Musings on Perspective

      I wondered for a while how to begin a blog post like this. Unlike the previous two I’ve posted here, this piece instead may be something more of an informal philosophical musing - for all that’s worth. While I would like every one of the pieces of writing I ever put into the world to be polished until you could see it from space, I already have a book on Amazon full of rough draft stories and poems I rage wrote as a ‘fuck you’ to one of America’s Great authors Lois Lowry for my Sophomore Year ‘Personal Project,’ so I think the ship of perfectionism in my public literature has long sailed. Hell, that ship was up and out of the damn harbor before I had packed my bags. Anyway, all this to say, good luck reading this bud.

    Now, I don’t claim to be a ‘worldly fella.’ Unfortunately, and not necessarily too much fault of my own, I have never been out of the country. I’ve made my way around the good ol’ US of A many times with my family as a child when I was too young to appreciate it, and once as a young adult too good at hiding from things to appreciate it. But I have never quite been able to get off of the coast of our great nation. I suppose that’s technically not true, as my family did take a vacation to Hawaii in 2012. Hawaii, as well all know, is one of fifty great states that make up the quilt of diversity that is the United States of America. Or, Hawaii, as we all know, is the former sovereign kingdom that was colonized and annexed by the Imperial power of the so-called ‘United States of America.’ Ooo, ooo, see here’s what I’m getting at.

    What is true? God, I wish somebody would have given me a good answer to that question when I was a kid. Shit, I wish someone could give me a consistent answer to that now! I was the kind of kid, as I’m sure were most, who could not help myself but ask a never-ending string of questions. “What’s that?” “What does it do?” “Why do we need it?” “What do we need that for?” “Why would we need to do that?” “Why?” On and on and on.

    Though my parents are well educated, and my Dad fashions himself as the guy with all the answers, they like most parents, eventually got to a point in these conversations where they would find a complete lack of answers. This was actually a pretty easy problem to solve. They could just tell me that they don't know, or somebody else probably knows and I’d better go bother them for a change. But then, like most parents, my line of questioning would get to a point where they there were different answers depending on who you asked. One of these, is a classic, “What is real?”

    That’s a big one for a kid, at least it was for me. “Are the clouds real?” Easy one - yes but you can’t actually touch them like in cartoons.

    “Are Japanese candy like from the cartoons real in real life too?” Easy one - I don’t know dude, go ask your grandpa.

    “Are my thoughts real?” Not so easy…

    “Are my dreams real?” You’d think that’s easy - nope your mind just makes those they're not real, but what if it's “Is my dream of becoming a doctor one day real?” Not so easy right? Hell, what if it's “Dad, what does it mean to be real?” Wow buddy, well that’s a hard question….

    How about others like, “What does it mean to be good?” “What does it mean to be bad?” “Can I be good deep down?” “Are people bad deep down or are we all good deep down?” Such loaded questions, such a young mind, no real good answers.

    When I would finally get the non-answers from my parents, I would always say something like, “That’s not fair!” To which my parents would respond, “Whoever told you life was fair?”

    I wanted answers to everything, but what if there weren’t any?

    Okay, but before I go into the interpretation of truth, the relativity of it, being and thinning, etc, you need a disclaimer. I’m no naive nihilist, nor am I some sophomoric solipsist trying to preach that there are no facts and we might as well run naked in the streets and kill anybody we want because as far as I know you are all NPCs and I’m the only real player in the game and it's all a simulation anyway and so it doesn’t matter so I can say anything I want and do anything that I want and not care bout anyone’s feelings and- Man, shut the fuck up about all that. No no no, okay, here's the real shit I’m on. Listen, and stay with me.

    The Greeks were really into the idea that beyond our human consciousness, there was a perfect world of Ideals. Plato, in his seminal Allegory of the Cave, Explained this Idealism through his Theory of Forms. Basically, it's this: All that we can see and perceive is just a shadow projection of the perfect world of Ideals. In his view, Humans are kinda goated because we have access to this world of Ideals through our minds in a finite sense, and can basically reach into the world and pull out Ideals to create them in the form of real-life objects. A chair will never be a perfect chair, because the true essence of a Chair exists only in the World of Ideals, a chair will only be an imitation of a perfect chair - an imperfect copy, as are all things humans have created. Therefore, if a human can truly know the world of the Forms and can tap into the World of Ideals, we can make an Ideal world on this earth. Not really a place you could go, but a place you could access in your mind. Kind of his age’s ‘See past the Matrix of the laws of this world to see there is a perfect world beyond,’ type of deal.

    Later Twentieth Philosophers were also on this idea and began extrapolating it onto all sorts of other things. Emmanuel Kant, not the first guy to think like this but the first guy to say that he thinks like this, was the first guy to ever call himself an Idealist. I just have to note here for professionalism's sake, I fucking hate Kant. I don’t think that’s an uncommon thing to feel, but I just thought I’d get it out of the way now. Here’s Kant’s whole deal (Paraphrasing): There are universal truths that exist beyond human understanding. These truths can be discovered by reason. We should endeavor to find and follow these universal, natural truths and base our society and life around them to find a more harmonious existence with the world.

    His whole thing goes into the Enlightenment era, when humans started really getting on our high horse about our brains, and really earnestly believed that we can know everything if we just keep thinking. Kant is a prime example of this. With enough reason and deduction, we can find the correct course of action for any given circumstance. This is what he called his ‘Categorical Imperative.’ Morality can be derived from logical deduction, and everyone therefore must morally act in accordance to these logically derived ‘Natural Laws.’ Every ethical problem has one solution. Every law is either Just or Unjust. It is Good. Or it is Bad. We can know this, from logic.

    Fuck me, where do I start. Maybe it's wrong to try to take down a philosopher who was writing before the United States of America even existed. And maybe it’s too boring to dunk on a philosopher that has been constantly shit for the past two hundred-plus years. Maybe it's too much to point out that the Enlightenment and the entire Idea of one ‘Correct’ Set of Morals and acceptable behaviors were directly linked to Imperialism, Colonialism, and the entire system of Racial Superiority that held those two up. No? Maybe? Okay.

    I mean, I feel like it’s pretty obvious that saying that everybody should act one way is wrong. You could easily say I’m boiling Moral Absolutism down too heavily, fine. But what I’m saying is bigger than just “there is no bigger, more real world outside of our own.” I’m not just arguing what most do when refuting Moral Absolutists by saying, “What you see is what you get,” as my Dad, a self-proclaimed ‘Realist,’ was so fond of saying. What I am saying is, There is no Real.

    Our eyes perceive light particles emitted from excited electrons. These particles come from light sources - close things like TVs, Phone screens, Lamps, and faraway things like the Sun, and Stars - bounce around and reflect off of stuff, sometimes being partially absorbed sometimes not, until they eventually hit our eyes. (Which is one way to see it) These extra sensitive organs go on to send these ‘images’ back - upside down by the way - into the Visual Cortex of the brain, which will then flip the image upright and begin sending that to the rest of the brain for decoding and sorting. The rest of the brain, each section doing its own job, will sort these images into ‘safe,’ ‘not safe,’ danger,’ ‘good,’ ‘bad,’ and any emotion or thought under the sun you can think of, cause - hey wow, that's thought baby!

    Now These labels we put on things that we see - and smell and hear and feel and all the other lovely ways we perceive this world that I didn’t get to mention - are just that: labels. When we are born, as Don Miguel Ruiz says in his book “The Four Agreements,” When we are born we are ‘Domesticated,’ as in, we are born as clean slates that immediately begin learning how to be a human by observing those around them. Eventually, these observations become more explicit in terms of ‘lessons’ and ‘education,’ where we explicitly teach things. But this ‘Domestication’ begins right at birth, and continues throughout life. (This process often looks like a child asking a million questions…)

    This process of evaluating the world and sorting it by labels is how we work as a species. It is our greatest evolutionary tool. Much like Crabs evolved specialized claws and Beavers evolved to make Dams for Homes, Humans evolved our quite incredible minds. This mind allows us to see something we don't know and immediately sort it into a category. These categories are taught to us by those around us. Before we developed language, when we saw something unexpected we would either laugh and try to get close to the new thing to signal it's not a threat to others, or we would get scared and angry to signal it is a danger.

    Once we developed language, we still hung on to these old tools, as they did us well before, but we were now able to sort things more thoroughly than our other hominid brethren - like Neanderthals who likely had the same fear and laugh response to unknown stimuli as us. With this new complex language tool - the distinct Homo Sapien advantage - we were able to transfer these labels not only to those around us immediately, but to those in wider groups, and to those in younger generations. With this, we were able to adapt to anything, because, with every new thing we learned, the solution was able to be passed down and down and down.

    Oh shit, how do we get over there? Well, my great-grandpa got over here by doing this, so let's do this! Oh shit, there's a big thing in the way, what the fuck? Well, Mark’s great-grandma said one time that her great-grandma did this thing one time, so let's do that!

    On and on humans solved our problems by categorizing shit, breaking down the problem, talking about it with others, and building upon what our ancestors found out. Links in a chain we have gone on for eternity. It's awesome if you step back to think about it. Such a successful organism. Developed around the equator with a body type that should not do well anywhere else, a highly specialized hairless ape that, oh hey wow lookie here, just developed shame! Oh wait what? The hairless shame ape is figuring out how to live in places it shouldn't? It’s growing there and developing in new ways? What the hell? Dude, I’m saying, Humans are cool as fuck. Or are we horrible parasites? (Perspective, huh?)

    Jesus Christ Carney, a little over two thousand words now, and we haven't gotten to your point yet get on with it. The other great thing that humans can pass down is our Assumptions about the world. These are categories we put onto morals, actions, and behaviors. These are things that ‘ought to be,’ Ethics if you will. These Assumptions about the world are what Kant would argue are derived from some perfect thing and can be refined to reflect that. But wait? If humans are animal that just passes down what we know has worked in the past and not necessarily what will work in the future, how can we really know they were right?

    We all live with what we know, we all act according to what we have been taught and what we have seen that has worked in the past. The way that I see it, every endeavor of humanity to predict the future based on the past is fraught with mistakes, because the past is not a reflection of what will happen. It is our greatest strength, absolutely, but it always leads us right into a wall. We’re like an animal walking backward, only able to look behind us. (If that’s how you want to see it)

    If everybody is operating like this, then nobody can really really know anything. I mean, nobody can know anything. As in, everything is based on the perspective you have. Humans are as well intrinsically emotional animals, as are all creatures I believe. If you somehow gave the gift of speech to a Goose and asked him why he flew south for winter - after you translated all the honks - he’d probably say something like, “I dunno man, It seems nice. I do it every year. All my friends do it. It’s good man, it's the good thing to do. It’s the right thing to do man.” It stands to reason that different Geese populations would have different exact justifications for flying south. (I wonder if baby geese honking would be the same as questions kids ask, but like “Why do we honk daddy?”)

    The cool thing about all this, (not the goose part but all the rest) which I like to call, “Absolute Relativism,” is the acceptance that, in a world that lacks a singular truth and reality, all constructed truths and realities exist equally in a space of validity. This is how it has always been after all. If a tree falls in the forest and no human is around to call the reverberation the tree made as it slammed against everything as it fell, then it would not make a sound.

    This thing would move, that thing would move, but as soon as you call this thing a “tree,” and that thing “sound,” you place it into a framework that fundamentally does not exist in the real world. It is a construct of our minds. Hell, even saying “move,” in terms of time moving linearly is a framework that humans are bound to. Not only are humans bound to our perceptions - sight, sound, etc - but we are also bound by our frameworks of thinking. These are our Assumptions.

    I think this is why Kant pisses me off so badly. He, and so many of those Enlightenment thinkers, are so close in their belief in the human mind. We are remarkable creatures able to construct things logically, and we have gotten so far (if you buy into the whole ‘Progress is Good’ Framework which is an argument for another day) with our minds, but there's nothing mystical about it. Or perhaps there is - depending on your outlook. But even if it is mystical in nature, there isn't anything about our minds that allows us to find some greater truth, because really the greater truths are multiple, and exist within everybody.

    We all have our individual truths that we carry around with us. We have all constructed these based on our experiences. What we have learned, trauma, love, lessons, hell even getting bored and lazy from time to time. It's all a framework that we place onto the world. We, humans, are always wearing space helmets that give us a big view of the world and filter it down so we can see it. On these great big lenses, we draw things and put stickers onto things to help us navigate the big landscape. But from time to time, humans have come to believe that these drawings and stickers we put onto our lenses are somehow more true than the landscape itself.

    People are dumb, basically is what I’m saying. (If that's your perspective) We all do it though, implicitly. It’s good we do! Fuck, we need it! It keeps us in line! Those labels, stickers, assumptions, agreements, and perspectives have helped us navigate the great big world! They help us communicate with others, they help us build upon our own thoughts and become something bigger! They are good! There's nothing wrong with them!

    Here’s the trick, don’t drink your own Kool-aid.

    Here’s how I’ll leave this. All perspectives are valid. There is no One Greater Truth, or Absolute Moral Imperative, or anything dumb like that. There are things better or worse in certain scenarios depending very much on that specific scenario. Many individual truths exist, and many larger collective truths exist alongside and exist within them - despite their internal contradictions. Contradiction and Hypocrisy are some of the only consistent things we really have at the end of the day. But the thing is this, All Truths are Valid, All Perspectives are Valid.

    When trying to find the center of the universe, scientist Edwin Hubble attempted to use redshift - seeing if things are moving away from you or not - in different places to see if things are all moving away from one spot - the universe is always expanding, if it's all moving from one spot, that spot is the center. Here's the fucked thing tho, everything is moving away from itself. There is no center of the Universe. I’ll leave this ad-hoc crazy man's first draft post with this quote from Hubble himself, “There must be no favored location in the Universe, no center, no boundary; all must see the Universe alike.”

    We’re all right, it's alright. You’re not doing anything wrong by existing the way you are.

    It's all a framework anyway baby

William Carney

Boise, Idaho

February 20, 2024

This essay originally - and probably will if any future versions find their way to exist - had a significant amount more italics for emphasis that I honestly really enjoyed. Unfortunately, they were unceremoniously destroyed by the 'Clear Formatting' tool I had to use when migrating this piece from its place of birth - Google Docs (please don't string me up in the town square for still writing on it because my Microsoft Account expired I think?) Anyway, long story short, if you see this in any other place it will most likely be in its true form, italics and all, but I hope you can find some enjoyment in it how it is.

Only Love always

- William Carney

Footnotes

1. Paul Guyer and Rolf-Peter Horstmann, “Idealism,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, February 5, 2021, https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/idealism/#Kant.

2. Kailee Kodama Muscente, “Categorical Imperatives and the Case for Deception: Part I: 2020: IRB Blog: Institutional Review Board: Teachers College, Columbia University,” Teachers College - Columbia University, July 13, 2020, https://www.tc.columbia.edu/institutional-review-board/irb-blog/2020/categorical-imperatives-and-the-case-for-deception-part-i/#:~:text=Kant%20defines%20categorical%20imperatives%20as,their%20desires%20or%20extenuating%20circumstances.

3.Miguel Ruiz, Janet Mills, and Miguel Ruiz, The Four Agreements (Thorndike, Me.: Center Point Pub., 2008).

4Hubble, E. P. (1937). The observational approach to cosmology. Oxford University Press.