Yet the various contexts in which we use expressions like “appear” or “looks like” or “illusion” are not identical. For example, one might say, “Look,” (pointing to the sky), “that cloud looks just like a dragon.” In such cases we are speaking metaphorically, using similes, analogies, and comparisons for elaboration and vivid expression. We are not literally mistaking one thing for another, but more or less amplifying the nature of what we truly see.
Another common use of the “language of appearing” that falls short of the literal sense of ordinary perceptual illusions is in the putative “evidential” use of the relevant terms. For example, one might say, “It seems (as if) the economy is in a downturn.” Or, “It looks as if the war is going badly,” or, “Apparently (such and so) is the case.” In such cases we use the language of appearing to express guarded judgments (those falling short of certainty or total commitment) based on the immediate evidence. There is no question of literal perceptual illusion in such cases, but only the question of the recognition of the fallibility of our judgments or the incompleteness of the available evidence.
Finally another important use of the language of appearing and illusion, derivative from the literal use of perceptual illusion is what I call the “existential” use of the relevant terms. This use is best illustrated by comparing two classic monographs by major thinkers in the Western tradition. One work is Freud’s, “The Future of an Illusion,” and the other is from the late Contemplative Catholic mystic, Tomas Merton’s work, “The Ascent to Truth,” especially the chapter entitled, “Vision and Illusion.”
First, Freud. In the aforementioned work, Freud notes that “what is characteristic of illusions is that they are derived from human wishes.” Here the notion of illusion is attributed to beliefs, not perception. Illusions in this respect lie on a continuum with psychiatric delusions, depending on the intensity of wish fulfillment and relevant pathology. Examples Freud gives of illusionary wishes are a poor girl’s belief that a prince will come and marry her; or the ancient alchemists’ belief that metals may be turned into gold. It is not so much a question of the ultimate truth or falsity of the belief but the fact that the belief is motivated by wish fulfillment rather than objective evidence or empirical verification. Freud says that under sway of an illusion, we “disregard (the belief’s) relation to reality…and set no store by verification.” It seems to me that the genera of fairy tales would constitute a compendium of delightful tales based on wish fulfillment. In such tales, “dreams come true” and couples “live happily ever after.” In this regard, and as an aside, I am very doubtful of Bernard Shaw’s quip, “All your dreams come true, so be careful what you wish for.” (Perhaps this refers to unconscious dreams you never knew you had, given the unpredictability of the future and the ironic nature of fate.)
Freud says further, in regard to illusionary beliefs, that we cannot determine their “reality value” insofar as they cannot be proved, they also cannot be refuted. He says further that some illusions are “so improbable, so incompatible with everything we have laboriously discovered about of the world, that we may compare them…to delusions.” In accordance with his scientific “Weltanschauung” Freud says “scientific work is the only road which can lead us to a knowledge of reality outside ourselves.”
Of course Freud’s real target in his essay is what he considers the illusion or delusion of religious belief, especially in the doctrines of monotheism predominant at present in civilization. He considers such beliefs as the existence of a supernatural world, an omnipotent creator, life after death, etc., as pure illusion, in his sense of the word. Insofar as he considers belief in religion to entail the existence of divine phenomena, it would be more correct to say that he pictures such belief as a kind of collective hallucination, insofar as it entails the belief in entities that do not exist in the objective world as disclosed in science or in our non-religious practice. (In sum, Freud’s work is a well-written and sensitive defense of atheism in our modern times.)
On the other hand, from Thomas Merton’s deeply religious point of view, the expressions, “illusion” and “delusion” have almost diametrically opposite meanings than their use in Freud’s work. Again, Merton is using these expressions with respect to belief and derivatively from the ordinary notion of perceptual illusion. In the chapter, “Vision and Illusion,” after noting the emptiness and misery in many modern lives, he says that many are living in “illusion.” The reason he gives is that if one is living a strictly secular life, seeking satisfaction of desires and passions in finite goals or objects, consuming abundantly and partaking in activity for the sake of activity itself, then one is bound to be left with immense disappointment and despair. This is because the objective world, which certainly exists, does not contain the kind of spiritual values that alone may bring peace, contentment, or fulfillment. What is necessary is an abrupt change of direction. One must look up and within and recognize the existence of a supernatural world to find salvation. Otherwise one lives a life of illusion, thinking that the values sought are in the objective, secular world, when they are not there. “Vanity of vanities” as taught in “Ecclesiastes,” that is the life of “ceaseless and sterile activity.” “A man who takes a tree for a ghost is in illusion. The tree is objectively real, but in his mind it is something that is not…. When we live as if the multiplicity of the phenomenal universe were the criterion of all truth, and treat the world about us…[as] the only measure of our ultimate good, the world becomes an illusion. It is real in itself, but it is no longer real to us because it is not what we think it is.”
Thus from Freud’s point of view, Merton is seriously deluded. From Merton’s point of view, Freud is living in illusion, insofar as he denies the reality of the “otherworld” and seeks psychological health purely in this world. It’s as if the meaning of “illusion,” in this existential sense, is relative to where in intellectual space you are inclined to locate your idea of ultimate reality. If Merton is right about the material world, and Freud about the supernatural world, then we would be doomed to nothing but illusion, delusion, and hallucination in our experience. But if it was the other way around, that is, if Merton was right about the supernatural world and Freud about the material world, the resulting reality would be more akin to the one we are living.
It was my intention in this article to talk about the divergent uses of the language of appearing and illusion in order to clear the way for a discussion of the basic topic of perceptual illusion, from which all other uses of the notion are derived. But now I see I have run out of space and time to continue, so I reserve the continuation of this article for another time. Happy sailing to you all.
Puzzle
Can you find all real numbers, x and y, such that the sum of their reciprocals is –1, and the sum of their cubes is 4? That is all values, x and y such that 1/x + 1/y = -1 and x^3 + y^3=4.
Answer to last week’s puzzle
The number of the pips on the second die will correspond to the numbering: {1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8}. Coupled with the die of numbering {1, 2, 2, 3, 3, 4} you will get the same odds as rolling a pair of standard dice with numbering {1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6}.
