Sunday afternoon meditation on reality, perspective, Nabokov, and Yeats

Plato has a theory about objects and reality.

If this was a test, and you asked me to explain his theory, this is what I would say: Plato suggests that what we acknowledge to be a tree has a universal value; this value includes each of our differing perceptions of it, while the basic qualities that we ascribe to the object form its reality.

My Oxford defines reality-- in a philosophical context-- as an existence that is absolute, self-sufficient, or objective, and not subject to human decisions or conventions.

Different perceptions complicate reality.

In Vladimir Nabokov’s autobiography, Speak, Memory, and William Butler Yeats’ poem, “The Phases of the Moon,” theories are given regarding the nature of perception, a concept which differs in its different manifestations through our different selves.

Our perceptions is made up of our perspectives on events, and the way these perspectives limit or free us from our potential to gain a broader perspective on the world.

Is there a universal model of the way perception changes in a person?

In Speak, Memory, Nabokov writes,

“The spiral is a spiritualized circle. In the spiral form, the circle, uncoiled, unwound, has ceased to be vicious; it has been
set free... Twirl follows twirl, and every synthesis is the thesis of the next series. If we consider the simplest spiral, three
stages may be distinguished in it, corresponding to those of the triad: We call ‘thetic’ the small curve or arc that initiates
the convolution centrally; “antithetic” the larger arc that faces the first in the process of continuing it; and ‘synthetic’ the
still ampler arc that continues the second while following the first along the outer side. And so on.
A colored spiral in a small ball of glass, this is how I see my own life.”

In “The Phases of the Moon,” Yeats describes human life during the different phases of the moon. I wondered-- Does Yeats present the phases of the moon to exemplify a model of the changes in consciousness that we experience over a lifetime, as Nabokov does with his definition of the spiral? Or does he imply that these phases of the moon represent individuals possessing varying levels of awareness?

I think that the poem could be read in both ways.