Rather A Question of Different Layers of Reality.....

Last night in bed I tried to look down the “Delphic” or spiritual tunnel a little..... and reminded myself that if we are to be philosophers ourselves in Plato’s truest sense of the word – then we must have our own opinions and ideas about things – based on what seems most probable. It is not enough for us just to know the opinions of others – even if those others include great names like Socrates, Plato and Aristotle.

With the above in mind I would like to suggest how to improve / add to / or modernise Plato's vision of reality with his unseen and superior world of ideas or forms is. I would suggest that it is more correct to say now that it is not a question of there being another reality at the end of the tunnel to the cave let's say.... and that our reality – that which we perceive with our senses is false and inferior. After all, those prisoners really do see images on the wall of the cave – and there situation would be real to them. It seems to me that it is more a question of there being "additional" realities to the one we currently live and exist in and are familiar with. There are it seems different layers of reality...... which includes our own familiar one; although there are other realities as yet to be scientifically discovered or otherwise fully explained.

I am not sure this following example helps to understand my point – so let’s see. I was thinking about some goats quietly grazing on the gentle grassy slopes of Delphi. The goats all know there is a kind shepherd who takes them for a nice walk in the sunshine each morning – and makes sure they all get home safely as night. The shepherd – a pacifist let’s say – enjoys his work and takes good care of his goats which he has all given individual names for and treats kindly. Clearly, the goats do not realise at all that the shepherd is actually feeding them up for slaughter. The shepherd does not like to think about the slaughter too much and just gets on with his peaceful work. Now it just so happens that after the slaughter of the goats – the meat is sold in market – and goes via one agent and then another to feed “coalition” UN soldiers in Afghanistan who are targeting drones to drop missiles on terrorists. Obviously, neither goat or shepherd – or probably chap at the local meat market know anything about this bigger reality. The point is – we can all think up quick examples where the reality of something is a rather bigger picture than what seems apparent to us the viewer or listener with a limited view on things.

Man has traditionally seen himself as a very important part of the universe, indeed very often the most important part. He has therefore traditionally given himself a central place in that universe. In this universe all the stars went around planet earth where the human being dominated and ruled the world. We can only guess at the impact and uneasy mind shift created when Galileo said the planets all go around the sun - and that our sun was just one of thousands of similar stars in the galaxy and universe.

Although we "know" differently now, we still like to act sometimes in the old way. When that first flag was planted on the North Pole, the South Pole, the top of Everest, and even on the Moon, was there not a feeling of "this is now ours" to own and exploit as we wish..... I guess that although science is telling us differently - we still like to give ourselves central importance and rulers of the universe status. Perhaps most of us tend to do this sub-consciously unless we are careful not too. It is after all – a very comforting and secure view of the universe even if we know it just is not so. 

I talked just now about an 'additional' reality or layers of reality rather than simply a different reality to the one we regard as "true" as Plato suggests. This view is actually being supported by science some people may find uncomfortable to hear. This view of layers of reality does not ignore the ideas of science and logic and what we already know to be true. Top scientists from cosmology already know that what we see is only a small minority part of what there is out there in the universe. And when we use the word see - what we really mean is see and therefore can comprehend..... because for the most part still..... unless people can actually see something with their own eyes then they find it difficult to believe in its existence..... or more accurately are unable to comprehend its existence.....

Scientists vary in opinion on what the proportion of this so called dark (unseen – not comprehended) matter might be. I am going to use the term "unknown universe" for the not comprehended and unseen universe of which dark matter forms only a part..... and I will tell you why I prefer this term and way of thinking in a moment. Optimistic scientists - that is those who think we know a lot about what is going on in the universe say that the dark matter (part of my unknown universe) is only 65% of reality and we can see and understand the other 35%. The general view of the scientific community though is that it may be 80% of unknown universe to 20% that we do know - and remember the tendency is to think or say that we know a bit more than we do...... So what happens if the pessimistic scientists are right and what we see or know is not 20% but 2% or 0.002%  If this is the case then how much will we really know for sure...  And readers know this, that from a few years from before Galileo when we thought we saw (and therefore assumed we knew 100%) we have steadily been realising – in spite of great technical advances and scientific discoveries - that we know less and less about what's out there..... or rather what the whole of our reality actually is. Like I say.... the current general consensus is that we know 15-20% or so of what is there..... but that figure is falling not rising as one would expect.

Now - seeing is believing - or so our consciousness’s are mostly limited to believing. And modern technology has given us new abilities to view the very big - that is the universe; and the very small - that is the mysteries of the quantum world of particle physics. Let's stick to the very big for the purposes of the rest of this short blog. We have fantastic telescopes these days compared to Galileo; the Hubble for example is out there in orbit staring into space - and this is becoming out of date fast. We have radio telescopes, infrared telescopes, and a whole range of telescopes "looking" at things in a way our eyes alone could never do using different light and energy wavelengths that our eyes (and ears) could never pick up by themselves. Actually, our equipment today covers the whole spectrum of light - and yet we are still not seeing - even by optimistic scientific predictions - this 85% of the universe.

What is the above telling us? Well, firstly it could be telling us quite simply that this extra "stuff" is not there and does not exist – and that simply – is why we cannot see it. This is more important than it sounds - since it would mean that all the calculations that predicted the existence of dark matter are flawed (to put it politely) and that we really have no idea what's going on at all. Alternatively, and I think more likely, it is telling us that all this other stuff - let's say 80+ % just cannot be seen in the usual way we see things - and that it most likely never will. But; it is still there as the mathematical calculations support. The scientists tell us it is there after all; they 'expect' us to believe that 80+ % of the universe is there although it cannot be seen - with any light wavelength viewing equipment – which means that we are never likely to see it in the way we normally think of as “seeing” things.
We as philosophers are therefore now obliged to propose, summarise, or guess what that 85% of the unknown universe is - and suggest why it is that way..... and also suggest ways that might help us understand it - even if we must now accept that even with all these telescopes - we will NEVER actually see it. Yet, the scientists and calculations tell us to believe it.....

For philosophers, or those true philosophers according to Plato, this is where the mind comes into play..... or rather our consciousness..... or for spiritual people like me perhaps where the soul comes into play.

If not additional layers of reality - then what do you propose instead ?

 

The Three Powers of The Psyche (Soul) and their Virtues

In the early spring of 2013 I had the pleasure to attend three “Socratic” lectures in London given by the Prometheus Educational Trust. I posted brief details on this blog at the time for anyone who might want to go along; but now I wish to pick out one or two threads and ideas from those talks. This post will outline the essence of what Socrates and Plato meant by VIRTUE and EXCELLENCE (ARETE)– which is just slightly different than what we often regard as “the virtues” as later described in specific detail by Aristotle. Tim Addey reminds us in his first talk ‘The Philosopher in the World’ that philosophy (the love of wisdom) in its simplest sense is just about making the best choice we can when faced with a range of possible actions in a given situation. Every human being chooses what they consider to be the wisest choice and rejects the more foolish according to their own criteria. No-one would choose to act foolishly we can presume – although that may become apparent in hindsight.

We have as Tim suggests to make our way through the drama of life, hopefully avoiding too much tragedy – and hopefully not “frutting and stretting like poor actors across the stage” too much as Shakespeare once beautifully put it. In order to live well – we must Know Ourselves as inscribed above Apollo’s temple in Delphi; and this means to know where we are and what we are as individual human beings, collective societies and as human beings within a vast universe. Now whether readers of this piece are religious and spiritual people or not – I want to find and use a term for the inner self – or rational consciousness – that makes rational decisions about the actions we can take. Tim Addey suggests using the word ‘soul’ providing we can leave the considerable baggage associated with this word behind. I somehow doubt this – and so will stick to the word “psyche” used by the ancient Greeks, which literally meant 'breath'. Keep in mind that the word 'psyche' meant a little bit more to the ancient Greeks in some ways that soul means to us today; but in other ways carried less baggage than the word 'soul' does to most people today. For the non-spiritual reader “rational consciousness as yet to be fully scientifically explained” will do just as well – but I shall use psyche for convenience now.

Now the seeker of wisdom – the philosopher – in the Socratic and Platonic tradition consciously cultivates wisdom as he goes through the life lived by the psyche while living as a human being here on earth.

The psyche is seen as having three essential faculties or powers - and one of these might be called the ‘desiring’ nature which pursues what it perceives to be goodness through an instinctive attraction to whatever is beautiful.

The second faculty we can call the ‘knowing’ nature which peruses goodness and truth through investigation and trying to look beyond the first appearances of the person or situation requiring action. On another level it persues the truly good rather than what merely appears to be good or a good idea.

The third faculty or power sits somewhere between the previous two - almost trying to harmonise them into a unified whole. This third faculty was known as ‘thumos’ in Greek – which actively desires the good but listens also to the rational and investigative part of the psyche. It is often vary clumsily translated with the word 'anger' today – but it should include ‘spirited’ and 'vibrant' and 'positive actions' within its borders. Once again, we must be cautious with the way some words are translated since we use some words differently these days. I will therefore keep to the word thumos for this third faculty or power of the psyche.

This gives us a tri-partite psyche (soul) in the Platonic view – and this idea comes up time and again in the writings of Plato in various ways. My favourite example is in the Phaedrus dialogue – where we find the Myth of the Charioteer presenting the rational part of the psyche as a Charioteer being pulled by a good white horse (the spirited, active and ordinative part of the psyche) and a dark unruly horse which represents the desiring or appetitive part of the psyche.  Without going into all the details here – it is sufficient to quote that: ‘the life of the Charioteer is not always an easy one…..’

Now….. finally moving to my main theme of this particular blog – the virtue & excellence of the various parts of the psyche – I should point out that each of the three main faculties of the soul mentioned above can be improved individually – which leads on to the improvement of the whole psyche. Indeed, each of the three faculties has a perfection – and were a person able to perfect all three areas he would have perfected his psyche or soul as much as a human being could in the this mortal life. The perfection of these three faculties of the soul is ARETE in its formal description – that is VIRTUE and EXCELLENCE.

Specifically, the improvement and excellence of rational, knowing, investigative faculty of the soul (the Charioteer) is wisdom - where we become proficient in recognising the truly good from what only appears to be good…. 

The excellence of the thumos (spirited and active part - the white horse) is fortitude or courage – which keeps us going in tough and difficult times – and can keep us steadfast and stable amidst the storms of life.  It also helps to keep us true to the directions of the rational faculty, even in difficult times when easier options to choose from might tempt us away from the path we have chosen.

The improvement or excellence of the desiring quality of the soul (the dark unruly horse) is temperance – so that our pursuit of goodness in the form of beauty remains within its proper limits…. and allows our normal human desires to be kept under the control of the rational faculty. (It is not wrong to have desires per se in Plato –or to act on these desires providing that are kept under rational control.

In addition to the three virtues or excellences of the psyche mentioned above (temperance, wisdom, fortitude or courage) there is a fourth virtue in the Platonic tradition JUSTICE – which is mostly where a civil community is arranged in the best way for the community. Justice can also be applied to our personal choices and therefore psyche or soul in some ways.This is a reasonable enough point to clarify that while we often talk about a tripartite soul in Plato - it does not mean that it is in three distinct bits which are then stuck together - it simply means that there are three distinct qualities or powers to the psyche.

Now just a little more about these four virtues – three which are mostly faculties of the psyche or soul – and the fourth which largely applies to our communities and societies as a whole. The psyche can exercise its various powers outwardly towards the world, inwardly towards itself, and upwardly so to speak towards the immaterial causes, the divine, and the metaphysical. In each of these three cases (directions) the development of the four virtues is necessary if the process of obtaining excellence (ARETE) is to be advanced.

When the virtues are directed outwardly they are called civic or political virtues;

When the virtues are directed inwardly for self-improvement they are called cathartic (or purifying) virtues;

When directed upwards they are called contemplative or theoretic virtues; (….. and Tim Addey reminds us in his talk that: ‘for the causes from which we descend are only to be seen in purest contemplation’.)

“Bite Size Chunks” is one of the promises of this blog and so I will finish this introductory look at the Socratic Platonic four virtues here. I will conclude by adding just one more paragraph from the notes to Tim Addey’s talk on this subject:

‘This then, is the internal constitution of the human soul, with its powers and excellences: but what is the place of such a creature in the world? If justice enables parts to contribute to the whole, what kind of life should we be living in order to both give and take goodness in the universe…….. and how will the lover of wisdom extend the goodness inherent in his or her soul into the material world.

Notes: I hope to place some more ideas from these Prometheus Trust talks into “Bite Size Chunks” in due course. For those who would like to read more on this now take a look at my original post about these talks which has links to the full notes.

 See: The Philospher in the World (by Tim Addey)

For those of you who would like to read how I personally think this background is useful for our lives today (4 Today) there is a short piece on this subject on my more personal blog at: Virtue and Excellence In Leisure Time

Phaedo - Some Thoughts - 01

I am in the process of re-reading the Phaedo where Socrates talks to a group of friends on the morning of his execution in his prison in Athens. These discussions are quite detailed (and timely as Socrates points out) since they are mostly about the soul and its immortality after physical death along with various related topics.  As usual, a number of these discussions and topics will stand out as being of particular interest to individual readers – at a particular moment in their lives - as is often the case with the writings of Plato. This short blog post of mine today merely wants to highlight a few small points that I found particularly interesting myself while reading a few pages of Phaedo again with my coffee this morning and indeed over the last couple of days.

Firstly, I thought Socrates encapsulated that modern feel very well for those people who have done any “spiritual searching”  themselves and have gone to one type of religious meeting after another offered by various groups such as those based on many different types of Christianity, Buddhism, or New Age style practices. 

Socrates recounts to his friends that once he heard someone reading from a book by the philosopher Anaxagoras that: ‘mind was the disposer and cause of all’ and that he [Socrates]: ‘rejoiced to think that I had found in Anaxagoras a teacher of the causes of existence such as I desired’. Unfortunately for Socrates – and I am sure for many modern day searchers for spiritual wisdom and fellowship – he continues a few lines later:

     ‘What expectations I had formed, and how grievously I was disappointed! As I proceeded , I found my philosopher altogether forsaking mind or any other principle of order, but having recourse to air, and ether, and water, and other eccentricities.’

The above few lines reminded me of the feelings I had myself as a young man of joining a new religious or philosophical organisation and then being disappointed as one goes further to find less and less substance holding up the deck of cards of their beliefs and practices. However, these few lines also sounded a very positive and harmonious note to me for the benefits of studying philosophy – being that by far the best and most honest solution for our search is a personal exploration of matters divine and spiritual – where one can discard those things that seem to be ‘improbable’ and hang on to those things that seem to be the most probable and plausible after a careful examination of any proposition and the alternatives personally. 

It seems also a good moment now to repeat an advice of mine to new students of Socrates and Plato – whether young or old – and that is not to even contemplate taking the whole corpus of Plato’s more spiritual writing and regarding it like some religious totalitarian doctrine to be swallowed in full without question or doubt - as is often the case with the doctrines offered by most of the more established religious organisations of today and previous years. No; this is not the way of the evolving “real” philosopher. It is much better for real platonic philosophers to accept some parts and disagree with other parts (and indeed perhaps to sit on the fence with other parts)  according to one’s own deliberations and explorations at a given period of time in their lives. (i.e. we may change or amend our views as the years go by and should not be afraid or too proud to do so….)

I should like now to raise one nagging difficulty I have with various explanations and descriptions of the soul that come up in the Phaedo dialogue and indeed throughout the works of Plato. If for the sake of argument we accept that the soul exists – then to my mind it most certainly is a very unusual and unique thing or perhaps kind of stuff. I therefore find explanations of the soul and its various attributes very weak if they make use of ‘universal principles’ as occurs often in Plato’s writings. For example, if one said that wardrobes, chairs, and tables are hard on the outside – it does not naturally follow on for me (and most others I suspect) that the soul is also hard on the outside. If one said that liquids such as tea, coffee and brandy need to be kept in a vessel to stop them simply dispersing away – it does not follow on to me that this also applies to the soul. In other words, unless we have a pretty good idea about what this soul stuff is in the first place – I think it is pretty hard to suggest what it can and cannot do and achieve with any kind of accuracy – or offer up an argument using examples from this ‘world of the senses’ as some kind of “proof” .

Talking of proofs - as a former high school maths teacher myself (but certainly no mathematician) – I have some idea of course about the use of mathematical proofs in order to support the truth of various hypothesise and proposals. However, in mathematics each proof usually relies on at least one accepted truth at its foundation. A simple example might be that if I take a scale and weigh 1 litre of wine – I can see that it weighs 1 kilogram. Now if somebody asks me what do you thing half as much wine (500 mls) weighs – I do not really have to speculate – but rather can calculate that it is 500 grams and I can explain why and offer a proof if needed. I can do this because the original starting point or truth (1000mls = 1 litre = 1 kilogram) is a rock solid foundation to start to build an endless number of examples on.

Explaining schoolboy maths and explaining the existence, immortality, and various lives and functions of the soul seem to be very different things to me – and the idea that by using any combination of words, arguments or examples from the sensible world one can claim to have proved something about the soul seems awkward at best to me.  This is not to say one cannot perhaps offer convincing reasons for choosing a personal position on these and similarly metaphysical matters.

I could not make a few quick comments on the Phaedo without mentioning a few favourite lines from Plato of many years standing that come up towards the end of the dialogue just after Socrates gives his frankly bizarre description of the soul’s passage through the underworld and giant rivers circling the earth. Just after this strange description are some simple but truly important lines to me which bind me to the texts of Plato and the philosophy of Socrates even if some of the descriptions appear hard to believe. Socrates says:

     ‘A man of sense ought not to say, nor will I be very confident that the description which I have given of the soul and her mansions is exactly true. But I do say that, inasmuch as the soul is shown to be immortal, he may venture to think, not improperly or unworthily, that something of the kind is true…’  [i.e. we can think of it in this way even if it is not ‘literally’ accurate … like most diagrams of atoms or molecules and a host of other ideas in any modern day science classroom.]

In conclusion, I am not sure that words alone will ever be able to prove the existence of the soul and its activities and qualities to anyone; let alone a sufficiently large number of people in the modern world.

What Do You Think? If not words, then what other ways are there?