The Human Perception of Reality

[Mushin]

Humans (at least most of them) have two eyes. Each eye is capable of seeing in 2d, however our brain is capable of using the information retrieved from the eye and creating a 3 dimensional image that we view as the world surrounding us. In modern day physics, there is believe to be a multitude of dimensions, the most common number accepted is 11. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M-theory) This means that the universe is representative of an 11 dimensional hyperspace. The crinkling down of this hyperspace into our 4 dimensional universe creates all of the four fundamental forces (electromagnetism, gravity, the strong force, and the weak force).

Obviously not everyone is capable of seeing. But they still exist within our 4 dimensional plane. So taking out the example of seeing, and replacing it with existing:

If our universe is actually a crinkled dimensional plane of another universe, what we perceive as humans is not all there is. This meaning that we aren't living in reality, merely just an office in the building of reality. Since reality defines as "the world or state of things as they actually exist", and we're not living in the full 11 dimensional universe, then we're not experiencing all there is in our universe.

I know that the majority of these theories are simply just that, theories. But I can't help but entertaining these thoughts to keep me from dying of boredom. I'm curious as to what other people think, about whether or not we're actually living in reality, or just our conception of what reality is.

[Southside]

You just blew my fucking mind.

I consider myself a pretty smart person but this is above every level of understanding and knowledge I have.

[Plane And Simple]

So... I'm not me and we're not us and... Mindfuck.

[TheBigUnit]

You know the thing is, is that we may very well never know, great post though

[Camazotz]

Theoretical science is best left to those much smarter than me, so I cannot contribute anything other than "nice work."

[Luminous]

I just barely have the brains to read that, little understand that. But it was simple enough to be understandable at the same time. I'm so confused you blew my mind.

[conniption]

It's amazing, right? I remember being flabbergasted when I first found out multiple universes and demensions were possible.

[PerpetualImperfexion]

Beautifully written post. Not sure what there is to debate.

[Mushin]

It's amazing, right? I remember being flabbergasted when I first found out multiple universes and demensions were possible.

Do you have a favorite theory?

Beautifully written post. Not sure what there is to debate.

Thanks. I was just curious to other people's opinion on our understanding of reality.

[tovaris]

how would a two dimensiol person see a sfere passing frew his world. ....
That is how we see

[CharlieHorse]

What do you mean be dimensions?
Are you referring to spacial dimensions?
Because I know some stupid people are all like "omg the 4th dimension is time, lol science".
-_-

[conniption]

Do you have a favorite theory?

M theory

[CharlieHorse]

such theoretical stuff like this isn't really useful in general in my opinion.

[Rina]

This reminds me a lot of Perception, the show. I can't remember the exact wording he said, but I know he spoke about it. I know in the show he is a Schizophrenic, so he creates his own realities sometimes. I WISH I COULD REMEMBER UGH.

I personally think that yes, we all live in our different reality. We all perceive things differently than others, like information and such. Like I saw this video about colors. Like what if what I know as blue looks different than what you know is blue?

Blue in your mind could look different than the blue in my mind, but we don't know because we associate both with blue. I wish I could find the Youtube video, but too lazy to search.

edit: I found it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evQsOFQju08

[SaxyHaloBeast]

Humans (at least most of them) have two eyes. Each eye is capable of seeing in 2d, however our brain is capable of using the information retrieved from the eye and creating a 3 dimensional image that we view as the world surrounding us. In modern day physics, there is believe to be a multitude of dimensions, the most common number accepted is 11. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M-theory) This means that the universe is representative of an 11 dimensional hyperspace. The crinkling down of this hyperspace into our 4 dimensional universe creates all of the four fundamental forces (electromagnetism, gravity, the strong force, and the weak force).

Obviously not everyone is capable of seeing. But they still exist within our 4 dimensional plane. So taking out the example of seeing, and replacing it with existing:

If our universe is actually a crinkled dimensional plane of another universe, what we perceive as humans is not all there is. This meaning that we aren't living in reality, merely just an office in the building of reality. Since reality defines as "the world or state of things as they actually exist", and we're not living in the full 11 dimensional universe, then we're not experiencing all there is in our universe.

I know that the majority of these theories are simply just that, theories. But I can't help but entertaining these thoughts to keep me from dying of boredom. I'm curious as to what other people think, about whether or not we're actually living in reality, or just our conception of what reality is.

"This meaning that we aren't living in reality, merely just an office in the building of reality."

Even if we are only in that small section of existence, it doesn't mean that the world we see is any less real. Just because we can't see or really understand the whole picture, doesn't mean the part we do see and understand is any less a reality. When it comes right down to it, the only reality that matters is the one we have.

[Gigablue]

In modern day physics, there is believe to be a multitude of dimensions, the most common number accepted is 11. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M-theory)

I wouldn't call it necessarily the most accepted. M-theory posits 11 directions, while many types of string theory (I, IIA, IIB, HE, HO) posit 10 and bosonic string theory posits 26. There is also loop quantum gravity, which doesn't add dimensions. While m-theory has decent acceptance, it still has many critics.

This means that the universe is representative of an 11 dimensional hyperspace. The crinkling down of this hyperspace into our 4 dimensional universe creates all of the four fundamental forces (electromagnetism, gravity, the strong force, and the weak force).

I'll accept the premise that the universe has 11 dimensions for the sake of argument. However, I was under the impression that the other spacial dimensions were always present, but just irrelevant in the macro world. They are compacted to such an extent as to be undetectable with current technology, but they still exist. Our universe isn't 'crinkled'.

If our universe is actually a crinkled dimensional plane of another universe, what we perceive as humans is not all there is. This meaning that we aren't living in reality, merely just an office in the building of reality. Since reality defines as "the world or state of things as they actually exist", and we're not living in the full 11 dimensional universe, then we're not experiencing all there is in our universe.

What exactly makes you say we don't live in a eleven dimensional universe?

I know that the majority of these theories are simply just that, theories. But I can't help but entertaining these thoughts to keep me from dying of boredom. I'm curious as to what other people think, about whether or not we're actually living in reality, or just our conception of what reality is.

I don't think these are theories. They are at best hypotheses, though they may not be testable. I think that in time, we will be able to test these hypotheses, but we lack the technology and resources at present. I've heard of one proposed test of string theory, but it requires a particle collider larger than the solar system.

I do think that they are very interesting to contemplate, even though I'm sure I know very little about them.

[Mushin]

"This meaning that we aren't living in reality, merely just an office in the building of reality."

Even if we are only in that small section of existence, it doesn't mean that the world we see is any less real. Just because we can't see or really understand the whole picture, doesn't mean the part we do see and understand is any less a reality. When it comes right down to it, the only reality that matters is the one we have.

Not necessarily. If you see where I defined 'reality', it states that reality is "the world or state of things as they actually exist." Without being capable of reacting to all of the dimensions, say as a stimuli, then we aren't experiencing the world as it actually exists. Therefore, we aren't entirely in true reality.

I wouldn't call it necessarily the most accepted. M-theory posits 11 directions, while many types of string theory (I, IIA, IIB, HE, HO) posit 10 and bosonic string theory posits 26. There is also loop quantum gravity, which doesn't add dimensions. While m-theory has decent acceptance, it still has many critics.

I would. I, IIA, IIB, HO, HE, Super gravity theories, etc. all have underlying dualities to each other which represents an underlying theory. These are all summed up in M-theory, which is the most commonly accepted theory when in reference to theoretical physics + string theory. Of course, every theory has critics. That's why they're only theories. :)

I'll accept the premise that the universe has 11 dimensions for the sake of argument. However, I was under the impression that the other spacial dimensions were always present, but just irrelevant in the macro world. They are compacted to such an extent as to be undetectable with current technology, but they still exist. Our universe isn't 'crinkled'.

Yes, in a sense it is crinkled. The other spacial dimensions are present, however they're crinkled within our dimensional plane to a 0 dimensional point. This goes back to saying that since we cannot react to these other dimensions as a stimulus, then we aren't experiencing them, therefore not experiencing the universe as it actually exists.

What exactly makes you say we don't live in a eleven dimensional universe?

Ah, my mistake on wording. Sorry about that. What I meant by 'living' is existing with the stimuli from the other spacial dimensions.

I don't think these are theories. They are at best hypotheses, though they may not be testable. I think that in time, we will be able to test these hypotheses, but we lack the technology and resources at present. I've heard of one proposed test of string theory, but it requires a particle collider larger than the solar system.

They are considered and accepted as theories by the physics community. Believe it or not, there have been many tests on string theory, m-theory, etc. I've never heard of the larger than the solar system particle collider, I'll see if I can find anything on it though.

[SaxyHaloBeast]

Not necessarily. If you see where I defined 'reality', it states that reality is "the world or state of things as they actually exist." Without being capable of reacting to all of the dimensions, say as a stimuli, then we aren't experiencing the world as it actually exists. Therefore, we aren't entirely in true reality.


Let me ask you a question. If we aren't even experiencing a true reality and we can't even perceive our whole reality, then how do we even know what a reality is? Reality is what we can see, feel, hear, sense, etc. Reality is knowing that what you sense is real. In truth, our world is the true reality and the supposed other dimensions and realities are only hypothetical, theory, not reality.

[Mushin]

Let me ask you a question. If we aren't even experiencing a true reality and we can't even perceive our whole reality, then how do we even know what a reality is? Reality is what we can see, feel, hear, sense, etc. Reality is knowing that what you sense is real. In truth, our world is the true reality and the supposed other dimensions and realities are only hypothetical, theory, not reality.

That's the point of this discussion, whether or not we as humans can truly encompass the whole meaning of reality. If you ask me, we can't. There is no way to know what a true reality is, because what we see is in a sense an illusion.

Sure what you sense may be 'real', but it's not existing as a whole in it's actual form. That form being a hyperspace of all 11 dimensions. You can't just write off the other dimensions as "hypothetical theories". There's many experiments that have been conducted showing there is more than what we currently understand.

[Matt_97]

WOW this just blew my mind, completely strange and scientific, i just have enough brain power to understand this!! Im in awe of it, saying that it is completely hypothetical and is unknown to be real

[Synyster Shadows]

Mind = blown. *kaboom*

Umm, I honestly can't say anything.

[Skezra]

The subject of our universe existing in 11 dimensions is heavily debated, and while 11 dimensions is the most accepted, it doesn't mean it's actually accepted. There is no concrete evidence to how many dimensions exist, and in fact it's possible to exist an infinite amount of dimensions, but of course this scenario is unlikely and nothing actually points that way, so far.

However, multiple dimensions is not the only way we can actually know we don't live "in reality", there are so many factors.
One of them is our brain, which takes some milliseconds to experience the sensations our senses perceive, so we really live in the past. So, do we perceive reality or do we perceive what was reality?

If that wasn't enough, there's also quantum physics. Quantum physics is a concrete evidenced theory that our universe exists in multiple states at once, and we only experience one of those states. The common example used to describe this is "Schrodinger's Cat".
If there is a radioactive atom inside a closed box with a cat inside, and each 5 minutes there is a 50% that it decays, killing the cat, then that means that 5 minutes into the experience, there is a 50% chance the cat is alive, and 50% chance the cat is dead. After 10 minutes, it'll be 75% chance it's dead, 25% chance it's alive, and so on. However, none of these values will ever reach 100% or 0%, right? Well, at least until we observe them.
If you open the box and check if the cat is alive, and it is, then the chance of it being alive instantly jumps to 100%, or 0% if it was dead. Which means, while you don't observe what's inside the box, the cat is both alive and dead, and our act of observing it will instantly force the universe to choose one of these outcomes.
So, if two different people did this, would they see the same outcome? If not, then is there more than one universe, each one for every different outcome to everything?

There's also the fact that our senses themselves are limited, and our brains themselves are limited, so there is so much out there even in our 4 dimensional universe that we can't perceive, even if it's there. Not just that, but if a cat looks at a chair and you look at a chair, you see different chairs. Which chair is right? Maybe neither. If so, how do things really look like?

It is nothing new that we have no answer to what is reality.
I guess you can say reality is relative to the perceiver, and all perceivers are equally correct.

[Human]

I love String Theory. It's certainly a possibility although it is very hard or even impossible to test the theory because we only live in a few dimensions, so we couldn't detect others easily.

[Mynick]

However, multiple dimensions is not the only way we can actually know we don't live "in reality", there are so many factors.
One of them is our brain, which takes some milliseconds to experience the sensations our senses perceive, so we really live in the past. So, do we perceive reality or do we perceive what was reality?

If we accept time is part of reality itself, and i could be really stupid saying this but since entropy is rising since the Big Bang, it does. We could sort this in two realities. One is the current state of our universe that we cant oberve since our brain takes time to compute it. And the observal reality, everything we see, smell etc. For instance the stars in the sky. As far as we know they may be dead already.

If that wasn't enough, there's also quantum physics. Quantum physics is a concrete evidenced theory that our universe exists in multiple states at once, and we only experience one of those states. The common example used to describe this is "Schrodinger's Cat".
If there is a radioactive atom inside a closed box with a cat inside, and each 5 minutes there is a 50% that it decays, killing the cat, then that means that 5 minutes into the experience, there is a 50% chance the cat is alive, and 50% chance the cat is dead. After 10 minutes, it'll be 75% chance it's dead, 25% chance it's alive, and so on. However, none of these values will ever reach 100% or 0%, right? Well, at least until we observe them.
If you open the box and check if the cat is alive, and it is, then the chance of it being alive instantly jumps to 100%, or 0% if it was dead. Which means, while you don't observe what's inside the box, the cat is both alive and dead, and our act of observing it will instantly force the universe to choose one of these outcomes.
So, if two different people did this, would they see the same outcome? If not, then is there more than one universe, each one for every different outcome to everything?

That would be two different time lines of the same event right? Or am i watching too much Doctor Who?

There's also the fact that our senses themselves are limited, and our brains themselves are limited, so there is so much out there even in our 4 dimensional universe that we can't perceive, even if it's there. Not just that, but if a cat looks at a chair and you look at a chair, you see different chairs. Which chair is right? Maybe neither. If so, how do things really look like?

It is nothing new that we have no answer to what is reality.
I guess you can say reality is relative to the perceiver, and all perceivers are equally correct.
True that.

[deadpie]

Look, if you take the whole of time and represent it by one year, were only in the first few moments of the first of January. There's a long way to go. Only now were not going to spout extra limbs and wings and fins because evolution itself is evolving. When it comes, the apocalypse itself will be part of the process of that leap of evolution. By the very definition of apocalypse, mankind must cease to exist, at least in a material form. We'll evolve into something that transcends matter, into a species of pure thought. Are you with me? Into something that's well beyond our comprehension. Into a universal consciousness. Into G-d. Who is by the same principle that time is.

All right, I'm not saying that life will end or the world will end, or the universe will cease to exist. But man will cease to exist! Just like the dinosaurs passed into extinction, the same thing will happen to us! We're not fuckin' important! We're just a crap idea! You can't make an omelet without cracking a few eggs. And humanity is just a cracked egg. And the omelet stinks.

Do you think that the amoeba ever dreamed that it would evolve into the frog? Of course it didn't. And when that first frog shimmied out of the water and employed its vocal chords in order to attract a mate or to retard a predator, do you think that that frog ever imagined that that incipient croak would evolve into all the languages of the world, into all the literature of the world? Of course it fucking didn't. And just as that froggy could never possibly have conceived of Shakespeare, so we can never possibly imagine our destiny.

How did I personally get here? Well, basically, there was this little dot, right? And the dot went bang and the bang expanded. Energy formed into matter, matter cooled, matter lived, the amoeba to fish, to fish to fowl, to fowl to frog, to frog to mammal, the mammal to monkey, to monkey to man, amo amas amat, quid pro quo, memento mori, ad infinitum, sprinkle on a little bit of grated cheese and leave under the grill till Doomsday.

[QuantumPhysics]

Humans (at least most of them) have two eyes. Each eye is capable of seeing in 2d, however our brain is capable of using the information retrieved from the eye and creating a 3 dimensional image that we view as the world surrounding us. In modern day physics, there is believe to be a multitude of dimensions, the most common number accepted is 11. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M-theory) This means that the universe is representative of an 11 dimensional hyperspace. The crinkling down of this hyperspace into our 4 dimensional universe creates all of the four fundamental forces (electromagnetism, gravity, the strong force, and the weak force).

Obviously not everyone is capable of seeing. But they still exist within our 4 dimensional plane. So taking out the example of seeing, and replacing it with existing:

If our universe is actually a crinkled dimensional plane of another universe, what we perceive as humans is not all there is. This meaning that we aren't living in reality, merely just an office in the building of reality. Since reality defines as "the world or state of things as they actually exist", and we're not living in the full 11 dimensional universe, then we're not experiencing all there is in our universe.

I know that the majority of these theories are simply just that, theories. But I can't help but entertaining these thoughts to keep me from dying of boredom. I'm curious as to what other people think, about whether or not we're actually living in reality, or just our conception of what reality is.

You just blew my f*cking mind.

I consider myself a pretty smart person but this is above every level of understanding and knowledge I have.
Wow! I have thought of this. Like the matrix they are in those pod things and they go into a different world. i think sometimes that life isn't real. Its quite complex when you think about it

[sqishy]

This is what I've been thinking- of course, only so much, because I get a headache trying to visualize tesseracts and cosmic strings XD

My orange signature is my condensed agreement to your viewpoint. I'm glad I'm not the only one with this idea.
Congratulations on realizing this O.o it was fucking difficult for me.

[Spook]

Humans (at least most of them) have two eyes. Each eye is capable of seeing in 2d, however our brain is capable of using the information retrieved from the eye and creating a 3 dimensional image that we view as the world surrounding us. In modern day physics, there is believe to be a multitude of dimensions, the most common number accepted is 11. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M-theory) This means that the universe is representative of an 11 dimensional hyperspace. The crinkling down of this hyperspace into our 4 dimensional universe creates all of the four fundamental forces (electromagnetism, gravity, the strong force, and the weak force).

Obviously not everyone is capable of seeing. But they still exist within our 4 dimensional plane. So taking out the example of seeing, and replacing it with existing:

If our universe is actually a crinkled dimensional plane of another universe, what we perceive as humans is not all there is. This meaning that we aren't living in reality, merely just an office in the building of reality. Since reality defines as "the world or state of things as they actually exist", and we're not living in the full 11 dimensional universe, then we're not experiencing all there is in our universe.

I know that the majority of these theories are simply just that, theories. But I can't help but entertaining these thoughts to keep me from dying of boredom. I'm curious as to what other people think, about whether or not we're actually living in reality, or just our conception of what reality is.

Such a beautiful post, written in such few words that completely express your ideas. The human language is an astounding thing. Thank you for this, by the way. It's my daily dose of mind-twister.

After giving this 30 minutes of thought, I've come to an erratic, unsure conclusion.

Firstly I wonder about matter....yes, we see things with our eyes and that translates to our minds giving us a perception of what reality actually looks like. But...what about the other senses? There's 4. Taste, Smell, Hearing, Touch. How can the 4-dimensional perception of reality that our eyes translate to our minds be different from reality when we have these other senses to clarify things? When a mouth moves, we hear the sound, see it, we can even feel and smell...and taste, but that would be awkward.
How is it that our reality can have so many components working together, all mixed together into a simplistic understanding in our mind? We see, feel, touch, taste, smell our food...it's so real- how can we be seeing things through a crinkly screen....a false reality? There's really not an answer as to how far our reality and our world is stretched, and how many different ways reality can be seen. Sometimes I want to be able to see reality through different people's brains (I won't say eyes, as we have all those other senses to counteract that one)- and compare their view of the world to my own. But if there are other dimensions of reality....I would be interested to know what they look like, how they compare. Reality...falsity...it's really a mind-blowing thing. It takes a lot of mental exercise to keep your mind on the theory.

[Mynick]

Firstly I wonder about matter....yes, we see things with our eyes and that translates to our minds giving us a perception of what reality actually looks like. But...what about the other senses? There's 4. Taste, Smell, Hearing, Touch. How can the 4-dimensional perception of reality that our eyes translate to our minds be different from reality when we have these other senses to clarify things? When a mouth moves, we hear the sound, see it, we can even feel and smell...and taste, but that would be awkward.

Vision is our primary way to 'capture' (sorry my english is really bad today) reality. Our vision overlap the other senses. We see things then the rest of our senses 'complete' what we see. Of course our reality is completely different from a blind person for instance. They can't see so they rely on the sounds. Their audition is far more developed than ours. So their reality is diffenre than mine or yours.

How is it that our reality can have so many components working together, all mixed together into a simplistic understanding in our mind? We see, feel, touch, taste, smell our food...it's so real- how can we be seeing things through a crinkly screen....a false reality? There's really not an answer as to how far our reality and our world is stretched, and how many different ways reality can be seen. Sometimes I want to be able to see reality through different people's brains (I won't say eyes, as we have all those other senses to counteract that one)- and compare their view of the world to my own. But if there are other dimensions of reality....I would be interested to know what they look like, how they compare. Reality...falsity...it's really a mind-blowing thing. It takes a lot of mental exercise to keep your mind on the theory.

We are forgetting, it what about realities with don't see per se. Our eyes only see the visible spectrum. What about x rays, gamma rays, etc etc that we dont see.
Lets say that alien life exists, they dont need to have eyes, they can input reality in other length waves than we do.
Ok my english is really bad today. :(

[QuantumPhysics]

My favorite theory is Schrodingers CAt

[Spook]

Vision is our primary way to 'capture' (sorry my english is really bad today) reality. Our vision overlap the other senses. We see things then the rest of our senses 'complete' what we see. Of course our reality is completely different from a blind person for instance. They can't see so they rely on the sounds. Their audition is far more developed than ours. So their reality is diffenre than mine or yours.



We are forgetting, it what about realities with don't see per se. Our eyes only see the visible spectrum. What about x rays, gamma rays, etc etc that we dont see.
Lets say that alien life exists, they dont need to have eyes, they can input reality in other length waves than we do.
Ok my english is really bad today. :(

Your english is fine!

That's a good thought...I didn't think about the blind.
They can't rely on sight to perceive reality...but what about the other senses. If we were to walk around with a blindfold over our eyes, would our reality really be different; change physical or theoretical form? Or would we simply be lacking the colors and shapes of reality...
Let's think of it this way...
Have you heard the expression "If a tree falls in the woods when nobody's around, would it still make a sound?"
If we close our eyes and take away our sense of sight, will the shapes and objects and colors still be there?

It depends on your perception of the definition of reality.
It would be non-existant to our eyes, but it would still exist in physical form. We could feel it there, the matter would still be intact.

[Mynick]

Your english is fine!

That's a good thought...I didn't think about the blind.
They can't rely on sight to perceive reality...but what about the other senses. If we were to walk around with a blindfold over our eyes, would our reality really be different; change physical or theoretical form? Or would we simply be lacking the colors and shapes of reality...
Let's think of it this way...
Have you heard the expression "If a tree falls in the woods when nobody's around, would it still make a sound?"
If we close our eyes and take away our sense of sight, will the shapes and objects and colors still be there?

It depends on your perception of the definition of reality.
It would be non-existant to our eyes, but it would still exist in physical form. We could feel it there, the matter would still be intact.

I heard it some time ago. In a post before i said we could devide the reality in 2.
The observal reality, thats what our senses capture.
The Reality, capital R, everything that is that is, everything that we capture, that we dont capture but we might capture etc etc.

If we were to walk around with a blindfold over our eyes i think the world would be a very diferente place, since until now we rely so much in our vision. So the theoretical form would change.

If we were blind since we were born we wouldn't know how a colour is. Like some one might say, 'This is red' but to us it wouldn't have a meaning since we never seen red.

[sqishy]

Have you heard the expression "If a tree falls in the woods when nobody's around, would it still make a sound?"
If we close our eyes and take away our sense of sight, will the shapes and objects and colors still be there?
It depends on your perception of the definition of reality.
It would be non-existent to our eyes, but it would still exist in physical form. We could feel it there, the matter would still be intact.

I think colour,sound,taste,pain and smell only exist because of our consciousness. For example, colour is a representation of light waves of different wavelengths. Without our eyes to translate the wavelengths of light into the conscious experience of colour, there is no colour. Colour IS NOT a wavelength of light, only a representation of it.
Our senses give us a representation of the actual world that we did fine with as for surviving. Now we have a thirst to see more, and we are probably going to find out that what we see as the world, is a crappy representation of 0.00000000000000000000000000000000000000000001% of the real world.

[CharlieHorse]

I think colour,sound,taste,pain and smell only exist because of our consciousness. For example, colour is a representation of light waves of different wavelengths. Without our eyes to translate the wavelengths of light into the conscious experience of colour, there is no colour. Colour IS NOT a wavelength of light, only a representation of it.
Our senses give us a representation of the actual world that we did fine with as for surviving. Now we have a thirst to see more, and we are probably going to find out that what we see as the world, is a crappy representation of 0.00000000000000000000000000000000000000000001% of the real world.

Color is how we as people define the spectrum of different frequencies of light that we can detect with our eyes. One could argue that microwave radiation is like a color since the difference between red and green and microwaves is only the frequency and wavelength of the wave. We can't see microwaves because we have no photoreceptors that are sensitive to it. Microwaves can, on the other hand, be detected simply by putting a beaker of water in a microwave oven. Fire microwaves at it, and the water absorbs some energy from the microwaves and gets hot. Because of this, we can determine that microwaves exist, even though we can't see them. Without life, without consciousness and observers, the microwaves would behave the same. As do any other "color" on the spectrum.

In the second case how one may interpret your idea:

We can associate the image of a wavelength's effect on our photoreceptors to a mental image of a color, but consider how chameleons and some exotic species of fish and their skins change color to match their surroundings involuntarily. It's not always a conscious change. Often times, it's an involuntary reaction to display mood such as stress.


We as people have defined sound as patternous vibrations through medium that can be detected. Even without consciousness to observe the vibrations, they still exist, and are still there.

Taste is simply a chemical detection method. Chemical concentrations exist naturally without conscious, but there's no need for detection in general if there's nothing to experience it.

Pain is a biotic factor that indicates damage. It's merely a neurological sensation of overwhelming electrical impulse. Non-biological structures have no way of experiencing a neurological sensation, let alone specifically experiencing anything.

Smell is just like taste.

[Gigablue]

Your english is fine!

That's a good thought...I didn't think about the blind.
They can't rely on sight to perceive reality...but what about the other senses. If we were to walk around with a blindfold over our eyes, would our reality really be different; change physical or theoretical form? Or would we simply be lacking the colors and shapes of reality...
Let's think of it this way...
Have you heard the expression "If a tree falls in the woods when nobody's around, would it still make a sound?"
If we close our eyes and take away our sense of sight, will the shapes and objects and colors still be there?

Reality isn't changed by us experiencing it. It exists whether we are there or not. Unless you choose to define reality by what we experience, which I think is a bad definition. Reality is everything that exists. Whether light, sound, etc emitted from it reaches us doesn't change the fact that it exists.

If you close your eyes, the objects you were seeing still exist, but the colour doesn't, since colour is a phenomenon created in the brain on response to visual stimulus.

I think colour,sound,taste,pain and smell only exist because of our consciousness. For example, colour is a representation of light waves of different wavelengths. Without our eyes to translate the wavelengths of light into the conscious experience of colour, there is no colour. Colour IS NOT a wavelength of light, only a representation of it.
Our senses give us a representation of the actual world that we did fine with as for surviving. Now we have a thirst to see more, and we are probably going to find out that what we see as the world, is a crappy representation of 0.00000000000000000000000000000000000000000001% of the real world.

I think you're missing a few billion zeros. Our senses are so limited that we can't even conceive of everything out there. Our senses did a good job of keeping us alive for millions of years, but they are so horribly inadequate for learning about the world.

[Spook]

Reality isn't changed by us experiencing it. It exists whether we are there or not. Unless you choose to define reality by what we experience, which I think is a bad definition. Reality is everything that exists. Whether light, sound, etc emitted from it reaches us doesn't change the fact that it exists.

If you close your eyes, the objects you were seeing still exist, but the colour doesn't, since colour is a phenomenon created in the brain on response to visual stimulus.



I think you're missing a few billion zeros. Our senses are so limited that we can't even conceive of everything out there. Our senses did a good job of keeping us alive for millions of years, but they are so horribly inadequate for learning about the world.

You guys both make a good point. Something to think about :yes: