• Bollocks To Reality
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[url]http://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/04/the-illusion-of-reality/479559/[/url] [QUOTE]As we go about our daily lives, we tend to assume that our perceptions—sights, sounds, textures, tastes—are an accurate portrayal of the real world. Sure, when we stop and think about it—or when we find ourselves fooled by a perceptual illusion—we realize with a jolt that what we perceive is never the world directly, but rather our brain’s best guess at what that world is like, a kind of internal simulation of an external reality. Still, we bank on the fact that our simulation is a reasonably decent one. If it wasn’t, wouldn’t evolution have weeded us out by now? The true reality might be forever beyond our reach, but surely our senses give us at least an inkling of what it’s really like.[/QUOTE]
This has pretty much been a known thing since the 70's. Human perception is completely ass when it comes to anything besides creating and recognizing patterns.
Well yes, our senses aren't perfect. We can't even perceive infrared or ultraviolet. Doesn't mean that it's entirely wrong though.
this is basically plato
He's not saying it's wrong, he's saying it's incredibly imprecise and therefore often assembled wrong in the cognition phase.
Philosophers have been talking about perception versus reality for ages, I don't see how this is really adding anything new to the debate other than giving it more detail in, for lack of a better word, a perspective from science.
[QUOTE=27X;50253615]This has pretty much been a known thing since the 70's. Human perception is completely ass when it comes to anything besides creating and recognizing patterns.[/QUOTE] It is something different to talk about besides politics.
Fucking Matrix falling text.
sounds like someone at the atlantic accidentally stared too long at any works on metaphysics in the last 1000 years, and then quickly summoned up a cognitive scientist to talk about it [editline]4th May 2016[/editline] "guys i put a stick into water and it bent, does that mean that my perceptual experiences can't be trusted 100% please advise"
[QUOTE=Matthew0505;50254561]An objective reality wouldn't make sense even without the problems of cognition. Two observers moving relative to each other both measure the other as moving more slowly through time, and [b]there's no objective answer to who is "correct"[/b]. And that's just the start of the fun conclusions from SR.[/QUOTE] There's not, but that shows that perception isn't objective. Objective reality, whatever that effectively means, is still a possibility.
I'm pretty sure Plato and the philosophers didn't discuss the evolutionary fitness of unreal perceptions, nor how quantum mechanics challenges the classical perspective of perception in science. He's talking about how modern developments in science give legitimacy to what used to be just philosophy, contrary to how science has traditionally worked- it may not be groundbreaking research but it is an interesting read. You guys should really read the article before dismissing it as old hat.
[quote]Gefter: It doesn’t seem like many people in neuroscience or philosophy of mind are thinking about fundamental physics. Do you think that’s been a stumbling block for those trying to understand consciousness? Hoffman: I think it has been. Not only are they ignoring the progress in fundamental physics, they are often explicit about it. They’ll say openly that quantum physics is not relevant to the aspects of brain function that are causally involved in consciousness. They are certain that it’s got to be classical properties of neural activity, which exist independent of any observers—spiking rates, connection strengths at synapses, perhaps dynamical properties as well. These are all very classical notions under Newtonian physics, where time is absolute and objects exist absolutely. And then [neuroscientists] are mystified as to why they don’t make progress. They don’t avail themselves of the incredible insights and breakthroughs that physics has made. Those insights are out there for us to use, and yet my field says, “We’ll stick with Newton, thank you. We’ll stay 300 years behind in our physics.” Gefter: I suspect they’re reacting to things like Roger Penrose and Stuart Hameroff’s model, where you still have a physical brain, it’s still sitting in space, but supposedly it’s performing some quantum feat. In contrast, you’re saying, “Look, quantum mechanics is telling us that we have to question the very notions of ‘physical things’ sitting in ‘space.’” Hoffman: I think that’s absolutely true. The neuroscientists are saying, “We don’t need to invoke those kind of quantum processes, we don’t need quantum wave functions collapsing inside neurons, we can just use classical physics to describe processes in the brain.” I’m emphasizing the larger lesson of quantum mechanics: Neurons, brains, space … these are just symbols we use, they’re not real. It’s not that there’s a classical brain that does some quantum magic. It’s that there’s no brain! Quantum mechanics says that classical objects—including brains—don’t exist. So this is a far more radical claim about the nature of reality and does not involve the brain pulling off some tricky quantum computation. So even Penrose hasn’t taken it far enough. But most of us, you know, we’re born realists. We’re born physicalists. This is a really, really hard one to let go of.[/quote] I'm glad he brought this up. To me, it never made any sense that we always ignore this. There have been ideas floating around out there for a while that consciousness may be a quantum phenomenon. In fact, the entire concept of the quantum mind postulates this; it's not just Penrose and Hameroff who suggested it (who were named in the interview), David Bohm did as well, so did Karl Pribram. Henry Stapp thinks this is the case as well. It could be argued than Jean Piaget even had an understanding of it, despite having no lifelong background in mathematics or physics, because of what he learned from studying the cognitive development of infants/young children and how their developmental processes "flow", so to speak, with some underlying hardwiring ("We're born physicalists," as Hoffmann says). Francis Crick worked alongside Penrose I think at one point too on this matter. Things build on each other in nature as we understand it. Physics is a fundamental field of existence upon which everything is founded, and so is quantum mechanics by extension since it's a field within physics. Having said that, since all branches of natural science (chemistry, biology, astronomy, etc.) are constrained in the first place within physics, so are the phenomena that exist within them-- including that strange thing we call consciousness. We might not understand the relationship between them (yet), but one still exists somewhere, and to not bother looking into what that relationship is exactly is just plain stupid. When dealing with the problems of consciousness, nothing in the way of legitimate science should be kept off the table. It is a ridiculously perplexing thing, which is exactly why there are so many different ideas and explanations about it and how/why it works the way that it does, and as well so many different explanations as to what it is exactly. [editline]4th May 2016[/editline] [QUOTE=catbarf;50254715]I'm pretty sure Plato and the philosophers didn't discuss the evolutionary fitness of unreal perceptions, nor how quantum mechanics challenges the classical perspective of perception in science. He's talking about how modern developments in science give legitimacy to what used to be just philosophy, contrary to how science has traditionally worked- it may not be groundbreaking research but it is an interesting read. You guys should really read the article before dismissing it as old hat.[/QUOTE] Also this.
Cogito ergo sum? René Descartes dualism and irationality?
[QUOTE=catbarf;50254715]I'm pretty sure Plato and the philosophers didn't discuss the evolutionary fitness of unreal perceptions, nor how quantum mechanics challenges the classical perspective of perception in science. He's talking about how modern developments in science give legitimacy to what used to be just philosophy, contrary to how science has traditionally worked- it may not be groundbreaking research but it is an interesting read. You guys should really read the article before dismissing it as old hat.[/QUOTE] i don't know if this is targeted at me, but i never dismissed it as old hat, but jokingly that the atlantic writer stared at a book on metaphysics too long if i was to take any issue with the article, it'd be that the author is trying to make the guy argue someting that he [I]isn't arguing[/I] the point he is trying to make is that there's a common sense notion that veridical perception is advantageous, when in reality utility-based perception is far superior ([I]driving veridical perception to extinction)[/I] this isn't necessarily to argue that all we know is illusion, or to argue that all of reality is unknown to us, but that if it is more advantageous for evolutionary agents to see an illusion over reality, they will [editline]4th May 2016[/editline] this is heavily evidenced by parts like this "Gefter:[I] So everything we see is one big illusion?[/I] Hoffman: [I]We’ve been shaped to have perceptions that keep us alive, so we have to take them seriously. If I see something that I think of as a snake, I don’t pick it up. If I see a train, I don’t step in front of it. I’ve evolved these symbols to keep me alive, so I have to take them seriously. But it’s a logical flaw to think that if we have to take it seriously, we also have to take it literally[/I]." Gefter says something wide sweeping and exaggerated, and Hoffman sort of skirts round them
[QUOTE=Cloak Raider;50255031]i don't know if this is targeted at me, but i never dismissed it as old hat, but jokingly that the atlantic writer stared at a book on metaphysics too long if i was to take any issue with the article, it'd be that the author is trying to make the guy argue someting that he [I]isn't arguing[/I] the point he is trying to make is that there's a common sense notion that veridical perception is advantageous, when in reality utility-based perception is far superior ([I]driving veridical perception to extinction)[/I] this isn't necessarily to argue that all we know is illusion, or to argue that all of reality is unknown to us, but that if it is more advantageous for evolutionary agents to see an illusion over reality, they will[/QUOTE] Didn't mean to target you specifically, and I totally get what you're saying about the writer trying to extract 'REALITY IS AN ILLUSION #DEEP' from what is fundamentally a much more interesting question about the utility of perceiving reality. What I think is most interesting though is the idea that objective observation, the very [i]bedrock[/i] of science, may be fundamentally flawed as an approach to understanding the universe. That science itself is a square peg trying to fit a round hole, and in order to make it work we have to jettison some of the basic working assumptions of the scientific method. That goes way beyond the really basic fact that we can't implicitly trust our perceptions and need verification- once we hit a quantum level we can't trust the verification either because the mere concept of external verification simply doesn't work.
[QUOTE=Matthew0505;50254561]An objective reality wouldn't make sense even without the problems of cognition. Two observers moving relative to each other both measure the other as moving more slowly through time, and there's no objective answer to who is "correct". And that's just the start of the fun conclusions from SR.[/QUOTE] There is an objective answer to who is correct, though. The answer is both. I'm fairly sure that being able to perceive an objective reality would essentially require being capable of seeing both the past and the future. In fact you'd not even be capable of seeing a "present", rather everything would be happening at the same "time", as you perceive every moment that has ever happened and every moment that will ever happen, all at once.
[QUOTE=catbarf;50255053]Didn't mean to target you specifically, and I totally get what you're saying about the writer trying to extract 'REALITY IS AN ILLUSION #DEEP' from what is fundamentally a much more interesting question about the utility of perceiving reality. What I think is most interesting though is the idea that objective observation, the very [I]bedrock[/I] of science, may be fundamentally flawed as an approach to understanding the universe. That science itself is a square peg trying to fit a round hole, and in order to make it work we have to jettison some of the basic working assumptions of the scientific method. That goes way beyond the really basic fact that we can't implicitly trust our perceptions and need verification- once we hit a quantum level we can't trust the verification either because the mere concept of external verification simply doesn't work.[/QUOTE] it will be interesting to know what will happen if we simply run against an obstacle in the universe that human reasoning and logic simply cannot operate with - the idea that we have a thought system that deals with A-Z and suddenly the universe throws in a 3 this is sort of occurring with quantum mechanics, which is actually worrying on one level - the further that science gets from graspable gains, the less likely that it is to be supported in terms of funding - and the less it is appreciated outside of science spheres essentially cool new material or thing: awesome shit really important quantum physics discovery: :johnnymo1: [editline]4th May 2016[/editline] [QUOTE=elowin;50255064]There is an objective answer to who is correct, though. The answer is both. I'm fairly sure that being able to perceive an objective reality would essentially require being capable of seeing both the past and the future. In fact you'd not even be capable of seeing a "present", rather everything would be happening at the same "time", as you perceive every moment that has ever happened and every moment that will ever happen, all at once.[/QUOTE] the issue is that as soon as you use the word 'perceive', you're throwing away the notion of objective kant had an idea of this in the transcendental aesthetic, can't remember what the fuck he called it, but essentially "things as they are", not as a representation of a thing to us real nasty shit, but unless you're an objective observer (something that doesn't make sense in the sense of objective reality), you're not seeing a thing as it is [editline]4th May 2016[/editline] noumena was the word I was looking for [editline]4th May 2016[/editline] das Ding an sich
That was a damn good read and makes me question all these ideas that society seems to be so stuck in.
Lol this is like a philosophy 101 student just discovered solipsism
[QUOTE=proboardslol;50255608]Lol this is like a philosophy 101 student just discovered solipsism[/QUOTE] Did you even read the article? It in a quick view states that the way things are looked at are out of date and the new science should be applied so we can get a better understanding rather than keeping at the fundamental physics level. Like the brain should be looked at with quantum physics instead of just looking at it from fundamental physics. Anyone who can understand at a basic level of the brain already knows that reality is not just what it looks like from what our brain produce.
[QUOTE=proboardslol;50255608]Lol this is like a philosophy 101 student just discovered solipsism[/QUOTE] Man I wish we still had the dumb rating. Here's a TED talk covering the same topic if reading isn't your thing: [video=youtube;oYp5XuGYqqY]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYp5XuGYqqY[/video]
[QUOTE=Doom64hunter;50255886]Man I wish we still had the dumb rating. Here's a TED talk covering the same topic if reading isn't your thing: [video=youtube;oYp5XuGYqqY]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYp5XuGYqqY[/video][/QUOTE] Thanks for reminding me why I hate TED Talks.
Why do you?
Welcome to the incredible world of magic mushrooms.
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