Читать книгу Philosophy For Dummies - Tom Morris - Страница 19

Let me pass on an important lesson I’ve learned about the role of assumption and belief in our lives. It demonstrates our need for the discipline of philosophy, and in an unusual way.

For a long time, my family had wanted to own a gas grill, the kind that has a fat tank of propane under it. But people had warned me about the dangers of propane gas. It’s really combustible. And, breathed in, they said, it’s seriously toxic. I seemed to remember that I had heard or read somewhere that in its natural state, propane gas is without odor, but that refiners added a smell so that any leaking gas could be detected immediately and avoided.

Socrates wasn’t the only philosopher who enjoyed being involved in a good grilling (Get it? Because he questioned people relentlessly — and if you did get my lame joke, well done!), so when my family offered to get me the long-discussed gas grill for Father’s Day, I agreed with enthusiasm to do my part in making all their charred dreams come true. My wife called a local store and ordered a deluxe model. She also paid to have it assembled and delivered. Philosophers are often not the best at putting together anything but ideas.

Some days later, we received a call from the store that the grill was in, assembled, and “ready to go.” My wife bought the burgers and hot dogs, and all the other normal cookout stuff, and prepared for a feast. When the delivery guys arrived, they pointed out that I would have to hook up the gas tank to the grill when I was ready to use it. They explained that they were required to deliver it unattached. I assumed it was really dangerous to transport the tank hooked up.

They drove away, and with the assistance of written instructions and diagrams, I went to work trying to hook up the tank. I fumbled with the hose and connectors, and kept getting it wrong, and I felt myself getting short of breath. I was doing all this outside so that any leaking propane would dissipate quickly, but obviously there wasn’t enough of a breeze and I was getting too much of it into my lungs. I finally got it hooked up. But when I tried to light the grill, there was no fire. As I hung over it inspecting all the connections, I could feel myself getting light-headed and nauseous from more of the dangerous, deadly gas.

I called the store explained what I had done, and that I was obviously breathing so much propane at this point that I was getting really sick. In my mental fog, I could hear the guy who sold us the grill ask me a question.

“Where did you take the tank to get your propane?”

“What do you mean? The grill was just delivered, and the delivery guy said it was ready to go.”

“Oh, it was, except for the gas. We sell only new tanks with our grills, and they come empty. You have to go to a gas station to buy gas for it. That’s why it won’t light. You got an empty tank.”

Oh. I was being asphyxiated by a false belief. I was having physical symptoms from something that wasn’t there. But a breath of fresh information was all it took, and I was fine. Physically, at least. Mentally, I was embarrassed. My wife and kids laughed a lot. And they went to get some take-out food. I suppose Chaucer was right when he said, “People can die of mere imagination.”

In a way, it’s really good that this happened to me. As a philosopher, I learned something important about the power of our beliefs, and our imaginations, as well as about the hidden assumptions that can govern our thinking, acting, and feeling. The mind is indeed a powerful thing. And false beliefs can have a big impact on us.