What Would It Have Looked Like?

Posted by jns on August 25, 2008

Spending a bit of time online with Richard Dawkins (I was spending time with him whereas he spent no time with me–the net works that way), I listened to a reasonably interesting TED talk in which Dawkins talked about how our perceptions of reality are shaped by the evolution of our brains to help us get around in the universe at the size that we are.

That’s interesting enough, but what I want to preserve here is this perceptive and useful little exchange ascribed to the philosopher Wittgenstein, also on the subject of perceptions of reality and the “obvious”. It’s a lovely mini-drama and a useful point to remember.

Wittgenstein: Tell me, why do people always say it was “natural” for man to assume that the Sun went ’round the Earth rather than that the Earth was rotating?

Friend: Well, obviously, because it just looks as though the Sun is going ’round the Earth.

Wittgenstein: Well, what would it have looked like if it had looked as though the Earth was rotating?

[Richard Dawkins, "Queerer than we can suppose: the strangeness of science", TED talk, July 2005.]