I realized that all I could do was experience “properties,” that what it really was, was denied to me. It had lost its identity as an ordinary tree and became an object with properties and a mysterious, invisible substance lying behind all the appearances, making them possible. When I left the classroom, walking out into a sunny Minnesota Fall afternoon, standing right in front of me was a stately Elm – dark bark, outstretched branches glistening in the sunlight.
But what is it really? What lies behind the appearances?” The size, shape, color, smell, texture of a wax candle all depend on the observer.
“The evidence of your senses only tells you how YOU experience it, not what it really is. Bob was making a case for Descartes’ distinction between Appearance and Reality, and my head was swimming a bit. My world shifted forever one Tuesday afternoon, decades ago, in Bob Baker’s Philosophy 1 class at the University of Minnesota.
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