From: Michael Hamilton (thethemichael@gmail.com)
Date: Fri Jul 08 2005 - 14:30:34 BST
Hi Ian,
Since you sent your message, my copy of Saving The Appearances
arrived. While I understand your objection, and agree that Barfield's
physics of rainbows in dubious, I don't think this damages the point
he's trying to make.
You objected:
> There is nothing about a rainbow that depends on human (or any
> animalian) eyes seeing, in order for it to exist, individual or
> shared, any more than a tree. The refracted light from rainbows is
> more "diffuse" and "non-localised" than the reflected light from a
> tree, but the light rays (photon streams whatever) are as real in both
> cases, whether eyes exist to see them or not. (All the stuff about
> where in space and relative to distant hills and hands in your field
> of view is garbage - poetic, but garbage none-the-less.) I can make a
> rainbow between me and this computer screen (or behind it) by blowing
> a raspberry in the right place. And so can you.
The purpose of the rainbow and tree examples is to show how we
distinguish genuine phenomena (or appearances, or representations)
from hallucinatory appearances. Barfield is not really interested in
"the unrepresented", the realm which your objection relates to.
> His stuff about hearing due to having ears, rather than sensing sound
> waves, is suspiciously close to the same evolutionary fallacy that no
> being could see (sense light) until the eyeball had come to exist.
> Just plain wrong creationist meme.
His point is that the rainbow *we see* depends, in part, on the nature
of our eyeballs. Sure, beings can sense light without having anything
so complex as an eyeball, but such a being would have sensations very
different to ours.
> Should I read on past Chapter 4 (Participation) or does it all depend
> on his erroneous start ?
Erroneous his physics may be, but Barfield's thesis depends much more
upon his initial argument that what we label as "reality" is formed of
collective representations, in other words, shared phenomena. If you
read on, this will probably become clear.
All I'm wondering is, why is a Barfield beginner (who's only read nine
chapters) the first to jump to his defense? Scott, where are you?!
Regards,
Mike
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