About the song on the radio called Heaven, by the group Live.
In it he says, 

  "I don't need no one to tell me about heaven
   I look at my daughter, and I believe.
   I don't need no proof when it comes to God and truth
   I can see the sunset and I perceive"

I really like the music, melody, instrumentation and singing in this song. However, with lyrics like this, there's just no way I could say that I actually like this song. This is both interesting and disturbing to me. 
Here I'm going to break it down line by line and give a few comments about four crucial fundamental flaws I notice in this song and in the world view of many (most?) people. 

  "I don't need no one to tell me about heaven"

Fundamental flaw number one. The idea expressed here is that heaven (whatever their particular heaven is like) is something (some place?) that can be sensed without ever having heard of it before. 
Interesting. I'm not even going to argue with the person on this one. However, I'm sure it is quite possible that heaven was an imaginary concept originally created to explain (explain away?) something in the natural world that was experienced through the senses. 

That doesn't mean that I see imagination as a flaw though. There's nothing inherently unhealthy about imagining things. Just because some people have trouble knowing the difference between reality and fantasy shouldn't have to mean that it is something we should all stay away from altogether. As I've said elsewhere, imagination can even be a very useful tool as a temporary measure in the process of figuring out how to go about some task or how to create some object. 

The flaw is in adopting something from our imagination as a permanent part of our world view. I think it is dangerous when we replace knowable reality with that which we come up with in our imagination. The really unfortunate thing is when we get to the point of either forgetting or denying that our imagination is where it originally came from. 


  "I look at my daughter, and I believe."

Fundamental flaw number two. Not only is he willing to pretend (the true definition of believing) that he knows for sure that there's a heaven, but he's also saying the he thinks his daughter somehow shows it to him. What's really going on here is a classic case of circular reasoning. He already is convinced that there is a heaven. Then looking through the lens of that belief, he looks at his daughter. So long as he is already pretending that he knows there's a heaven, and so long as he is interpreting everything in the natural world through that grid, he will think that everything he looks at (in this case, his daughter) somehow reflects or expresses something about heaven. 

I know this from first hand experience. This is exactly where I used to be when I was still a believer. This person has nothing valid to say about the nature of knowable reality so long as they continue living in the land of make-believe and wishful thinking. His believing in heaven being based on looking at his daughter is just a smoke screen since he already obviously believed in heaven before looking at his daughter. It was simply in looking at his daughter that he found yet another point where he could skew the interpretation of knowable reality in favor of his current world view. 


  "I don't need no proof when it comes to God and truth"

Fundamental flaw number three. What do you meant that you don't need proof? If our five senses are not real, then how can we know what is real at all in the first place? We have to have a common denominator when it comes to judging alternatives in the attempt to understand just what constitutes reality. If we don't start with the most fundamental measuring tools that we have (our senses of touch, smell, hearing, sight and taste as well as our powerful brains to computer all of this information), then what? Anything goes. Sure, you could say that we can just feel with our hearts or some other such sentimental nonsense, but we all know how unreliable our "feelings" can be at times. 

The very reason we all know this is because of how they do not always line up with the real world (which we perceive through our senses). So, if it genuinely is our senses through which we experience reality, then if we throw them out as legitimate measures of knowable reality, we're completely at the mercy of the best story that someone can come up with. While the story may indeed be interesting and enjoyable and maybe even helpful in our progress as a species in one way or another, why let it take the place of real, live experience? Why let it take the place of knowing reality for your self through the only tools of measurement that we know for sure to have a direct point of contact with the world outside our own minds? 

The other problem here is that, while he is telling us that he needs no proof (implying that he already has the proof he needs), he is actually telling us that he doesn't care about proof. No amount of facts from the realm of knowable reality would even matter here. He is convinced of something and is not even interested in considering it from any other perspective. "I don't care about what's real. I'm comfortable enough pretending that I already know all I will ever need to know about the real world. Don't confuse me with the facts." 


  "I can see the sunset and I perceive"

Fundamental flaw number four. Here he confuses perceiving with conceiving and says that he's doing one when he's really doing the other. Let's face it folks, the only thing that can be "perceived" by looking at the sunset is the sunset (well, and all of the other objects in view at the time too). In fact, the only things that can ever be perceived with the eyes are those things which have enough solidity and surface matter to be able to reflect light (whether from a star such as our sun or from flashlights or other sources of light). 

I suppose that one could say that he's talking figuratively about seeing the sunset. Well then it's pretty odd that he mentions the sunset isn't it? Let's be honest here. Clearly he is talking about seeing something in the natural world with the natural eyes on his natural face. 

This isn't about a difference of opinion either as if I'm picking a fight with someone over their perception of the sunset. Two people can see the same sunset and perceive it very differently and neither would necessarily have to be right or wrong. In fact, one could say that they perceive it to be very bright while the other claims to perceive it as being very dark. After a few clarifying questions we might find out that the one that said it was bright was talking about the white and yellow colors of the sunset while the one that said it was dark was concentrating on the deep redness of it.  

The issue here is not with a difference in perception though. In fact this isn't even about the issue of perception at all. This is about what happens when people opt out of the facts of the natural world and choose to pretend at a crucial and fundamental level while constructing their world view. 

It is possible (I've seen it happen to very good friends of mine when I was a believer) that someone could get so convinced that what they've conceived in their mind is real that they may in fact genuinely wind up thinking that they are actually perceiving it in this present situation. 

When the person sees the sunset, the sunset is all that is there to be seen and thus, all that is there to be perceived. When people claim to perceive things that aren't really there, most psychologists would call this either a hallucination or a delusion. 

As I understand them, hallucinations are real images (or sounds or other sensations) in the brain that emanate from within the brain. They may be made up of things that have been seen or otherwise experienced in the natural world, but they can happen in complete darkness. There need not be anything at all in view of the person's eyes at all at the time of experiencing a hallucination. 

They may have both physical and psychological components as their main source. Hallucinations can even be a matter of the brain incorrectly passing outside information from the eyes to the person's conscious awareness center. Their eyes could be looking at a sunset and the brain could be distorting the sensory data to the point that in their mind they could be seeing a spaceship taking off, or even something as drastically different as a monster of some sort moving towards them to burn them with fire.

Delusions on the other hand are more of an internal, thought-related phenomenon. They aren't necessarily a matter of seeing something with the natural eyes or viewing distorted images within the mind. Delusions are more about conceiving ideas with the imagination. Don't worry though, not all things that we imagine would necessarily be labeled delusions. It is when we lose track of the fact that the things we imagine are the product of imagination that they can become delusions. 

It may seem like a fine line, but that's where critical thinking comes in. Only the brain that is not doing critical thinking gets so confused that it can't keep track of what's real and what's not anymore. At the extreme end of this continuum we find schizophrenia. This is where the person has so totally lost (or at least lost track of) their ability to keep track of the difference between reality and fantasy that they can actually be dangerous to them selves and/or others. At this point I would recommend that they be given the benefit of some kind of qualified, professional, psychological and/or psychiatric care. It doesn't mean they can never go out of the house anymore, but it does mean that there should be a responsible, level-headed adult checking in with them and working together with them in order to help them cope with their difficulty in perceiving reality. 

So, why all the words about hallucinations, delusions and losing track of the difference between reality and fantasy? Well, it's not just to scare people or freak them out. Although if in being scared by this someone decides to adopt critical thinking as part of their daily life and begins examining the things they hold to be real and weighing them on the scales of knowable reality, then I'm all for it. 

Really though, my point was just that there is an obvious problem here when people are going around claiming to perceive something that clearly isn't even there to be perceived. Though there may be more, here are three possible explanations for what's going on in the mind of the song writer as far as I understand it... 
1) They are conceiving the thing and they know it, but are accidentally using the term perceive incorrectly 
2) they are using the word perceive instead of conceive incorrectly on purpose and are trying to convince others of what they are convinced of 
3) or perhaps they really are out of touch with reality and they really do think they are perceiving the non-real thing in which case I'd recommend an appointment with a psychologist or psychiatrist of their choice (preferably one that actually employs the scientific method in their research and practice... not just someone that claims to be a scientist and uses scientific terminology). 

Like I said, there may be other possible explanations, but these are just the ones that come to my mind at the moment. I honestly don't know which one was really happening in the writing or singing of this song. What do you think?      (this entry created 20031014_0704)