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Sun 1 Mar, 2009 05:15 pm
Human Perception and the Problems of what is Reality
This essay is the result of my own research and most of it is my own problems relating to perception and the problems of what is real and what is not real
By nature, every species has its physical and sensory limitations. The mind has to interpret what it is able to sense, and act on that information. Unfortunately the information is far from complete, so the mind must fill the gaps of physical sensation. To do this the mind draws from memories of previous sensations, experiences and understanding. The typical list of senses includes sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell. To these five physical senses, we can attribute a sixth: mind. if there is a sixth sense then I peceive this a the working of the non- physical mind
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Though the senses are necessarily limited, this is not the largest problem we have with them. The largest problem we have with the senses is the amount of attention paid to the information received. Even though the mind has to fill in gaps, it also neglects the vast majority of information provided to it.
Most information goes into the subconscious and never enters conscious thought. The difference between conscious and unconscious is not a difference that can be mapped on a picture of the brain. Neurons literally take turns participating as either.
Neurons that are merely transmitters of information, including those that regulate bodily functions, is not part of this process. As with other cells of the body, they justifiably cannot be categorized as conscious or subconscious. They are purely functional; obeying the direction or reacting to the choices of neurons that do participate.
Who am I? We may find the answer to all other related questions like, where did I come from? What is the meaning and purpose of my life? Where do I go when I die?
Now, if someone were to ask, ‟Who are you?" your response would probably be "Oh, my name is so-and-so. I'm an American, or I am Japanese, or I am the president of this company. All these answers refer to your self-image or to an object outside your self: a name, a place, a circumstance. This process of identifying with your self-image or the objects of your experience is called object referral.
We are not our name , we are not we do, we are who we are?
You may also identify with their bodies and say ‟This is my body. This bag of flesh and bones is who I am." But then the question is what the body is, and why call it yours? The body that you call yours is really the raw material of the universe: recycled earth, water, and air. But so is the tree outside your window. Why call the body yours when you do not call the stars, the moon, or the tree outside your window yours? Of course your body seems nearer to you, but this assumes that you know where the "I am" that you think you are physically located.
Many people somehow feel that the "I" they call themselves, the skin-encapsulated awareness, is located somewhere in their head. Other people think it's located somewhere behind the heart or solar plexus. But no scientific experiment has ever found a center of awareness in any one location in space or time.
An interesting insight that comes to us from both Vedic Science and the Jewish Kabala is that the center of our awareness is the center of all space and time. It is at once everywhere and nowhere. But let's assume for a moment that indeed your awareness is located where you are physically sitting. If this universe has infinite dimensions - and physicists assure us that it does - then infinity extends in all directions from where you are.
You are in the center of the universe, but so am I because infinity extends in all directions from where I am. Infinity also extends in all directions from a peasant in China, a dog in Siberia, and a tree in Africa. The truth is, I am here, but I am also everywhere else because here is there from every other point in space. You are there, but you are also everywhere else because there is everywhere or nowhere specifically.
In other words, location in space is a matter of perception. When we say the moon is near, the sun is far, that's only true from one vantage point. In reality, there is no up or down, north or south, east or west, here or there. These are only points of reference for our convenience.
Everything in the cosmos is non-local, meaning we can't confine it to here, there, or anywhere. But my eyes tell me this is not the case. I am here; you are there, wherever you are.
So maybe we should not trust our senses that much. My eyes tell me that the Earth is flat, but nobody believes that anymore. Sensory experience tells me that the ground I am standing on is stationary, but I know from science that the earth is spinning on its axis and hurtling through outer space at thousands of miles an hour.
Sensory experience tells me that the objects of my perception are solid, but that's not true either. We know they are made up of atoms, which in turn are particles that whirl around huge empty spaces. These are all superstitions that I've developed because I've learned to trust my senses.
The universe is actually a chaos of energy soup, and we ingest this soup through our five senses, and then convert it into a material reality in our consciousness. Our senses transform energy inputs into form and solidity, texture and color, fragrance and taste, sound and vibration. And our interpretation of that energy soup structures our reality and creates our perceptual experience. Most of the time we do this unconsciously as a result of social conditioning. Scientists have called this the hypnosis of social conditioning. I call it the superstition of materialism.
Science relies on sensory experience as the crucial test of reality. In this world-view, reality is what we can see with our eyes, what we can touch with our hands, hear with our ears, smell with our nose, taste with our mouth, or touch with or hands. If energy or information is not available to our senses, we tend to think it isn't there. And the intellect, with its linguistically structured system of logic, serves to justify this mistaken perception of reality.
Sensory experience is totally illusory; it's as transient as a fantasy or a dream. Is there really such a thing as the color red? Every color you see is a particular wavelength of light, and the light you can actually detect is a fraction of what exists. How long can you cling to a world of illusion? You may think you are the body that your senses can locate in space and time, but the body is a field of invisible vibrations that has no boundaries in space and time.
The essential you, your real essence, is a field of awareness that interacts with its own self and then becomes both mind and body. In other words, you are consciousness or spirit, which then conceives, constructs, governs, and becomes the mind and the body. The real you is inseparable from the patterns of intelligence that permeate every fiber of creation.
At the deepest level of existence, you are Being, and you are nowhere and everywhere at the same time. There is no other "you" than the entire cosmos. The cosmic mind creates the physical universe, and the personal mind experiences the physical universe. But in truth, the cosmic mind and the personal mind are both permeated by infinite consciousness. Infinite consciousness is our source, and all manifestation is inherent within it.
Infinite consciousness observing itself creates the notion of observer, or the soul; the process of observation, or the mind; and that, which is observed, or the body and the world. The observer and the observed create relationships between themselves; this is space. The movement of these relationships creates events; this is time. But all these are none other than the infinite consciousness itself.
In other words, we are infinite consciousness with a localized point of view. And yet our whole system of thought divides the observer from the observed; it divides the infinite consciousness into a world of objects separated by space and time. The intellect imprisons us in a cage of fictitious images, a suffocating web of space, time, and causation. As a result, we lose touch with the true nature of our reality, which is powerful, boundless, immortal, and free.
We are all prisoners of the intellect. And the intellect's mistake in one simple sentence is this: It mistakes the image of reality for reality itself. It squeezes the soul into the volume of a body, in the span of a lifetime, and now the spell of mortality is cast. The image of the self overshadows the unbounded Self, and we feel cut off or disconnected from infinite consciousness, our source.
Pure consciousness illuminates and animates your mind and body, and it is powerful, nourishing, invincible, unbounded, and free. Pure consciousness, the eternal spirit, animates everything in existence, which means it is omniscient (all knowing), omnipresent (present in all locations simultaneously), and omnipotent (all powerful).
We have been hardwired to perceive only what we need to perceive of the realities around us to survive. Only a narrowest slit is opened to us the rest is ignored as unimportant
This opens a Pandora's box of complex questions?
@Alan McDougall,
Alan McDougall,
Yes I believe that we create a virtual reality for ourselves, but as within a virtual reality in a computer it is based upon something, even a virtual computer reality is short of the reality that it is based upon. So, is there something to gleen from the analogy of the two. How can one deduce, or fill in the gaps of what is not there in the virtual reality of that which is apparent to us. In the computer virtual reality representing apparent reality there is indeed much left out, the sense of smell, the tactile sensations. There is also a concept of synesthesia the melding of the senses now being explored, so that one might hear music, see it in the air and I've heard possiably taste it. At anyrate thank you for your post, it is intriguing to say the least.
@boagie,
boagie
Quote:
Yes I believe that we create a virtual reality for ourselves, but as within a virtual reality in a computer it is based upon something, even a virtual computer reality is short of the reality that it is based upon. So, is there something to gleen from the analogy of the two. How can one deduce, or fill in the gaps of what is not there in the virtual reality of that which is apparent to us. In the computer virtual reality representing apparent reality there is indeed much left out, the sense of smell, the tactile sensations. There is also a concept of synesthesia the melding of the senses now being explored, so that one might hear music, see it in the air and I've heard possiably taste it. At anyrate thank you for your post, it is intriguing to say the least.
I agree but virtual reality we create in computers still remains just a tiny distorted fragment of the greater unperceived reality just at the edges of our very limited ability to perceive.
Quote:
There is also a concept of synesthesia the melding of the senses now being explored, so that one might hear music, see it in the air and I've heard possiably taste it. At anyrate thank you for your post, it is intriguing to say the least.
I have actually experience synthaesthesia and could taste sound for example, when I try to relate this I am met with skepticism most of the time. In in fact related this on this forum in one of my threads
Take the eye of a frog, it is very similar to ours but the frog perceives much less than we humans do. The frog sits still and only responds to the slightest movement of its prey, such as an insect. The only other use the frog has for its complex eye is to avoid danger, all the other things we human take as beautiful and meaningful are a redundancy to the eye/brain of a frog
Like the frog we are blinded/ hardwired by evolution or an ID to ignore what is really unnecessary for our survival. Thus the great redundancies found in our DNA
People of great creativity like Michelangelo, Rodin, Einstein have forced the doors of greater perceptions a little wider, so humanity can glimpse a little more into the real reality still unobservable by human senses
Hey! I hope my senses are making sense to you :perplexed: :bigsmile:
@Alan McDougall,
Alan McDougall,
Yes indeed you make a great deal of sense. It is an intriguing topic you've introduced, also this synthaesthesia is gripping in the possiablities which might at a later date be available to the average person. It must be an extraordinary experience this synthaesthesia. So there are ways that man can be more, of course there will be those whom fight against tinkering with our mental apparatus, undoubtedly equating it with some past horrors of eugenics.
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