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Editorial

The Search for Meaning

by Rick Lewis

A famous parable dating back to ancient India involves some blind monks encountering an elephant. The monks each touch just one part of the elephant, and afterwards they compare notes. One declares that the creature feels like a snake, another that it has a shape like a tree trunk and so on. Like many parables, you can interpret it in different ways, but it seems to be saying that even for something that is an objectively real part of the world, like an elephant, it is possible to have different subjective views of it, all of which may be valid.

It is hard enough to obtain consensus when the question is just about something’s shape.

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