How Not To Die - reading nature's story via the dashboard

[findingblanks]

If we think of the notion of our perceptions being a 'dashboard' rather than a window, then we see our perceptions as giving us information about how to best keep on living.

Visual images are not pictures of the world but gauges indicating what to do with our bodies.

And when Bernardo says the following:

"But if we absorb and internalise the notion that matter is only an appearance, then suddenly the entire physical world becomes like a book to be read because it’s an indication – a sign – of something behind it."

I wonder how both notions best fit together.

On the one hand we think of perceptions as dials helping us stay alive. On the other we think of perceptions as letters or words which speak from the living voice of God or Nature.

Is God shouting at us via perceptions how to keep our bodies alive? Aren't we 'reading' our perceptions as evolution intends if we do a good job reproducing and living as long as possible? The book of Nature would be more like a manual, perhaps entitled:

How Not To Die

But when I think about our perceptions as potentially being readable and speaking from the deeper reality of Nature, my mind goes to Goethe and Coleridge and Owen Barfield, or any tradition that is trying to kick of a new kind of participation between the human and the world.

I see how the dashboard metaphor helps us escape the error of thinking of perception as being some kind of mirror of what is out there. I'm not sure I see how it lends itself towards approaching perception as language.

But I like the tension between them and I know they are each part of a push towards a new experience and understanding of what science can become.

I put this post in the 'formal philosophy' because I would personally prefer responses that try to stay within the frames proposed by Bernardo. However, since we are also looking at his suggestions regarding 'reading' nature, I'd expect Barfieldian-type formalities as well.

[Cleric K]

I think my latest post touches upon precisely on this topic about dashboard/window/reading.

[findingblanks]

Thanks Cleric. That's a long read! I don't have time to really take it on with the care it deserves. And I fully understand why you may not wish to respond in smaller nuggests here. But thanks for directing me to it!