the color of red that it appears to be right now? Naive realism says of course it is. But Russell suggests that you should consider it again after lowering the lights. Notice that the color changes – the red becomes darker, deeper. If the original color was the real color, then what are we to say of the color it is now? Well, one might be tempted to say that while you cannot pinpoint the exact shade of red that is the “true” or “real” red of the chair, it is nevertheless some shade of red. But what reason do you have for thinking so? After all, the color changes not only with the brightness of the lighting, but also with the type of lighting. The color of the chair will look different under daylight, fluorescent light, candlelight, black light, etc. If under certain lighting conditions the chair looks more brown than red should we say it is brown also? And purple sometimes?
Now at this point you might think that it is not the chair that has changed, but the lights. Purple lights are purple, but the chair is not. But that is precisely Russell's point. As modern science tells us, color is not in the objects themselves at all. Red chairs, after all, are not made out of a bunch of little red atoms. Rather, the color that objects appear to us to be is caused by the wavelengths of the light that reaches our eyes from the direction of the object. But look what has happened. You thought that the chair (which really exists) was really red. But as it turns out, it is only the appearance of the chair that is red. The chair in itself is not.
Might naive realism have better luck with texture? To us the chair looks and feels very smooth. Many would assert that it truly is smooth. But is it really? Look at it through a microscope and the red leather exterior will appear very rough, bumpy, or even jagged. And imagine how this same leather might feel if our hands were about one‐tenth the size of an ant's – not smooth at all. The texture of the leather is clearly relative to one's perspective. And which of these perspectives is the real perspective? Russell contends that no perspective deserves that title. And solidity? How solid the chair seems will depend on your strength and weight. If you weighed 10 000 pounds, you certainly would not regard the chair as solid. And, according to the atomic theory of matter, the atoms that constitute the chair account for only a tiny fraction of the space it occupies. Thus, the chair is predominantly empty space – hardly the solid object that we perceive.
Shape is little help either. We know (or think we know) the shape of an object by what we see and feel. But what we see are colors, which we now realize are not really in the chair, and what we feel is its smoothness and solidity, yet these have turned out to be no more real than the color. So, again it comes down to perception. We seem to have absolutely no idea what the chair is like in itself – apart from our perceptions.14 So consider once again the question of how you know that the chair exists. You thought you knew that it existed because of your various perceptions of it. But if we are right to regard these as appearances only, then you have lost your main reasons for thinking that the chair even exists at all!
Now I suppose you could maintain that there is still sufficient reason to think that there is a chair “out there,” because even if it is not red or smooth or solid, it is something that is causing you to have these sensations. But Russell calls on you to notice that this “something” – whatever it is – is very different from the chair that we first contemplated. Should we even regard it as a physical thing? What does it mean to say that the “chair” exists, as something outside our perceptions, if you do not mean to imply that it has a particular size, shape, color, or texture? The fact of the matter is that all anyone ever has direct access to is their own perceptions. So we can never really be certain about what is causing those perceptions – or even if there is anything out there at all.
Ultimately, it seems that even when we set our worries about Matrix‐type deceptions aside, the true nature of our world turns out to be a very slippery thing. Firm conclusions turn out to be rare, and doubts arise at every turn. But this should not be regarded as altogether bad. For, although philosophical reflection often undercuts our sense of certainty, it can also be very liberating. Once our common‐sense assumptions have been revealed as illusions, we are freed from a kind of system of control. We inevitably find that the world is larger and more mysterious than we had thought, and our certainty is soon replaced with wonder and curiosity. While we may no longer “know” all the answers to life's questions, we can begin the quest to find out.
For pop culture resources and philosophical resources related to this chapter please visit the website for this book: https://introducingphilosophythroughpopculture.com.
Notes
1 1 Quotes in this chapter designated with a † are from The Matrix (movie). Quotes designated with SS are from The Matrix Shooting Script.
2 2 Descartes, R. (1986). Meditations on First Philosophy , 2 (trans. Ronald Rubin). Claremont, California: Areté Press .
3 3 For another interesting exploration of dreams and reality try the film Waking Life.
4 4 Descartes, 3.
5 5 Compare this to Matriculated, the ninth animated short in The Animatrix. It tells the story of a band of rebels who capture a sentient machine and put it into a Matrix of their own design. The machine is then given a set of experiences in order to “brainwash” it into thinking that it is human. This film also suggests a motive for the limits of Neo's own deception – empathy. The rebels set limits on the extent to which they deceive the machine because they do not want to make it a slave. Rather, they want to render it harmless – to make it an ally. This also seems to be the Architect's primary motive in limiting the deceptions of humans within the Matrix.
6 6 For a similar sort of deception see Arnold Schwarzenegger in Total Recall.
7 7 An exception to this general rule occurs when Neo is caused to “forget” his first interrogation by Agent Smith. Only when Trinity removes the bug from his naval does he recall the event.
8 8 In this case Neo would be a sort of futuristic Sisyphus. Though one key difference is that Sisyphus was fully aware of the futility of his work.
9 9 Morpheus teaches Neo this lesson in the Kung Fu scene from The Matrix.
10 10 Descartes, 6.
11 11 This famous phrase comes from Descartes's Discourse on Method.
12 12 Descartes, 6. For his now classic “brain in a vat” hypothesis see also Putnam, H. (2008). Reason, Truth, and History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
13 13 See Russell, B. (1959). Appearance and reality. In: The Problems of Philosophy (ed. B. Russell ). Oxford: Oxford University Press .
14 14 If you think that you know that the chair is composed of atoms, think again. Any evidence for the existence of atoms ultimately depends on sense perceptions. And these, as we've seen, are always just appearances.
6 Adama's True Lie: Earth