My philosophical wonderings of illumination
Sep/09Comments
Back in high school, I worked with a man who wrote on a small, scrap piece of paper “Light in the absence of eyes illuminates nothing.” At the time I did not think much of it, but that saying has remained with me for quite some time.
Lately, I’ve wondered about the authenticity of such a bold claim. A light, after all, provides illumination. As light falls upon a subject, it makes that subject visible. On the surface, it would seem like such a statement is clearly and entirely false.
But what is “illumination” exactly? Isn’t a subject illuminated only if viewed with eyes? The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines the word illuminate as: “brightened with light”. A fairly generic definition, for sure. I am not at all convinced that it provides much clarity to this discussion.
I suppose this question comes down ultimately to how you define illumination. Without eyes, can something truly be illuminated?
