The War of the Senses and Reason

We talk a lot about different Dualities on this blog, perhaps too often. Earlier we talked about Mechanicalness Vs. Humanness, and Apollonianism Vs. Dionysianism, and now today we will be talking about the classic conflicts between our rational minds and animal desires. The Senses Vs. Reason.

The Five Senses: Sight, Hearing, Touch, Smell, and Taste are like windows for our consciousness to gaze out into the world and perceive what is going on out there. What I find very interesting is that while the senses are the most immediately obvious way to gain knowledge about the world, there quickly comes a point where we have reached the limits of sense-knowledge and need to rely on something that we can't immediately use our senses to perceive, and that is where Reason kicks in.We use our rational minds to come up with things as grounded in science (but still only theoretical) as String Theory, or something as metaphysical as the Theory of Forms (I'm a big fan of Plato's theory, and plan on writing an article about it sometime soon!).

So, we can use Reason in two accepted ways: We can make judgements based off information gathered through the sense-windows, making conclusions we believe are justified by the evidence that we can see, touch, etc. This is called Empiricism (Perception + Reason = Empiricism).

But we can also attain to knowledge about the empirical world using rational reasoning alone. Let us say, for example, that a nasty ol' snake-oil salesman came up to me with a box and said that if I paid him 5,000$ he would lift open the lid on the box and show me Icy Fire. That is, of course, impossible, because it is contradictory for Icy Fire to exist. I wouldn't need to pay you 500$ to know that what you are trying to claim is false. There is ice, and there is fire, but there is not Icy Fire. The belief that most or all things can be known through reason alone is Rationalism.

It is important to note that our Rationality can be tricked by our senses, and that is why it is important to always stay on guard.

'Know the Self to be sitting in the chariot, the body to be the chariot, the intellect  the charioteer, and the mind the reins .'
 'The senses they call the horses, the objects of the senses their roads. When he (the Highest Self) is in union with the body, the senses, and the mind, then wise people call him the Enjoyer.'
He who has no understanding and whose mind (the reins) is never firmly held, his senses (horses) are unmanageable, like vicious horses of a charioteer.''But he who has understanding and whose mind is always firmly held, his senses are under control, like good horses of a charioteer.'

I think that paragraph from the Katha Upanishads (part of a collection of scriptures from Hinduism called The Upanishads) illustrates the ideal relationship between the different parts of ourselves.

I believe that our senses can mislead us in two ways: Illusions of perception, and Desire.

An example of sensory illusions is this: I remember, one time, I was having a sleepover at my friend Griffin’s house, and we were in his basement. It was very dark, and of course we are rowdy, talkative teenagers so it was well-past midnight. We looked out of the window and I became terrified, and he asked me why. I said that there was a creepy old lady staring at us through the window. He looked at it from my angle and said the same thing. We were both fairly certain there wasn't actually someone looking at us, because it seems unlikely that this would happen and that an elderly lady could just be staring there motionlessly. The next morning when the sun came up the demon was revealed to only be a formation of dust on the wall - the angle I was looking at it from and the level of light available to me tricked my eyes into thinking it was a creepy, elderly face.
                                                                                                                                         
In other words, my senses tell me: There is a demon staring at us through the window! But my reasoning says: There must be something up...

An example of our senses being fooled by desire is this: Earlier this year I decided I would start eating healthy. I do not believe that ignorance is bliss, I believe that only the ignorant and the lazy think that. Instead I prescribe by “bliss is knowledge” by virtue of it being real and that ignorance is actually one of the purest expressions of suffering. So I gave up chocolate, candy, fast food, chips, pop, - the whole bit.

Because I have been eating this stuff for so long my body was addicted to it in a sense, and as a result of that the first week was like a withdrawal period. I had to struggle, to remind myself that the food is unhealthy regardless of how good it tastes, etc. I was experiencing, for myself, the classic example of our Reason leading us out of temptation. This is a very religious thing, a very ascetic thing, but Temperance is surely one of the oldest uses of Reason.

Now I find my body is extremely cautious towards letting anything get into my body and lets my mind decide instead, and I find I am healthier, with more energy and concentration. Sacrificing short-term pleasure for long-term gain has paid off!

So not only can our rational minds guide our senses (as in the example above) it can also tame them.

This second example of reason leading us out of pointless & destructive desires is called Temperance, one of the Four Cardinal Virtues. This is important to note because I believe as Socrates believed, that to be Rational is to be Ethical, and vice-versa.

When I went through my phase of quitting so many bad habits,I became extremely interested in why my body was so averse to quitting foods that were obviously unhealthy for it. Then, I read the research of biologist Niko Tinbergen. Niko Tinbergen discovered that animals are easily fooled by supernormal (alternatively called “super-real”) stimuli. The parents of songbirds would prefer to feed fake baby birds with mouths wider than their real children.  Male stickleback fish would ignore real rivals in order to attack wooden replicas with brightly painted underbellies. The sensuous instincts of the animals were hijacked and harmed as a result of that.

But, there is already an animal that is quite familiar with super-real stimuli..... Humankind!
                                                                                                                                                             
After all, while our technology is fantastic and all it outran our instincts a long time ago and the same brain that was made to cope with the Savannah's of Africa must now survive in an environment of refined foods that are saltier and tastier than anything that was ever available to our ancestors, technology that can immerse us into another world, and pornography. Is it any wonder, then, that the American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM) includes pornography, video games, and junk food?

What I gather from all this is that while animals are led along by their senses and are even “captured” by them, unable to act differently to what they see or hear regardless of how real it is. A human, using his rational intellect, can differentiate between the real and the unreal, between the beneficial and the harmful, and choose between them for his betterment.

awesome artwork called "Reason Vs. Instinct", original photo by Onikaizer. Instinct is portrayed as the animal mis-match monster on the left, and reason as the mechanical entity on the right. 

I guess Aristotle was right when he said we are the “Rational Animal”: Animals + Intellect = Humans. I believe this following statement is right regardless of your cosmological stance: Humans should allow their reason to dominate and guide their senses, otherwise their senses will dominate and guide their reasons. If you are an evolutionist, then you must not allow millions of years of evolution to go to waste by not making use of that rational mind, and exercise your unique, Nature-given capability to reason and control yourself. If you are a creationist, than God surely gave you a rational mind to elevate you beyond the level of mere animals so you should exercise it. 

After all, are not most of the traditionally accepted Ethics based on that above foundation? My senses tell me to be gluttonous, my reason tells me to be temperate. My animal mind wants me to steal, my human mind wants me to be charitable. My inner animal wants me to kill and compete, but the better angels of my nature want me to be merciful and just.