Astronomical Perception

Astronomical Perception

I don’t think anyone would seriously argue that we see stars just as they are. They look to us like small pinpoints of light not massive physical bodies, and they were conceived as such in earlier times. If there were a dome over the earth with apertures in it and a conflagration behind, the night sky would look the same as now. If we were closer to the stars, they would look quite different. Naïve realism about stellar appearances is evidently a false doctrine (though we may well still be seeing the objects themselves—just not as they actually are).[1] Certainly, we have very limited perception of the stars: we see very little of them—their shape, size, and composition. Some people maintain that we see only the cone of light that emanates from them, while they may have gone out of existence long ago. Their objective reality is hidden from our eyes. We can imagine having more powerful eyes that can surmount such large distances, revealing the stars’ affinity to the Sun (“telescopical eyes” as opposed to Locke’s “microscopical eyes”). As it is, we don’t see stars as we see apples and oranges, in all their multidimensional glory. Our perceptual faculties don’t disclose the true nature of extraterrestrial bodies in the way they disclose the true nature of terrestrial bodies.

But is that really true? Isn’t all vision au fond astronomical? What about the perception of the Sun and Moon—is it like the stars or is it like pieces of fruit? Do we really see them as they intrinsically are? For sure, our perception-based beliefs about them have been wildly erroneous as to distance, size, temperature, and composition. They appear very different up-close. The Moon isn’t intrinsically bright and the Sun is much larger than it looks. If they were closer to Earth, they would look quite different. The same is true of the planets: Venus looks like a bright shining star, but it isn’t. We don’t have a clear and accurate view of the heavens above, because our eyes are not acute enough for that. How well do we see the clouds? Not terribly well and they are quite close: they don’t look like volumes of water (nothing like lakes); they look fluffy and gaseous. Come to think of it, how well do we see high-flying aircraft? They can look like blinking stars at night and missiles or birds during the day. Our perceptual faculties are obviously limited. But isn’t the same thing true of up-close perception? And what is “up-close” anyway? Isn’t it all a matter of degree? Isn’t normal terrestrial perception just another variant of so-called astronomical perception? Aren’t we all astronomers of the world outside our heads (or even inside)? We have grown familiar with the idea that medium-size dry goods (or fruity ones) are actually not as they appear—not colored, warm or cold, solid, unchanging, inactive, heavy. The manifest image is not the scientific image. We are thus like astronomers with respect to ordinary perception. And why is terrestrial perception thought of as “ordinary” and different in kind from astronomical perception? Seeing the stars at night is quite “ordinary”, especially to nocturnal creatures; indeed, the stars are more visible at night than the fruity dry goods that litter planet Earth. Our customary ways of thinking are anthropocentric and relative.

The time has come to abandon the distinction between astronomical perceptual obscurity and terrestrial perceptual transparency. It is a pre-scientific holdover. Neither is a matter of clarity and perspicuity, revelation and veridicality. To put it bluntly, we are as bad at seeing apples and oranges as we are at seeing stars and galaxies; the two are on a continuum. Indeed, in some respects we are worse at seeing nearby things, because we are more misled by our perceptions: we are ignorant of stars perceptually but we are positively deceived about nearby objects—they appear in ways they are not. We are lousy astronomers of the local flora and fauna and bricks and mortar. Our senses purport to tell us the truth about these things, but they fail in this endeavor, whereas in the case of stars they are merely impoverished in informational content. Naïve realism is false for both. Perceptual appearances are as blind to things on Earth as they are when directed at the heavens, perhaps more so. Our natural naïve astronomy, whether sublunary or superlunary, is none too brilliant when gauged objectively. We gaze at those heavenly bodies standing right in front of us and gain a distorted and partial picture of the objects in question—correctable in the light of modern science. They are like stars in the firmament: objects we sense remotely and speculate about. Of course, our perception of them has its uses—biologically essential uses—but it isn’t terribly accurate from a scientific or philosophical point of view. The same is true of seeing the stars: navigationally useful but scientifically primitive. It is astronomy across the board. All scientists are really astronomers, as all earthbound humans are sky-wonderers. Eyeglasses and microscopes are telescopes. In fact, microphysics is a branch of astronomy (micro-astronomy). The atom used to be compared to the solar system; that analogy contains a kernel of truth—elementary particles are like the stars in heaven, perceptually. So, this is my philosophy of science: all science is astronomical science (including psychology).[2]

[1] See my “Not So Naïve Realism”.

[2] I am advocating an alteration of vision: seeing terrestrial seeing as astronomical seeing. I am dismantling a prejudice, rejecting an assumed dichotomy. Motion is the same on Earth as it is in the heavens, and the same is true of perception. Perception is always of the epistemically distant. Just as there is our-galaxy astronomy and whole-universe astronomy, so there is terrestrial astronomy and solar-system astronomy. Astronomy begins at home—at arm’s length. When we see a rock we are seeing a celestial body right here on Earth (sometimes they have actually fallen from the sky).