Do We See Reality as It Is?

[easysurfer]

Came across this interesting TED talk this morning about what we perceive as reality is just our own construct of reality:

I like to stretch my mind a bit .

 

[JoeWras]

Not sure if I'm seeing reality or double.

 

[easysurfer]

Not sure if I'm seeing reality or double.

I asked the mods to delete the duplicate post.

I tried to myself but as soon as I posted, the delete option was gone.

 

[USGrant1962]

Ah, the egocentric predicament.

 

[donheff]

Where is the original thread? I'm curious about what the discussion was. I enjoy stuff like this, but it doesn't lead me toward the Matrix.

 

[easysurfer]

Where is the original thread? I'm curious about what the discussion was. I enjoy stuff like this, but it doesn't lead me toward the Matrix.

Original thread? This is the original thread. The other was a duplicate post, if I'm understanding your question correctly.

I enjoy stuff like this too. Makes me think. Especially like the cube and moving lights examples in the TED talk. Just a slight tweak and end up perceiving things differently. With the moving blue bars, even knowing how the illusion is done, my mind still can't not see the illusion.

 

[skyking1]

This was an excellent episode on NOVA that is on topic
https://www.pbs.org/video/your-brain-perception-deception-0mqxyc/

 

[38Chevy454]

My reality is I have enough, so that I can enjoy my perceptions.

 

[easysurfer]

This was an excellent episode on NOVA that is on topic
https://www.pbs.org/video/your-brain-perception-deception-0mqxyc/

Thanks! Will definitely give a watch today.

 

[jfn111]

Fun Ted talk

 

[donheff]

Good NOVA, as are all of them. I knew memories are unreliable but now I have to think of them like JPG images. The more often you retrieve them, the more lossy the restored product.

 

[target2019]

Came across this interesting TED talk this morning about what we perceive as reality is just our own construct of reality:

I like to stretch my mind a bit .

Much deeper, but well worth the time.

 

[easysurfer]

Good NOVA, as are all of them. I knew memories are unreliable but now I have to think of them like JPG images. The more often you retrieve them, the more lossy the restored product.

I was thinking the same about the JPG analogy.

It was a very good NOVA episode. I don't know if I feel better or worse now. On one hand, I more appreciate that we are so adaptive creatures. On the other I ponder how to heck do we survive as a species only actually perceiving so little of what is truly out there, having our brains create the rest.

Happy to know then that color actually doesn't exist but is just a construct. At least now I know.

 

[Pellice]

Descartes tried to answer this question based on drilling down to the most basic thought of all, "I think, therefore I am." But even that is a riff on an older medieval construct (St. Anselm).

I don't know why, but this question doesn't bother me one bit. The way I approach it is backwards: how would it be, how would I act, IF this reality were NOT actually reality, but my own construct? Wouldn't I cease functioning if the food I eat was not food?

If I try to act based on the certainty that the reality I am experiencing is in my own head, what happens? If I try to levitate an object based on that certainty, what happens?

If I am incapable of acting differently (existentially, not just daily life) no matter what the reality, then what does it matter?

And those people who believe they have "[broken] on through to the other side," what of them? Do they live any differently?

"For the world is hollow, and I have touched the sky" (relevant Star Trek episde )

I have to say, Europeans recovered remarkably rapidly from the confirmation that the world is round and half of it was completely new and peopled by completely unknown races. You would think that would have prompted some deep rethinking, but only Michel de Montaigne really grappled with it.

I'm going to watch this, show, thanks!

 

[donheff]

Happy to know then that color actually doesn't exist but is just a construct. At least now I know.

I don't think they meant to imply that it doesn't exist. Traffic lights wouldn't work if that was the case. It was more that what we consciously perceive as color is a construct that depends on the combination of wavelengths hitting the sweet spot on the retina and that is a more complicated set of variables than you might think.

 

[JoeWras]

Does a traffic signal light change from green to red, if nobody is watching?


...


Of course it does! This is not a tree. It is a man made machine that has a timer or sensor loop so it will change.

... Oh wait... You said "sensor loop?" Maybe it won't change. Hmmmm....

 

[donheff]

Does a traffic signal light change from green to red, if nobody is watching?


...


Of course it does! This is not a tree. It is a man made machine that has a timer or sensor loop so it will change.

... Oh wait... You said "sensor loop?" Maybe it won't change. Hmmmm....

Absolutely. Just because you were zoned out doesn't mean the traffic cam won't ticket you when you cruise on through.

 

[easysurfer]

I don't think they meant to imply that it doesn't exist. Traffic lights wouldn't work if that was the case. It was more that what we consciously perceive as color is a construct that depends on the combination of wavelengths hitting the sweet spot on the retina and that is a more complicated set of variables than you might think.

What I got from the video is what we see as color are brain constructs of wavelengths that bounced off something.

 

[acronymous]

Our eyes have a "blind spot" where receptors are absent due to the optic nerve passing through the retina. We don't perceive it because the brain fills it in by interpolation. Add in all the downstream processing like object categorization and recognition and we really are experiencing reality by proxy.

 

[OldShooter]

Old news. Plato described his cave about 2500 years ago.

 

[donheff]

What I got from the video is what we see as color are brain constructs of wavelengths that bounced off something.

I think the point they were making is that color isn’t a simple property of an object. The surfaces light reflects from and other things can modify the wavelengths snd the brain uses those wavelengths, context, experience and other factors to construct the colors it perceives.

 

[easysurfer]

I think the point they were making is that color isn’t a simple property of an object. The surfaces light reflects from and other things can modify the wavelengths snd the brain uses those wavelengths, context, experience and other factors to construct the colors it perceives.

Right.

 

[Gumby]

It is the parable of the Blind Men and the Elephant, first written down in the Buddhist text "Tittha Sutta" in about 500 BC.

A group of blind men heard that a strange animal, called an elephant, had been brought to the town, but none of them were aware of its shape and form. Out of curiosity, they said: "We must inspect and know it by touch, of which we are capable". So, they sought it out, and when they found it they groped about it. The first person, whose hand landed on the trunk, said, "This being is like a thick snake". For another one whose hand reached its ear, it seemed like a kind of fan. As for another person, whose hand was upon its leg, said, the elephant is a pillar like a tree-trunk. The blind man who placed his hand upon its side said the elephant, "is a wall". Another who felt its tail, described it as a rope. The last felt its tusk, stating the elephant is that which is hard, smooth and like a spear.