“If I Perceive It, It’s Real”
From Gerd Altmann/Pixabay
Some back-and-forth with my readers about various relevant topics
A while back, I posted a reference to a passage from my book, Hoodwinked: Uncovering Our Fundamental Superstitions. It reads: “How can the physical world be what is real when it requires perception in order to come into being?”
I made that statement in the context of inquiring into the meaning of quantum physics. Most of my readers seem to accept that quantum theory correctly predicts how the physical world behaves. In fact, if it didn’t do that, we wouldn’t have transistors, cellphones, and computers.
However, quantum theory also presents a powerful enigma: it speaks to the likely results of any observation of the world, and not to the world itself. In this way, it describes the world in a way that conflicts mightily with our common sense understanding. So much so that the question inevitably arises: what does all this mean? Lacking a satisfying answer, most physicists subscribe to an approach that boils down to: “just shut up and calculate.”
That post on the role of perception gave rise to the following conversation.
Jeff:
If it wasn't real, there would be nothing for you to perceive. The world existed for billions of years before humans first existed to perceive anything.
Larry Gottlieb, Author
Hey Jeff! It's not that the world isn't real... it's that our idea of the world is a conditioned interpretation. We humans always think that the world is senior to ourselves, existing more-or-less as we perceive it to be before we got here and long after we're gone.
I like to say that we think the world is an "is," as in "it just is that way." My assertion, rather, is that the world is more a "shows up as," as in "the world shows up for me as a safe place, whereas it shows up as a dangerous place to others..."
My contention is that we don't experience the world directly... our interpretation of sensory input, our description of the world, always stands in between. As a result the world, whatever it is, is and will always remain mysterious and unfathomable to us humans.
Jeff:
Larry Gottlieb, Author. Agreed. What we perceive is not what animals, birds or fish perceive. It's the three blind men and the elephant.
L.W.:
One idea I’d like to suggest is that the world exists apart from our perception of it. Obviously when a sentient being dies, the world doesn’t go out of existence. It is slightly changed, overall, very slightly, in most cases. However HIS world does cease to exist.
When I say exist, I mean in an ever changing, evolutionary way.
I sort of understand the double slit experiment, and have heard of Schrodinger and Heisenberg. I’m not a materialist nor a determinist.
Larry Gottlieb, Author
Yes, I agree... the world does exist. However, what we call the world is a description, an interpretation of sensory data which has been conditioned by our experience of the past, by our habits of thought, by our beliefs, and by what we were told when we were young. All we have is our interpretation of what we see, and we all mistake that interpretation for what is actually there. As for what is actually there, quantum theory says it's a field of weighted possibilities, aka probabilities. It tells us that what's required is observation in order to select one of those probable outcomes of the observation and make it actual. One interpretation of that result is that there are an infinitude of universes available for perceiving, and we choose one every moment of our lives. That's my take on the subject. Thanks for your comment!
L.W.:
I am not as learned as you and mostly I think we agree. I like the the idea that the world consists of weighted probabilities, but observation by whom or what? Would observation of a squirrel, trilobite or stegosaurus do the trick? Surely it doesn’t have to be a human. I completely accept that we do not know the world in its profound complexity- least of all me. I love talking about though.
Larry Gottlieb, Author
Albert Einstein wondered if a "side-long glance from a mouse would suffice." In my book Hoodwinked, I make the case that human Being (capitalization intended) needs to be redefined in light of quantum mechanics. I explore our belief, shared by virtually everyone who's ever been alive, that our being-ness begins and ends at a boundary called our skin... in other words, that a human being is an object among other objects. I hope you'll read the book and then challenge my argument to the contrary if you feel that's needed. I too love talking about this stuff!
L.W.:
Larry Gottlieb, Author, I doubt that human BEING has anything to do with the overall existence or operation of the universe.
It does, of course, have an enormous influence on the existence and operation of OUR universe. But the rest of the universe really really doesn’t care.
Larry Gottlieb, Author
Once again, if you'll read the book you'll see my argument that the Universe DOES care and that's one way of expressing why we're here. I'm not saying I'm right... just that I think I make a pretty good argument. But it takes me 220 pages to do it, not a couple sentences on Facebook.
