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| Escaping the Dark Closet of the Mind |
Is it not possible for a person to say, “I see it that way, and therefore that is the truth”? Many cannot distinguish between their perceptions of reality and reality. Such people assume their perceptions are reality (i.e., instant absolute truth). Such "hard-headed," "stubborn," and "inflexible" people either destroy relationships (people leave) or destroy people (create depressed conformists). Trapped in their own perceptions, limited by the inescapable necessity of starting with their own perceptions, and confined in self-evident truth, such people block out feedback from the perceptions of others. Even when they pretend to listen, they cannot hear. Such people dwell in the dark closet of the mind. Suppose a man is unhappy with his wife. His automatic thought is "It's unfair." [6] Since he cannot distinguish between his thought and reality, his reasoning runs like this: If I think it is unfair, it is unfair. The same man would not think of saying, "If I think the moon is made of green cheese, then the moon is made of green cheese." While the thought is still a part of reality, the thought is only a perception of reality. In fact, the thought may be wrong. On occasion I ask such a person, "If you did not exist, would the situation still be unfair?" However, let us assume that the automatic thought is correct: the situation is not fair. That is, at least some truth is contained in the thought. Yet, we are still dealing with the person's perception of reality as determined by cognitive patterns. By cognitive patterns I mean past learning that configures the reality we see. One person looking at clouds observes a bust of Beethoven while another sees a ducky, according to Charlie Brown in a Peanuts cartoon. A person in a different culture might see the cloud as a camel. One person sees an SUV as a practical, safe vehicle for the family while another sees a gas-guzzling polluter of the environment. Our hypothetical man thus may see a trip on Thanksgiving as unfair while his wife sees a glorious family gathering. His cognitive patterns contain all previous learning, including his values, his assumptions, and his goals. We might wonder to what extent any human possesses the godlike perception to declare absolutely that his situation is unfair rather than merely being unfair to him. One may accept the idea that Absolute Truth exists in the Mind of God without removing the secondary problem of any human knowing absolute truth absolutely (i.e., any human knowing perfectly the Mind of God.) Consider three witnesses describing a car wreck. Three honest people on the witness stand will give three different descriptions filled with contradictions. Even in describing an objective event like a car wreck, cognitive patterns determine perceptions, acting as a filter to reality (i.e., the truth). Therefore, an individual's perceptions are always less than absolute truth. The epistemological question always intrudes: How do you know?[7] Any person can only reply, “Because it seems that way to me.” The key words are to me. The man who declares that the situation with his wife is unfair blunders by not acknowledging that the situation is unfair to him. The witnesses to the car wreck recount the truth as they perceive the truth. However, motive matters in perception: one witness can lie (i.e., falsify his/her actual perception) while another witness can tell the truth (i.e., faithfully describe his/her perception). Thus we see the danger of isolation to our perception of reality. We can forget that we are telling our perceived truth rather than telling absolute truth. Other honest people may perceive even objective events differently. However, if we start by being true to our perception of reality, we can test our perception. The epistemological question becomes an existential problem only when a person takes the position that his/her perception is THE truth. If I know that I am telling the truth as I see it, the epistemological question becomes an opportunity further to clarify the truth. However, if I believe my perception IS the truth, then my existence is threatened by the epistemological question. (In other words, if my perception of reality is not reality, everything crumbles). Yet how can we test perceptions? In a previous illustration, a psychotic person saw snakes on the wall. By adding ten other perceptions (i.e., ten additional people), we tested the perception. However, if five had seen snakes while five had not, our problem would have continued. Being a part of a community committed to the truth is important, for feedback helps establish objective reality. Truth, as a pragmatic ideal, lifts us out of an unrealistic relativism. Gravity does not only exist to me.[8] When we seek to establish how we know, we must expand our perception by listening to others. We can listen to scholars, friends, coworkers, and those of different cultural and linguistic backgrounds. The reservoir of feedback can be enlarged by education. Feedback opens the dark closet of the isolated mind to light from beyond one's limited existence. Many people presumably listen without ever hearing; however, genuine feedback involves respectful listening as we search for the truth together. Consider again the hypothetical man who maintains that his situation with his wife is unfair. He expects me to agree with him, to play Ain't it Awful, Poor Me, or It's All Her Fault.[9] When I challenge his perception of reality, he will argue or retreat into silence in order to avoid feedback. My perception of reality involves moving beyond automatic thoughts and related feelings; his perception of reality is that the situation is hopeless. He wants me to agree with him further to justify giving up. Receiving feedback involves risks. Our inescapable need to trust our perceptions means a disagreement can unnerve us. However, risky listening is the only way we can escape the dark closet of the mind. The scientific method also can expand our collective search for the truth. In our day, a scientific journal reporting a correlation of cigarette smoking and cancer would be an accepted authority to many. Based on the article, we may decide to stop smoking cigarettes (or try). While the scientific method is limited, nonetheless the scientific method offers a valid way to test perception. For our purposes, by scientific method, I simply mean setting up a hypothesis, testing the hypothesis, and reporting on the results of the test. In fact, the application of the scientific method over time enlarges the knowledge base of the whole human community. Thus, we see the importance of telling the truth as we see it. While we may accept the fact that even the writers of a scientific journal have perceptions, we choose to believe that they will, as honestly and objectively as possible, report on research. The moment we discover that the writers filter the research reports, we realize we are reading propaganda, not scientific reports. The whole spirit of scientific inquiry is undermined. Now we distrust the authority (the article and the journal). If we cease to trust scientific research in general because of such pseudo science, a valuable method of knowing is discredited. Of course, some disciplines are more pliable to scientific research than others. In chemistry, for example, a laboratory provides a controlled environment. Social sciences lack a test tube environment but can test a hypothesis nonetheless by devising controls. Even in the study of literature, in the conducting of business, or in solving a family problem one can state a hypothesis, test the hypothesis, and arrive at a (tentative) conclusion. The testing generates information and proves, disproves, or clarifies the hypothesis. The search for truth is the province of the human race, although only individuals know anything. To clarify, suppose you land on a newly discovered planet and find the remains of an ancient civilization. Moreover, suppose you can decipher their written documents. In the writings, you find reference to a fruit called dlxient. As you read about the fruit, you begin to suspect that the dlxient is an apple, although no apples now exist on the desolate remains of the planet. The apple still exists on Earth and perhaps remains undiscovered elsewhere in the universe. An undiscovered apple on an undiscovered planet does exist. In other words, objective reality exists apart from a knower. However, there is no knowledge without a knower. While the apple exists on Earth (and once existed on the abandoned planet), until you deciphered the newly found documents, no one knew the planet once grew apples. Thus, the fact that apples once grew on planet X had no meaning. Knowledge never exists in a vacuum, nor does a fact, an object, or an event. Every perception triggers a cognitive pattern; thus, knowledge always contains meaning. The planet, the documents, and the “fact” that apples once grew on the planet existed apart from you, but no human knowledge about the objective reality exists apart from you. As you share your knowledge with others, the knowledge base expands to include other knowers. Therefore, there is no knowledge without a knower. Given my presuppositions, I have no problem with the idea that the apple exists in the Mind of God apart from any human mind, but that does not solve the problem of knowing the mind of God. Later, we will consider the problem of knowing the Mind of God, even if we assume God dictated a text. To complete our discussion, we must consider religious experience. A religious experience is unique to each individual (i.e., religious experience is an inner experience limited to the individual). While we can test ordinary perceptions by asking others what they "see," the inner experience cannot be directly "seen" by another. One common problem with a religious experience is the failure to distinguish the experience of the numinous from the cognition about the numinous. The numinous goes beyond feeling or intuition to an awareness of Presence. I am using the word cognition rather than perception to distinguish understanding of an event from the actual event. For example, I might see a mouse run across the floor out of the corner of my eye and ask if you saw anything. I am testing my perception. However, once I am certain I see the mouse, my cognitive patterns come into play. If a pet mouse has escaped, my cognitive pattern places the mouse in a pattern of understanding and value that leads me to conclude that we should catch the escaped pet and return him to his cage. If a field mouse is looking for a home for the winter, my cognitive pattern of value and understanding indicates that we need to refuse a new boarder. The event, the perception, and the cognition are three distinct things. In religious experience, people ignore the fact that any event (even an experience of the numinous) will activate cognitive patterns that are related to culture, background, values, previous learning, and many other factors unique to the individual. The experience and the understanding of the experience are two different things. For example, suppose a man sitting alone in a room becomes aware of a Presence. We will ignore looking at the experience through the psychological lens for the moment. I am aware that certain schools of psychology, philosophy, and scientism will reject the numinous out of hand, but I accept the numinous as a valid experience. The reductionism that reduces an explanation to the vocabulary of any discipline and declares the explanation absolute is nonsense. Therefore, to return to our hypothetical man, suppose as he senses a Presence, the thought comes to him, “You are to paint your house purple.” Most people would link the thought to the Presence because of the nearness in time. However, reflection on the experience is essential. Take Augustine’s own recounting of his religious experience in his Confessions.[10] He is in an existential crisis, weeping, praying for God's deliverance from his sinful life, when he hears a child's voice chanting: "Take and read." Reading his account in the text removes many false impressions given in quotations and passing references. As Augustine tells the experience, you sense a great deal of skepticism about the child’s voice that he heard. He thought perhaps that he merely heard a child playing a game singing “take and read.” He reflected, remembering a Christian he admired who was converted by reading a text of scripture in which the words seemed to be written directly to him. He returned to his waiting friend, opened the scriptures, and in the existential moment experienced the voice of God through the written words. However, one never gets the feeling reading the text that Augustine put his reason aside. His religious experience was more profound because he reflected upon it. David Hume's questioning of causality should be taken seriously, especially our tendency to identify two things that happen near to one another in time as cause and effect. A wise person will reflect on his/her religious experience, using reason. By reason I mean more than logic: I include probability, reflection on accepted authority, obtaining feedback, and analysis. During the temptation of Jesus, the devil quoted scripture to justify a course of action.[11] Jesus replied with another scripture. Reason must always be involved in choosing a course of action in spiritual matters. Scripture itself can be misapplied, and Jesus used his judgment in selecting another scripture with which to counter the devil's suggestion. Often the Presence involves us with an experience of the holy that communicates on a nonverbal level. If the experience is to be verbalized at all, the words might well be “everything will be all right.” Upon reflection, the man may decide that he should paint his house purple, but he would be wise to remember that his mind (perception, cognitive patterns, i.e., past learning) is involved even in his religious experience. Religious experience is indeed a dangerous concept, for obviously psychotic individuals hear voices or see visions with religious overtones. However, to claim that religious experience and psychotic episodes are the same goes too far. Nonetheless, many well-meaning people who are not psychotic have done irrational things because “God told me so.” A reasoning reflection on the event might include a study of scripture, feedback within a fellowship of believers, and research into the history of Christianity. Such an approach would help us clarify any verbal impressions carried away from an encounter with the numinous. Avoiding feedback makes the certainty inherent in religious experience more dangerous than the certainty of an ordinary experience, for religious experience by definition is an encounter with Absolute Being. A wise person will distinguish the religious experience from thoughts about the religious experience. If God speaks to a person, God speaks to an individual existing in a certain time, dwelling in a certain place, speaking a certain language, bound by a specific culture, and possessing a unique individual history. The prophet may say “Thus saith the Lord.” However, one should not shoulder the mantle of the prophet flippantly. The prophet is a valid figure. However, reason is involved in receiving the message from the prophet. To be specific, in the Old Testament the prophets often introduced their message with “Thus saith the Lord.” However, even a rapid reading of the Old Testament introduces us to false prophets who likewise claimed to be speaking a message from God. The listener had to decide in the existential moment the authentic word from God. Having a written text of sacred scriptures does not eliminate the problem, for the reader must respond in the existential moment to the words of the written text. The knower is involved in both the transmission and in the reception of knowledge, oral or written. In the final analysis, individuals respond to or reject the word of the Lord. One final note about authority. Any authority that requires us to exclude reason is not legitimate authority but authoritarianism. When someone appeals to authority and says do not think, do not question, do not test the hypothesis, and do not trust your own perceptions, we should instantly beware. “All truth is God’s truth,” and if something is true, critical thinking will confirm the proposition. In summary, there is no knowledge without a knower, and the individual is the knower. One may go into a great library filled with books, but only when he/she opens a book, reads, and understands does he/she know. Individuals wrote the books, and individuals read the books. The isolated individual will fall victim to his/her limited perceptions of reality, while the individual who is open to feedback expands and tests his/her perceptions of reality. The search for truth is the province of the whole human community rather than of the isolated individual. Various ways of knowing (even within disciplines) are perceptions through different lenses, each lens magnifying an aspect of reality not seen with another lens. Thus, biology, chemistry, theology, sociology, and other academic disciplines provide different perceptions (lenses) of reality that contribute to the whole. Applied to academic disciplines, a lens is the totality of cognitive patterns derived from the presuppositions and collected perceptions of the discipline. The scientific method is the best way of testing perceptions so far devised. Even individuals can approach reality by stating a hypothesis, testing the hypothesis, obtaining feedback on results, and either acting on the conclusions or stating an additional hypothesis to be tested. Suppose I am buying an automobile. I see one I like, but the hypothesis that I should buy that automobile bears testing. Research follows in which I consult authorities such as consumer guides, databases, and other authorities that I critically accept. The hypothesis that I can make the payments comes into play. Here I look at my income and my budget, and I do the math. In other words, stating a hypothesis, testing the hypothesis, and gaining feedback on my results can work in the ordinary complexities of modern life. Only by devising feedback can one escape the dark closet of the mind. _____________________ [6] More about automatic thoughts later. [7] See II Corinthians 12:1-3. Even mystic visions do not answer all questions even for Paul. [8] More about pragmatic idealism later. [9] See the concept of Games in an approach to psychology called Transactional Analysis. [10] See Confessions, Book VIII. [11] Matthew 4:5-7. (C) 2004, Don Mize |