Phaneron

Think for a moment of how we experience the world. It’s through the senses, right? We interact with our surroundings via sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell. At this very moment I feel the hard wood of my desk beneath my arms and the springy motion of the plastic of the keyboard. I hear the clack-clack of the keys as I type. The cold basement air gently stirs against my checks. Can’t really smell, because I’m all stuffed up. And I can still taste residual soy milk in my mouth from the bowl of cereal I had fifteen minutes ago.

This is my phenomenal world. Philosopher Charles Peirce coined a word for it: the Phaneron.

This is neat because it implies a world beyond the phaneron. An anti-phaneron. Or, an ultra-phaneron. How about a super-phaneron, a hyper-phaneron, an über-phaneron? What would a sub-phaneron imply? An inter-phaneron?

(Words are neat; prefixes are neater.)

Anyway, here’s a nifty analogy for thinking about phaneron and whatever it is that exists beyond the phaneron.

Those of you somewhat knowledgeable in philosophy will recall Plato’s Allegory of the Cave. Guy’s chained down in a cave with a blazing bonfire behind him, and can only stare at the wall in front of him. Between fire and guy can be anything: a dancing girl, a hibernating bear, Achilles with a spear, whatever. All the guy can see is the shadows cast on the wall in front of him by the fire and the girl, bear, warrior, etc. Plato created this analogy to explain our experience of reality.

Now for something similar, but different.

Imagine your universe to be a giant, translucent box. That means light from outside the box can pass through but without any real clarity. Additionally, let’s say there are birds flying around outside the box. All you can see are the blurry shadows that fall on the top and sides of your giant universe-box. With me? You probably see where this is going. Your phaneron is the box, and “reality” to you are those blurry bird shadows you can see.

Now, take the box and shrink it down. Shrink it down to your skin.

Try to think about your phaneron and the hyper-phaneron in this new context.

Pretty neat, huh?


[Giant box shrunken down taken from Experience and Prediction, by Hans Reichenbach]