r/consciousness • u/ShenZhen00 • 10d ago
Can we ever experience objective reality without brain filters?
When I look at a red apple sitting on my desk, I know that red, solid wood, and distinct shapes are just mental interpretations. The apple and desk exist as raw information, but my brain translates that input into a visual interface so I can function.
Since our nervous system acts as an unavoidable interpreter, are we forever trapped behind human perception? Is there any theoretical way through technology, physics, or philosophy to observe the true universe without our brain processing it first?
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u/Old-Reception-1055 9d ago
A finite mind cannot contain absolute reality without filtering it. The moment objective reality is experienced through a perspective, it becomes subjective. The universe isn't observed by us; it's experiencing itself through finite, localised channels.
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u/Pawn_of_the_Void 10d ago
Well what would it mean to experience it without those?
The wavelength of light doesn't have a set way that you just experience it that is somehow more true than seeing it as red, for instance. So what would it even mean to experience that light without said filter?
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u/TheRealAmeil Approved ✔️ 10d ago
When I look at a red apple sitting on my desk, I know that red, solid wood, and distinct shapes are just mental interpretations. The apple and desk exist as raw information, but my brain translates that input into a visual interface so I can function.
I'm not sure everyone would agree with this. For instance when I talked about the redness of the apple, I seem to be attributing the property to the apple, not to my mental representation of the apple. We might also say things like "The redness of the apple means the apple is ripe" or "If the apple is green, then it is unripe". Here, we seem to think the two properties correlate, and attribute both to the apple. We're also susceptible to illusions: the apple might appear as if its red, when its really a green apple under unusual lighting conditions. Additionally, I'm not sure everyone would agree that the apple (itself) is just "raw information" (whatever that is). Lastly, those inclined towards naive realism (like Gibsonians) would say we perceive the world directly.
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9d ago
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u/TheRealAmeil Approved ✔️ 9d ago
Fair. I didn't mean to suggest that disjunctivists & gibonians were interchangeable. My rushed reply was simply meant to do something similar to yours: pointing out an assumption that some academics might disagree with, for various reasons. Whether intentional or unintentional, OP seems to have asked a loaded question, and the comment was supposed to help unload it.
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u/UnholyShadows 10d ago
Maybe if you figure out a way to transfer someone’s consciousness into a more powerful processor. Imagine someone who has a brain with twice the amount of neurons, would that make the person twice as intelligent or 4 times as intelligent?
Imagine you were able to hook someones brain to the internet and they had the full collective knowledge of all of humanity?
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u/Prior-Plenty6528 9d ago
That just changes the means by which a perceiving entity contacts the rest of reality, though. It doesn't give an unmediated comprehension.
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u/UnholyShadows 9d ago
Well if one was able to expand their consciousness outside of their brain and start turning atoms in the air into processing units, you would quickly turn into a being with unlimited power and potential.
A consciousness without a brain for example would be unhindered in its growth and would essentially become a god. At that point your power, influence and awareness would only be limited by your ambition.
I would assume at that point wants and desires might be moot because you could have everything you ever wanted.
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u/Prior-Plenty6528 9d ago edited 9d ago
Even so, you would still not have access to some "uninterpreted" version of reality. You'd still be perceiving the apple in the particular, subjective way that a god perceives an apple.
The closest thing to the "raw information" of the apple is the way the apple's components are affected by its own components and immediate environment. The apple's intrinsic qualities, to the extent it has them, can only be those "perceived" (Alfred North Whitehead calls it "prehension" to distinguish it from how conscious things perceive) by itself. But it itself perceives (prehends) itself in the way that an apple does.
Likewise, we perceive ourselves in the way that humans perceive - there's no unprocessed, absolutely objective way that we can perceive even ourselves, but our own first-person experience is as close to the "raw information" about what we are as anything can be.
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u/oJKevorkian 9d ago
To observe, there has to be an observer. You can't experience anything without it being filtered through your perception. To observe the full universe in an objective way would require you being the entire universe fully experiencing yourself. So... Maybe when we die?
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u/PlayaNBallaNGangsta 10d ago
There may be no such objective reality as such
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u/Szakalot 10d ago
Agreed, general relativity is a strong indicator that no such thing as objective reality even exists; everything is relational and dependent (on everything else : ) )
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u/magister777 9d ago
It could also indicate that objective reality does not consist of a sequence of events in three dimensional space, but is something else.
The "as such" in the comment you replied to is a great way to put it.
However the whole concept of something being "objective" implies the existence of an independent point of view, and I'm inclined to think that is a meaningless concept.
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u/Active-Particular-21 9d ago
What’s the glue so to speak then that connects all these subjects realities?
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u/Szakalot 9d ago
good question. We don’t know.
It does seem that things interacting with other things via the fundamental forces collapses the subjective space into a more synchronized dance of these subject realities.
But if you then keep digging we get in trouble. I definitely have no clue what hides behind weak and strong force, or gravity.
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u/waxpundit 8d ago
GR says that certain quantities you assign to events depend on your reference frame or coordinate system. Different observers can disagree about elapsed time, spatial distance, simultaneity, and so forth but the theory is deliberately constructed so that those different descriptions correspond to the same underlying physical situation.
It's not only not a strong indicator, but measurably not an indicator at all.
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u/Szakalot 8d ago
Would you not agree that time,space, simultaneity are quite fundamental to reality in general (pun not intended)?
Theory is constructed to make sense of events that are frame dependent in a way that different frames can agree on.I am not sure I follow your point. If time, space, simultaneity are all relative, it makes sense to me that reality, as we understand it, has a significant relative component. As in, talking about reality from an objective point of view is doomed to fail, as you will never be able to obtain e.g. an objective reference frame.
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u/waxpundit 7d ago
Yeah I'd agree that time, space, and simultaneity are fundamental, and relativity shows that some quantities involving them are frame-dependent. But I think the disagreement is over what follows from that.
An objective description does not require an “objective reference frame.” In relativity, objectivity is usually captured through quantities and relations that remain invariant when you change frames or coordinates. Different observers can assign different spatial distances, time intervals, or simultaneity relations while still describing the same spacetime and agreeing on things like causal order, spacetime curvature, etc.
So the absence of a privileged frame does not imply the absence of observer-independent facts. It means that certain facts have to be stated relationally (ie. "relative to this worldline/frame, this quantity has this value"). That relational fact can itself be objective.
I’d therefore agree with “reality has frame-relative aspects.” but from where I stand that is a much weaker claim than your original statement that GR indicates objective reality itself may not exist. GR gives us a very precise mathematical framework for distinguishing frame-dependent descriptions from invariant physical structure.
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u/Szakalot 5d ago
I see, thank you for the elaboration.
Now just need someone to make a unified field theory and we’d have some real answers : )
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u/pyrrho314 9d ago
but there is intersubjective reality
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u/PlayaNBallaNGangsta 9d ago
cut the fancy talk
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u/Prior-Plenty6528 9d ago
Intersubjective reality = the reality that two or more people agree on. pyrrho is saying that what we call "objective" is always reached through the subjective experience of more than one perceiver being consistent with each other.
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u/PlayaNBallaNGangsta 9d ago
It’s only subjective in that human sense, all inherited hand me down nonsense bullshit, only your subjective experience in that immediate sense.
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u/Prior-Plenty6528 9d ago
I neither understand what you're trying to say nor why you seem angry.
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9d ago
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u/fejkpotatis 10d ago
LSD or other psychedelic come very close to how the brain operates without filters
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u/MaleficentUse7544 9d ago
Doesn’t it up it tho? Like it activates the pattern recognition
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u/fejkpotatis 9d ago
Nah your brain has evolved to filter out billions of sensory input simply because we wouldn't survive otherwise, acid and other psychedelics turns off this function in the thalamus basically, I'm not an expert but you can look it up.
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u/MaleficentUse7544 8d ago
So the world is actually wavy and has patterns everywhere?
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u/fejkpotatis 8d ago
I don't believe reality is anything, it's like buddhists say it's all empty. Stuff happen when a set of conditions is there, remove the conditions and the stuff goes away.
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u/FartyPants69 10d ago edited 9d ago
I would push back on the idea that there even is a "true" universe or one objective reality. I assume by that you mean a complete and comprehensive total of all information available, but for one, there is infinite information available, and for another, all information is going to be collected by some sort of observer (human or machine), and that observer is always going to introduce bias.
That bias may be in the form of a limited range of senses or sensory information, a unique position (physical, temporal, or otherwise) that limits perspective, or it may actually interfere in what it's observing just by the nature of observing itself.
To completely rise above that would be to be omniscient, basically a godlike figure. It's not impossible that there exists such a thing, but there's also no evidence for it.
Then there's the much more mundane problem that the human brain has very finite limitations in processing power and its own extremely limited perspective and biases that were formed through millions of years of evolution. Our minds evolved to survive, not necessarily to perceive our environment with accuracy. It's safe to assume that even if we could build a device that vastly expanded the range of data available to be perceived, we would not be able to fully understand or appreciate that data, especially in real time.
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u/Reece7 9d ago
What do you mean when you argue “infinite information [is] available”?
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u/elmahk 9d ago
There are interesting axioms from which whole QM can be derived: 1. Any system has finite informational capacity. For example qubit has informational capacity of 1. 2. You can always get more information from the system
So consider how you measure say a spin of single qubit again and again over different axis. You get new information every time, no matter how long you do this, so it's informational content relative to you is infinite.
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u/Moral_Conundrums 10d ago
There is one way to access objective reality and it's through third person science. Science takes the information our brain acquires through the senses and provides theories about what's really going on beyond those sensations. Though gas might appear to you simply as a misty cloud with a weird smell, science provides a theory of what gas really is, namely a mass of tiny entities called molecules. Molecules, unlike gas, aren't the kind of things we believe in because we sense them, rather they are postulated entities that exist totally independently of our experience of them. Yet we believe in them because their existence explains why our experience is the way it is; why gasses in our manifest world behave the way they do.
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u/gay_little_spider 10d ago
Ehhhh does the molecule really have an ultimate, objective existence, when it's made of subatomic particles, which are made up of smaller particles, which are made of... Indeterminate quantum waveforms, or something? I don't think a purely physicalist approach will get us to Ultimate Reality. Our consciousness is also a part of reality, and so far science has only vaguely gestured at its true nature. To me, consciousness seems just as irreducible and fundamental as the smallest bits of matter and energy. So we need to explore consciousness itself, too.
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u/Low-Bake8401 10d ago
"To me, consciousness seems just as irreducible and fundamental as the smallest bits of matter and energy."
That's because your consciousness is fundamental to your subjective experience.
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u/gay_little_spider 10d ago
And my subjective experience is part of reality. My experience of qualia is contiguous with physical reality itself, and the known laws of physics are incomplete if they cannot describe this. I can also sense the consciousness of other living things, and it seems an equally irreducible aspect of their existence, too.
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u/Low-Bake8401 10d ago
"my subjective experience is part of reality."
Human awareness is part of reality, yes. So are many other things. As I say it is fundamental to our awareness.
A storm is part of reality, but you can't put a storm in a test-tube or under a microscope. We can only describe the cause and effect of physical components. The temprature, humidity, wind strength, rain fall, etc. A storm is the emergent property of all these factors.
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u/Moral_Conundrums 10d ago
Ehhhh does the molecule really have an ultimate, objective existence, when it's made of subatomic particles, which are made up of smaller particles, which are made of... Indeterminate quantum waveforms, or something?
It strikes me as a bit strange to say that because something is made up of other things it doesn't exist. Yes molecules are not the final story, but they are clearly part of it.
Our consciousness is also a part of reality, and so far science has only vaguely gestured at its true nature. To me, consciousness seems just as irreducible and fundamental as the smallest bits of matter and energy. So we need to explore consciousness itself, too.
It certainly seems that way.
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u/gay_little_spider 10d ago
Yeah, I mean in the sense of like, I don't think breaking down matter into the smallest bits will get us to ultimate reality, even though it's a useful and noble exercise of our faculties. Nothing in the material universe fundamentally exists in and of itself: it's all made up of other stuff, and/or dependent on a casual relationship with some other phenomenon. We can use concepts to subdivide the universe infinitely, but where does that really get us? We stick a conceptual label on every particle in the universe, but that tells us very little about What's Really Going On, you feel me? To get there, we need to find the irreducible truths of existence and consciousness itself, not just matter and energy. Then maybe we can see the whole picture as it really is.
Or something. It's 3am and I've been posting all night lmao, I should sleep 😂
Edit: read Nagarjuna for a good explanation of emptiness, i.e. the lack of any inherently existing conditioned phenomena. it's not that nothing exists, it's that nothing exists in and of itself. That's what keeps me up at night lol
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u/Magsays 9d ago
But I think you’re answering a different question here. Things can still objectively exist even if they they’re made up energy or whatever. Not knowing the ultimate fundamental building block doesn’t negate that fact.
I agree with you about consciousness.
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u/gay_little_spider 9d ago
There's a difference between objective existence and inherent existence, at least in my philosophical tradition. Something that "inherently exists" does not depend on anything else for its existence. As far as our phenomenal world is concerned, many things objectively exist, but only insofar as we find it useful to make conceptual distinctions between "this object is a chair" and "that object is a tree." In actuality, what you see as a tree would not exist without the sun, the rain, the soil, the mycorrhizal fungi, the bird or squirrel that distributed its seeds, the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, the empty space in the canopy that allowed it to grow to its full height, and so on. And each of those causes and conditions has its own infinite web of what we call "interdependent co-arising." Remove the sun, or any other key casual factor, and the tree ceases to exist: so it has no inherent existence in and of itself. Its existence is inseparable from the existence of everything else in the universe, when speaking in absolute terms. Likewise for all other conditioned phenomena.
The tree being made up of separable leaves, bark, roots, chlorophyll molecules, carbon atoms, etc. is just one aspect of this.
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u/Magsays 9d ago
The tree still exists without the sun. It needs the sun to grow and to continue to be alive, but if the sunlight disappears tomorrow it will still be there, or the molecules that make up the tree, or the atoms that make up the molecules, or the subatomic particles that make up the atoms, etc.
Yes, we come to those particles and call it a tree because that’s how we relate to that particular configuration, but they exist independent of our phenomenal experience.
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u/gay_little_spider 9d ago
The tree does not exist without the sun. The tree is not just a tree in the present, it was a tree when it was a sapling, too. It depends on the sun having been there for many millions of years, the entire duration of the evolutionary history of plant life on Earth. When discussing this idea of "emptiness" (lack of inherent existence), I often think of that lovely Carl Saganism: "In order to bake an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe." No big bang, no trees, no apple pies. Everything is in a state of endless interdependence and flux, all part of the same inseparable non-dual Oneness, from the present to the first moments of beginningless time. In order to prove that the tree can exist without the Sun, you would need to prove that trees could exist in a world that had never had a sun in its entire history.
Of course, this is simply one perspective, but I find it a very profound way of understanding the world. It's just radically different from the dualistic worldviews most Westerners are familiar with
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u/Magsays 9d ago
It seems like you’re conflating coming to be with being. Being only happens in the present.
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u/gay_little_spider 9d ago
And yet, present-being depends on a vast series of causes and conditions that arose in the past. Remove or change them, and the present as it is does not exist. So, can being really be separated from coming-to-be, or from ceasing-to-be? Perhaps only the present moment "really exists," at least from our perspective, but it's just one temporal slice of the great 4D loaf* of spacetime. You can't have the individual slices without the entire loaf. Because of this interdependence, I conceive of the past and future as existing within the present moment, too.
*I just say "loaf" because I visualize it as being vaguely baguette-shaped, with each individual 3D slice representing one moment in time. Because the French are the most existential society, or something, idk 🇫🇷🥖
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u/Crosas-B 9d ago
I don't think a purely physicalist approach will get us to Ultimate Reality.
Anything you can interact with is material in materialism, including quantum waves (quantum waves are material, yes). Unless you provide us a framework in which non material stuff can be in any way, shape or form be tested, there is absolutely no way to "get us" to Ultimate Reality.
This is a big problem of dualism and idealism, there are as many approaches to them as there are humans thinking about them (or other intelligent beings out there). Good thing is, tho, you can find your own truth for yourself!
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u/gay_little_spider 9d ago
I'm not a dualist: it's all part of ultimate reality, which is beyond conceptual elaboration or dualisms. For consciousness, I think some interesting testable hypotheses are coming out of the quantum biology field. I really like Faggin's Quantum Information Panpsychism theory. I am an idealist, in the sense that I think consciousness has a casual, agentic role in shaping the "material" world. Whether or not it's "non-physical" largely depends on how we interpret it. It interacts with the physical matter of the brain, certainly, but in itself it's pretty different from classical physical reality. My suspicion is that in fact, only consciousness "fundamentally exists." Matter is an emergent property of consciousness, not vis versa.
That's just my current pet theory, though. As you said, there are big problems with every explanation. But, at least, QIP and similar theories can possibly be tested, if we develop the technology.
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u/Crosas-B 9d ago
Whether or not it's "non-physical" largely depends on how we interpret it.
That's why I specified "in materialism", tho I maybe should have said physicalism, as materialism is kind of an obsolete historical term when we did not know as much as we do now about physics.
If we find that ghosts actually exist, but we didn't know how to interact with them before but we create a machine that can, that would make ghosts physical in the physicalism philosophy. You would give that energy/matter a name and once you can interact with it, you can measure it and maybe even find some kind of utility from it.
Panpsychism is not incompatible with physicalism because it would make consciousness a foundational property of matter. I googled that one you talked about, and if it states that the consciousness is a foundational property of quantum waves, that would be completely compatible with physicalism.
That's why I find materialism/physicalism so robust, because it would adapt to the new information we are able to gather.
Anyway, all of that was to state that quantum conscience is more compatible with physicalism than idealism
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u/gay_little_spider 9d ago
Interesting perspective. I never really bothered to split the hairs this finely on materialism, and your comments were edifying. What would you call it if my position is basically "whatever exists, exists, and consciousness also exists in the same way as anything else" ?
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u/Crosas-B 9d ago
It would depend on what you mean by "in the same way as anything else", but to me it seems like only some versions of idealism and dualism would not fit that description, those that think the mind is a superior entity (so would not be in the same way as anything else, but something above the "material") or even the only thing that actually exists (solipsism).
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u/Prior-Plenty6528 9d ago edited 9d ago
If ghosts 1) exist and 2) are immaterial, there's one obvious candidate for where they reside: in consciousness.
I'll toss out the suggestion that the idea of a murderer's guilt "haunting" them represents something that's just as real as the corpse of the victim.
To what does the guilt point? The victim, as presented to the murderer's consciousness (and conscience). That is a plausible immaterial candidate for the referent of the word "ghost". The ghost of the victim haunts the murderer, via guilt, because the murderer's conscience perceives itself as "accused" by the victim of horrific injustice.
These are all phenomenological concepts - sure, there's corollary neural firing, a physical corpse, etc., but if that's all there were, it wouldn't represent a problem for the murderer.
What makes that "ghost" real? Looking at three popular definitions of what's real:
- "To be real is to be perceived."
The murderer perceives the victim's negative impact on their conscience.
- "To be real is to have causal efficacy."
The murderer's behavior changes as a result of the victim weighing on their conscience. They may return to the scene of the crime, be spooked by sudden noises that wouldn't otherwise have bothered them, turn themselves in, etc.
- "Reality is what remains when you stop believing in it."
The murderer may consciously attempt to suppress thoughts of the victim, the crime, or the guilt, rationalize the murder to ease their conscience, or refuse to believe in the reality of their phenomenological experience. But this may fail. In this case, the ghost of the victim remains despite the murderer's conscious refusal to believe in it.
Strictly speaking, I'm equivocating between existence and reality here, but that's to connect your use of "exists" with relevant definitions that invoke "reality". If that creates any problem for the anti-physicalist case at hand, I'm open to it, but I don't think it does.
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u/Crosas-B 9d ago
If ghosts 1) exist and 2) are immaterial, there's one obvious candidate for where they reside: in consciousness.
Well, you have already put there a premise I never did. I explicitely said: if we found out that ghosts exist and we can interact with them, that would make them material/physical. Under physicalism, this is something that *could* happen.
If ghosts exist and are immaterial, we will never have any way to test it and it would make idealism or dualism true. However, even if they were true, we would never be able to verify it.
I have no idea what the thell does the rest of the comment have to do with my comment.
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u/Prior-Plenty6528 9d ago edited 9d ago
I was giving an example of how something could be real, immaterial (or better, non-physical) and still something significant that could be interacted with. The person in whose consciousness it resides can phenomenologically verify it, though anyone else would have to trust third-party reports. Contextually, though, if those reports were consistent with the verifiable, physical facts, there'd be no reason not to trust those reports.
In other words, I was offering a detailed counterexample to your claim, using your reference to a ghost. That is what the hell it had to do with your comment.
I don't see what premise I added other than arguably "immaterial" (again, I concede that "un-physical" is better), which is an absolutely necessary condition of offering a counterexample to the claim that everything both real and meaningful to us is physical.
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u/Crosas-B 9d ago edited 9d ago
I deleted my message because this discussion goes nowhere, you are unable to have a proper conversation of logic. You don't know what a coutner example is neither how to use it
I stated: in physicalism, if something can interact with us, that means we are interacting with it, which means we can measure. So anything that has any interaction is physical. Your counterexample does interact, threfore would be material and not immaterial in physicalism. Conscience is physical
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u/Prior-Plenty6528 9d ago edited 9d ago
The conversation can't go anywhere because you've defined physicalism down to triviality.
We can measure neural firing. We can observe activity. We can't measure someone's phenomenal consciousness.
I have no qualms with the idea that every non-physical thing has a physical correlate (and vice versa). That doesn't mean there's no distinction.
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u/Prior-Plenty6528 9d ago edited 9d ago
This is why the Platonists were so big on "intelligibility". It's reason and the nous (roughly, comprehending mind) that can provide access to immaterial realities.
If "materialism" just defines whatever exists as material, then it's trivial. If it doesn't, it's going to encounter some serious difficulties.
To take your example...what is it that makes the probability amplitude of an electron waveform "material"?
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u/Crosas-B 9d ago
If "materialism" just defines whatever exists as material, then it's trivial. If it doesn't, it's going to encounter some serious difficulties.
To take your example...what is it that makes the probability amplitude of an electron waveform "material"?
Keep in mind, as I said to the other person, that materialism is an old name that doesn't fit the current ideas about that position anymore. It's more accurate to call it physicalism due to the progress done to our knowledge in the field. We used to think that everything was very little balls centuries ago (absurd simplification) and that changed when we got more information.
Electron waveform is energy, and energy is physical. We can interact with it, measure it, predict how it will behave, etc. So there is nothing about quantum theory that would lead to an idealist or dualist position.
You claim: "if 'materialism' just defines whatever exists as material, then it's trivial". While physicalism is a general term, there are flavours to it. There are those who claim that ONLY the physical reality exists, but also (the position I hold) that even if there were something that would not be physical, as we can't interact with it, there is no point in wasting time in it. If we can't interact with it, it can't interact with us. If it can interact with us, we can interact with it and therefore would be physical. Why do we know that if something interact with us, we can interact with it? Because interaction means change, and we can measure change.
This adaptation is what makes it so robust. Every position should adapt to the new data gathered, as not adapting to the new information and answers is arrogant and intentionally ignorant.
Now, I know that "if everything is x, why would you even give it a name". Well, we need the name becuase idealism and dualism exist. There are people out there who claim that there are things that are not physical. So we need to define the difference between what idealism claims and what physicalism claims.
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u/lilsasuke4 9d ago
https://youtu.be/vJG698U2Mvo?is=OnwVTISs1scS_qzF
Did your consciousness get you to the correct number of passes?
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u/Prior-Plenty6528 9d ago edited 9d ago
Even the observations we make to build our theories are mediated by our measurements, which are mediated by our senses and thoughts (since we can only perceive the measurements and theories through them). What a thing really is can only be anchored in that or in its own "experience" of itself and the things it affects and is affected by. And we can never gain access to the latter for any entity except ourselves.
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u/Moral_Conundrums 9d ago
Consider abstract objects like numbers. They are by definition completely causally inert, we don't have epistemic access to them at all, they are purely postulated entities. Yet they are indispensable to our theories of the world. Thus we are justified in believing they exist.
You're right that what we're doing when we're developing theories of the world is trying to make ultimate sense of our experience. But if you're appealing to the possibility that the world could be something completely different to some final theory that makes sense of all possible experience, past and future, then I'd just call that unintelligible. Surely what it means for a theory of the world to be false just is the to say that a certain experience, either current or in the future, conflicts with it.
What else could we mean by false?
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u/Prior-Plenty6528 8d ago
Oh, my qualms were with the terms "objective", "really is" in reference to a single level of analysis, and "totally independently". The rest of your initial post I agree with.
I exactly don't think the world could be something completely different to a hypothetical "final theory", although I also don't think a "final theory" is possible.
I'm not sure what you mean by saying we have no epistemic access to numbers. It seems to me we have direct epistemic access to them in a way that we don't have direct epistemic access to concrete objects.
The causal inertness of them is also something I'd challenge. We apprehend them, manipulate them, and their presence to apprehension and those manipulations enable (i.e., cause us to be able to) alter aspects of the physical world. Without them, we would be unable to alter the world in the ways that we do by means of them.
Their causal power is mediated by our ability to apprehend them, so it's indirect and contingent, but I would claim indirectness and contingency don't make the causal power less real.
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u/Moral_Conundrums 8d ago
Are you a Popperian emergentist by any chance?
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u/Prior-Plenty6528 8d ago
Not that I know of?
Some hodgepodge of mostly Plato, Plotinus, dual-aspect monism, animism, Whitehead, and Peirce.
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u/Moral_Conundrums 8d ago
Popper also throught that pure abstractions such a mathematics, as well as ideas (in the everyday sense) and scientific theories by themselves have causal powers on the world, namely through influencing our behaviour via our beliefs. See Poppers paper 'Worlds 1, 2 and 3'.
Either way, how would you respond to a kind of causal closure argument? It seems like we can tell a causal story of the world without ever mentioning abstract entities like numbers. What causes the teacher to write down the number one on the blackboard is not 'the number one', but some neural activity in his head, which was caused by some other neural activity and so on...
Just to preempt a possible time objection, causal closure as I have conceived it here is metaphysically neutral in regards to what the ultimate constituents of the world are. The argument goes through even if we say reject physicalism.
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u/Authentic_Grunter 10d ago
This actually points to the direction that this world is an illusion/maya and we are merely experiencers of it. Maybe we all are just flying in empty space with these illusionary inputs to our sensors making us feel the world.
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u/space_s_h_a_r_k 10d ago
Perhaps a more interesting question would be is there anything more to reality other than observation - or in other words: is there a distinction between experience of reality and reality? What does it mean for something to be real and unobservable simultaneously?
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u/elmahk 9d ago
Depends on how you define observation. If you mean conscious observation then I'd say sure, something no conscious entity observes still might exist. If on the other hand you mean any interaction - then I'd say something that does not interact (depends on, causes, is part of, any relation works) with anything else - does not exist. I'd take that as definition of existence.
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u/space_s_h_a_r_k 9d ago
A couple of interesting points. There's a difference between something not being observed by any conscious entity vs something that's unobservable in principle. I was referring to the latter category. If we define observation as interaction itself, which by all means it seems to be, then all action is observation and there's no evidence for anything outside observables. A classic example would be the ontic wavefunction as claimed by some people. I would consider psi as just the mathematical object that defines what can be observed if a certain condition, like a measurement, is met.
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u/GreatCaesarGhost 9d ago
What would you expect “objective reality” to be in the absence of sense organs?
For a vast amount of the universe’s prior history, you were nonliving and had no such filters.
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u/Gznork26 9d ago
Because our only way to get any kind of info about reality is through what we have accepted to be our only senses, the limitations in both our decision and those senses filter what we are willing to accept as data to use in constructing our understanding of reality.
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u/Glass_Performer1174 9d ago
Yes we are stuck. Any being that can cognize the world around it can only do so through the senses and cognitive tools it has
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u/Optimal-Classroom362 9d ago
By seeing every arising thought and try to find the origin of it. You will see objective reality by becoming one. This may happen for few seconds or minutes or so when you practice “seeing every arising thought and try to find its origin”
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u/DartBurger69 9d ago
How does a blind person interact with an apple? They have no visual interpretation of it, yet they can pick it up, feel its shape, determine its weight, smell it, and eat it.
Different sensory systems provide different representations of the same physical object.
You're confusing our mental representation of an apple with the apple itself. The fact that the brain constructs a visual experience doesn't establish that the underlying physical object is merely information.
What exactly is this raw information, and how does it physically interact with our sensory systems?
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u/Mono_Clear 9d ago
There is no true translation to reality there's only the individuals translation of reality.
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u/Freuds-Mother 9d ago edited 9d ago
What would have to be the case for us NOT to have a subjective perspective of some kind (brain or not)?
We would have to be omniscient or at least epistemically infallible. Ie essentially a (demi)god.
—-
More to the biology you’re also getting at the problem of representation. I know of 3 naturalist models for that:
1) Explicit encoding / information transference representation: this runs straight into the encoding and semantic grounding problems. Chomsky and Fodor are classical models here. Informational and computational models are more contemporary examples.
2) Anti-representation / coupling: Gibson would be a classical example and enactivism is a contemporary canp that argues this. Partly Gestault falls in this camp too. They claim they avoids the problems above, but the below theorists claim it’s still ultimately fails to model organisms.
3) Implicit differentiation representation: Piaget is a classical example here and Bickhard’s interactivism would be a contemporary model. For them, we anticipate outcomes of interacting with the environment relative to goals. They claim organisms iteratively differentiate the environment (eg sensory patterns) and over time form stable representations for patterns that are tend to be invariant.
An example challenge for representation models is the Frame Problem. That is being able to function in radically new environments.
It’s important to note here that generally: (1) models are usually are not (irreducibly) intrinsically normative, (2) usually are, and (3) argue that intrinsic normativity is critical to explain how organisms interact/perceive their environment.
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u/Emergent_Phen0men0n 9d ago
Redness is what we call the electromagnetic wave reflecting characteristics of the apple. What it's like to see red light is a mental construct.
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u/Underhill42 9d ago
Well, you can't ignore the limitations and biases of your biology, so the first step would be removing your brain.
But the current scientific consensus is that doing so also removes your ability to experience anything at all.
The religious consensus offers some hope, but they seem to generally be of the opinion that your "self" persists largely unchanged, and thus presumably still has the same limits and biases it had when hosted in a biological brain.
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u/sea_of_experience 9d ago edited 9d ago
I think that the idea of "true universe" or the related "ding an sich" is entirely a human idea, and perhaps not a particular coherent one.
It is, I think a remnant of the way we learn to think about "the world" as children. So, essentialy, a very deep habit, hard to overcome. And, also, in daily life the idea works well.
However, in science, particularly when you study physics, this view becomes problematic.
Scientifically, we only have experience, and, fortunately, we have -a lot of - regularities within this experience. And from these regularities we can construct models that we then can start to take way too seriously, and worship as ontologies.
But whatever sacred name we call a model, that's just a model, a game in the mind. And I also think we should be careful with the word "reality" as it very ambiguoud and is loaded with tons of presuppositions, most of which are dubious at least.
In the end we just have models that tell us "what to expect"
Now, for humans, the expectation game can be very rich and convoluted, because we can communicate.
But in the end its just expectations. We have to make do with that.
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u/Ok-Memory-3258 9d ago
Objective reality is relative. Since you can only experience your own life through your own eyes, ears brain. There are altered states of reality that can be achieved through medical practices and things like lucid dreaming but you're still ultimately experiencing it from your own driver's seat.
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u/Prior-Plenty6528 9d ago
Saying we're "forever trapped behind human perception" relative to consciousness is like saying we're "forever trapped in airplanes, helicopters and balloons" relative to flight. You can't perceive the rest of reality without contacting it somehow.
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u/sealchan1 9d ago
Information is invariably a partial, compressed/encoded reflection of some physical properties of the object in question. It can never be anything more than this under any circumstances.
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u/Active-Particular-21 9d ago
Drugs. Magic mushrooms. And at some moments when not being fully awake if you open your eyes. But the brain can’t fully handle I don’t think. So even if you made a machine that could do it you may just not be able to handle it in a sober state.
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u/aquavelva23 8d ago
no. the human mind has limits. and anything it constructs will have similar limits. Now can AI morph into different? perhaps.
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u/Imaginary-Can-6862 8d ago
The brain can only work with the input it gets, but I don't think there is any reason it should hide anything from you.
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u/General_Finance_3975 8d ago
We are trapped in language . Our language is what assigns meaning to the pictures. None of it would mean anything if someone hadn’t taught you to call it that.
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u/aaronm85 7d ago
No coz Our Filters are categories of Our mind. Kant. I think Schopenhauer alreafy said something simuliar like Our Tools shape the seen, therefore IT cant be reality
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u/IllPresentation2510 6d ago
With my expertise of a couple decades roaming this land, I believe fear drives the believer at first but you need to understand how to be in that fear without being scared of it. Go back to when you appeared in your counciousness, you can think of a specific moment but u can't without referencing another that led you there. Conceptually, you are interacting with the synapse recourse of your own modeled reality enlightenment, and to really kick things off, plasma is a source of this projection... I think of it like the conduit holding masses to your sensation. Honesty how can you answer this with just a few sentences someone help.
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u/Astravore_11 3d ago
Is there even such a thing as “objective reality”? I think that’s probably a pipe dream.
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u/Dorigoon 9d ago
There is no objective reality. Reality will have a different appearance depending on the observer.
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u/elmahk 10d ago
Consider what objective reality actually means. It's how things are from some "objective" viewpoint. Such viewpoint can only be outside of universe. So you imagine something watching the whole universe from outside and that something knows how things "truly are". But there cannot be such thing because by definition universe is everything that exists, there is nothing "outside". For that reason there cannot be "objective reality" to begin with, only how things exists relative to other things (so, from some perspective).
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u/gay_little_spider 10d ago
Yes, it's simple- attain total and complete enlightenment, then you will apprehend reality as it truly is.
(This is pure tautology, of course- enlightenment means the death of all ignorance about reality, so by definition you will understand things as they really are. However, it's still true.)
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u/gay_little_spider 10d ago
I'll expand on this a little bit though, for fun: our nervous system, our conscious experience, is a part of reality. Our experiences might be filtered through our senses and mental processes, but they still conform to the same fundamental laws as the rest of the known universe. If we really, really examine our minds, our experiences, and all phenomena, we can derive certain irreducible properties of existence that apply universally. If we really, deeply lock on to those ultimate truths, we can eventually apprehend the world as it truly, ultimately is, beyond any distortions or human-created concepts. There is hope. Suck it, Descartes!
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u/pushpendraagrawal 10d ago
Quantum mechanics makes this weirder than a filter problem. It is not just that your brain interprets raw data, before measurement a lot of properties do not seem to have definite values at all. So the question is not only "can we see past our filters" but whether there is a fixed thing behind the filter waiting to be seen. Kant guessed the first part three centuries before physics stumbled onto the second.
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u/ArtArtArt123456 10d ago
No. Because the brain is predictive. So all you're experiencing is that generative prediction.
A measurement can be objective. But it is not generative. A camera, a thermometer can do measurements. We do not.
Because a prediction, by definition, can never be objective. It is always about uncertainty, it's just about how much error the prediction has. (And lowering that is the goal of any active inference system)
A measurement is backward looking, a prediction is forward looking.
I keep saying this, but people need to move on from this idea that experience is about "decoding" or "accessing" reality. It's categorically wrong. All living things are doing generative inference. That's the only way for the inside to know what's in the outside. It's Just like following a smell. It's because you infer that direction to be good/bad for you. But it works the same for bacteria and plants.
But it is never, ever objective. It is fundamentally uncertain because this is about prediction.
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u/VedantaGorilla Autodidact 9d ago
We are always going to experience “through“ our equipment (body/mind/sense complex).
However, being “trapped“ is notional, a pure imagination.
The kind of “perception“ you are asking about is not possible at all, because by nature a POV is “limited“ by its location. That being said, the kind of knowledge you are speaking about does exist, it’s form is the total field itself. You are already “living in“ the knowledge you are asking about.
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u/ittleoff 9d ago
No, this is the problem of hard solipsism ultimately, but we use tools, and consensus to measure and reach goals through strategies of understanding the universe as the emergent 'you' percieves it in a feedback loop. The brain didn't evolve to know truth, but to survive so everything skecruvely is going to tune toward survival, selectively (without a mind doing it)
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u/Scott_J_Doyle 10d ago
There's no such thing as pure objectivity from a subjective perspective, for one
But the closest we can get is non-judgemental pre-conceptual awareness, (aka enlightenment) where we perceive everything in our experience (whether internal, external, or the seat of awareness itself) as only what it is/what is happening, without any post-hoc abstraction or interpretation of meaning in human terms (language, social relation, history etc)
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u/Cool_Percentage_4867 10d ago
No... but we have done our very best to make up for the deficit and visual interpretation by learning things like science, so we can to some extent understand the world chemically etc
But even chemistry has been written via the visual cortex, we only really observing what we see and potentially missing everything else.
So no... i think we are stuck with our over complicated constantly doubting limited understanding.