Reality 101 (part i)

If we’re going to engage in a real politics about real issues concerning real people, we need to have a basic grasp of what reality actually is.

I know that sounds vaguely ridiculous. But, as in martial arts, falling down is the first thing you learn, and the first thing you learn about falling down is that you don’t know how to fall down properly.

So: reality. What is that?

Well, we know this much: we have a body, we have a mind, we have a set of emotions. Whatever else we know — let’s just call science fiction for the moment.

What is this world we live in?

We know that we experience the world through five sampling regions of the electromagnetic spectrum: sight (photons), sound (wave propagation in a medium: air or water), smell (molecular sampling), taste (related molecular sampling) and touch (opposition of dense molecular fields).

But we ALSO know that there are vast spectra within the EM spectrum (ranging from the highest frequencies to the densest white dwarf or even to a Black Hole) that we DON’T perceive.

We don’t hear the radio waves passing through the room. We don’t pick up either the digital OR analog TV broadcasting through the room, but we KNOW that with a device to translate them to sight and sound that we can experience them. We know that they are there and exist, but that we cannot directly perceive them.

We don’t see the deadly UV rays, but we are reminded regularly to put on sunscreen to protect against them. We don’t see the x-rays, but, as gamma rays, they are so tightly packed that many pass through the molecular clouds that form our cells, our tissues and our bodies. Those few that strike the x-ray film give us a picture of our bones. Now, with magnetic resonance imaging and CAT scans, we can look even more closely. But we cannot experience x-rays directly, nor magnetic fields, nor invisible tiny cats.

The majority of the REAL world of the universe is not directly perceptible through those five senses that we experience the world with.

We live in the same world as the pit viper, so-called because it has a “pit” that detects the heat signature of mammals (infrared), which it feeds on, and experiences a different sensory world than we do. Think: if humans had that infra-red sense, all of human history would be different, since ambush would become considerably more difficult and complicated, and ambush is one of humankind’s oldest skills – both of animals and of other humans.

Our world is made of those five sampling ranges: touch, taste, smell, sound, sight, with a range in each. In hearing it is from 20 to 20,000 vibrations per second. With sight, it begins just at the edge of infrared (which is what the pit viper senses) up to the highest frequency, at the edge of ultraviolet, so-called “black light” which you can’t see, but CAN see the results of – especially if you’re wearing a white t-shirt. Einstein won his Nobel Prize in Physics for explaining how this works (and not for Relativity, either Specialized or General).

Now: we process those five data streams into our brains using four pre-existing filters: time, space, cause, effect. Laying aside the subject of Mr. Hume for a moment, we have constructed our “world” by interlinking those five DISCRETE data streams.

Sight doesn’t have anything to do with sound, sound has nothing to do with taste/smell, taste/smell has nothing to do with touch.

Suppose I describe minutely this small, white, granular cube of material I am holding in my hand. It measures approximately two picas, cubically, about the size of a sugar cube. In fact, it could be a sugar cube, except that, without tasting it, there is no way of knowing. Perhaps, feeling it, to see if it’s marble. Or trying a scratch test to see if it’s this mineral or that. But the sight itself is not sufficient. You need other senses to analyze it.

From earliest childhood, we have woven our senses together through cause and effect. I turn on the light switch, the light comes on. If metal is glowing red, don’t touch it  — but you can hold your hand close to feel if heat (infrared) is coming off it.

Visually, there is no difference between someone clapping, and someone mimicking clapping. There must be SOUND associated with the image. Disconnecting sight and sound is one of the most potent tricks of motion pictures, as “foley artists” tromp through gravel, and punch meat, pour water, and add other sound effects to enhance the visual experience. You’ve probably heard the “swoosh!” sound effect of endless kung fu/martial arts movies. Whoosh whish!

That is the way that our senses work, and sometimes they are short-circuited.

I remember once walking into a room, and while I KNEW that the light was burnt out,  out of habit, I flipped up the light switch. At that exact moment, a dog barked.

But the light didn’t come on. So, I did what all we humans do: I tried it again instantly. No bark. But, for a split second, my mind’s cause and effect mechanism linked the two: flip light switch, dog barks.

All of this happened before I could actually think. But what I had done was “turn on the light” expecting light, but instead getting the sound of a dog’s bark. I did what any sensible person does, and laughed.

From the time we were babies, we have been weaving together our senses using the filters of “cause and effect.”  That’s how the TOUCH of flipping up the light switch is linked to the expectation of LIGHT coming on. But I “knew” that the light was burnt out, and was utterly surprised when the cause and effect cycle created a different effect than I had thought I’d caused.

Or, another example that I remember vividly: I was sitting in science class at Salina Central High School in 1970, looking out the window (bored). Far away, on the football field, the cheerleaders were practicing. They were so distant that no features could be made out, but I could see them dancing. They had some chant, and they would hold their arms straight out from their shoulders, chant, and then clap three times. Some standard cheer.

But, because of the distance and the differential between the speed of light and the speed of sound*, when they clapped there was no sound, but when their arms were spread out, the clapping could be heard. They were EXACTLY out of phase, and eventually I figured out what was happening. (Which is why I was staring out the window, I was already good at science, and I was bored.)

[* which are ...

• Speed of light = 186,000 miles per second in atmosphere, approx.: less in water.
• Speed of sound = 1125 feet per second in air, approx.: about 4 times than that in water.]

But the cause and effect portion of the brain was bamboozled: clapping = nothing. Nothing = clapping. It was a bizarrely magical experience, even though I knew why I was seeing what I was seeing and hearing what I was hearing.

The “soundtrack” of the “real world” was out of synch.

And, whether we’ve been trained or not, we always TRY IT AGAIN, to confirm the new cause and effect link. That’s pre-wired with the Human Operating System (something like, say,  FiatLux 2000®), which is regularly upgraded conceptually, but not mechanically. We have the same sensory apparatus as we had in all prior ages.

The “cause and effect” mechanism of the brain pre-exists, but is essentially formalized in “formal” logic. It is the rational portion of our perception that we use to learn by observation. For instance, lightning and thunder are related in just the same way that those cheerleaders clapping were related in sight versus sound. Another example would be sex and pregnancy, which took early humans a long time to understand as interconnected.

Now, I told you about the other two filters: time and space.

This is our reality principle: for a thing to be real, it must satisfy all four conditions: time, space, cause and effect. If it doesn’t fulfill those requirements, the event is filed away as “abstract.” That could be Unicorns, for instance, which have a cause and effect, but occupy neither time nor space.  Or Van Gogh’s “Starry Night.” The reality principle recognizes that the painting itself – the canvas, the paint, the frame – is real, but the image is just a dream. A beautiful or ugly dream, perhaps, but not “REAL.”

Now, we’ve woven together our world using our five sampling mechanisms, our five senses, and we’ve sorted our data into “real” and “unreal.”

We know that this is true. And very rarely do we ever question it, or how we create the simulation of “reality” that we live in.

The world that we perceive only exists within our own minds, and, while it is a result  and reflection of “REALITY,” it is only a very complex simulation of the real world. It is inherent in the human condition that we believe the world we perceive to be the only world that there is, and, therefore, THERE ARE NO SUCH THINGS AS GHOSTS.

If you look closely at your visual field, you will see “pixels.” If you listen in complete silence, you will hear the background hiss of your brain’s own electrical field.

But, while it is difficult to remember that what we perceive is NOT the Real World – but only the “tip of the iceberg” it is true, nonetheless.

So, what is reality?

Practically speaking, Reality is what you perceive. You have no other baseline, there is  no “objectivity” in the absence of an “objective” being to perceive it (i.e. “god”), and your reality is … what you perceive in that complex simulation you use your five senses and four filters to construct, moment by moment. When you are awake, you perceive this “reality.” When you are asleep, you perceive THAT “reality.” In both cases, you take for granted that this is the “real” world.

In fact, if you are, say, a Sherlock Holmes fan, you will note that we mostly live in our PICTURE of the reality we perceive, since we don’t really pay that much attention to the relatively small window of data that we DO perceive. (This fact will be important later on.)

Objectivity is, then, a paradigm. A useful paradigm, to be sure, like the “real world,” but a paradigm nonetheless. It is no more REAL than is the “Real” world in our head.

Why? Because there IS NO OBJECTIVE REALITY. It is a convention. It is a consensus.

Now, we come to the next phase, for tomorrow. Because we are social beings, we communicate our subjective reality with others through language to create that “objective” reality. And, that language has its limitations and assumptions that constrain our “reality” further.

And that’s the real scoop.

Courage.