of an infinite number of limited accurate perceptions.

The horizontal axis describes the experiencing self, as the sum of all possible conceptual schemes.

Limited accurate perceptions are reconciled in terms of conceptual schemes in order to generate understanding. The greater the number of perceptions reconciled, the more valid the understanding.

Just as the astrophysicist and the bride-to-be both see the same meteor shower, but understand what they see differently by reconciling these perceptions in different terms, similarly, Hume’s writer states a number of facts and then seeks to reconcile these facts in terms of a moral conceptual scheme. It works both ways. We apply conceptual schemes to reconcile perceptions, but also derive conceptual schemes by reconciling perceptions in non-contradictory, logical relations.

It’s very important to note that perceptions reconciled in terms of existing conceptual schemes form new conceptual schemes that are then re-applied, and this can lead to very subtle confusions that are wholly experienced, like Descartes’ pencil – where there is a conflict between conceptual expectation and visual perception.

When we consider the conceptual evolution of humankind in these terms, we really get an insight into what’s going on. Primitive man made the link between artefact and artificer, and then re-applied this conceptual scheme to explain his existence in the world. The result was an artificer of the world, a Creator – God who he accepted, along with others, as an absolute authority for law.

As Darwin notes:
‘The same high mental faculties which first led man to believe in unseen spiritual agencies, then in fetishism, polytheism, and ultimately in monotheism, would infallibly lead him, as long as his reasoning powers remained poorly developed, to various strange and superstitious customs.’

In the Bible it’s suggested that the earth stands still while the sun is in orbit around it – and to primitive man it must have seemed so. The earth seems to stand still while the sun rises in the east, moves across the sky and sets in the west, while the moon and the stars, as viewed from the surface of the earth, travel across the night sky, returning to their starting points with time of day, day of the month and season of the year, but that’s not what’s actually happening.

By showing that some perceptions could not be reconciled in these terms, Galileo proved that this conceptual scheme was false, and furthermore that perceptions were better explained by a heliocentric conceptual scheme, that is a stationary sun with the earth in orbit around it. By then however, the Church of Rome had been claiming otherwise, and insisting on the absolute truth of their claims as justification for holding great wealth and the exercise of power of life and death for hundreds of years.

Rather than admit that this claim was false, and give up wealth and power however, they used their power to suppress Galileo’s ideas – both succeeding and failing in part. The Church failed insofar as their monopoly on such truth claims was ended in the Peace of Westphalia – as European monarchs took sovereignty unto themselves claiming the Divine Right of Kings. But equally, that very claim supported the Church – but where before, man had bowed down to knowledge, now knowledge bowed down to man.