The human mind, in its quest for truth, is stumbling around in the dark

https://iai.tv/articles/15-ideas-that-inspired-the-worlds-leading-thinkers-auid-1272?fbclid=IwAR1ZOzp6BN7wgH_aYTPgE0F6yV6IPdRvP0KA7tbMXWRsJEMOWFd8jbGNN4w

Reading the article / commentary, linked above, I was struck by a thought that had occurred to me in the background of my mind.  Now it came front and center.  The human mind, in its quest for truth, is stumbling around in the dark.  Like the proverb of fifteen blind scientists, studying an elephant by touching it, we all perceive reality in differing and contradictory ways.  We do so, because for each of us, we experience only a minuscule fraction, an infinitesimally small part, of reality.

 

For many people, their personal paradigm is shaped primarily by a defining experience, usually early in life.  Once this is established in their mind, it sets like concrete, difficult to change, and doing so requires demolition and disruption in our lives.  It did in mine.

 

That defining experience may take many forms.  It could be personal, traumatic, or merely intellectual; for example, the reading of a book by an accepted philosopher.  

I wrote a very brief fictional story that, at the time, I did not realize was an expression of my own confusion regarding all these varied philosophies.  It is posted online at

   

http://thegodparadigmdiscussion.blogspot.com/2019/09/quantum-travel-science-fiction-story.html

 Spoiler alert.  Take about five minutes to read the story before proceeding.  You will find it entertaining; I am sure.
 
The story involves a city that was put together by random chance.  The city center seems intelligently designed, but the farther away one gets from the center, the more things gradually seem less purposeful, and more random.  Finally, far from the city, there is only chaos and disorder.
 
Philosophy is like that fictional city.  We all begin within a common, shared reality.  We all attempt to understand it.  Most people never stray far.  Those who do, the philosophers, move farther and farther away, until they are no longer in accord with each other, no longer firmly attached to the common reality.
 
At the fringes, there is absurdity and nonsense.  Worse yet, there are affirmatively destructive philosophies.  Some of them are so horrific that they lead quickly to mass slaughters and unspeakable tortures.  Others, more gradually, decay the already imperfect social order, resulting eventually in its collapse.  A societal vacuum is then soon filled, sometimes for the better, but too often, for the worse.
 
How bad it can get, is illustrated by a particular trial I saw that was televised nationally.  I was able to see it, and as the evidence and arguments crystallized, I reached the conclusion that I thought everyone else had.  I was wrong.  Amazingly, intelligent, well meaning observers came down on opposite sides of the trial, even though we had all witnessed the same evidence.  Likely, this was because each of us had preconceived ideas through which we interpreted the identical facts.
 
More amazingly yet, I saw another televised public proceeding in which one side actually admitted that it had no verifiable facts, but only accusations, and worse yet, accusations which were denied by some of the very accusers themselves.  The accusers disagreed with each other.  I was astounded that many people nevertheless declared that the defendant had been proved guilty.
 
There is need for a philosophy that can first, find common ground, if that is even possible any longer.  It may not be.  The social consensus has dangerously eroded.
 
Optimistically, some reasonable consensus can be approximated, enough to soften the sharp edges.  If so, then the next great challenge is to proceed methodically from the central idea, toward implementation of our shared values and ideals, to generate the greatest good for the greatest number of people.  Even that goal, however, is disputed by various factions.
 
Here is my personal bias on the matter:  I notice that none of the fifteen “great minds,” none of the great philosophers mentioned in the commentary, made any reference to Biblical truth.
 
It is my contention, based on the foregoing items in this commentary, that the human mind is utterly, and forever, incapable of understanding reality, nor even of comprehending any significant portion of it beyond the basic necessities of daily survival. 
 
As I mentioned earlier, the human mind, in its quest for truth, is stumbling around in the dark.
 
My contention is that, if this statement were somehow to become the accepted basis, the starting point, of modern philosophy, that we would be forced by it to turn to the ultimate and final source of all understanding.
 
When, or if, that will ever occur, I cannot of course say.  But, just knowing that that is what is needed, might at least generate a much-needed sense of humility.  Pride has gone before our fall.
.