Plato was a Greek philosopher who liked to play around with notions like “ideal” versus “real.” In the Platonic scheme of things, standing behind every instance of a real object is an ideal one, like the shadow of a man on a cave wall projected by a campfire. Take, for instance, a horse. You might own and ride an actual horse named “Beulah.” And I might have one named “Trigger.” But behind them both stands a Platonic Ideal of a horse which, although it has no name, animates all actual physical horses. If you’re not into Greek philosophy, maybe this stuff might smell like horse hockey. But if you give it half a chance, it can be a useful alternative way to see the world.
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Usually when I go on a hike and do a post about it, I focus on the macro-view. You know, like how to get to the trail head, signs pointing the way, and all the panoramic vistas you might see on the horizon. But today I’m taking a more micro-view. That’s partly due to the fact that you can always go to previous posts to get the macro-view. It’s also partly an opportunity for me to use a Platonic framework to keep things interesting. Hopefully by the end it will all come clear. If not, we can blame it on Plato. Or maybe on his horse.
Which of these pics comes closest to your Ideal Wildflower?
Notice, I’m not asking which color do you prefer. I’m asking which one comes closest to the essence of the term “wildflower” for you.
Alright, moving on…
Which of these hues comes closest to your Ideal Yellow?
Again, notice I’m not asking if you prefer snapdragons to dandelions; but rather, which conforms most closely to your ideal of “yellow.”
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OK, last but not least, taking the micro-view, and looking in the mirror…
A little background:
On today’s hike @MtFalcon, I was attired entirely in FPS swag. FPS stands for Future Problem Solving. Any questions – ask my wife. But the real question is this: Which instance of swag comes closest to the Platonic Ideal of FPS: The t-shirt, the ballcap, or the snarky quote?
In fact, except for the last one, there’s no real answer to the question about which comes closest to the ideal, because there are as many different ideas about that as there are different flowers in a field. Or at least as many as there are people being polled. So, Plato was full of horse hockey after all.
As for FPS swag, everybody agrees that snarky quotes are closest to the essence of the matter. And that, my friends, is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me… well, you know: So help me Plato.
Pretty sure the closest thing to the platonic ideal of FPS is actually ‘being late to work because you went down a Wikipedia rabbit hole at 3 in the morning because you found out about the Antarctic Treaty and now you need to know a whole lot about international law and how close the Italian and American research stations are too each other’…