Barry-Memory, Recollection and Fantasy

In discussing the relationship between memory and recollection, we discussed whether or not animals (dogs, bears, horses, etc) could recollect the way humans do. This begot a debate on the nature of reality and whether it is possible to “know” anything. Through epistemology and axiology, we wondered if such ideas as truth, knowledge or value really exist. Numerous philosophers, including Plato, Descartes and Kant had wrestled with just such questions. Owen Bartfield, for example, states that the world we accept as real is a collective representation. But what does this mean? Does the world really exist or does only our perception of it exist? Since I made my entire senior thesis paper on the existence of the external world and the necessity for faith in its existence, I would assert that the external world does indeed exist, but we must have faith in its existence, since it can never be proven with logical reasoning. Within stories, the world which is created for us by the author is “real” so long as we are actively engaged in it. The moment we tear ourselves away, the mystery and fantasy are lost. Stories and myths are not about deductively proving the “how”s and “why”s of the world, but rather to share a meaningful experience. With fantasy, something exists which we cannot see with our physical eyes, but we engage it through stories. In the world of fantasy, limits of the rational world almost melt away (yet they have a unique rationality all their own).