Epistemology
Montreal, Mid 2002

This one is confusing. Around the time I was drawing this picture I started getting interested in philosophy. Epistemology is one branch of philosophy. It deals with important questions like the nature of knowledge, how humans acquire knowledge, and how close this knowledge gets to being correct. My favorite philosophers are skeptics - they don't believe we can ever see the true nature of things because our thought processes and senses are fallable. Our ears, for instance, only perceive a small part of the total range of pitches that might be heard on a street on any given day, whereas a dog would hear much more. The "thing in itself", true reality, is forever closed off to us because of our limitations. This needn't be disappointing. The process of acquiring knowledge becomes a never ending journey outwards instead of a sure thing.

In this picture I try to convey this skeptical message in three different ways; words, numbers, and pictures. If you don't understand one means of communication, try the other. Actuality is the "thing in itself", forever closed off to we who live in it. Reality is our conception of actuality, flawed and imperfect. Like I said, confusing.