On Symbolism

The world that we live in is not given to us directly, it isn’t presented to us in its unadulterated, ultimate, real form. Everyday objects — a beautiful flower, a glass of water, a pen, a blue sky or stunning landscape, the blankets on your bed — aren’t in themselves as they appear to be.

Our senses are aligned along limited categories. Sight, smell, taste, touch, sound — all of these are methods of discerning very specific properties of the world around us. Radiation within a certain spectrum; chemical compounds that exhibit certain characteristics; degrees of inter-penetrability; or vibrations at specific wavelengths.

Philosophers have wondered for ages about the true nature of reality, what reality is as itself rather than as an object for an observer or subject. Das ding an Sich (the thing in itself) as Immanuel Kant dubbed it, seems permanently out of reach. So much so, even, that whole schools of philosophers (idealists such as Berkeley, Descartes, Schopenhauer, Hegel, Kant) believed to varying degrees that object simply doesn’t exist without subject. Perception, in effect, is reality.

Modern science can’t — or rather, doesn’t — challenge this idea. Science doesn’t even enter the arena because it recognizes that our common currency of understanding is symbolic. Take DNA for example (the double-helix model), or the classical model of an atom as a roundish cluster of protons and neutrons orbited by zinging electrons. These models expose facets of their subjects to our understanding, but it’s well known that an atom or a strand of DNA don’t actually look like they’re commonly depicted — in fact, they don’t look like much of anything.

The world we interact with every day is internal, constructed of psychic realities that are a product of our specialized and limited senses. To a bee or a spider, a snake, bat, dolphin or blind mole, the world not only appears different; it is different.

We don’t live in the world of things; we live in our minds.

Far from ultimate, objective reality, our colors, sounds, tastes and textures, our front lawn, favorite shirt, morning commute and complex social dynamics — all of these are psychic symbols, symbols of our personal relationship with externality.