The metaphor I have in my head to compare rational
and storytelling paradigms is the comparison of mythology/folklore/art and
modern science.
Ancient Greeks believed that the god Apollo, son of
Zeus, pulled the sun across the sky each morning and night behind his four-horse
golden chariot. The sun was once considered a divine sphere of celestial fire
controlled by the gods and willed by prayers. According to the Greeks, Aurora
the goddess of dawn flew across the sky each morning proceeding Apollo, trailing
vibrant colors to announce the arrival of the sun.
Native Americans from the Pacific Northwest coast
to the Great Plains, to the inland
forests of Mexico had their own respective sun gods and surrounding myths.
In modern times, we “know” that the sunrise is a
result of the Earth’s rotation, its tilt on its axis, and it’s position in its
yearly orbit around the sun. Sunlight, a reflection of ultraviolet rays off of
scattered air particles, is composed of a spectrum of colors that grade from
violets and blues at one end to oranges and reds on the other. At sunrise (or
sunset), light has to travel farther through the atmosphere and through more
scattered air particles than at the middle of the day, which creates a
kaleidoscope effect and makes more colors of the spectrum visible. These colors
are then reflected off of the clouds.
Do these two different paradigms change the way we
see the sunset? Does either interpretation make it any more, or less beautiful?
Is one more “real” or valid than the other? Can these two beliefs be
reconciled?
This comparison in itself shows that I (obviously, as a writing major)
err more on the side of the storytelling paradigm. I prefer fables to
mathematics and I believe the world is up for interpretation. Building upon what
I wrote last week, I continue to wonder: Why do we value the rational paradigm
as the more supreme and undeniable "truth?" Why are arts so often
disregarding when they can dive so deeply into the human condition?
Even science, as Persig explains, is little more than oral tradition.
As I mentioned in my last post, I wonder if it's
possible for people to move back and forth between seemingly opposite ways of
thinking. Although I know I'm stuck within my own bubble of thought and
perception, I'm still able to acknowledge and contemplate other bubbles. I can
put myself in someone else's shoes to a certain extent; I can understand both
paradigms.
In modern society, we are collectively advised
(both in an academic setting and otherwise) to never mix the two paradigms, to
value reason over storytelling and to look to logic for the base of all things.
Persig makes a handful of very interesting points regarding the
interplay of reason and storytelling/ classical ways of knowing in this section
of the reading.
“[P]resent-day reason is an analogue of the flat earth medieval period.
If you go to far beyond it you’re presumed to fall off, into insanity. And people
are very much afraid of that.”
I found this quote reminiscent of Descartes’ struggles with his own
existence; we humans don’t like the thought of the unknown, of things we cannot
define or justify. When a phenomenon (like what happens to us when we die) can’t
be easily explained by stories or science, our fear for it becomes immense.
I’m not entirely sure what Persig means when he says that one must “expand
the nature of rationality,” but I think he means something in the realm of
combining the two paradigms, using them to fill in each other’s gaps.
As Persig says, both technology and reason “presume there’s just one
right way to do things, which certainly isn’t the case.”
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