A short trip round the garden of solipsism, and other delights (essay)

What a beautiful day it is today. How can I focus on philosophy on a day like this? Far better to look out of my window, watch the lazy, silver-rimmed clouds move inch-by-inch across their blue field… the delicate, skeletal birch trees waiting patiently for spring… the angular patience of a house-gable… the occasional disturbance of a sparrow in flight, in counterpoint to it all. Everything is beautiful in the garden, everything is serene, and the sun comes and goes, changing the patterns of shade, bestowing moments of warmth and light, as though they were smiles or kisses. Yes, far better to lean upon the sill and day-dream.

After all, what is there beyond “cogito ergo sum” – I am aware, therefore I exist? Awareness proves existence, but it proves nothing else. Nothing else at all. There is nothing frightening in that, in simply knowing that these clouds, these trees, the gable, the sparrows are here in my mind, and may be nowhere else. The scene is still beautiful, and beauty is a permanent thought, if a transient image.

Tathagata: “With our thoughts we make the world.”

Marcus Aurelius: “Your life is what your thoughts make it.”

Does anything exist outside myself? Even if it does, am I capable of knowing it’s nature? Even if I am capable, am I further capable of communicating with certainty what I know? My mind recognises here the principles of Gorgias, as explained by Sextus Empiricus; but are these principles any more real than the pictures I have of the clouds and the trees? Enough questions – let me go back to watching, to painting the world inside my head with pictures. It is all I want to do today.

The scene is moving, with calm slowness, with a kind of banal gravitas; and yet the sparrows seem to delight in defying it. It gives me pleasure to anthropomorphise them into tiny jesters, playing havoc with little bits of the serenity of the universe. They are in here, but they seem out there. What a marvellous universe I keep here in my mind!

As the sole being in this universe, it pleases me to populate it with these images. It pleases me to go and fetch myself a cup of tea and something to eat. It seems that I have to do this in order to continue to exist – though I have no proof about that. After all, awareness proves existence, but nothing else; awareness doesn’t define existence, awareness doesn’t define itself. In the phrase “I think therefore I am”, not only “think” and “am” defy further analysis, but also “I”. For that matter, even “therefore” is a little suspect too!

To pass from this, to go forward into the place in which the cup of tea and sandwich sustain me, and are part of a natural process of cause and effect by which I am able to go on being aware and existing, I have to make a big assumption. I have to take a giant leap of faith, and take it for granted that outside myself – my mind – other things really do exist, and that they follow laws with hard edges, laws with context, content, and consequence. I repeat that this is a matter of faith, because it can never be a matter of proof. As such, it must serve to humble the most vociferous and arrogant materialist, the most militant atheist, the most rigorous rationalist; each one of them, consciously or unconsciously, will have taken a step of faith – if they themselves exist. It humbles all of us.

The shocking thought remains, however, that it may not be a leap of faith at all, but a step into madness, an acquiescence with an intangible, improbable “world” out there, within which my sparrow-jesters fly not at a whim, but because of aerodynamics, instinct, and a million million impulses, an ever-tumbling line of dominos, stretching back into infinity, each one whispering “cause – effect” until the words become meaningless. Infinity is one of the most uncomfortable things I perceive, after I have made that leap of faith.

The next big assumption I have to make, if I take that step, is that my observations and my interpretation of those observations, can be relied upon as evidence, and can be used to form judgments and make pronouncements about what else may exist. Can I trust my senses? Can I trust my analytical ability? Again, every materialist, atheist, and rationalist, must make the same assumption. There is no proof. And the next big assumption after that, is to live my life according to the rules I perceive, from my analysis of what else may exist.

How can this be safe?

And yet I do it. I predicate a whole universe upon this. What remains to be said? I am quite clearly insane.

But it seems to work. Bread satisfies hunger, my body goes on until I feel hunger again, which more bread satisfies. If I interrupt that, I starve and die. If it is so or not so, I have no way of knowing, because none of the terms I use – bread, hunger, satisfy, starvation, death – has an absolute definition. But I keep right on doing it and, as I said, it seems to work.

No, there is nothing more to say. It is time I got back to the serious business of the day, the business that these thoughts interrupted, the business of the pictures here, of the clouds and the trees, the sparrows in flight, the spring day I have allowed to form in my mind. To be sure, they are beautiful, whatever that means.

I wonder if I have seen the truth. If I have, will I know that I have? If I have, or know that I have, will any mark be left of my knowing it after I have moved on? How foolish it all seems, how pointless the chase after illusory wisdom is, how much effort is put into philosophy that could be better spent.

The Mahabharata: “Just as the footprint of birds flying in the sky and of fish swimming in the water may not be seen, so is the going of those who have realised the truth.”

The Heart Sutra: “Om gate gate paragate parasamgate bodhi svaha.”

Enough – you are all tired of this. Let me tell you a story instead.

One day a man began to search a large field, in which he was convinced a great treasure lay. Fairly soon, to his delight, he saw something glittering in the grass. He ran towards it, and found that it was a piece of gold. So he picked it up, and continued to search. After a while he saw something else glittering, and excitedly ran towards it. He found that it was a piece of silver, but when he picked it up, he realised that in his excitement he had dropped the gold. He cursed his luck, but consoled himself with the silver, and continued to search. After a little more time, he saw something else glittering in the grass, and ran towards it as eagerly as had run towards the gold and silver. He found it was a piece of bronze, but as he bent down to pick it up, he realised he had dropped the piece of sliver somewhere. He cursed again, more bitterly, and resumed his search with fury. Soon he spotted something else glistening in the grass and, hoping that it might be his lost gold or silver, he ran towards it. When he picked it up, not only did he realise that he no longer had his piece of bronze, but that this last thing was only a piece of wood; maybe the sunlight had been reflected from its smooth surface, or the dew had formed a sheen on it, and thus fooled his eyes. Disgusted and cursing, he flung it from him, and left the field.

The story may end there, although some people say that at that moment he realised that he should have gone away content with the piece of gold, and not continued in his avarice. Others say that he realised that his whole search had been illusory and meaningless, and that he had gained some wisdom in the end, which was much more valuable to him than the gold, or the silver, or any other treasures he had found and lost.

Others again say that after he had gone, another man entered the field, picked up the piece of wood, and carried it away; and with the piece of wood he carried all the burdens of the whole world for ever.

It is simply a story. A story may have many endings or none at all, but it is still only a story, and serves little purpose. You must excuse me – I now have serious business to attend to. I have a garden to look at, here or out there as the case may be. The sun seems to have come out again, and to be shining steadily. It is a beautiful day – far too beautiful for philosophy.