Being Perceptive

... life as we know it

I remember when I was about six years old I had my first moment of insight into philosophy. I was on a bus, on my way home from school. I remember wondering what I would see if I was in that kid’s head, that boy over there looking out the window. Or that girl with pigtails laughing with her friends.

What would I see? I tried to imagine it. Would green be red? Would familiar faces somehow look more like monsters or animals? If my software was in their hardware - would the world look different?

I sat there for ages, trying to imagine the world with colours and shapes all turned around and mixed up. I found the whole experience extremely enjoyable and it has stayed with me ever since. Who knows, maybe it was that experience that turned me into a philosopher and theologian.

More than forty years on I’m still thinking about those ideas. Are the things that we experience with our senses really what they seem? How much is our brain just making up about the world, and how much is really actual…