The blinding light of knowledge

Description

Ph.d. Carlo Volf 2009

"The blinding light of knowledge"

Sight, and thus light, has from time immemorial been regarded as a paradigm for knowledge. This essay will look at the relationship between light and knowledge in our culture through an analysis of two texts. Focus is on the development of this relationship over time, between two different periods of time.

Christianity, describes the world as lying in the dark, until the word (knowledge and literacy) lights up the darkness. Knowledge must in this context be understood as an absolute truth. One truth about God, the revealed word. Later, in the Enlightenment a.1700 century, those who are training a higher education also need a certain personal morality. Taught by experience, we seem to recognize that knowledge without responsibility can be abused; knowledge can provide power and along with power goes the abuse of power. Coming thus to a more modern recognition, that knowledge in itself is neither good nor bad, it is the relationship between knowledge and intent that determines whether it is good or bad.

From two rebates, Plato's cave parable (about 400 BC) and the rockgroup Kliché Oppenheimers Morning (1982), our changing relationship to the light of knowledge is being debated.

Plato's Cave Parable

"One must imagine a bunch of prisoners who have been chained deep in a cave since their childhood. Not only their limbs but their heads are maintained by chains, so their eyes are directed down onto the back wall. Behind the prisoners is an enormous bonfire. Between the fire and the prisoners there is a closed road, along which men bears some figurines of various animals, plants and other things. The prisoners are intensely preoccupied staring at the back wall where shadows are formed by the shapes of the figurines. It is also understood that when one of the men bearing the figurines speak, an echo from the back wall leads the prisoners to believe that the words come from the shadows. The prisoners are preoccupied with something that might resemble a game, in our view, namely to give figures names as they pass.

However, it is the only reality they know, even if they only look at the shadows of images. Now suppose that one of the prisoners are released and forced to stand up and turn around. His eye will be dazzled by the light from the fire, and the passing characters will seem less real than their shadows on the back wall. It goes the same way if he becomes pulled out of the cave to the sunlight, his eyes will be blinded in a degree, so he can no see. First, he will be able to see the darkest forms, such as shadows, and hence after he will be able to see brighter and clearer articles. The last thing he will see is the sun, and he will eventually understand that this is the one that creates the seasons and the year, the ruler of all visible things and in some ways is the cause of all the things they have seen.

Thus enlightened, the freed prisoner would with no doubt wish to return to the cave to liberate his fellow prisoners. The problem is that they do not want to be liberated. When he descends into the cave again, his eyes must first adjust to the dark, and for a time he will not be able to play the ridiculous play with recognizable shapes on the back wall. This would make his fellow prisoners murderous towards anyone who would try to liberate them .."(" State "Book VII)

Plato finds a general principle from which all reality can be recognized, this is based on the good. Because the good is also the truth and because truth is not a question of opinion (Doxa), but of knowledge (epistemology), knowledge is good. It is so to say our protection against our senses. Plato sees ideas as phenomenas that in their essence, are to be regarded as absolute truths. In the cave parable, Plato describes ‐ without being conscious of it (the retina was discovered much later (in 1835) ‐ the structure of the eye; prisoners "see" like our perception, in a projected image of what is shown, on a wall, as in the retina. One could say that reality is "colored" by this wall and that we do not see reality as it is but as it looks from our starting point, which is cavity and the cave wall. We can thus see the cave as a general condition of our perception.

Moving outside the cave, you transcend this perception and you do not see anything. Plato regards the sight not as infallible, we only see things as they are shown to us, changeable ‐ as shadows on a wall. There is no prospect that is enriching, it is rather, our insights that will enrich us! The true sun and the true light is hidden from the eye. Plato finds protection in Logos, our knowledge, a bulwark against an overwhelming and destructive reality. It is our knowledge that makes us understand the underlying and hidden contexts, such as seasonal changes and the year's time.

To go beyond the "cave" can also be approached from a different perspective. As we shall see in the next text, by looking at the world through a microscope, and using nano‐technology. We, so to say, open a door and remove ourselves from the cave that surrounds us, the shell that protects us from reality:

Oppenheimers Morning

Walk around in the dark

Walk around in the dark

Walk around in the dark

On a staircase ...

Walk around in the dark

Walk around in the dark

Walk around in the dark

Step by step ...

Open a door

Screen from the light with the hand

And go out in the rain ...

Everything I see is vibrating atoms

Everything I see is vibrating atoms

Everything I see is vibrating atoms

Everything I see is vibrating atoms ...

The lyrics could well be derived and inspired by Plato's cave parable. There is however no doubt that it is a lurking fear and a very present scenario in the 70s of the nuclear winter and the radioactive rain that is crucial to the text. Light is obviously vibrating atoms, but when this is said, light is so infinitely more. The text reduces light into a mathematical level, a technical object, a piece of knowledge. Light is a dazzling and blinding phenomenon, which means that we can´t see, we are blinded. We screen the light with our hands to be able to see. We only see light, light and nothing else and groping in the dark. In this optics, light can thus deprive us the ability to see, just as well as it can give us this ability. It is because of the light that we can not see! It is thus not light alone that determines whether we can see or not, but our ability to limit the amount of light (knowledge) so that we are able to distinguish between light and dark - and between good and bad.

Vibrating atoms do not describe the emotional, sentient experience that light can be, but rather the rational knowledge of light‐figures and basic parameter properties. A knowledge which ultimately proves to blind us and makes us, as Oppenheimer, produce something dangerous, like nuclear power. Man is blinded by his knowledge - of the light of knowledge.

Today it is no longer our senses that are unreliable, but our knowledge. The knowledge that Plato finds protective, has in the lyrics by Kliché evolved to become dangerous to us ‐ considered almost as effacing. The more knowledge we acquire, the more dangerous it becomes. Perhaps, therefore we seem to worship and praise the senses as being the truth today? The volatile is seen as authenticism ‐ as reality ‐ while the absolute truth no longer exists.

Will we ever be able to step out of Plato's cave without being burned and disgraced by our contemporaries?

The Platonic cave is a durable example of our ‐ of all times ‐ limited and dangerous relationship to reality: In our physical environment today, we have, in many ways, moved out of the cave. We have moved away from the natural light and have found a reality that is largely dominated by artificial light. One could say that our whole way of living, in the industrialized age, would not have been possible if we had not left our cave and turned us towards artificial light. The extended vision, the ability to see detail at all times, both day and night. But are our eyes devastated by it? One can from a medical point of view say yes, bright light degrades the eyes over time. With age, we will ‐ as humans ‐ lose sight because of yellowing of the cornea.

From a mental point of view, one can also look at the risks posed to surround ourselves with so much light. Lighting is ‐ only because of the dark ‐ visible. If everything is illuminated equally, then we might as well be blind or blinded. We can not distance ourselves from the light, the light interferes in our lives whether we like it or not ‐ it can´t be deselected. We have left the cave and find ourselves in generally more artificial light. We can see it today in the cities, focus on "Dark Skies" attempts to limit the amount of artificial light we emit out into the space. This light is preventing us from seeing a starry night. We can see it on driving cars in full daylight with the lights on, because we have ordered it. Apparently based on the ground that this is more secure, something that can not be justified from a professional lighting point of view, perhaps in reality rather challenged as car lights provide glare and disadvantage compared to other vulnerable road users? Have we come too far into our artificial and excited use of artificial light, so that we are incapable of even seeing it? Are we ‐ not only in the knowledge sense of the term ‐ but also quite literally ‐ blinded by the light?

One can in this context ask whether Plato's cave serves as a prison or whether it rather serves as a protection from reality? Have we abandoned Plato's cave only to find ourselves in a new Platonic cave of artificial light? Maybe we should just realize that the cave ‐ rather than a limitation ‐ is a term for us.