Hume and Empiricism In Naruto

I ran into a few more interesting lines from an anime, and I think they play into this blog nicely. At the very least, they might help facilitate a casual conversation about topics that have been in debate for hundreds of years. In this selection, two characters from "Naruto" talk about the nature of reality and human perception:

Itachi, the guy who's sitting down, tells his younger brother about the flawed view most people have of the world. They perceive things around them, and immediately assume that reality exists in the way that they have seen it. However, there are some issues with this; what about optical illusions, for one thing? For another, there are times when we assume some truth that we later find is false.

Descartes, a French philosopher, brought optical illusions up in his writings, but never really addressed them properly. The last part, about "living in their own little worlds" seems to draw a parallel to Descartes; he establishes "I think, therefore I am" but never goes onto claims about the reality of others without appealing to unsound reasoning. We can know that our reality is true for us, but can we speculate about the reality of others?

Following thinkers, such as John Locke and David Hume, proposed that these optical illusions occur because our senses don't convey reality as it is; rather, our idea of reality comes to us through our sense perceptions, which are flawed and incomplete. Even in this view, there is still the trouble of relating each individual's perceptions to everyone else's and making sure that they line up (i.e. is my conception of the color white the same as your conception of white? And how would we know if they were different?).

For example, colors apparently don't exist in the world; they are a result of our retinas reflecting light or something along those lines. To say that red exists in "reality" outside our senses isn't a fair statement.

Hume took this concept a bit further, proposing that any idea that claimed to explain anything beyond the immediate realm of human experience is nothing but "sophistry and illusion" and that we should "commit it then to the flames."

And here's the obligatory quote in its entirety:

"If we take in our hand any volume of divinity or school metaphysics let us ask this question, does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact or existence? No. Commit it then to the flames, for it can be nothing but sophistry and illusion."

-An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding

(Ah, the classic debate between the original and Sparknotes.)

So what parallels are there between Hume and a trippy statement by an anime character? Well, Itachi's point was fairly in line with Hume; he thinks that sure knowledge regarding reality is impossible. We think that we know someone, or something, but it could all easily be an illusion, especially given the fact that our senses are inherently flawed and that our judgments rarely reflect absolute truth.

Well, that's it. Not that anime references often leave people in Humean doubt, but feel free to leave your impressions/questions/WTF comments.