But let us set regrets about deconstructionism aside and return to our main line of thought.

The thrust of Bayesianism is this: all my sensory experiences and memories of experiences would be jumbled, meaningless gibberish if I had no concepts with which to organize them. Our problem is that these concepts are not built into a supra-real dimension of ideas (rationalism) nor into material reality itself (empiricism). Our minds’ thinking systems are based on concepts that exist only in our minds and only for as long as they are functional, be that for seconds or generations.

All basic concepts are illusions in the sense that they morph constantly into and out of one another. Even trees aren’t all trees; some are giant bamboo, some are bushes grown large, some are former trees in various stages of decay, and some are potential trees (e.g. sprouting acorns).

   

                                    Dingo, wild dog of Australia (credit: Wikimedia Commons) 

Dingoes that kill human children are vicious brutes; dingoes being killed by humans are pathetic victims. Nature is beautiful or horrible depending on what point of view it is perceived from. Light is a particle, not a wave; light is a wave, not a particle. Criminals aren’t always criminals; if they wage war on another ethnic group and lose, they are terrorists, the worst of criminals; if they win, they are freedom fighters, the best of heroes.

Justices mete out injustice. Teachers stupefy. Scientists lie. Physicians sicken. Not always, of course, not even mostly. But too often for us ever to become smug about our terms. Life is complex and constantly changing. The distinctions we draw to try to justify our versions of reality become subtler and subtler, but they are never subtle enough to be considered complete. Real life keeps cropping up with situations that leave us and our thinking systems stranded in bafflement and ambivalence. Therefore, we learn new ways, we improvise, we evolve.

There is a reality; I am confident of that claim at the 99.99 percent level. But it is too fluid and dynamic for our minds ever to get a 100 percent reliable handle on any aspect of it. Individuals, families, philosophers, businesspeople, and politicians, in varying ways, all appear to get handles on reality for a while, but they all prove inadequate over the long haul. Things, especially human-made systems of ideas, fall apart.

On the other hand, life holds together. All throughout the natural world, living things adapt. Species evolve, including humans. Children raised in the Hitler Youth or raised to be Stalin’s socialist beings, incapable of viewing themselves in any way except as parts of a collective, can grow out of their early brainwashing.

Men raised to see women as victims to be used and abused can learn not to do the same things to their wives as their fathers did to their mothers. With medications and counselling, even some pedophiles can learn to redirect their tendencies into socially acceptable channels. We can learn and adapt; we can reprogram. Not perfectly, but functionally, which in the end is what matters to the individual, the community, and our species’ survival. The children will do better because they will have to.