Is our vision of reality correct? neuroscience explains (Introduction)

by dhw, Wednesday, August 28, 2019, 08:26 (1913 days ago) @ David Turell

QUOTE: The contents of our perceptual worlds are controlled hallucinations, brain-based best guesses about the ultimately unknowable causes of sensory signals. And for most of us, most of the time, these controlled hallucinations are experienced as real."

DAVID: The usual picture. Our brain accurately presents its predictions as to what reality really is. It works; we avoid the oncoming bus, and easily pick up our coffee cup.

And the fact that it works makes nonsense of the claim that these are “hallucinations”. It’s the usual business of extending the subjectivity of perception to the sensational assumption that there is no such thing as objective reality. I just don’t buy it. If a million people step in front of the bus and feel the impact, that’s good enough proof for me that the bus exists. We may all see/hear/feel it differently, but that most emphatically does NOT mean it isn’t there – and that is the definition of an “hallucination”. Until these clever folk can prove the bus isn’t there, they should moderate their language!