Bacon’s four idols describe how everything that surrounds us influences our perception of reality and alters that perception. Each idol breaks up the influences into categories and how these categories alters perception. The idol of the tribe is the hardest to escape as it is influenced by the people of the past and present. The idea is that what has always been, will always be. Laziness and compliance to stick to a specific perspective, like that the world is flat is the main drive of this idol.
The movie Flatland takes a look into the lives of two dimensional shapes living in Flatland. To them, the third dimension is unthinkable. In Flatland, there are a few rules that reside over the land: the more and bigger your angles, it is believed the smarter you are. The circles who have the most and biggest angles, are the wisest of all. The circles have been aware of the third dimension but have kept that knowledge from all of the other shapes. This makes one begin to question, why has it been accepted that the more and bigger your angles, the smarter you are? Why do the shapes continue to believe in these principles? What makes them believe that there are only 2 dimensions. However, it’s easy to question and criticize a fictional world with fictional characters. When looking inward at yourself, and the society you live in, it becomes much harder to ask these questions. We live in a democracy, are there better methods of governmental system out there? What would be considered better? It’s even harder to answer these questions.
Arthur Squarington one night is taken to the third dimension by a sphere, Sphereius, who resides in the third dimension. Arthur, now seeing that there are more than the two dimensions he lived in, begins to question if there are perhaps more dimensions than even the third. Arthur has been introduced to the concept of Bacon’s first idol. He begins to question the laws that have been set in place by society. Arthur has a new perspective, however it has been influenced by Sphereius, who believes there is nothing past the third dimension. Therefore, no matter what new perspective is discovered it’s still subject to the idol of the tribe.
Arthur still seemed to doubt Spereius though. He did not seem to completely believe him, and his daughter certainly seemed to believe that their very well could be an infinite number of dimensions. Also, this movie portrays the idea of "scientific revolutions" that Thomas Kuhn came up with. It shows this because the only way for the 3rd dimension to be realized in flatland, the science that the circles were forcing on flatland had to be overthrown.
ReplyDeleteTo expand on the initial post, in addition to the Idol of the Tribe, the other three Idol's that Bacon described are also represented in Flatland.
ReplyDeleteThe Idol of the Cave can be found in each individual characters resistance to accepting the existence of a higher dimension than the ones they exist in at the time. The idol of the cave is centered about ones inability to grasp a concept that is beyond their own preconceptions and evidence and as such fits the scoffing mentality of many of the characters when they are being first told of the higher dimension than their own.
The Idol of the Marketplace is present in the word issues between a character trying to explain the higher dimension to another character. This idol arises due to the inadequacy of words to properly explain what one is trying to state. The most common occurrence of this issue in flatland is when any character is trying to explain 'up', meaning a height in the third dimension, but being misunderstood as meaning up, or north, in the second dimension.
The Idol of the Theater is also present through the societal hierarchy established by the circles to control the thoughts and opinions of the 'lower classes'. These lower classes of geometric shapes blindly follow what the leading circles say and as such are blind to the reality of their world. The reality being that there is, in fact, a third dimension.
All three of these Idol's, much like the Idol of the Tribe as explained by Lizzy, impact the characters in the movie Flatland by obscuring their ability and willingness to expand their understanding of the world in which they live. In fact, they mostly just allow themselves to be controlled by the four idols and accept the false reality they have been conditioned to accept by society and themselves.
I agree with Brandon that all of the Idols are shown well in this movie, but i will focus on the Marketplace as that is the group I am presenting with.
ReplyDeleteThe Idol of the Marketplace is about the language barriers between individuals as well as the meaning behind words and symbols. As Brandon stated they have trouble stating the third dimensions of up and down in the 2d world. The line segment has even more trouble with this as he believes that there are only left and right along his line segment, and is amazed when Arthur appears from above him and disappears below him. The Idol is represented well by the symbols in Area 33H. In 2d the cube rotating looks like a square altering into a diamond. This is a symbol built by those in the 3rd dimension to show the 2d individuals it worked in showing the circles but in order to keep their power they forbid other shapes from looking at it.
The problem with the movie is that it is not a possible for their social structure to stay in structure for more then a few generations. If each successive generation adds another side then when the triangles die off all of their offspring will be squares, ect. until the point where all of them are circles.
Thanks Lizzie, Brandon, Travis, and Eric for connecting Bacon and Kuhn to Flatland. Great posts and great insight.
ReplyDeleteI think about philosophers/ scientists like Galileo who encountered the "square police."