...they should just keep quiet on matters of our existence until the physicists have a sufficient understanding and explanation of our universe. Before then, there really isn't any reason to listen to the poorly based theories that typically arise from incomplete information coupled with personal biases. Of course, this is a philosophy itself, but it essentially says that we don't know and that we should wait until more information has been gathered. That is all for now.

I always had a feeling that one thing didn't always lead to another, that what actions you take doesn't always depend precisely on what has happened in the past, that there was some margin of "choice" in any action. Trouble is, I had forgotten why this feeling kept bugging me, why there was a resistance to a strict determinism of the world. Fortunately, the last few days I'd been doing some reading in theoretical physics and remade the connection. Anyway, at the quantum level of reality, identical starting conditions will yield different outcomes. Unfortunately, the ideas from quantum mechanics also somewhat destroy the existence of an objective reality (objective in the sense that observers are required for reality to exist). Then again, this is primarily rooted with the multiple worlds theory of which I don't really like, although it is certainly a logical conclusion from the collapse of the quantum wavefunction during a measurement. Looks like perception will need to be revised again... What we need isn't a psychic, but a slider. ;)

Going back over some of my old musings, I came across something that was somewhat related to the previous post on the current state of the world. It went something like the following; excuse the form, I believe I was ranting to myself at the time >.>

The world is as it is currently because that is simply the way it got to be. The past will not change, and all you can do is figure out how to accommodate for the life that you are currently living and make the best of it. Time is leading us on a steady course toward the end, and it's not much use worrying too much about it, but rather what is of importance is focusing on what has meaning in the present. Live with what you have, you can obtain more resources if you desire, but the point here is to not desire something from the past for it cannot be attained. A note here too is that although fact cannot be changed, the interpretation, the truth, can. As for existence, questioning it is rather useless; there's really nothing to be gotten from it besides that we exist, and will continue to exist for quite a while at least. People will find a way to live somehow, in some form or another. And even if the Earth were to be destroyed someday, something somewhere will still exist, live. If not, well, then there will be nobody around to care anyway so it's not a big deal. Anyway, you exist, that's a fact, you probably couldn't have asked for it, you just exist now, and probably will for some time longer. Everything is as it is. Deal with it. Whatever happens, happens; up until the point it happens, you can do whatever is in your power to change it, but after it is done, all you can do is accept it and move onward. Life goes on. Just remember to be there when it happens. Now then, do your best!

The following is a revised compilation of entries added over a period of time rewritten in an attempt to smooth out irregularities. It is an offer of my perspective on perception and reality and is for those who really care about these things.

To start, I would like to distinguish my thoughts on what I believe are the two main types of reality.

The easiest one of these to explain would be what I call the absolute reality. This absolute reality is what exists at the basic level, completely objective, containing everything that exists and nothing more; I mean that it is the world as it is presented in its entirety in its raw form, not as it is perceived by an observer, but as it exists by itself. An interesting property of this absolute reality is that it cannot be directly observable, in fact that it could be observed would violate the notion that it is absolute. This is in a similar vein to Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle in that observation affects what was being observed; here, the only possible way to know what the absolute reality is would be if you were “psychic”. Of course, this is rarely the case.

From this absolute reality springs what I call the personal reality or perceived reality. This is the individual reality that is created when an observer, for use of a better word, observes the world around themselves. It is what is constructed in the mind of the observer as a model of the absolute reality based off of the observer’s perception of absolute reality; in the case of humans, this is done primarily though the use of our senses combined with a great deal of prediction created from past experiences as well as other information supplied by the brain, more on this later. Unlike the objectivity of the absolute reality, everything in perceived reality is subjective. Even when at times it would seem to be objective it is not exactly objective, perhaps infinitesimally close, but not perfect.

Now while there may be several personal realities, at least one for each and every observer of the world, there is only one definitive absolute reality. In thinking about the relationship between the two it would seem logical that the absolute reality would be the addition, melding, or some other combinatory term of all the personal realities along with some hidden elements that none of the personal realities contain. This is somewhat analogous to how the superposition principle works while solving a mathematics problem. Here, the particular solutions would consist of each observer’s personal reality, and the homogeneous or complementary solution would be that of the raw absolute reality without any observers. Another mathematical comparison of the relation between the two realities is setting the perceived reality as a subspace of the absolute reality.

Another thing I would add on the differences between personal and absolute reality, as mentioned earlier, are the subjectivity/objectivity properties of the two. Whereas the absolute reality is fact, personal reality is truth, which is the perception of fact. As such there is no evidence required to prove what exists in absolute reality because whatever is there is there, and it is definitive, like an axiom in logical derivations of theorems. However, when it comes to the personal reality of an observer, nothing can be taken completely for granted, and there must be, even if it is tiny, some grain of doubt in what has been perceived. Based on its subjective nature, perceptions of the absolute reality must satisfy a burden of proof, proportional to the exceptionality of the perception compared with prediction, to be accepted.

There are also some things that are created in the personal reality with or without proof that may be nonexistent in the absolute reality, that is to say the basic reality without the additions of observers’ personal realities. Here it is up to the observer to discern between the parts of their reality formulated from data gathered through perception and those created in the mind. Like the burden of proof stated above, this separation is met with a degree of confidence because all of a person’s perceived reality rests inside the mind. More on how this degree of confidence is reached through application of Bayes’ Theorem soon.

Sometime after I had first started these thoughts on perception, I came across a book titled Space and Time, Matter and Mind: The Relationship between Reality and Space-Time by Wolfram Schommers. It confirmed much of what I had already thought about reality and it also introduced topics with researched examples on things I had not.

One such that was brought up was time. I had already figured that time to be something of a measurement/comparison of how long it took for a process to occur. That perception of time varies among observers, i.e. how time passes slowly for little children (while they are still learning their environment) relative to the speed at which it goes for adults (the flying by of years), is something to note too. The book presented an argument that the in the absolute reality, without an observer, time would cease to exist, primarily due to the case that there is nothing to compare a process to for measurement. Something else along this line that was brought up was that the concept of space-time in the absolute reality is also nonexistent. The claim is that the creation of the concept of space-time was to support inertia (i.e. inertial is possible because objects in reality are embedded into space-time). Instead, the book suggests that objects are projected onto space-time by the observer as a way to show their relativity to one another. In the end, space-time is just another theory.

Speaking of theory, everything we experience is only a portion of what exists in the absolute reality. Observers are mostly unable to “know” everything that happens in an event. As a result, everything an observer experiences is only a theory of what actually occurs in the absolute reality. And every subsequent experience leads to more theories that must be compared to existing theories. As such, everything is subject to change, and theories with more generalizations will override those more narrow in scope. Something else that may occur too is that a theory that is created may not agree with existing theory, even though it may be correct in modeling some aspect of the absolute reality.

This process of theory matching is somewhat similar to what is known as Bayes’ Theorem. In my stumbling, I happened across another book, called Making up the Mind: How the Brain Creates Our Mental World, by Chris Frith, that first exposed me to this concept formally. Pretty much what Bayes’ Theorem tells us is that for an ideal Bayesian observer, based on some level of evidence presented by the absolute reality compared to a threshold set by an observer’s predictions of absolute reality, the observer updates their knowledge of the world around them accordingly in the best possible way. In other words, they learn the most about the absolute reality from any interaction with it. To quote, “Bayes’ Theorem indicates how much I should change my belief about A given some new evidence X”. This also means that implementing Bayes’ Theorem correctly involves a bunch of probability theory and statistical analysis. The key thing about this theorem though is that it takes into account any prediction made by the observer prior to observation. It’s an endless cycle of predict, observe, update, that quickly lowers prediction error to a sufficiently small percentage such that the observer “knows” what the world around them is like. It is this “knowing” that allows a person to discern, up to a certain degree of confidence, what exists in the absolute reality and what exists only in the observer’s personal reality.

The concept of Bayesian observation is almost at ends with a few statements furnished in the earlier book, Space and Time, Matter and Mind. Namely, that most observers discern “as little outside world as possible, only as much as is absolutely necessary”. This is explained by the notion that perception of our surroundings comes about only as it is required for species preservation. Similarly, another statement “not cognition but the differentiation between favorable towards survival and hostile towards survival” speaks to the idea that the process of learning and memory and the like is merely an evolved trait “favorable towards survival”. Whereas the latter ideas are logically acceptable biologically speaking for it takes a significant amount of energy for any extra process and waste of energy is deadly to an organism, the former (Bayes’ Theorem) suggests that the observer attempts to take in as much data from the outside world as is possible through the senses but in the end, perhaps only uses a fraction of that data in the end while creating its own data along the way. Then again, this tradeoff of excess energy used for information obtained may be the more optimal choice for survival. So while those latter statements may be true, there is definitely some leniency to its rule. For instance, the senses, while they seem to be fairly broad, enabling people to experience a wide array of stimuli, they are also severely limited; we are only able to perceive a small sliver of the electromagnetic spectrum through our eyes, and similarly, only a small range of frequencies with our ears. Moreover, there are several proposed particles that exist that are even difficult for us to even measure with fairly advanced and precise instruments. It is also seemingly beyond our ability to perceive extra spatial dimensions if they exist, and we even have trouble just trying to imagine them. Nevertheless, Bayes’ Theorem provides, currently anyway, a fairly good model of how we perceive with the limited senses we possess.

At the same time, these limited senses cause the observer to be confined in their ability to perceive the absolute reality. Just because what is perceived is oftentimes favorable towards survival does not mean that what is perceived is comprehensive of what exists in the absolute reality that the perception was based upon. It is similar to the way music is compressed by eliminating various component frequencies that do not contribute greatly, or even at all, to the sound quality or what is heard at the end. Such extraneous things are simply ignored by the senses. I say confined then, even trapped, because this limit to the senses forces the observer to their own personal reality, restraining them from viewing the absolute reality as it is exactly and only allowing incomplete pictures of it to come through.

These incomplete pictures may also vary from observer to observer, sometimes rather drastically as illustrated in a “chick experiment” by Wolfgang Schleidt; in this experiment it was shown that mother turkeys would attack their own chicks based solely on the fact that a speaker emitting ferret noises was placed on the chick. In a reversal, a ferret with a speaker emitting chick distress calls caused the mother turkey to attempt to aid the ferret back to her nest. Yet, turkeys are not blind. It just means that different observers may perceive remarkably different realities from the same “object” in absolute reality. Of course, this is not surprising if you think of how differently a housefly would have to perceive its surroundings as compared to an octopus to survive optimally. This comes back to the idea: “as little outside world as possible, only as much as is absolutely necessary”. This is too bad though because it is logically better for an observer to have a perceived reality that is approaching the absolute so that the observer can choose the best way to operate in the world. Then again, perhaps not as there are likely other factors that may have been overlooked, namely the energy costs of such precision. I would like to change the above idea to: “as much as the outside world as is required for optimal survival”. Like the notion of “form follows function” from biology, perception follows operative data.

Although for observers of the same species, drastic differences in perception as described above are few and far between, perhaps even nonexistent, within species there are, still, lateral fluctuations in how the absolute reality is perceived and especially what is perceived as a result of what an observer is exposed to. As such, the personal realities among members of a species, much like their genetics, are fairly varied. A prime example is with humans, where such inconsistencies of personal realities are at the root of many of the conflicts between any two individuals and also among groups. While neither party involved in a given clash of realities is necessarily wrong, neither party can claim their reality as fact but rather only as a personal truth. It is sad that more people are not aware of these multiple individual realities and are more accepting of them, but that is only my personal view. The thing is: all these personal realities are true for any given person, as long as there is no denial of it, even if the reality is different than that of another observer’s reality.

Because I believe the processing of what is perceived is likely equally as important as what is perceived I will now delve a little into the area of processing of perception, specifically the processing performed by humans because that is what I am most qualified for (although some things may be generalized to more observers). An important process to note here is the process of learning. From Bayes’ Theorem, it is apparent that what people perceive depends on what they have previously perceived and learned; a great deal of the information that is learned is through the association mechanisms provided for by the structure of the brain. These association mechanisms are also the cause of the confusion, if and when it occurs, that is experienced when learning a new idea or concept because the linkage of prior information to new information may not be as accurate as it could or is just blatantly incorrect. Nonetheless, learning adds layers of information to the consciousness perceiving the absolute reality and as more information is added, changes in the personal reality affect how new information is received, and this cycles in a similar fashion to the updating process in Bayes’ Theorem. Perhaps the process of learning is, then, something that heightens awareness and allows a person to be more susceptible to clearer perceptions and more congruent choices of operation according to the absolute reality, that is, if what was learned was accurate.

The process of forgetting is on the other side of the same coin of the process of learning. It is the process of removal of information from an observer’s personal reality. Even though this may seem to be a process “hostile to survival” because more information generally means a clearer understanding of the absolute reality to operate from, I am of the opinion that such a process is, overall, “favorable towards survival”. This is primarily because the process exists and thus there should be some benefit to its existence. For instance, forgetting something that is false in the context of the absolute reality, supported by evidence provided through perception, is probably a good thing. It could also be utilized as a pruning device for information not necessary for survival, in a sense freeing up space for those things perhaps more important. Moreover, forgetting can also act as a coping mechanism, at least in the case of humans, for things that, if remembered, would have a negative impact on a person’s ability to survive. Then again, this would be a hindrance in understanding the absolute reality, but perhaps that is not the purpose of this process.

The human brain is also known for its works in creating things within the observer’s personal reality even though those things do not come from the senses. In effect, it produces illusions of reality where none should be. The book, Making up the Mind, as discussed before, provides several examples of this creation process, some beneficial, some harmful and others generally just an inconvenience. An easy example of something beneficial is that the brain fills in the blind spot of our eye with surrounding textures so that it seems as though our vision is continuous. The book also gives examples of how phantom limbs affect people who have had amputated limbs, how the brain creates feelings from the nerves that used to exist even after those nerves have disappeared. As for those illusions that are harmful, well, delusion, hallucination and insanity all seem to be good words to describe the various outcomes. In addition to this aspect of creation by the brain, the book explores the idea that the concept of self and consciousness may be merely another product of the creation process with support being issues of privileged access, the experience of agency and our indirect contact with the world around us.

Probing into the matter of faith, it would seem that our sense of self must be taken on account of faith alone. From what I understand, faith is the belief, the “knowing” for sure, of something that is not necessarily perceived or at least something without sufficient empirical evidence to convince an observer of its existence otherwise. It is similar to the process of creating that which is not perceived but is more complex in the sense that it is a conscious effort. At times, these illusions are partly based off of the input from our senses, at others they are the result of hearsay and hope. There is an interesting development here because I also think that everything that we perceive cannot be completely proven beyond a shadow of a doubt, and this means that everything we take for truth must be on account of faith. Even so, some aspects of a personal reality are much more believable to exist in the absolute reality than others. As said earlier, those things of higher exceptionality require a heavier burden of proof, and with this new development, a higher level of faith to be accepted as true. Of course, even with this acceptance, the truth may not necessarily be fact. That is, it is only true in the personal reality of an observer; in the absolute reality, things may be very different from what was perceived as true such as when attempting to model happenings and functions of energy at the Planck scale in physics. Aspects of reality such as that fall under the category of the greater infinity of things in the world that cannot be tested empirically, this category being the one beyond the infinite selection of aspects that can be tested. For the former, faith in its existence in the absolute reality is the only reason for its existence in the perceived reality. Why such a process as faith occurs is still much of a mystery to me; perhaps it is through instinct, or perhaps it is a byproduct of human cognition. This of course, reminds me of the idea: “not cognition but the differentiation between favorable towards survival and hostile towards survival”. In any case, it is a process that likely helps people to move toward the goal of optimal survival.

One last thing that I would like to mention on the processing of what is perceived by an observer, specifically in the case of humans, is how it is affected by logic and emotion. In our brains, the neural circuits that induce an emotional response to stimuli are shorter than those that work out the logical response. This has a dramatic effect in how we perceive because it removes us from the ideal Bayesian observer by biasing our updating process more than our prior information should. However, in most cases, if given sufficient time, this can be overridden through our logical circuitry. The way our emotional response affects our personal realities is intriguing because while it may have a negative, or at least limiting impact in how we perceive the absolute reality as it really is, it exists primarily because it, like forgetting, is likely to be favorable toward survival overall. The reason I mention emotion and logic here is because, to my understanding anyway, it is a useful concept to know when attempting to model the absolute reality in a personal reality.

In my earlier entries on perception I had wondered why people put meaning into something that did not have meaning to begin with, perceiving something there that was not there. At the time, it just seemed odd to me that something would exist in a personal reality that was not present in the absolute reality. Now it seems like such created things are not as odd, perhaps even serving a purpose, overlooked at the time, the purpose of survival. It has become apparent to me that at the root of perception for living organisms as opposed to an ideal observer lays the aim to model the world around us such that the organism can survive optimally rather than an aim to model the world as it really is. That is to say, we are not ideal observers of the absolute reality and I do not think that we ever will be because we are, indeed, living. However, I also believe that keeping these things in mind as we perceive the world will help us perceive it all the better, acting as psychics although we are not.

I have now run out of things to write for the present moment. Thank you for reading; all that I ask now is that you think about some of the issues presented and come up with some of your own ideas. Please note that although it may be unlikely that this document will be changed in the future in terms of content, it is definitely susceptible to editing and revision.

I'm not quite sure where I heard this quote first, but I am definitely sure I first read it in the book "Crime and Punishment" by Dostoevsky; it's been around for a while. Well anyway, I think that it's perhaps the most "true" statement in existence, in fact, even it's truthfulness is subject to change therefore making it "false" but that would then mean that it is indeed "true".
So, what does it really mean then? It means that everything can be, for better or for worse (and at times, inconsequential), changed in someway, somehow. Or perhaps it means that reality is lenient in its rules. Of course, there are also exceptions, many exceptions at that, and those exceptions are also subject to change. And this recursive loop continues on and on indefinitely (that is subject to change too, haha).
It's definitely a fun quote to throw around, put on important documents, I have it etched on my iPod even...
If there was a point to this entry, I don't know it, yet; perhaps the answer lies in the random workings of quantum foam.

EDIT: There was a point, and it was this: The world is flexible, so you don't have to take things too seriously, that'll just cause misery. The opposite will also likely yield the same effect. Taking the middle ground is probably the better way to go. Of course, this is also subject to change.

EDIT2: Hmm... perhaps the point was: ah, forget it; just read the title.

EDIT3: Perhaps there really is no point, and I just wanted to rant about something instead of nothing.