Subjective and objective modeling of life- Reality vs. Illusion
Indulge with me in an intense, thought-provoking discussion on reality and illusion…[Part 1]
Generally, in the neuro/cognitive scientific paradigm, what is emphasized and told is that our brain/mind processes and represents reality differently than it actually exists in the physical world. This has prompted many authors to say that what our brain perceives and interprets is just an illusion. This has led to various behavioral, ethical, and philosophical implications and has drifted many from the obvious commonsense notion of reality and life.
For example, it is argued that “color” does not actually exist in the physical world. Rather, it is a product of our brain’s interpretation of certain wavelengths of light. It’s just an illusion. However, it is important to consider the implications of interpreting “color” as an illusion. The terms “illusion” and “reality” can have serious consequences in scientific language, and it is crucial to differentiate between the two. The following is a discussion on this topic with an attempt to distinguish reality from illusion.
Let us have a premise to start with:
Premise: It is an undisputed fact that the so-called reality we perceive only exists because of our consciousness. In other words, we are able to perceive something only because we exist in the first place. Conversely, when we are unconscious or in dreamless sleep, the physical world does not exist for us subjectively.
This has led some to consider that,
Viewpoint 1: The only reality is consciousness; the physical world exists within one’s mind or brain as it creates the physical world- Idealism (Guyer, Paul and Rolf-Peter Horstmann, 2023).
Viewpoint 2: According to the Kantian view, even if something physical ‘out there’ exists in reality- ‘thing-in-itself’, we can never be certain of it per se. Therefore, what we know for sure is what our consciousness tells us about it- Kant’s Prolegomena #32 (Carus, 2016).
Let’s explore two broader definitions of the term ‘illusion’:
1) From a macroscopic viewpoint, an apple, its redness or the ‘appleness’, all exist for a conscious observer and are deemed a reality. But the flip side is, from the physics viewpoint, an apple is made up of some atoms, and the redness on its surface is some wavelength of light being reflected. Thus, based on this, one can say that what you see and feel about an apple is just an illusion. It’s an illusion rendered by your brain.
2) Seeing a mirage (in a desert) as an illusion is deemed right because one can mistake a mirage for being a water reservoir.
Arguments:
1) In the first case, an apple is defined at two different levels — the macroscopic and the microscopic, respectively. The microscopic reductionist viewpoint is usually considered more accurate, making the macro view seem wrong or even an illusion.
However, I argue that both views are perceived and understood based on the observer’s consciousness, so terming one viewpoint as right and the other wrong is unfair. While the micro viewpoint often gives us similar experimental results, the same can be said about the macro world within its macro conditions. As long as both perceptions provide the same results under their respective conditions, we can say these two perceptible experiences exist. We can’t say that one is right and the other is wrong.
We will discuss later whether this intrinsic ability of consciousness (mind/brain) is self-independent or whether there is something beyond the consciousness with which it interacts (a physical world) that prompts it to create different levels of perceptions. For now, we can be sure that our consciousness has the ability to create perception in multiple ways.
2) In the second case, the illusion of a mirage is used in a relative sense for water. Water is termed a reality in terms of its usability, like quenching one’s thirst or whatever we want to do with it. For a given situation, a mirage may appear like water but may not have usability identical to water. That does not make a mirage an illusion per se. It can be studied in its own right regarding its inherent properties separate from being identical to water.
Just the automatic correlation the mind or the brain establishes between a mirage and water based on its usability (as stored in memory) appears incorrect (or a mismatch) and thus can be termed an illusion. Therefore, the term ‘illusion’ can only be used in a relative sense.
3) Causal functional role: In the above second point, a mirage can’t be used to quench one’s thirst, but an apple can surely be eaten. So, whether we treat an apple from the micro or macro perspectives, neither affects its basic property to satisfy someone’s hunger or palate.
I suggest this causal functional role (or usability) as one definitive paradigm to distinguish reality from illusion. Anything real to our consciousness must have its causal functional existence to affect our experiential state for the intended purpose(s). It can be operated upon or used for any goal-directed task(s). We can have other examples, like
a) An icon of a Word file on a desktop is not unreal. It is a reality; it carries the real information. Thus, for all practical purposes, one may use it without knowing the bit processing reality going on at the deeper micro level of data and CPU.
b) Watching a movie on a diode-scintillating screen is also real. The diodes are not firing randomly but based on a certain information pattern saved in a pen drive or any data device. All the emotions one feels while watching the movie are not deception but are due to the correct representation of the underlying information projected onto the screen.
c) In consciousness research, the subjective experience of colors felt as qualia have evolutionary biological adaptive value, as Frigato (2021) argued, and thus can’t be dismissed as an illusion.
…it is very important to perceive and also remember-relive, not only that a fruit is simply yellow or green, but also which subjective sensations are given to us by a particular yellow or green color with its many shades, which may be indicative of its edible nature or not.
4) Existence of mind-independent reality: The statement under ‘viewpoint 1’ is correct only if we restrict our discussion to consciousness. However, if this viewpoint leads us to believe that everything that exists is a subjective reality and the objective world doesn’t exist, we need validation. Can we invalidate this? Absolutely. Let’s have some thought experiments:
a) As per the first viewpoint, when we see a clock, we can say that we have created the clock in our mind. If we close our eyes or look in another direction, the clock ceases to exist in our brain (excluding memory). But does it stop existing beyond our brain or mind, assuming such a thing is ‘out there’? Let’s find out.
Suppose my friend sets the alarm on my clock, and I’m unaware of it and fall asleep. I have a dreamless sleep, so the clock no longer exists for me, even in my dreams. Now, when the alarm rings and wakes me up, I can infer that I didn’t create the internal functioning of the alarm clock. It rang while I was still sleeping because of its independent intrinsic mechanism. Furthermore, my friend can confirm this. This implies that something always exists ‘out there’ independent of my ideas about it, let alone my creation of it.
b) Imagine standing in the middle of a road and seeing a bus speeding towards you. If you close your eyes, the bus disappears. But when you open your eyes, you see the bus still speeding towards you. If you believe that by closing your eyes, you’re making the bus disappear, you’ll end up in an obvious and tremendous tragedy if you remain in the middle of the road.
Although consciousness is necessary to talk about reality, it’s not an absolute thing that only exists. Therefore, it’s plausible to consider that consciousness is a relational thing that interacts with something ‘out there’ that exists and can affect its internal states.
5) The statement under ‘viewpoint 2’ is true in relation to consciousness. We may never come to know what that noumenal thing ‘out there’ is, but that should not concern us considering the premise. This shouldn’t make us overly pessimistic as long as that interaction window to access the objective world is available. Nor should it make us overly enthusiastic ascribing everything to consciousness- all that exists and all that matters is consciousness.
Interpretation:
The noumenal objective world ‘out there’ can be considered real, and our subjective perception of that world can be realized at more than one level. In other words, information about this objective world can be processed and represented by the brain at various levels. I call this the perceptual level and the corresponding perception a perceptual reality. For example, we can have micro- and macro-level representations of perceptual reality about the same noumenal ‘unknowable’ information.
From a sea of information available in the objective world, our brain can project a perceptual reality corresponding to a perceptual level that allows it to detect, process, and make sense of it. For example, by blinking our eyes, we may be missing some information about the objective world. However, our brain still captures certain information, processes it, and tries to make sense of it by projecting a perceptual reality to us that is certainly not an illusion, but its usability is relationally contextual. It can have a causal functional influence upon that noumenal world. Such blinking may not matter for people in the ordinary course of life but is of utmost importance for Formula One car racers.
Conclusion:
Both the subjective and objective worlds exist as realities. Our subjective system (brain or mind) is robust enough to tell us something about the noumenal objective world at multiple perceptual levels. The corresponding information can be considered vital inputs about the world ‘out there’; thus, based on its usability, the perceptual realities can be distinguished from illusions. Finally, hope that our commonsense observation also holds some scientific bearing at some level, as we naturally live the macro world.
References:
- Guyer, Paul and Rolf-Peter Horstmann, “Idealism”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2023 Edition), Edward N. Zalta & Uri Nodelman (eds.), URL = <https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2023/entries/idealism>
- Carus, P. (2016). Kant’s Prolegomena To Any Future Metaphysics. URL = <https://www.gutenberg.org/files/52821/52821-h/52821-h.htm>
- Frigato G (2021) The Neural Correlates of Access Consciousness and Phenomenal Consciousness Seem to Coincide and Would Correspond to a Memory Center, an Activation Center and Eight Parallel Convergence Centers. Front. Psychol. 12:749610. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.749610
PS: This post is the edited and reformatted version of the initial publication.
