What is the world actually like, if what we see is just our brain’s interpretations?

If the world we observe is just our brain’s interpretation of the electrochemical signals it receives from our eyes, what is the world actually like? (continued)

Biram Desai
Brighton, UK

To paraphrase the words of philosopher Alan Watts, a question that is perpetually difficult to answer may indicate that the question needs to be reframed. If indeed there are only relative realities and no objective reality, then the question is only relevant in relation to the observer. So, the world is whatever you perceive it to be!

Brian Balke
Via Facebook

In precise terms, we don’t “see” our brain’s interpretations. We generally see our brain’s expectations. These expectations are categorisations of sensory patterns that prepare downstream networks to initiate muscle and endocrine control.

Tools enhance our power over the world and our understanding of it. As the tools shrink, we build abstract models of their elements, eventually achieving control at scales far below our natural sensory sensitivity. This requires that we develop enhanced sensory tools as well as manipulators.

What this all boils down to is that we don’t just “see” with our senses. We have enhanced our senses using our expectations about the world. Those enhanced senses include ultrasonic imaging, X-ray scanners, particle colliders and pressure sensors. Those enhanced senses, in their agreement with our expectations, confirm that there is a world beyond our perceptions.

Despite this conclusion, we should be aware that there is a great deal in our sensory data that cannot be replicated by artificial sensors. The ability to shift attention to acquire additional detail, the tingle of excitement upon seeing a romantic partner, the disorientation felt during a bout of the flu: these are all subjective experiences that differentiate, in their richness, human consciousness from any form of artificial consciousness built upon linguistic abstractions. That we struggle to convey our subjective experience is also an aspect of the world. It may not be measurable, but I actually kind of like that.

In precise terms, we don’t ‘see’ our brain’s interpretations. We generally see our brain’s expectations

Tony Cusano
Via Facebook

The world is actually just like our brain’s interpretation of what we see. But it’s a trick question, because it’s not just “our brain”, but all of our brains linked in a social network.

We can be fooled by randomness, but if the world were purely random, repetitive events would not be as persistently predictable as they are. Unpredictable events becoming predictable with more measurements of more underlying variables also undermines pure randomness.

Thunder and lightning are good examples of events that appeared random for generations, then, with better observations, gradually gained predictability to the point where they can now be prepared for well in advance of them occurring, though not yet with perfect accuracy.

No one brain learned that, but the human social network did.

Julian Gold
Via Facebook

All those “brain in a jar” arguments neglect the fact that we are all, in fact, brains in (meat) jars.

Yes, our brains help us approximate the state of the external world. The question as to how close that approximation is depends on a lot of things, but the granularity is extended by our ability to build sensors that augment the range of what we can see, which was originally dictated by the survival needs of 4 billion years of evolution and predation.

Asking what it’s “really” like is meaningless though.

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