Relative Reality And Its Importance
I think that most people, throughout their lives, attempt to develop their own personal philosophy—their own attempts to explain themselves and the world they live in. Of all the ideas expressed by the various philosophers in Sophie’s World, two philosophies struck me as massively agreeable, appealing, and influential to the development of my own philosophy. First and foremost was empiricism.
Alberto’s very first description of empiricism was “A number of philosophers held that we have nothing in the mind that we have not experienced through the senses.” (Page 258). This description immediately struck a chord. Were I a cartoon, upon reading this a bright light bulb would have appeared over my head. The empiricist philosophy made all the sense in the world to me, and the chapter dedicated to it opened a door within in my mind that led to a roomful of questions. How can one be rational, or have rational, complex thought without language? Do we not all have an inner monologue, and is language not the one thing that has contributed most to our success as a species? Complex thought seems to be a product of language, and thus does not seem to be innate. Humans learn language by observing adults who have already mastered lingual skills. We learn by sensation. We perceive our parents speech through our faculty of audition, and those perceptions are stored in memory. As those memories build up, the "habituation" Alberto referred to begins to develop in our mind and, consequently, our language develops as well. Because language and thought are interdependent, our thought develops simultaneously and we cease to be a bundle of emotion.
As I attempted to mentally address these questions, I read past Locke and Hume and read the lesson dedicated to Berkeley. Reading about Berkeley brought about a serious case of epiphany for me. According to Alberto, Berkeley said, “…the only things that exist are those we perceive” (page 279). As is made clear by the majority of my remarks in class, I have yet to find a way to disagree with Berkeley’s thinking. How can we say some things are real or unreal if we experience them? How can something be irrational if our perceptions create thought? What is the difference between experiencing something in a dream, and experiencing something while awake? The only way I could explain this was to think of reality as being relative. However an individual experiences the world (or should I say, “their” world?) is a reality to them, because our realities consist of nothing more than our perceptions. Like Alberto said in response to Sophie banging her hand down on the table “You had a sensation of something hard, but you didn’t feel the actual matter in the table.” (page 280).
However, I could not help but have some qualms with this type of thinking. I could not help but feel that Berkeley, Locke, and Hume were all missing something, a “larger picture” if you will. I think the idea of a relative reality, model-dependant reality, has certain implications in our modern society, and neither Locke, nor Berkeley, nor Hume addressed these implications. They focused simply on human experience and not on human society.
Eventually, I read the lesson dedicated to Karl Marx. It provided me with one more epiphany. On page 388, Alberto quotes Marx, saying, “…’philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it’.” This perfectly embodies what I thought the empiricists were missing out on. It is certain that no two people think exactly alike. Could this be because no two people perceive their realities exactly alike? If that’s the case, then the implications for modern society are very important. If reality is subjective, then should we not govern ourselves accordingly? Does this not mean that, since everybody perceives things differently, that there is no single concrete way to experience the world? If that is the case, then why are so many laws made under the assumption of an objective morality? Some people consider it against their morals to consume drugs such as marijuana, MDMA, or lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), however many other individuals use such drugs recreationally for their own personal reasons. These people do not consider it a violation of their moral code to partake in drug use. These two people perceive the world differently, and therefore have differing realities; one in which they cannot, in good conscience, consume drugs, the other in which the consumption of such drugs is perfectly acceptable. Yet societies all across the world punish those who see the world from a more drug-lenient perspective. These societies are treating life and human thought as if it were concrete and standard, when it is purely relative. This kind of thinking has the potential to cause injustice in every aspect of life.
I think Karl Marx was incredibly correct; the point is to change the world. If that means applying philosophy to societal structure, governance, and behavior, then what Sophie’s World has to teach us is of far greater significance than I had previously imagined.
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