While reading a post over at another blog, I came across a reference to this talk, by Neal A Maxwell. The talk was given when I was but one year old; yet the message is just as relevant today as it was back then. It is rich with wisdom, and I hope to write a number of blog posts, each dealing with one or two points from the talk.
The first of which I would like to tackle involves time and perspective. I've created my own little analogy that houses my perspective on knowledge, science, epistemology, and revelation. Let's call it the Ant and the Rock Analogy:
A tiny ant lives under a rock in my backyard. During it's lifespan it may traverse the entirety of my backyard at some point, and it may even venture into the yards of my close neighbors. It is safe to imagine that the existence is anchored in the rock under which it lives. Generally speaking, this ant knows the rock, and some of it's immediate surroundings.
Now, can this ant even comprehend my house? He has seen my house, and maybe even come inside and escaped back out (I'm out of Raid at the moment); but can this ant hold in its brain the concept of a house? Or this computer at which I'm sitting? Of the stove? The bathroom? The books in my shelves? I don't think so.
Furthermore, can this ant comprehend my neighborhood? An entire collection of houses? Can it comprehend the Wendy's on the corner, or the traffic light at 54th and 40th (granted, many people can't comprehend the traffic pattern at this intersection!), or Bangerter Highway? No chance.
And we move out further. Could this ant comprehend the State of Utah? The United States? The World Cup (Yes! Argentina lost.)? Or the Pacific Ocean? It would truly be silly to think that this little ant could comprehend anything past its finite universe of my backyard.
And yet. This ant has some friends, who, knowing no more than he does, claim to have a complete understanding of the rock, my house, the fence, the trampoline, and the planes overhead. Some of his friends tell him there's nothing beyond the house (and that it's there by chance anyway), and other friends tell him there are no other ant colonies besides their own. Depending on their lifespans, many doubt the existence of humans (I'm dropping an hint about how lazy I am about yardwork these days!). I wonder what these friends said two weeks ago when I finally fixed and turned on the sprinklers after 12 years of not using them. And what if I move their rock when I finally decide to weed that section of my garden? I might even relocate some dirt, moving some ants from the front yard to the backyard. That would make for some great stories among the ants!
The thing is, this ant can know with a surety about the real nature of things beyond it's realm of existence. How? By a visiting and (being) that can teach him. Will that ant comprehend everything? Probably not, and it will struggle to arrange the new information to fit in it's current worldview. His worldview will necessarily expand.
It will all depend on whether that ant believes the visitor, and whether or not that visitor can be trusted. And who is going to believe the ant who reports about the visitor?
Who are you believing? And Why?
I know this type of analogy has been written in many forms. Terry Pratchett brilliantly presents similar paradigm paradoxes in a lot of his work (try The Bromeliad Trilogy). Another great analogy can be found in Flatland, by Adwin Abbot. Like all analogies, it can break if abused, but I think it can also be very helpful in discovering important questions that we must all answer for ourselves.
Now, on to the Maxwell talk. He quotes someone else, in this following passage:
I should like, if I may, to share with you on this point the fine writing of your own A. Lester Allen, a dean and scientist on this campus. This is what I have come to call the “Allen Analogy” about time. Let me read you these lines, if I may. Their application will be obvious. Dean Allen writes:
Suppose, for instance, that we imagine a “being” moving onto our earth whose entire life-span is only 1/100 of a second. Ten thousand “years” for him, generation after generation, would be only one second of our time. Suppose this imaginary being comes up to a quiet pond in the forest where you are seated. You have just tossed in a rock and are watching the ripples. A leaf is fluttering from the sky and a bird is swooping over the water. He would find everything absolutely motionless. Looking at you, he would say: “In all recorded history nothing has changed. My father and his father before him have seen that everything is absolutely still. This creature called man has never had a heartbeat and has never breathed. The water is standing in stationary waves as if someone had thrown a rock into it; it seems frozen. A leaf is suspended in the air, and a bird has stopped right over the middle of the pond. There is no movement. Gravity is suspended.” The concept of time in this imaginary being, so different from ours, would give him an entirely different perspective of what we call reality.
Juxtapose the Allen Analogy (focused on time) with the Ant and the Rock Analogy (focused on space) and I think some interesting questions and insights appear.
Science is a great tool. Perhaps we can understand much of the rock, part of the backyard, and a good part of the fence. Science will most likely get the house wrong, though. Some scientists will be humble and admit to an impartial (and potentially incorrect) understanding. Others will adamantly defend their ridiculous conclusions about the foundation, the siding and the front window, and the planes overhead. Science will get us only so far.
Revelation will give us more. But our understanding will still be a weak shadow of reality, hopelessly confused by our limited worldview. We have to know that we can trust our visitor, or the messenger (who met with the visitor).
What am I missing? I've love to play in these analogies with anyone that wants to join me. I'm on a Facebook fast right now (how liberating), so if you want to chat about this, leave a comment below.
Nice analogy. I'm a fan of Abbott all the way back from our Inner Art class, and he's still my go-to when using metaphors to describe how limited one's personal perceptions are relative to the great big world out there. It seems to me that underlying everything you've written above is the idea of what are valid sources of knowledge. I have studied very little philosophy, so I am not the one to go into detail about whether or not one source of knowledge is more valid than another. That said, might be useful to add something to your analogy that explores not only the ideas you described above but all sources of knowledge (i.e., perception, reason, memory, testimony, introspection and innate ideas). There are plenty of humble scientists who simply cannot cotton to the idea that testimony (or any authority, implied or overt) is a valid source of knowledge. It's less an issue of pride than trust. For me, this is a major reason why the realms of religion and science don't mix well. The one is built on a foundation that requires people to take certain ideas for granted (faith precedes the evidence), and the other is built on the idea that proof is required for belief in a principle, and if new proof comes in, it's appropriate to reject a formerly held belief. Case in point: catastrophism (e.g., the early set of ideas leading to continental drift and plate tectonics) in geology was seen as foolish reasoning by mainstream scientists until a preponderance of evidence (e.g., similarities of coastlines, similar fossils, undersea mapping of expanding sea floors and subduction zones, greater understanding of convection in rocks, etc.) led to mainstream acceptance of catastrophism as a valid early step in understanding global geology. (Going back to your analogy, I believe that, given enough time and means, your ant society would be able to get the house right.) It simply isn't possibly to expect both ways of seeing the world to reconcile themselves to each other, and I guess from my perspective, they don't need to be reconciled. I buy into the idea that all truth may be circumscribed into one great whole, and by buying into that idea, I can see seeming incompatible ideas coming into harmony by finding what is common among them. So, getting back to your analogy, it would be useful to go into greater detail about each of the sources of knowledge you are playing with. Are you exploring your ideas from the perspective of one ant trying to make sense of what she sees, remembers, is told, etc.? Are you exploring them from the perspective of ant society generally? How (if at all) do formalized notions of science and religion play into your analogy? OK, that's all I've got for now, lamenting Argentina's loss but happy they were back in the running after 24 long years! Enjoy your FB fast!
ReplyDeleteYes, Mike. I use this analogy mostly to caution against the folly of trusting Science or Man as the ultimate authority. Revelation falls apart, of course, if you are listening to a liar. I hadn't thought about fleshing out the arguments/story any further; I figured it stands as an "opening statement" to engage in this conversation. It did write a more detailed piece on epistemology a couple of posts back. Thank for visiting. Perhaps I'll write more later.
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