Everyone sees their own version of reality I think.
I don't think that statement is correct, let's just say for example dyslexia, people that literally see letters and numbers backwards. Or schizophrenics, who literally see a different reality from the consensus entirely. The only reason we say they see things the wrong way is because communally we have decided that the majority ideas and perceptions are correct and logical. Everything is relative. For your math thing I have kind of a weird example. Technically 1 decided by two = .5, but my corals reproduce by having one head split into two or three. The three is really interesting because I literally have an animal growing that can take one of itself and divide to produce 3x itself. It doesn't sacrifice it's size when it splits, so even though it is dividing, it is essentially multiplying exponentially at the same time.
Do we though? The example the cognitive scientist used was that nettle that Mia read reality. But ALL of the Beatles misread reality the same way. So maybe it's not that we see or own individual reality, but rather, we all see the same misinterpretation.
What you see makes it your reality. And the Beatles were on a drug called LSD a good portion of the 60s and 70s. LSD does this cool thing with your delta brain waves and they will actually match the delta brain waves of yours to those of the people around you on LSD. This gives you the perception of deep connection, as well as possibly making you and those you that you are connecting with on LSD see reality as more of a communal reality than an individual.
Do you have any further info on this? I've never heard of it before, and it sounds pretty implausible, frankly. If this effect were actually real and measurable, I would think people would be shouting "LSD telepathy" from the rooftops. [edit] I googled a little and the closest thing I could find was this : http://worldnewsdailyreport.com/austria-telepathy-like-gene-discovered-in-mice/LSD does this cool thing with your delta brain waves and they will actually match the delta brain waves of yours to those of the people around you on LSD.
Let me try and find the articles. They're from tests done in the late 60s I think.
>What you see makes it your reality You're not wrong, but what scientists are interested in is objective truth. So while our subjective experience is very really and just as important, the whole purpose of this theory is to show that we don't know what objective truth really is.
So how do we know that there really is an objective truth at all?
Advanced mathmatics has variables and all kinds of things that change exponentially based on situation. Logic is definitely relative as well as what is logical in one situation, is not necessarily in another. If more people were color blind than had regular vision, would regular colors be a perception of a false reality? Or is it just based on the general consensus of what reality is?
Variables changing doesn't make any difference. If I did a physics problem with gravity on earth and then another one on mars, the variables change but the formulas and laws stay the same. The same goes for logic. When the logical decision changes from one instance to another that just means that the context changed as well. For example, in one situation you might have 2+x where x is equal to 2. In that situation the answer is 4. But if in another situation x is changed to 3, then the answer becomes 5. The variables change, the answer changes, but the rules dictating addition remain constant. As for color, consensus doesn't shape reality, that's a bandwagon fallacy. Color is a physics entity. It is determined by photo wavelength. Colorblindness is a deficiency in the human body where two photos of different wavelengths are perceived as the same color. Even if everyone was colorblind, this distinction can still be found. The same way that we can find that there is a whole spectrum of light (UV, IR, Gamma, radio, etc) that we cannot perceive. Does anyone see it? No. Is it consensus that we can't see it? Yes. But do we know that other wavelengths exist? Yes.
I guess my point is that it's imaginary/doesn't exist, and yet we know what it is as a variable and it's needed for some higher level mathmatics. So we literally have imaginary variables that are needed to explain certain occurences.
They actually do exist. While they don't represent a quantifiable sum (like regular numbers), they are still very real. While I am in no way qualified to speak of the complicated applications of imaginary numbers, they do apply often in electrical engineering. Here's a great example of applications of imaginary numbers that relate them to the real world around us.
I'm not disagreeing with the application, just that it is imaginary.
"Imaginary" is just a misnomer. The fact that they describe very real phenomena in reality shows this. A number of figure isn't defined as "real" because it represents a quantity (like 1, 2, 3, etc), but rather because it's an objective description of reality which imaginary numbers are as well.
I you're arguing that imaginary numbers, are not imaginary... I don't really know what to say here. Imaginary is a description of what they are. We literally use imaginary numbers, that we define as imaginary, to make sense if certain equations that pertain to reality. Like we could NOT make sense of everything in reality using only real things, so we had to invent/discover imaginary parts of equations, that cannot be explained by real ones, in order to solve those equations. The thing is, I'm picking kind of a funny(but relative) point here, but there is literally no way to prove that you or I see the same reality or that either is the real one. There have been scientific tests over time trying to figure out if people perceive the same things in reality, and lots of times, everyone's perception of reality is different. Furthermore, there is also literally no way you can prove yourself right, whereas, there are literally thousands of events/pieces of evidence that argue that you're wrong. Not a personal "you," just stating that no one can prove that any reality is the right one. We just kind of have a mush of communal ideas.
Imaginary numbers are just as real as logic is. Sure, there's no physical qualities to them (with the exception of neurons thinking about either one) but they still describe reality objectively. Here's the thing with the concept of differing perceptions. For sight, photons of a fixed wavelength bunch off of surfaces, enter into our eyes and reach our optic nerves which are then processed to create the perception of color. These mechanisms are fixed across all humans. The wavelengths are constant, the method of interpreting this data is constant. So the only disconnect here is "what if the color I see is different than the color you see?" At this point science has come short of showing the connection between cognition and neurology, but the point remains the same: If everything in this line of causation is constant, why should we assume that the last part (the perception) is relative? "Don't add quantities unnecessarily" i.e. Occam's Razor. Sure it can't be "proven" as of this point in time, but what's more likely? That causation remains constant or that the last event in that chain somehow changes person to person? Furthermore, you have to prove the assertion that there's some mechanism in the brain that is allowing for these otherwise objective measures (wavelengths) to be perceived differently per person. "What you freely assert, I freely dismiss. As for those scientific tests you mentioned, without seeing them my self (which I would like to if you could link me, sounds interesting) I'm sure they're something along the lines of "I see this as a bunny, but you see this as a rabbit" or "that looks pink to me and purple to him." At that point, that's just a matter of the state of the brain of the individual being different at some point during that chain of perception. No, I don't have the neuroscience behind that, but it's a rather reasonable assumption. Also, to say that there's far more evidence "proving" that everything in reality is relative is faulty for two reasons: first, there's just as much work proving otherwise from philosophical writings and second, to "prove" anything assumes some objective constants which results can be measured against.
I didn't say prove either way, only argue lol. You can't prove that our perception of reality is the same. Every brain constantly makes assumptions about what it sees, how do you know which brain is right. Also, aren't w technically like 99% empty space when we get down to our atomic structure? I don't perceive myself as that much empty space. Also aren't sound and light the same thing just much different frequencies? So what is reality and why do we perceive it so differently than it is in actuality. Part of reality is perception of the world, an everyone has a different perception of the world and people, partially based on experience, and partially based on genetic makeup. I can't prove that we see different realities but I'm fairly certain we do just based on this interaction, and I know that I see reality differently than people who are color blind. You should look up the Ted talk on Neil harbisson and how he listens to color and paints music, really interesting way to perceive color.
We know what is the true reality because of what you just said your self: The brain makes assumptions. We are aware of this shortcut and the ignorance that arises out of it. Due to this, we can eliminate these shortcuts and see reality objectively. To use the example you brought up: we are mostly empty space, correct. When I look at someone I don't see that. But that's due to our shortcomings in our sense organs like eyes. That being said, the fact that you know that we're mostly empty space hurts your arguments for two reasons: first. you're acknowledging this as objective fact, thus proving objective reality; second, we have a means of finding out what this objective reality entails through instruments that extend and perfect our faulty sensing organs. Sound and light are different btw. Light is made of photons, sound is made from fluids compressing at a certain frequency. Additionally, the fact that many people perceive reality differently doesn't mean reality is actually what we perceive through our sense. Our brain takes shortcuts all the time which is why we see faces in trees and animals in clouds. But we know objectively that not only our brain is taking shortcuts, but that reality is different than that misinterpretation. We can do this by, as stated above, instruments that extend and perfect our senses. To emphasize further, reality is not shaped by perception. Sure quantum physics acts a little weird, but we still have more research to do there. That being said, if a tree falls and no one is around, it still makes a sound. It's quite a hubris statement to say that reality is defined by our perception. With that cleared up, multiple perspectives doesn't mean that there are more than one realities. Finally, we know that color blind people or others who see music and feel light are experiencing reality differently, but again, we know what is objectively happening: Their brains are taking in objective physical phenomena like light and sound waves in different means than normal. But the physical reality of the objects remains objective and thus, reality as well.
Light and sound are both vibration. Also, the question was whether we see reality as it really is...
Light is electro magnetic radiation that has wavelengths. Sound is a vibration that propagates as a mechanical wave. Very different in nature. And earlier you were talking about how we perceive different realities implying there are more than one. That's confusing a misinterpretation of reality with there being more than one. Due to our limitations from our sensing organs, the truth is the earlier rather than the latter.
That's what I gathered. Although I'd change the your use of the word misinterpretation with something like what's presented to us. I don't think Hoffman believes we're incorrectly identifying or constructing something, just that we're only able to perceive what's shown to us, or the "folder" as he says.
This is kind of like the theory that new ideas can only come from information that has already been presented, nobody has truly original thoughts/ideas.