To begin
The American philosopher Don Ihde suggests that intuition does not necessarily tell us that the planet Earth revolves around the sun. What anyone can see is that the sun moves across the sky to make our days. He contends we hold a myth about experience.
The given is that you see the sun rising and setting and intuitively take as given the solidity of the earth, which any fool can plainly see that the sun is rotating around the earth. Suddenly, it occurred to me that this is not a given at all. The question is: How is the context situated such that seeing the sunrise and set is taken as an intuitive thing? What I have to do is dream up a thought experiment to show that you can perceive this differently. I have some clues to this end. This is a myth about experience that has been holding steady for centuries, which I think is simply wrong.*
A precis: It is not a given that the Earth is a solid (round?)and revolves around the sun. What makes us think this is so, other than "scientific fact"?
Here interviewed in 2000, Ihde may have sorted the myth out by now and come up with his thought experiment. He may also have ignored for some reason when it was thought the world was flat, thus having to avoid creating a thought experiment altogether. Without benefit of any of these insights, or myths, here is an entry for the challenge about how we can intuitively grasp the solidity of our Earth and how our days come to be.** See if it works as you follow a naive observer who employs his or her senses and a little intuition, a little reason, and a little imagination. Rule for the exercise: Much of what we know or can discover from other scientific disciplines that explain natural phenomena is out of bounds.
Intuition is the sense that an observed something is true without thinking much about it. When we sense that something is true, we are also thinking and have all the faculties available to us to assess our intuitions. A bit of reason and a dash of imagination are two of these, and they need not be set aside once an intuitive grasp of things takes hold. We ask almost in the same moment as the light bulb flashes, how does what has come immediately to mind measure up. Such is the method attempted here.
Introduction
If we can re-create what the shape of the Earth might be through a kind of direct, "uninformed" experiencing, we can conjecture along with Ihde that intuition tells us that the Earth is other than solid in the sense of round and whether the sun or the Earth moves. The starting point is what "any fool can plainly see" as sketched by Ihde.
Such an inquiry can lay the foundation for how an idea came to be, as well as whether or not this one is a myth and wrong as is the contention above. If we have a belief about experience that has lasted centuries and is in error, we ought to know about it.
This exploration relies on perceptions without preconceptions or knowledge external to the thing itself. Set aside whether or not the claim is valid that we take as given the matters suggested. This way we can sort through if not subtract accretions to get at a phenomenon itself--what it is we are looking at and how we are looking at it. Variations of simple, "reduced" perceptions from a baseline should tell this tale.
Baseline, "what any fool can plainly see"
A person sits on top of a hill. S/he can see three hundred and sixty degrees around. There are horizons as far as the eye can see with features in the landscape and on the horizon that are stable. A tree there in the distance, a mountain over here, and so forth.
Each day the sun appears as if on its own and rises above one horizon, travels across the sky, and disappears below the opposite horizon.
When our solar observer changes hills, the sun's course appears the same. S/he also feels no movement of the ground from which s/he is making these observations.
S/he concludes that the sun moves and the ground from which observations are made is stationary.
This Baseline is what anyone can see and is the starting point for the experiment. It consists of not all that we can see. For example, we can see the moon and the night sky. But these are excluded from the given, the challenge as set above. In addition, although the following are not the only perceptions possible, or the only direction that variations from Baseline could take, they might lead to a New World. But let's not get the chariot before the horse before taking a spin.
Variation 1
Our solar observer looks in every direction. The horizons all around make a circle. S/he sits in the middle of this circle. When s/he changes hills, s/he is still in the middle of a circle.
The horizons continue to appear the same distances away, as-far-as-the-eye-can-see, but the landscape and the features on the horizons differ depending upon which hill. Now a different distant mountain where the tree was, and where there was a mountain, there is but a thin line separating land from sky.
The observer concludes that the surface on which s/he sits is circular and flat and extends without measure in all directions with different surface features.
Variation 2
Our observer sits in the middle of a circle on the flat, extensive space we will now call the Earth.
S/he knows that objects in the landscape appear bigger when closer and smaller when distant. (After all, s/he has changed positions (hills) and found differences in landscape features.) The sun as it rises and sets is larger than at midday.
Trusting perception, the observer concludes the sun is closer to the Earth morning and evening and farther away midday.
S/he concludes the round, flat, extensive Earth is moving in relation to the sun, coming closer to the sun at dawn in the east and then moving away till midday, and then closer again at dusk in the west.
Milestone
If the Earth is not moving and is moving in relation to the sun, which is it? Does the sun, not the Earth, move to create our days? or is it the other way round? Given these simple perceptions, it does not seem from everyday experience that it can be both. One of these variations, Baseline or 2, helps define what is and is not the phenomenon of Earth/sun movement as it effects our days. Something needs to hold steady, that is to be invariant, in order for our observer to proceed and "know" the answer.
Variation 3
Our observer imagines the Earth moves. S/he is on a flat surface which moves up and down (vertically) to bring the sun closer to and farther away from the Earth.
This explains the larger and smaller sun, but not its movement, that is its appearance and disappearance on the opposite sides, east and west, of the flat Earth from the vantage point of the hill.
Variation 4
Again assuming the Earth moves, our observer imagines s/he is on a flat surface which moves to and fro (horizontally), or perhaps as a pendulum, and finds this also won't suffice for what is observed.
Variation 5
If the flat surface moves up and down or to and fro with a wabble, this also does not account for sunrise and sunset. If it spins as a disk, this too does not account for the movement across the sky above.
Milestone
Variations three through five are outside of a assumptionless explanation of the Earth v. sun movement. They do not constitute the observed phenomenon. The Earth "must" move and that does not vary, but how?
Variation 6
Thinking still that the Earth moves, our observer imagines s/he is on this flat surface, a kind of disk or plate, which revolves counter to the path of the stationary sun. The Earth in the west rises so far as to hide the sun and gives hiatus to the up-side where the observation hill is, and as the eastern edge comes round and takes its position at sunrise where the western edge was, the stationary sun appears again to signal another day.
This explains the closer and more distant sun during the course of the day. Although the flat Earth is extensive, at fairly predictable points on the edge it appears closer to the sun. The disk that is the Earth is not so wide as to come closer to the sun at midday. Its width comes closer only at two points, dawn and dusk.
The Earth's edge-over-edge tumble in relation to the stationary sun also provides a convenient explanation for night. When the sun is shining on the "bottom" side, the sun is blocked by the flat disk that is the Earth where the observer perhaps sleeps on the hill. But as noted above, night is not specifically within the horizons (excuse the oblique pun) of the phenomenon of Earth's solidity and what, it or the sun, moves. An intuitive grasp this may be that we are trying to validate, but it is one based, as many intuitions are, on partial and bits of information. We are not yet ready to add a bit of the night's secret.
Milestone
The world is flat like a disk of indeterminate thickness and it revolves edge over edge as against a stationary sun.
This is the first part of the problem of one, the solidity of the Earth and two, its, or the sun's, movement. It can be apprehended by a naive observer. And this suggests an intuitive grasp can conclude that the Earth is a solid and moves, or revolves, and the sun does not. But what of the solidity--roundness--of the Earth? It is flat and circular thus far.
Variation 7
Our observer starts on the flat, extensive surface in the middle of a circle. If s/he follows the setting sun west each day, the sun stays at a distance as-far-as-the-eye-can-see, or eventually there is an impassable body of water revealing that same distance between observer and observed. If s/he walks in the direction of the rising sun in the east, s/he experiences the same.
If the sun is always the same size at dusk and dawn and remains a constant distance away, as-far-as-the-eye-can-see, this gives our observer pause for thought. The edge of the Earth must be the same distance away regardless of travel toward it this way or the reverse. A flat Earth does not suffice as a simple explanation for this perception. The size of the sun at dawn and dusk preclude an infinitely extensive surface. A round Earth might suffice.
Our observer notes that the horizon over the distant waters comprises about one half of the horizon of a circle from the vantage point of land's end. This is the same on both ends (edges) of the disk-like Earth along the east-to-west path of the sun.
Our observer also notes again that the distance to the watery horizon and the bigger sun, as-far-as-the-eye-can-see away, appear constant.
The conclusion given these observations is that the Earth is circular, flat land which extends to water, or seas, which have an edge or end in view of the nearness of the sun at dawn and dusk. But that sun remains a constant distance regardless of approach to or retreat from it.
The observer sits a constant distance from the hill or land's end to the horizons and the sun. The sun must be very, very large if it appears so big at dawn and dusk where the horizons end, for both the land and sea extend that constant distance. But the size of the sun at horizon does not appear to change from that now distant hill behind one from the vantage of land's end.
Our careful observer imagines the water is the same water east and west in that the half circles must join consistent with the Earth's observed flat circularity. They come together to form horizons beyond land all around.
If the hill were high enough or one could fly like a bird, presumably one could see the land surrounding the hill with water in the distance surrounding the land. Unfortunately, there is no such hill and aided direct experience--an airplane--is not available.
Alternatively, the sun's constant size at dawn and dusk regardless of approaching it from either direction, where it appears and disappears, suggests a round not flat solidity.
Alternate Variation 7
If the Earth moves in relation to the sun by rotating, the bodies of water would be the same, making the Earth not flat but extensive as a sphere. Following the sun across the water and "over the edge" would lead to where the sun's path meets the land again.
Experience has shown that to follow the sun is complicated because of the water. You need a boat and perhaps navigation instruments for a precarious voyage. Both of these are technologies beyond naive observation where immediate grasp is the object, supported by simple reasoning, rudimentary perceptions, and a smidge imagination. Not much more. It should suffice that the seas are the same from joining the two half-circle horizons above.
It seems also the forces or material that would hold the water to the surface when the Earth upends itself cannot be a part of this discussion. However, naive perceptions exhaust not.
Variation 8
At land's end, our observer picks up a rock and lets go. It drops to the ground. Tries it again. Same result. Throws the rock out to sea. It drops and sinks out of sight. Our clever observer takes some water in hand and lets it go. It drops on the ground or falls back from whence it came.
The conclusion is that what goes up must come down, or some such more elegant formulation, which leads to . . .
Milestone
If rocks and water and observers are drawn back to the surface of the Earth somehow and that is their rightful place at rest, perhaps the Earth is round not flat. That is, beyond the horizons (the edges of the perceived flat surface), the waters are the same around a sphere that is the Earth. This is in addition to being the same waters as far as the imaginary eye can see from a hill high enough to observe the island of land in the middle of a circle of water.
Our solar observer is "learning" and becoming self confident, and completes the final seeing from a naive stance.
Variation 9
Days appear approximately equal in duration. As the Earth sphere revolves along the "path" of the stationary sun, the duration of a day's length on the hill is needed for dawn sun to appear again. The halves of the horizons such as seen east and west with bodies of water must connect on the underside, thus making two semi-spheres one.
A Conclusion
Although the variations from Baseline could continue and perhaps confirm, deny, or refine the above, it seems the intuitive experience, in this reading of Ihde's challenge, means that we are ready for thought experiments which might lead to other, perhaps different conclusions. Other than this . . .
It appears the sun is stationary, contrary to first appearances. The solidity of the Earth is not as it first appears either, a flat circle or disk with a variety of surface features including water. The Earth is more like a sphere with matter and water attracted or attached to it, moving in relation to the sun. The Earth also has horizons east and west, but these are not ends or edges really. The Earth revolves such that our days are the result of the cyclic appearance and disappearance of the stationary sun on our horizons.
The myth of experience as Ihde has presented it is that one, the earth is solid, most likely spherical in shape, and two, the Earth moves in relation to the sun to account for our days. The myth of experience that may have been wrong for centuries has yet to be elaborated and shown incorrect using a kind of naive observation, at least given the elaborations imagined here. Variations in perception from a Baseline through deepening insights not foreign or external to the observed thing itself do not yet constitute a misperception, not a myth about experience. An intuitive grasp of things appears to conform to the given that Ihde considers mistaken.
The next poignant question is, "How is the context situated such that seeing the sunrise and set is taken as an intuitive thing?" That is, how is the context of sunrise and sunset other than as reduced here? Great question still. Science and myth validate and interpret primal perceptions, or so an argument can be made. But perhaps Ihde has a thought experiment for us to follow and examine before we introduce how different ways of knowing put their spin on the Earth, or sun.
This is the conclusion to a bit of I-oriented perceiving without benefit of the object-seeing sciences or technology. The discussion or exploration arose from what Ihde refers to as a myth of experience, which is that we immediately apprehend, not necessarily in this order, one, the Earth is a solid, round?, and two it--not the sun--moves to cause somehow days, and nights. If this is indeed a myth about experience, what then does naked perception, or experience, reveal? What do we immediately apprehend or understand or conjecture without the benefit of physical or astronomical science, or for that matter myth? The above is within the realm of possibilities for this primary, perhaps primal, perceiving. A kind of intuition or immediate grasp of things. And the challenge continues to beckon contenders to discover a New World in the interest of demythifying ourselves. Have at it.
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* http://www.sunysb.edu/philosophy/faculty/dihde/articles/ihde_interview.html
** Ihde's words and sentences have been unpacked here into an exploration involving a hypothetical set of first order deductions from observations without a number of nuances and assumptions we would normally take for granted when speaking today. If there is an error in understanding Ihde's intent, it is solely this author's, and due apologies are hereby extended. In either event, the exercise may prove instructive in what it attempts but may fail eventually to accomplish. And for this, Ihde should be credited.
