Idea

Western thought and science have been led by an ideal of a single, ultimate perfection - often referred to as "Plato's World of Ideas". That perfection is seen as a driving force that improves our imperfect (sometimes considered worthless, full of sin or dirty) world. To the despair of modern "Platonists", that imperfect "out there" refuses to submit itself to that single, ultimate perfection of ours. It might or might not have its own single, ultimate perfection. If it has, we have a long, long way towards it. Meanwhile, all we can do is - to believe in it. Since belief is quite different from knowledge, it would be quite unscientific to allow ourselves to be influenced by personal beliefs. Wouldn't it? - I would suggest that we turn towards what we have and what we know. Putting those things in order will give us a much better chance of making new discoveries.

"Plato's World of Ideas" (that might be not Plato's after all) is one of these things and it might be an important part of our description of the world and ourselves within it.

Any similarity with children's "How to Draw" books is intentional.

A circle, for example, as a concept is very simple and there is one and only one concept of the circle. The same goes for all other shapes and forms. It seems impossible to imagine a better and more economical way to describe or memorise things around us. (If you move the pointer over the picture on the left, you should see how basic shapes could outline all there is to see. However, please note that this is not the only way to outline all there is to see.) The similar concepts of colour, sound, smell, touch, taste (babies will put everything into their mouths), warmth, etc. - outline all other aspects of our sensory experience in our brains in a form of sketchy images. To this, we need to add also sketchy images that outline our emotional and "bodily" reactions as well as sketchy images of our speech. An established cluster of such outlines (perception + reaction + speech), their adjustments and their relations in space and time, forms a highly abstract model (concept) of an object that overlays our direct perception of the world and ourselves within it. A simulation of such a model would produce sets of expectations that might sufficiently correspond to "out there" to increase our chances of providing ourselves with a good dinner. (Please note that personal experiences - i.e. sketchy images of our "bodily" reactions also play an important part. A city dweller without experience in catching a chicken would have much less chance.)

Two American psychologists - Roger Shepard and Jacqueline Metzler devised an experiment in which they presented to subjects pairs of simple three-dimensional objects and asked them if they are identical. (If one object could be mapped with another through a number of rotations.) At the same time they were measuring delays in answers and a strong correlation was established with the number of rotations required.

I imagine that such a highly abstract model (less data), that leaves room for many other highly abstract models (concepts), enables an increase in the number of simultaneous simulations based on our description of the world and ourselves within it. Further more, it enables some of the simulations to be carried out ahead - imagination. Dreams on the other hand, (with their ability to twist things around in ways not possible in the awakened state) might be giving us an opportunity for adjustments or improvements of another kind. There might be some other aspects of dreams and dream-like states well worth investigating. (On this, I hope to have more in the near future.)