Chickens and eggs.
My friend Becky sent me a link to a report stating that scientists have finally determined chickens came before eggs. It’s a ridiculous piece of journalism, but it seemed relevant to the discussion here.
We believe the world to be the way it is because we perceive it to be that way. But we perceive it that way because we believe it to be that way. Which comes first, perception or belief? What constitutes true reality?
Our minds are hardwired to interpret stimuli in particular ways. Indeed, those stimuli are directed to specific areas of the brain for processing, depending on what kind of stimuli they are. Thus sound waves are sent to the aural regions, light waves to the optical regions, etc. But then something interesting happens. Each set of stimulus data is subsequently shared by other brain structures, such as those producing memory, emotion and imagination. Our perceptions are thereby mixed with what we remember of other similar perceptions, how we felt about them at the time, and what we thought about them later. It is only after this processing is done that they are added to our experience store, to become part of our definition of reality. So every perception is intensely personal, and is different from the perceptions of others, because the raw material of every event is subject to internal interpretation based on the objective hardwiring and subjective experiences of our brains.
So nobody sees the same things the same way.
In short, reality differs for everyone.
Reality therefore lies on a foundation of shifting sand. There is no out there, no “actual” world existing apart from our minds, and which is true for everyone. The world is malleable, impermanent, ungraspable; even indescribable. Perception is the only means by which we know the world; and perception is a process carried out in many regions of our physical brains, each section interpreting the ones and zeroes of information it is receiving in accordance with its inherent preprogrammed algorithm—a set of instructions hardwired into the neuronal structure of the nervous system—and starting with the results of the algorithms inherent to the region from which it is receiving. Yet that structure is itself altered by its very reception of the information, because such reception causes neurons to rewire themselves. This in turn alters the algorithm by which the brain interprets the world.
The conclusions—the experiences—reached from this set of cascading processes are then projected out onto the world as part of our definition of reality. We have experienced certain events, so we expect to encounter those events again. And to the extent we do encounter them, our beliefs about them are reinforced. But we encounter them because we expect to encounter them, based on our past experience. We always find what we are looking for.
At this point, it doesn’t matter whether what we perceive is really there or not; we perceive it anyway. If it isn’t there, we put it there.
Reality is thus a vicious circle, a self-perpetuating feedback loop of stimulus-response-experience-acceptance-projection, which has no beginning and no end, no cause and no effect. It is hyperbolic, our knowledge of the world ever approaching absolute truth yet never actually touching upon it.
The ground upon which we stand is nothing but shifting sand.
This is why three witnesses to an auto accident will never tell you the same story.