We were wondering what could happen to an individual after year of philosophical training that would lead him to sudden ‘wisdom’? This post seamlessly continues that discussion, picking up in the middle of our conversation (it is meant to be read in conjunction with the previous post).
One small introduction: for those already familiar with Torah ideas, the following may not be particularly surprising, although it may sharply enhance your understanding. But a note to the atheist: pay close attention to your own reactions and feelings as we explore these ideas.
The Journey
Claims Plato, human beings consist of two1 contradicting parts, the material side - our physical bodies and inclinations, and the immaterial side - our minds (or ‘souls’).2 Our default is to be attached to our material side; we identify ourselves as our bodies, allowing our bodily desires to dominate. But, Plato posits, our true essence lies in our immaterial selves, while the material body is but a distraction. To catch a glimpse of our true selves, we must embark on this philosophical ‘journey.’ This may sound odd to the modern ear, but let’s explore this idea.
While the concept of a ‘philosophical journey’ is not explicitly mentioned in the Republic - the term is mine3 - it is a great analogy to bring out the point. Similar to a physical journey, this philosophical journey entails a starting point (point A), a destination (point B), and the progression from point A to point B. This journey initiates with us in our natural state, as we described before, where our minds are completely conjoined with our bodies to the point that we identify our bodies as our actual selves. We can all recognize this state of being; most of us stay here our entire lives without ever venturing beyond even once. But we then set out to move towards our destination, the immaterial realm, which begins with departing from this natural state - detaching ourselves from our base desires and heading toward the world of pure conception, of the mind.
Mathematics
The first step Plato discusses, along with character perfection, is the study mathematics. Of course, Greek mathematics were much more than just dry numbers; they were the inherent perfections of the universe, the reality which transcends the shadows of this material world, such as the perfect triangle which consists of mathematical numbers alone, not the messy manifestations we observe with our eyes. Engaging deeply with these concepts trains the mind to acclimate itself with abstract and immaterial ideas.
At the early stages of this journey, the material conception of reality is still completely dominant, we still feel like our Bodies 'Я' Us. But as the mind undergoes this training, ever so slowly, we begin to shift towards the immaterial, moving closer to the ultimate destination. Even at this early stage, one begins to get the sense that there is something beyond the material world worth pursuing. Having experienced a small taste of ‘the mind,’ he sees how this can be taken further. However, the understanding of what lies ahead remains completely vague and undefined.
Dialectics
After some time of both leaving the perception of the body (through a level of abstinence) and becoming comfortable with the perception of conceptual ideas (through mathematics), the young philosopher is ready for step two: dialectics. This is Plato’s term for intense reasoning and questioning our very perceptions of reality; essentially gaining the ability to enter the world of the immaterial, the world of the mind. But to even attempt to properly understand this at all, we need to discuss the idea of the immaterial, which is the heart of our discussion, along with all of the difficulties of explaining the inexplicable. Basically, we need to finally get to it and explain what the destination of the journey is; after understanding the goal properly, it should become immediately clear how the journey towards that goal works.
The best way to do this, in my opinion, is to discuss the concept of ‘angels.’
What are Angels?
We all heard of these beings, but what exactly, if they are at all, are they? The more intelligent individuals tend to lean toward atheism (a-angelism?) or some form of disbelief in anything immaterial, while the more gullible ones readily accept the existence of angels as factual. But if we were engage Mr. Gullible about his beliefs, tell me kind sir, what exactly is an angel? He would likely describe to us an invisible entity made of a lighter form of matter, adorned with wings and radiating white. Understandably, Mr. Suspicious will raise doubts about the existence of such creatures - it literally sounds like the product of a child’s imagination, something only a Mr. “E. Silly” Dupable would believe. And to the consternation of Mr. E., we must admit that Mr. Cynical is right. There is no such thing as that angel.
Similarly, concepts like heaven, hell, or the soul for that matter - what is a soul? Where does it reside? In the heart? In the brain? And hell, where is this fire? Underneath Tiberius? How hot is it? Is the Garden of Eden more beautiful than the Gardens of Versailles? Mr. Naïve trusts that there is a soul, and understands it to be somewhere inside of him; Mr. Faith believes that there is a heaven; it is somewhere above, beyond the clouds. But where? asks Mr. Rational, is it nestled amongst the billions of galaxies? Is it beyond them?
But these questions are all part of the straw man built by the pre-philosopher’s understanding of the world. Because if all one knows is his own physical, material side, physical and material is all there is. We will now attempt to explain these ideas of non-physicality, but we must first point out that to the physically bound individual, describing spirituality is like describing color and sight to a blind person - it is actually impossible. So before we move on, let us briefly imagine what sight is like to the blind, and we’ll pick up from there.
The Analogy of the Blind Man
Take a moment and imagine being blind. In your life, a room is perceived piece by piece, one chair at a time, one wall at a time, one tile at a time. Now imagine someone approaches you and explains to you the existence of another sense that can perceive an entire room in a single instant! Such a concept would invoke similar vibes to what we associate with magic; to a blind person, the only modes of perception are auditory and tactile which work piecemeal alone. Now imagine further being told that this other sense, they call it ‘sight,’ includes elements like colors, shades and hues, which additionally bring tremendous beauty and life to that already miraculous instantly perceived room. While we find the sense of sight obvious, to the blind, such talk would sound completely, dare I use the word, irrational.4
Think strongly about this analogy to understand Plato. He is claiming that there is this ‘sixth sense’ (my terminology) of a world of immaterial, where we have the ability to ‘sense’ or truly understand5 immaterial concepts. But if this all sounds too fantastic - is it because it’s irrational, or is it just that we haven’t been privy to this sense? The ‘blind’ (i.e., those who never left their original destination) will assume that it is irrational, especially when everyone around him is ‘blind’ as well.
The Mind
But here is where the analogy of the blind man fails: we all have a mind. Plato asserts that the mind itself is completely immaterial. Even if we are not at all in touch with our minds, they exist. And here’s the point: angels don’t exist anywhere; ‘where’ itself is a physical construct. You will not travel on a spaceship to anywhere and find heaven or hell. They are immaterial; they don’t exist in the same plane that we are used to.
“But if so,” you may ask, “do they even exist at all?” To the pre-philosopher, things either exist somewhere, since his conception of reality is only the physical, where things exist in places - or they exist nowhere, i.e., they don’t exist. By saying something exists, it has to exist somewhere, and either this whole world is purely imaginative (a.k.a. fake), or, alternatively, if he is willing to foolishly accept their existence, the blanks will thereby be filled in with this childlike understanding, which draws ideas from what it already knows - the physical - which is a completely false and, of course, irrational thing to think.
But as we spend time leaving our physicality and getting in touch with our very own ‘angel’ inside, our actual minds,6 there is a point, says Plato, where we experience the immaterial as a perceived, empirical reality. Again, this takes years of training, but since it is within us, we can get there. Once this ‘sixth sense’ is opened up, the world of non-physicality has sudden meaning; we are no longer blind to it. Our perception no longer needs to fill in the blanks because the concept is understood. Now, what originally seemed only silly is completely understandable. Once one is in touch with his immaterial soul, the very word ‘soul’ comes to life, like any and every word does after experiencing its true meaning. Now, angels make sense; heaven makes sense; hell makes sense. (Although, I’ll point out, this doesn’t necessarily mean these things exist, it just means that their existence is ‘rational.’ But not to worry, we’ll return to that later.)
Back to Plato
Now we can start to explain Plato’s idea of the Forms. We wondered where this philosophical journey takes us, and how does it impart wisdom? The answer should now be clear: it purges us from our very material, physical world, sending us into our immaterial side - the conceptions of a world without the material, i.e., the world of the Forms.
Just to clarify, I have not yet made any claims or taken a stance on Plato's assertions at this point. Our focus is solely on explaining what he was saying. Does this reality of the mind actually exist? Do angels exist? Was Plato a liar? We’ll get to that down the line. For now all we need is to understand that this was Plato’s claim. Plato believed in the existence of another world.7 Plato believed in the existence of angels. That is all I am currently striving for.
As we will continue to show, this way of thinking was the core of Greek philosophy, as well as the main subject matter discussed by Muslim and Christian philosophers and ultimately, the Rambam. Our aim first is to establish an understanding of the Rambam’s worldview, and later on we will בל”נ return to assess the validity of these perspectives.
Laughing Gas
Although it isn’t time for this yet (as we literally just mentioned), I would like to take a moment to entertain that Plato was being honest about his experience, and in light of that, finish our discussion with Russell. According to Plato, those who have never ventured out of their caves of physicality will firmly and proudly believe that the world they know is the entirety of reality, much like the prisoners in the cave fixated on the shadows. Plato tells us that he has broken free and has been outside the cave and has experienced a world far beyond those fleeting shadows. But the prisoners scoff and dismiss his claims, assuming that he is making things up. Of course the prisoner doesn’t actually know that this world doesn’t exist, but every time Plato explains himself, all Mr. Physical can hear is physical. At this point, he can either choose to believe in what he perceives as irrational and absurd, or cling to his staunch rationality. Can we even blame him?
Someone whose encounter with true reality is laughing gas genuinely doesn’t get it, and Plato’s words will fly right over his head. He projects his own physical reality onto Plato, grossly misinterpreting him. If Plato talks about the mind, he must be discussing the imagination that I am familiar with, or something primitive and silly, because there is nothing else. Nothing exists beyond what I know, and believing otherwise would be silly and something only the Mr. Gullibles of the world follow, not ever-so-rational I.
To appreciate the ludicrousness of someone in Russell’s league critiquing Plato, consider the following cut away from a favorite childhood movie8:
Remy has the ability to really appreciate taste akin to visual and auditory sharpness, while Emile, like any other rat, can’t experience anything more than a whiff of nothing. But even though Emile’s experience is extremely mild, it is something (he does taste) and thus he still relates to Remy’s experience in a small way (it is what he knows plus more, albeit much more). Russell, on the other hand, has experienced nothing even remotely similar to Plato’s experience. He and his fellow prisoners project their own lives onto Plato and chalk one of the greatest philosopher’s words up to the kind of dry philosophy they are used to, while Plato’s actual golden ideas fly right over their heads.
Given the high quality of the content presented here in this post, I encourage you to take the time to thoroughly process and reflect upon it all. And while we will continue to elaborate as we continue along, I’m happy to clarify and answer any questions if necessary.
In the next post, God willing, we will discuss how the ideas of the ‘immaterial’ we’ve been considering here were at the core of the teachings of Aristotle, Plato’s most renowned student and by far the most influential philosopher of all time. Through Aristotle, these ideas went on to shape the essence of philosophy - Christian, Jewish and Muslim - for the next fifteen hundred years or so.
Plato uses different terms, such as the intelligible realm (grasped only through the ‘intellect’) and the sensible realm (what is perceived by the physical senses), amongst other such terms, which are enlightening in their own right, but for the sake of this discussion I thought it would be simpler for me to leave out the specific terminology and talk straight to the point. The reader is encouraged to read the “Republic” (unless time will be better spent on a Rashba or Shach) and see all these ideas for himself in the original Platonic phraseology.
Some questions a blind person could ask: What is this feeling of seeing a color? Is it like feeling a texture? Can you touch or hold a color in your hand? Are colors perched on top of objects or are they soaked all the way through? If red is excitable, is it jumping up and down? And if they can have emotions, do they cry?
The proper word here would be knowledge, as in intimate knowledge, that we can ‘know’ the immaterial, similar to the knowledge of what we see and experience with our other senses, except that here the knowledge itself is an experience. But there is no use getting technical just yet when my audience still has no idea of what I am referring to. So suffice it with the above terminology.
An angel is an immaterial disembodies being; we are immaterial bodied beings
Even this word, “world,” misleads the uninformed mind. He hears “world” and immediately conjures an image of another sort of physical world. But we are talking about a spiritual realm. And that word too, “spiritual realm” conjures up some imaginative physical-like image, which has nothing to do with our discussion. I’m just expressing yet again the philosophers frustration to be unable to communicate these ideas to those who haven’t the experience…
BH, I’m too busy with the more important things in life to watch movies, but childhood did have its perks:)
You can't have it both ways.
You can't use DMT and other psychedelics as a proof against other dimensions but then say that you have to enter it with materialist mindset in order not to get fooled into thinking its real.
Cognitive bias
> "the perfect triangle which consists of mathematical numbers"
1) a triangle consists of points and line segments, not numbers
2) as opposed to non-mathematical numbers?