Perspective and Truth

"The world is seen through human eyes and processed through human minds. Minds that are developed and conditioned by human society.  While the natural world is not a human creation, our descriptions of it and our perceptions of it have to be."

"Imagine a crowd of people standing around and admiring an immense and intricately and beautifully decorated building like the Palace of Versailles. Ask each one of them independently for a description of what they saw."

"It will come as no surprise that each person gives a slightly different description. No two will be identical even though all the people were looking at the same building. Each person will make choices of features of particular interest to him, will see and interpret things according to his own unique mind and dispositions."

"A priest for example might speak most about the chapel and see religious symbolism where others don't. A mathematician might focus on the geometry of the architecture and notice symmetries and proportions which may or may not have been in the mind of the original architect. A gardener might make mention of things nobody noticed, like curious plants growing out of cracks in the wall. You can also be sure that a 19th century group of people would describe it differently from a 21st century group of people."

"So the description of an object is dependent on both the reality of the object - the thing being described, and the societal context of the observer - the thing doing the describing."

There are sometimes things which seem to contradict. If we have the full picture we may find out that all the perspectives are right. Everyone's perception of reality is biased by their own experiences and world view. One view is not necessarily of more or less value than another view. But we should try to understand the viewpoint of others when we try to understand what they are trying to say to us.

Source: The Great Courses - History of Science: Antiquity to 1700

Life is an Adventure

This example of a man who travels but doesn't learn much is from a series of lectures about the history of science. The professor wants us to learn from the past but not to judge the historical figures and cultures through the lens of "today". I really liked the story.

"Imagine a traveler who takes with him the definitions and evaluations of things he devised in the narrow confines of his own home town. Let's say he travels to France. He's in France now, and in due course he gets hungry. So he begins to look for food. Well, to him back at home, food means fast-food."

"So he searches around France for McDonalds. He has to search a long time, but eventually he finds one or another - but many, many fewer than he's used to. Since he hasn't bothered to learn the local language and doesn't care to expand his horizons by coming to know the local natives, these are the only places he finds to eat."

"So what does he conclude when he gets home from his trip? That in France the food is just like the food at home, except that there's a whole lot less of it. So the French must not be as advanced in regards to food or as interested in food."

"He has missed the entire point of travel. Travel is most valuable when it expands our horizons. It teaches us new things and new perspectives. It forces us to question our assumptions. And it urges us to discover and even adopt new things that we might have never heard of before."

I think the story illustrates a useful point. Sometimes when we experience something new we want to interpret it in terms of what we already know and understand instead of letting the thing stand on its own and learning about it according to its own terms.

It also makes me think of people (like myself) who tend to get wound up when things go off-book. It is good to remember that the fun is in the journey more than the destination. And in life, things often do not go according to plan. Be willing to open up yourself to new experiences. There is truth and goodness in a lot of unexpected places. We can learn truth and add it to what we have, collecting it from whatever sources are available, instead of just relying on what we already have.

"[Life] is an adventure. Pack your bags. Leave the bad baggage at home. Travel light. Keep your eyes and ears open. Talk to the natives. Listen to the natives. Try to understand the natives. And have fun."

Source: The Great Courses - History of Science: Antiquity to 1700