HOW TO POSTPONE YOUR FUNERAL
15
Nothing could be further from the truth. I believe that this kind of erroneous thinking is, at least in part, the result of our tendency to divide our existence into two separate compartments: the spiritual and the physical. We come by this tendency honestly; we have our philosophical heritage to thank for it. The ancient Greeks had a dualistic view of the world, dividing all existence into separate physical and spiritual realms. The philosopher Plato, in particular, taught something that modern students of philosophy refer to as the Theory of Forms. Plato’s Theory of Forms teaches that the world we perceive with our five senses (sight, hearing, touch, taste and smell) is imperfect and therefore flawed. The only way we know it’s flawed is because we have an idea of what perfection might be like. Plato concluded that the physical world we detect with our senses is, therefore, an imperfect representation of a perfect spiritual world that exists somewhere “out there.” Students of philosophy have illustrated Plato’s theory in a number of ways. For example, in mathematics a “line” is something that has infinite length but virtually no breadth. It is considered to be just a single point wide. That’s why you were taught to draw a “line” in math class like this:
This “line” has an arrow at each end to represent the fact that it continues on forever in both directions. It is infinitely long, but only one point wide. The problem with drawing a line is that nothing you can draw with a pencil will ever be only one point wide (or for that matter, infinitely long). Nothing is smaller than a point, because it is theoretically indivisible. Your pencil lead is much wider than a point. Plato might argue, then, that your drawing is an imperfect representation of a line, because no matter how thin you draw it, it will never be just one point wide or infinitely long. Your best efforts to draw a line still have some width to them and are limited in length. It is, therefore, just a symbol or “form,” not a real mathematical line. (Of course, real lines exist; we just can’t draw them.)