“In Meno, Plato, speaking through Socrates, describes color as ‘an affluence of form, commensurate with sight, and sensible.’ In Theretetus he discourses more at length on the subject thus: ‘Let us carry out the principle which has just been affirmed, that nothing is self-existent, and then we shall see that every color, white, black, and every other color, arises out of the eyes meeting the appropriate motion , and that what we term the substance of each color is neither the active nor the passive element, but something which passes between them, and is peculiar to each participant; are you certain that the several colors appear to every animal—say a dog—as they appear to you?’
“In the Pythagorean tetractys—the supreme symbol of universal forces and processes—are set forth the theories of the Greeks concerning color and music. The first three dots represent the threefold White Light, which is the Godhead containing potentially all sound and color. The remaining seven dots are the colors of the spectrum and the notes of the musical scale. The colors and tones are the active creative powers which, emanating from the First Cause, establish the universe. The seven are divided into two groups, one containing three powers and the other four a relationship also shown in the tetractis. The higher group—that of three—becomes the spiritual nature of the created universe, the lower group—that of four—manifests as the traditional sphere, or inferior world.” ~Manly P. Hall
Nothing is Self-Existent
This simple statement may be one of the most important things Plato ever said, and our modern science has finally caught up with him. What Plato is saying here is that when we think we see a tree, what we are really seeing is a relationship between some unknown thing with our eyes and our brain. The eyes see something, the brain interprets it as a tree. But this is just our interpretation of what is there. The modern science of Quantum Physics now tells us that the form of the thing is affected (changed) by the observer. What’s more, they say that at least with some things on the subatomic level, the thing doesn’t even have a form until it is observed, it is just a wave of potential. The scientists are not willing to go this far, but I think that logically, if all things are made up of atoms, and all atoms are made up of subatomic particles, then the rules of those subatomic particles must apply to everything unless someone finds a law that says these particles behave differently when clumped together into atoms. So far, I know of no such finding.
It isn’t that nothing exists without being observed, it is that what does exist is waves of energy with no specific form. The forms we see are those we have agreed upon as representing certain nodes and frequencies of energy. Those forms are part of the Great Illusion we call the physical world. Continue reading “Self-Existent Reality and Illusion”
