The "One Reality" Illusion

[Copernicus]

I've posted this OP on another discussion board that I frequent, so apologies if you've seen it before.

Reality is an illusion that can only be defined only in terms of how our bodies interact with it. Since we interact in different ways, the mind constructs many different models of reality, and those models ultimately contradict each other in some ways.

To explain exactly how different models of reality contradict each other, I like to use the simplest example of an optical illusion: the Necker cube.

A necker cube is a 2D diagram that consists of two overlapping squares with their corners connected by parallel lines. The illusion is that of a 3D cube that faces either left or right, depending on which square one takes to be the front face of the cube. The above diagram also has an impossible cube, which demonstrates how powerful and contradictory the illusion can be.

The key concept in my argument about there not being a "single reality" is perspective. By taking different perspectives--which square is the front face in the case of the Necker cube--we can flip between different states of "knowledge" about what we are looking at. One might take the 2d image as a kind of underlying reality, but even that is an illusion from the perspective of a single pixel in the diagram. From its local perspective, there is no larger diagram, just its local neighborhood of pixels.

Does the sun rise in the east and set in the west? Does the sun move relative to the Earth, or does the Earth move relative to the sun? Consider the refrain of an old Beatles song:

But the fool on the hill
Sees the sun going down
And the eyes in his head
See the world spinning round

The answer to those questions is that both are true and not mutually exclusive of each other. However, they do sort of contradict each other in that you have to shift perspective to answer one way or the other, just as you do with the two interpretations of the Necker cube.

So, is there just one underlying reality, no underlying reality, or many? It all depends on perspective.

 

[ryan]

There doesn't need to be another reality; there just needs to be more in one reality. I think this multiple reality notion is really just a result of the strange phenomenon of the consciousness. IMO, you might say that there is a physical reality and a mental reality, and then you can just put them both into one reality.

 

[blastula]

You've only shown there is more than one perspective, not that there is more than one reality.

 

[another1]

People remember rock shows differently sometimes because they blink at different rates in the strobe light. After the show, they describe what they saw. Their story isn't the same as the guy who was standing next to them during the show. They saw different rock shows. Reality as a rock show would have to be frozen, to be perceived perfectly loud by everyone. Time is where the perspectives comes from in that sense. The neurologicals governing our perception of time is where reality happens, even if it isn't happening. Then you have memory traces from a strobe to deal with, too. And the fact that memory isn't dependable at all, especially when trying to remember the present as you think you experience it. My guess is 8 billion realities flickering at all times. Why haven't we evolved to blink one eye at a time btw

 

[DBT]

The World is what it is regardless of how we perceive it, what we happen to believe about it or how we want it to be. How we subjectively see the world is another matter entirely.

 

[Speakpigeon]

People remember rock shows differently sometimes because they blink at different rates in the strobe light. After the show, they describe what they saw. Their story isn't the same as the guy who was standing next to them during the show. They saw different rock shows. Reality as a rock show would have to be frozen, to be perceived perfectly loud by everyone. Time is where the perspectives comes from in that sense. The neurologicals governing our perception of time is where reality happens, even if it isn't happening. Then you have memory traces from a strobe to deal with, too. And the fact that memory isn't dependable at all, especially when trying to remember the present as you think you experience it. My guess is 8 billion realities flickering at all times. Why haven't we evolved to blink one eye at a time btw

My guess would be that blinking evolved to protect our eyes from direct impact. Blinking one eye at a time would probably more costly and less effective overall.

I don't think blinking evolved to ensure our perception of rock concerts would be consistent.
EB

 

[Speakpigeon]

Reality is an illusion

I wouldn't say it like this. Reality is what it is. What may be an illusion, and is indeed an illusion in my view, is the representation we make of it.

And the representation is itself a part of reality, but we don't consider it for itself. We look at it, so to speak, and we think we're looking at the reality that's outside of us. We don't see the representation for what it is so we're delusional on both counts.

Although of course I could be wrong somehow.
EB

 

[PyramidHead]

Of all the things that could conceivably be illusory, I would have thought that reality itself could not be one of them, by definition.

 

[Valjean]

Perception is an abstract depiction of a reality entirely unlike what's really out there, but sufficient to allow us to navigate the world; rather like a pilot landing a windowless airplane by instrument. The little dials and gauges don't really resemble the reality outside, but they suffice.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

Perception is an abstract depiction of a reality entirely unlike what's really out there, but sufficient to allow us to navigate the world; rather like a pilot landing a windowless airplane by instrument. The little dials and gauges don't really resemble the reality outside, but they suffice.

That about sums it up. While our perceptions only give us a representation of reality, we know that it is an accurate representation as a result of our not walking into fires or off of cliffs on a regular basis.

 

[Speakpigeon]

Perception is an abstract depiction of a reality entirely unlike what's really out there, but sufficient to allow us to navigate the world; rather like a pilot landing a windowless airplane by instrument. The little dials and gauges don't really resemble the reality outside, but they suffice.

That about sums it up. While our perceptions only give us a representation of reality, we know that it is an accurate representation as a result of our not walking into fires or off of cliffs on a regular basis.

Only 'walking into fires' and 'off cliffs' are representations themselves. Who knows what there is in reality that's represented as fires and cliffs. Still, I guess I would agree it feels good not to seem to be walking into fires and off cliffs.
EB

 

[PyramidHead]

Perception is an abstract depiction of a reality entirely unlike what's really out there, but sufficient to allow us to navigate the world; rather like a pilot landing a windowless airplane by instrument. The little dials and gauges don't really resemble the reality outside, but they suffice.

That about sums it up. While our perceptions only give us a representation of reality, we know that it is an accurate representation as a result of our not walking into fires or off of cliffs on a regular basis.

Strictly speaking, we only know that our perceptions enable us to navigate the world in a way that benefits our genes more than the available alternatives, not that they are accurate. A perception of reality that is less accurate than others, but is better at making copies of the genes that created it, will always beat more accurate models that aren't as good from a fitness standpoint. It's true that accuracy and genetic fitness often go hand in hand, as having a completely inaccurate view of reality probably wouldn't help anybody propagate their genes, but in the end we probably have a coherently inaccurate world-model that is almost nothing like what it represents, but is good enough to keep us from obvious dangers and point us toward mates.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

That about sums it up. While our perceptions only give us a representation of reality, we know that it is an accurate representation as a result of our not walking into fires or off of cliffs on a regular basis.

Only 'walking into fires' and 'off cliffs' are representations themselves. Who knows what there is in reality that's represented as fires and cliffs. Still, I guess I would agree it feels good not to seem to be walking into fires and off cliffs.
EB

No, those aren't representations. Those are things which physically exist in the external world. Our perceptions of them are representations, but the things themselves are real.

It's the ability of our perceptions to be able to have these accurate representations which allows us to not die on a regular as opposed to die quite quickly.

 

[rousseau]

You've only shown there is more than one perspective, not that there is more than one reality.

And for practical purposes the thread ended on post #3.

There are as many subjective models of reality as there are sentient beings, but there is only one reality that these models are contingent on.

 

[bilby]

While in London last year, I took a look around the HMS Belfast, and was surprised to see that there are no controls on the bridge by which the ship can be steered; the steering is done from one of two compartments, both located below the waterline and completely windowless.

Nobody can steer who can also see out; The person who can see (and has access to not just windows, but radar, and reports from lookouts, and a whole bunch of other information), decides what needs to be done, and then sends orders to the steering compartment, where men who have no information other than the orders they are given do the actual steering.

That this arrangement, on first encounter, comes across as deeply strange, I think says a lot about how people imagine reality to be - we like to think that everything is done by a single 'consciousness' that both processes inputs, and controls the actions that are taken as a result. But neuroscience and various psychological studies both suggest that in fact the brain has a variety of sections that process inputs, and that the parts of those inputs that are deemed unimportant are discarded - with the remainder being further processed to determine the necessary motor responses.

This is why drivers of cars kill motorcyclists with depressing regularity - the claim "I never saw him" is not a lie - a brightly lit motorcycle with a rider wearing hi-vis clothing can easily be edited out of the scene by a visual processing subroutine that has been directed to look for oncoming cars, not oncoming motorcycles.

The conscious part of the mind gets a very abbreviated summary of our complete sensory input; And then fills in any missing details of which it is forced to become aware - often with pure conjecture and fantasy.

Humans are not so much rational as they are rationalisers. What we don't experience, we invent stories about that are indistinguishable from the real sensory inputs that they replace.

When the man steering the ship is ordered to go hard a-starboard, he assumes that his quick action saved the ship from a collision - but he really has no idea whether there was any reason to make the maneuver, or whether performing it made a collision more likely or less likely. He might find out later; or he might never know for sure, but come up with a hypothesis based on rumour and scuttlebutt. But you can bet that when he's telling the tale in the pub six months later, he will not be likely to admit that he had, at the time, no clue why he did what he did. No, six months later, he will be confidently telling his drinking buddies how his quick wits saved the ship from hitting an iceberg - even if in fact the turn was a course correction due to the captain getting new orders from the admiralty.

 

[remez]

You've only shown there is more than one perspective, not that there is more than one reality.

That was my perspective as well.

 

[Valjean]

Only 'walking into fires' and 'off cliffs' are representations themselves. Who knows what there is in reality that's represented as fires and cliffs. Still, I guess I would agree it feels good not to seem to be walking into fires and off cliffs.
EB

No, those aren't representations. Those are things which physically exist in the external world. Our perceptions of them are representations, but the things themselves are real.

It's the ability of our perceptions to be able to have these accurate representations which allows us to not die on a regular as opposed to die quite quickly.

No, they're abstractions; controlled hallucinations. We create the world in out own minds.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyu7v7nWzfo
Can skip ahead ~4 minutes.

 

[DBT]

The external world isn't literally created in the mind of the observer, a mental representation is formed from information acquired by means of the senses and processed by neural networks, the nature of the representation being determined by the complexity of the brain. Brains/consciousness comes and goes but the Universe exists regardless.

 

[Speakpigeon]

That about sums it up. While our perceptions only give us a representation of reality, we know that it is an accurate representation as a result of our not walking into fires or off of cliffs on a regular basis.

Strictly speaking, we only know that our perceptions enable us to navigate the world in a way that benefits our genes more than the available alternatives, not that they are accurate. A perception of reality that is less accurate than others, but is better at making copies of the genes that created it, will always beat more accurate models that aren't as good from a fitness standpoint. It's true that accuracy and genetic fitness often go hand in hand, as having a completely inaccurate view of reality probably wouldn't help anybody propagate their genes, but in the end we probably have a coherently inaccurate world-model that is almost nothing like what it represents, but is good enough to keep us from obvious dangers and point us toward mates.

How come you would have an accurate idea of genetics and evolution?
EB

 

[Speakpigeon]

You've only shown there is more than one perspective, not that there is more than one reality.

And for practical purposes the thread ended on post #3.

There are as many subjective models of reality as there are sentient beings, but there is only one reality that these models are contingent on.

How can you tell if you only have access to the representations?
EB