Distorted View: A Saucerful of Skepticism

What do light shows, schizophrenia, psychedelic drugs, synthesizers, prisms, and Pink Floyd all have in common? Lots of things. But, in particular, they all remind us that what we regard as “normal” or “ordinary” perception is in fact highly contingent, almost arbitrary.

If I were tricked by the light into thinking there’re paisley people on stage, I’d be seeing something, but not paisley people (since paisley people don’t exist). I’d be seeing people who look paisley, but aren’t. How things look is highly variable and dependent upon circumstances. If I were hallucinating on acid or mad, for example, I’d see the world differently. Or perhaps, I wouldn’t see the world at all, though I’d have an experience rather like seeing. I hear footsteps running, planes exploding, dogs barking, vaults shutting and money cha-chinging. Or do I? Sound effects machines could imitate all of these noises so that I couldn’t tell the difference. Prisms show that the visible wavelengths of light are only a fraction of the whole spectrum. If our sensory systems were differently constituted, we might see much more—or less—than we do.¹²¹

Pink Floyd is a philosopher’s dream, for a more enigmatic and paradoxical group of music-making lads would be hard to find. With Pink Floyd, there’s always something more than meets the eye—or ear. Theirs is a world combining and separating the seen and the unseen. Visionary in every sense of the word, the Floyd on the one hand are identified with their innovative and gob-smackingly trippy light shows, spectacular stage sets, props, projections, inflatables and iconographic album art.¹²² And yet, for a band so bound up with film projects, visual effects, and explorations into the multimedia possibilities of the rock performance, they continuously suggest the unseen—what is hidden, absent, mysterious or imperceptible. Consider the album titles: Saucerful of Secrets; Obscured by Clouds; Dark Side of the Moon;¹²³ Wish You Were Here; The Wall.¹²⁴ This is one reason why the early Floyd were revered as not only “London’s farthest-out group,” but the consummate “Space Rock” band. Although Waters, in particular, came to reject this association, the Floyd took their audiences on a wild ride into outer as well as inner space. The band sonically evoked the everlasting void—the cold emptiness and invisible darkness which, though nothing, separates everything from everything.

To me, this is part of the real paradox of Pink Floyd, one that points straight to an ancient philosophical conundrum. What’s the relationship between the seen and the unseen, the perceptible and the imperceptible? In this chapter, I want to explore the vagaries of perception, using Pink Floyd to illustrate—and perhaps begin to resolve—some fundamental philosophical problems about appearances and reality.

Random Precision

Philosophers have often argued that we don’t perceive the world directly, but only indirectly. When we see the world, reflected light from the surface of an object enters the eye and stimulates the optic nerve. Those impulses are interpreted by the brain consciously as, say, a cow, moon, saucer, or cloud. We hear when sound waves produce vibrations of the inner ear which are decoded into the sounds of slide guitar, sea birds or Syd Barrett singing.¹²⁵ The point is, whether dealing with visual or auditory experiences, myriad very complicated electrical, chemical and physiological events are triggered by sensory input resulting eventually (but very quickly) in a conscious experience. So, what we call “seeing a flying inflatable pig” is really a construction in the nervous system caused by neural processing of environmental stimuli. But since the experience is in my head¹²⁶ and the pig is over Battersea Power Station, and since my head is much smaller than the forty-foot pig (which can’t very well enter my eye and take up residence in my brain), what I am immediately aware of is not the pig but some kind of internal representation of the pig. What’s in me—and all that I’m actually aware of—is a kind of picture or idea of a pig. On that basis, I infer the existence of a soaring swine over Battersea of which the mental image is presumed to be some kind of copy. I don’t see the pig directly, but only indirectly via its likeness in consciousness.

Here’s an analogy. Suppose you have cheap seats at a Pink Floyd show. You can’t really see Nick Mason’s face “directly” since you’re too far away. But you can see it on the circular projection screen suspended above the stage. You see Nick—it certainly isn’t Roger or Dave—but only indirectly via the telecast image. What you see of Mason is mediated via the projection. In a sense, that’s how it is all the time. The mind is a sort of screen where our surroundings are simulated. You’ve never actually seen Pink Floyd “in the flesh”, even if you bought a ticket and attended the concert. You’ve only “seen” your idea of Pink Floyd; you’ve been watching a projection the whole time. “All you touch and all that you see / is all your life will ever be”, but what is it that you touch and see? A little piece of your own brain. As “Echoes” puts it, “What I see is me.”

And What Exactly Is a Dream?

Philosophers have often thought that this way of thinking leads straight to skepticism. This is because, according to this particular theory of perception offered by science and psychology, all we immediately perceive are our internal, mental representations. But if that’s so, how do we know there’s anything else that exists beyond or behind these representations? We suppose these ideas are caused by something external to the mind—say, a hovering pig—but how can we prove it?

At this point we might reason like this: Well, the perceptions must come from somewhere. They can’t just pop into existence without a cause! And I know I don’t cause them, because I have no control over them. True, I can shut my eyes, or turn the volume down on the stereo, but if I chose to open my eyes or leave the volume up, I can’t help but hear “Sheep” or “Echoes” (if its playing), or see the Scarecrow if it’s in my field of view. You can’t just will yourself to see “any colour you like”! Descartes (1596–1650) observed, however, that dreams are nocturnal phantasms that aren’t caused by external objects. Somehow, it seems, I am the cause of my dreams, though by means of an “unknown faculty” within me.¹²⁷ Moreover, while I’m dreaming I usually don’t realize it, and am deceived. What’s true of dreams might be true of waking perceptions also. Perhaps we’re their source, but can’t voluntarily control them because we generate them unconsciously. Julia may be the “dreamboat queen, queen of all my dreams,” but does she even exist? And if she does, what about the “scaly armadillo” trying to “find me where I’m hiding”? Does it exist? Presumably not. But then, why think that the objects of waking perceptions are any different? We could be dreaming this whole scene.

Distorted View (See Through, Baby Blue)

Even if we think—on pretty flimsy grounds—that a world external to the mind and its perceptions exists, we’ve no reason to think that world is the way it appears to be.¹²⁸ We can’t verify that the mental image of the pig is a true likeness of the pig prop outside the mind—supposing there is one—because we can’t compare the pig-image to the pig-balloon. To do so, we’d need to examine our perception, examine the plastic pig, and compare the two to make sure the one depicts the other accurately. But examining the plastic pig is exactly what we can’t do, since that just means acquiring more perceptions of the damn thing—more mental representations. And comparing one mental representation to another isn’t going to get us anywhere if what we want is confirmation that we’re reliably sensing something which isn’t a representation at all!¹²⁹

This is why some philosophers took the causal account of perception offered by science and psychology to place a veil between the observer and the world, as if, ironically, experience prevented us from actually seeing anything. The sensory experience stands between us and everything else, much as the “fat old sun” might be “obscured by clouds”. It’s almost as if we can never see our hands because something like a film or membrane covers up and conceals our actual skin. The “sense data” that we’re immediately aware of comes between us and the object we’re looking at, almost as gloves hide the hands they protect.¹³⁰

But this is not to say that science alone puts us in this skeptical position. Some fairly simple philosophical arguments lead us there also. John Locke (1632–1704) suggests that what we actually observe are the sensible qualities of things. What do I experience if I’m examining the album cover of Dark Side of the Moon? Certain colors, chiefly black, white and the “rainbow.” I feel the smoothness, coolness, thinness, and flexibility of the cardboard. It smells like, well, whatever it smells like. It tastes faintly of nacho grease. (Gross, I know, but as a philosopher I’m sworn to truth.) If I swish it back and forth rapidly it makes a kind of flapping sound.¹³¹ Now, the colors are colors of something; the tangible properties are properties of something. What are these properties properties of? Well, the album cover. But this makes it seem like the album cover is a substance or thing in which these visible, tangible qualities inhere. The colors of the album aren’t floating around, unconnected to anything.¹³² They are, as it were, embedded in or attached to an object of some kind. But since we only perceive the sensible qualities of the album cover and not the thing in which they inhere, we never actually perceive the record jacket. The jacket is what Locke calls the “substratum” of the sensible properties which we perceive. He knows that it must exist, but all he can really say about it is that it’s a “something I know not what.”¹³³ We can’t describe it because to do so would be to mention its qualities, and as the thing underlying the qualities, by definition it doesn’t have any!¹³⁴

One of Locke’s philosophical successors, George Berkeley (1685–1753), tried to avoid this conclusion by insisting that only the sensible qualities really exist. There isn’t some mysterious, intangible, unknowable substrate underlying the observable properties of an object, Berkeley insisted; there’re just the sensible qualities. This led Berkeley to metaphysical idealism, the view that only minds and their contents—ideas, broadly construed—exist. After all, sensible qualities—colors, shapes, sizes, smells, textures, and so on—are experiences, and experiences can only exist in consciousness.

You Raver, You Seer of Visions

A third class of arguments casting doubt upon the reliability of sensation works by means of various thought experiments. Descartes noticed that asylums are full of deluded individuals who, though naked or dressed in rags, believe themselves to be kings. Others think they’re made of glass or that their heads are gourds. They may stand onstage and simply detune their guitars instead of playing, staring blankly into space with a rapidly melting, obligatory Hendrix perm. These people obviously perceive the world much differently than most of us, and don’t know that they’re mad. But then, how do I know that I’m not mad, that the lunatic isn’t in my head? Perhaps I’m only imagining myself to be a philosopher when in reality I’m confined in a straitjacket and padded cell. Or, Descartes mused, perhaps an evil genius or malevolent demon as powerful and clever as God is devoting his entire energies towards deceiving us even about what seems most obvious. Surely such a being could cause Descartes to hallucinate an entire reality which didn’t exist. A more modern version of Descartes’s argument inspired The Matrix by asking whether we aren’t brains in vats whose nerves are being stimulated by leads from a supercomputer in much the same way they would be stimulated by reading a chapter in a book entitled Pink Floyd and Philosophy, though there is no such book (or, alas, author royalties). Maybe somebody out there’s singing “It’s alright, we told you what to dream” and “welcome to the machine”.¹³⁵ Waters writes in “If”, “If I go insane / please don’t stick your wires in my brain.” Maybe we are insane; we might have wires in our brain. In either case, things aren’t as they seem. No wonder the band wrestled with paranoia....

It Takes Two to Know

Some have argued that we can avoid these uncertainties by submitting our private perceptions to others for external corroboration. I catch a glimpse of what looked like a flying pig. That’s odd. Did I really see what I thought I saw? Since “quickness of the eye deceives the mind” (“Green is the Color”), I decide to double check by asking you. If you saw it too, then I have additional reason to trust my senses. If you didn’t see it, I can ask a few other people. If they all agree with you, then I might put my previous experience down to inattention or you adulterating my Diet Pepsi. The point is, it may be difficult to tell whether I’m deceived or mad or dreaming as long as I rely exclusively on my own resources. But (solipsism aside) we’re not alone. Arnold Layne had a “distorted view.” Barrett asks, “Why can’t you see?” but gives the answer: “It takes two to know, two to know, two to know, two to know.” The line points to the need for corroboration, even as the repetition provides some. It’s largely the willingness to subject our own observations to verification by others that accounts for the power and success of the scientific method.

When corroboration from others isn’t available—I’m home alone, it’s 3:00 A.M., and I see an effervescing elephant in the corner—then at least we can look again, check more closely, and make sure we weren’t deceived by “quickness of the eye” through carelessness, haste, or intoxication.

This takes care of at least one of Descartes’s arguments. He argued that because the senses sometimes deceive us, perhaps they always do, in which case we aren’t justified in trusting them, ever. This argument is flawed. The premise asserts that the senses are fallible because they sometimes mislead us. But we know that precisely because subsequent observations convince us that earlier ones were mistaken. But then, we have to assume that the latter observations are accurate, in which case we can hardly conclude that the senses are never to be trusted. In short, we couldn’t know we were deceived by the senses unless sometimes we weren’t. And in the case of external validation, if I decide I was mistaken because you didn’t see what I thought I saw, I’m presuming at least that what you saw was correct. We can’t all be wrong all of the time.

On the other hand, some have argued that Descartes’s arguments from insanity and dreaming are just mistaken as to the facts. Descartes supposed that madmen don’t know they’re mad. This may, of course, sometimes be true. But not always. And even if some people don’t know that they’re mad, if it’s possible to know one is mad, skepticism might be surmountable. And, some people are aware that their minds are slipping away. Many interpret lines from “Jugband Blues” as Barrett’s self-diagnosis: “I’m most obliged to you for making it clear that I’m not here .. . And I’m wondering who could be writing this song.”¹³⁶ It’s as if he’s saying, “there’s someone in my head, but it’s not me.” In the interviews recorded for the spoken passages on Dark Side, Chris Adamson said “I’ve been mad for fucking years—absolutely years.” Jerry Driscoll, the Abbey Road doorman, concurred about himself: “I’ve always been mad. I know I’ve been mad, like most of us. Very hard to explain why you’re mad, even if you’re not mad.” Adamson and Driscoll (and possibly Barrett) break down the barrier between lunacy and normalcy. Though they might be speaking loosely or metaphorically, they suggest the possibility that insanity can be self-diagnosed and introspectively identified. Where that isn’t possible, we might come to recognize our condition with the assistance of others—say, competent therapists and psychiatrists. Madness is accompanied by symptoms. If I lack the symptoms, I needn’t worry that my perceptions are the effects of a deluded mind with a distorted view.

Something similar might be said of dreams. Is it true that we can’t tell the difference between dreaming and waking life? We may not be able to do so while dreaming, but that’s not because dreams are just like normal perceptions. It’s because we often can’t reliably reason, form judgments or make discriminations while sleeping. Once aroused, however, we can always tell that a dream has ended, if not instantly, then very soon. Gilmour sings on “A Pillow of Winds”: “behold the dream, the dream is gone.” If we can know the dream’s gone, we must know the difference between being “in” a dream, and waking up. To borrow an example from Oxford philosopher J.L. Austin (1911–1960), there’s a big difference between being presented to the Pope, and dreaming that I’m being presented to the Pope (or, between dreaming that I’m backstage partying with the band and actually being backstage partying with the band).¹³⁷ Moreover, for me, songs like “Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun,” “Remember a Day,” and “See Saw” have a lovely, lilting, dream-like quality. But as Austin also points out, if we couldn’t tell the difference between being in a dream and being awake, all experiences would have a dream-like quality, and so “the phrase would be perfectly meaningless, because applicable to everything.... If dreams were not ‘qualitatively’ different from waking experiences, then every waking experience would be like a dream; the dream-like quality would be, not difficult to capture, but impossible to avoid” (p. 49).

Wondering and Dreaming. The Words Have Different Meanings

Other philosophers have argued that the very existence of language gets us around extreme skepticism. For us to share a language and understand one another, we must suppose that we’re using words in more or less the same way, and that the meanings of our words are shared in common. If you understand me when I say “I see the see saw”, you must know what I mean by “the see saw.” But if by “the see saw” what I mean is one of my ideas, and not something in the public realm, you can’t possibly know how I’m using the word. It would refer to something only I can experience, and therefore you wouldn’t have a clue what I’m talking about.¹³⁸

But it gets worse than this. For if words have meaning solely by virtue of referring to items in consciousness and not in the world, neither can anyone know “what he means by the word himself; for to know the meaning of a word is to know how to use it rightly; and where there can be no check on how a man uses a word there is no room to talk of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ use.”¹³⁹ We can’t rely on memory to ensure that we’re using the word consistently, because there’s no independent way to verify that we’re remembering correctly. Under such circumstances, whatever seems right, is right. Wittgenstein likens the situation to a man buying several copies of the morning paper to assure himself that what it said was correct.¹⁴⁰

To further illustrate the difficulty of having a language where the words refer only to private sensations, Wittgenstein invites us to imagine the following: “Suppose everyone had a box with something in it: we call it a ‘beetle’. No one can look into anyone else’s box, and everyone says he knows what a beetle is only by looking at his beetle.—Here it would be quite possible for everyone to have something different in his box. One might even imagine such a thing constantly changing ... the box might even be empty.”¹⁴¹ The box is the mind and “beetle” is the name of your private perception.¹⁴² But, Wittgenstein insists, we can’t say even this since “If you say he sees a private picture before him, which he is describing, you have still made an assumption about what he has before him.” No wonder “Emily tries, but misunderstands”! Skepticism about the senses makes language impossible. And since philosophical skepticism is a theory expressed in language, if skepticism is true, skepticism is unutterable. The theory is self-defeating.

I’ll leave it to you, dear reader, to decide whether the possibility of corroboration and the requirements of language do effectively relieve us of these doubts about experience. As for myself, I confess to misgivings. Maybe the moon is all dark and obscured by clouds. What’s unknown, unseen and imperceptible will always “Eclipse” everything else. I like it that way. Ultimately, perhaps one’s taste in philosophies is like one’s taste in music—more aesthetic than scientific. If Johnny Rotten hates Pink Floyd, I can’t prove him wrong. I’m not sure the skeptic can be refuted, either. For me, much of the appeal of Pink Floyd’s music, especially their earlier work, lies in the childlike sense of wonder it conveys. Aristotle said philosophy begins in wonder, too, and this suggests one difference between Pink Floyd led by Barrett and, later, by Waters. For Waters seems more like one of those restless souls who will never be content until everything’s figured out and the many ugly things in the world that we are “only dimly aware of” are definitively exposed: “I’ve looked over Jordan, and I have seen / Things are not what they seem.”

But Barrett-era Floyd appeals to the skeptic in me. They remind us to abide in mystery, contemplate the uncanny, and feel the allure of the unknown. In The Rough Guide to Pink Floyd, Toby Manning insists that “Enigma is the essence of Pink Floyd’s appeal.... something mysterious, something fascinating but elusive.”¹⁴³ Just like philosophy itself. But then, what can I say? I’m a fan. I’m with the band, man.