What would Socrates do?

[coberst]

What would Socrates do?

Socrates sought to save Athenian society by making it self-critical.

Imagine that you and many other colorblind people live on this isolated island. All inhabitants are colorblind from birth and know nothing about color; there is no word for color in their vocabulary.

Assume Fred is a health nut who exercises constantly and is always advising others to start a strict exercise routine for their health. Fred is well liked but most people on the island think that he over emphasizes the value of exercise.

One day after pursuing a specific exercises routine Fred become conscious of color. He is shocked and frightened and discontinues the exercise. Many weeks later curiosity gets the best of him and he returns to the exercise routine and there again appears the perception of color.

Fred experiments with this matter and concludes that when he performs the afore mentioned exercise routine he can perceive color constantly.

If you were Fred would you inform your friends and acquaintances of this occurrence?

How would you explain this perception to others?

How would others respond to your efforts to explain what happened?

I suspect most individuals would walk away from such seeming non-sense with a shrug and a grin. Suppose some of those making the proscribed effort found it to be a bore and a struggle and lost enthusiasm.

Does this little game of make-believe give you a better appreciation of why the Athenians executed Socrates for “corrupting the youth”?

 

[shawn]

Explains why they threw Timothy Leary in jail as well.

 

[Paladin]

Reminds me of the story of Flatland

The thing is there is an injunction to "seeing" as it were. In the above example one need only to practice the exercise to prove or disprove the claim. In real life people tend to dismiss things out of hand and even ridicule things they cannot understand without even trying to find out whether or not there is truth in the thesis.
We pride ourselves on being creatures of reason, but I find little evidence to support the idea.

 

[nativeastral]

Reminds me of the story of Flatland

The thing is there is an injunction to "seeing" as it were. In the above example one need only to practice the exercise to prove or disprove the claim. In real life people tend to dismiss things out of hand and even ridicule things they cannot understand without even trying to find out whether or not there is truth in the thesis.
We pride ourselves on being creatures of reason, but I find little evidence to support the idea.

dont know if this should be in the elitist or prophet thread or a new divinity in imagination or number sacred geometry one oh socrates..probably the correct one

 

[c0de]

What would Socrates do?

I suspect that he would not tell anyone they were color blind, but would try and convince them of the possibility that there was such a thing as color. Hoping that those who understood the message will themselves follow the suggestion to its conclusion.

If you were Fred would you inform your friends and acquaintances of this occurrence?

I would float ideas, see where they stick, follow up in fertile ground. Not really expecting much, if any reception.

How would you explain this perception to others?

Can only be done through analogy and would always require an initial "leap of faith" on the part of the audience. I would pitch the idea by asking them to imagine the difference between someone who could hear and someone who could not, or someone who could taste and someone who couldn't. And then maybe I would ask them to consider the possibility that if there are some people who they know are deficient in some such common senses, what if we are all deficient in some sense? Maybe, I would say, this means that our "senses" are subjective. And maybe, that means that the information which our senses pick up, exists outside of our perception of it. And maybe, if there is information which exists outside of our perceptions, maybe it is independent of us. And if such independent knowledge exists, maybe there is an actual "reality", outside of our subjective reality.

How would others respond to your efforts to explain what happened?

60% would be like "... yea, whatever Mr. crackpot"
30% would say... "interesting, that kinda makes sense"
9% would be like "I wanna know more"
>1% would understand

Standard deviation of %1 ; )

Does this little game of make-believe give you a better appreciation of why the Athenians executed Socrates for “corrupting the youth”?

They didn't really execute him for corrupting the youth. They executed him because he wouldn't concede or compromise anything.

One day after pursuing a specific exercises routine Fred become conscious of color.

You're analogy with Socrates, by using this scenario, is in my opinion, incorrect. Socrates was claiming access to the transcendent (knowledge), not the temporal (color). This distinction is important because the premise that any transcendent knowledge can be gained through temporal practices is flawed (like in your scenario in which doing certain exercises reveals color to the senses). The transcendent, by definition, is outside our grasp, and thus our subjective perception can never achieve an objective understanding.

If Socrates did indeed achieve any clues to the nature of a transcendent reality, it had to be through a source which was itself transcendent (e.g. Divine Revelation, for example).

 

[coberst]

I wished to point out in my OP the difficulty that anyone faces when they try to introduce something very new to the general population. So I guess there is a great similarity between Socrates and Galileo in that regard.

 

[nativeastral]

radical thinkers who laterally go against the grain were always castigated as a threat to the hoi polloi and the conventional status quo; less so now as outsiders, artists and marginals are more accepted, nay revered more that in the past where communities were more tight knit, though still experienced in small communites where it takes 15 years to become a 'local' [rather than a 'loco'].

 

[Eclectic Mystic]

Fred needs to horde those discoveries and go on strike (Atlas Shrugged style). No one has the right to take that away from him and transcendental invulnerability comes thereby.

 

[Eclectic Mystic]

Socrates actual intentions will never be known and can only be investigated from the limited information we have on him as well from speculation.