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Goodbye Jesus

What is reality? Do we generally perceive what is real accurately, or does life even care about that?


Fuego

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I watched a couple of videos tonight by Professor of cognitive science Donald Hoffman, who was raised by a fundamentalist preacher, but studied evolution, psychology, and computer science. He was always fascinated by how we perceive things. He developed mathematical models about perception that showed him that we actually don't see reality very well because evolution isn't concerned about that at all. It is concerned with us surviving here well enough, and breeding to make more life. There are several optical and audio illusions to demonstrate how the mind takes in a tiny bit of data and creates a lot more from the data than is actually there. He's still investigating and trying to form a better concept of what reality is, rather than the easy-to-handle models we create out of it. 

 

This plays into the earlier posts in this section about the use of psychedelics, and how they create a perspective change. Since neither "world" is accurate reality, perhaps perspective changes will help form a better concept of what is actually real, or at least reveal more to us about how the mind works. 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYp5XuGYqqY (apx 2 hours)

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYp5XuGYqqY (22 min TED talk)

 

 

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Goodbye Jesus

It's like evolution steers us towards Idiocracy, eating and breeding outweighs everything else in the video game of life (in the long run). We don't get to go to the next level, but our genes do (or don't). Intelligence is valued if it helps us survive and breed better than someone else. I guess we could game the game by knowing that, pursuing as much enlightenment as possible about reality, but also being financially well-off and breeding well. 

 

Alternatively, is the "game" to see past evolution and make it to the next level of consciousness by purposefully being kind, seeing how we can get along rather than doing all I can to win what the evolutionary blinders feed me?

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And for a totally different, theoretical physics approach to "what is reality", here is an entertaining video taking some of the latest views on not-string-theory unification physics. 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJi3_znm7ZE

 

 

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Since each species of animal, including us, perceives different sensory inputs I would conclude that each works with a "reality" tailored to their evolutionary needs. As humans we don't need to see like an eagle or hear like a bat, for example. We have a quite limited ability to perceive the entire range of vibrations happening out there, but we sense enough of the light and sound spectra to maximize survival behaviors. There is so much more available but we don't need use sonar or sense magnetic fields or see x-rays. We only now know about some of the available frequencies through technology, and that's ever expanding. It makes us curious as to what we're missing! But in the practical sense we only need our limited and specific "reality" for the purposes of survival in our current setting. I don't think our ability to imagine or hallucinate invisible, magical realms and entities qualifies as as reality, though. (Your reality may be different. 😛 )

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