5
$\begingroup$

I wanted to ask this question for a long time but couldnt find any thing to support my argument. Today i found this https://www.ted.com/talk/anil_seth_how_your_brain_hallucinates_your_conscious_reality#t-694887, where the speaker Anil seth theoretize that our reality is just a hallucination. Exchange of information happens both ways inside and outside, i.e, we not only perceive the world around us but also actively generates it.

Perception is an active constructive process. To summarise,

Hallucination is uncontrolled perception, then Perception is controlled hallucination.

My question is, If thats the case then how two people would agree on the same state of world?

|improve this question
$\endgroup$
4
$\begingroup$

According to Anil Seth, in his talk, perception is an active construction process. In that view, it is the construction of mind-independent objects so that the perceiver has an experience of such an object. Even though I mentioned objects, it could be material things and features.

But our sensory abilities are not inherently cable of perceiving everything. The range of vision is 360-400 to 760-830nm. Similarly, for audition its 20Hz to 20,000Hz. There are other phenomena like aftereffects and adaptations, which too work along with perception. With these bounded capabilities, the brain tries to come up with a decent construction of mind-independent objects.

The experience of this construction is similar for majority and thats why majority agree on state of world.

Reference:

|improve this answer
$\endgroup$
  • $\begingroup$ Also active construction of reality doesn't mean there are basic objective reality. usually our mind uses similar mechanisms to understand this basic reality. $\endgroup$ – Erdem Oct 16 '18 at 13:51
  • $\begingroup$ Welcome to Psychology.SE. I do not see your claims of 20Hz - 20,000Hz etc. in the references you provided. Can you provide some references to back your claims? I would also like to point out that I have seen plenty of documentation to state that the hearing ranges lower with age, and not everyone has the same hearing range for various reasons. $\endgroup$ – Chris Rogers Oct 16 '18 at 14:08
  • $\begingroup$ @Erdem, an objective reality can never be proven. Question was in regards to subjective reality and why two such realities have similar characteristics. $\endgroup$ – Johny T Koshy Oct 16 '18 at 14:42
  • 2
    $\begingroup$ @ChrisRogers, intention of those numbers were not to say that it was exact for every human being, but to mention that those are the general numbers and most importantly our perspective mechanisms have bounded capabilities. I will provide references. $\endgroup$ – Johny T Koshy Oct 16 '18 at 14:46
  • $\begingroup$ the brain tries to come up with a decent construction of mind-independent objects, This statement assumes that there are physical objects and we perceive it differently conditioned on our own experience, but in the video where they have shown that every object is merged with a physical dog, when the dog is not even there, clearly implies (in my opinion) that most of the times, We perceive physical objects in reality when they are not even there, these physical objects which we have created in out own mind wouldn't be visible to any body else. $\endgroup$ – GraphicalDot Oct 16 '18 at 17:59
2
$\begingroup$

Additionally, active construction of reality doesn't mean there are basic objective reality. Usually our mind uses similar mechanisms to understand this basic reality. our byological makeup, psychological processes and broad social context provides us basic assumptions, and other tools to understand what is going on in the world. usually what we perceive is outcome of our interpertation of that basic reality by byological psychological, social tools. We might see world differently Because of our byological, psychological social differences. However, those differences are not so big that we can not understand each other.
Referenses: Burr, V. (2006). An introduction to social constructionism. Routledge. Raskin, J. D. (2002). Constructivism in psychology: Personal construct psychology, radical constructivism, and social constructionism. American communication journal, 5(3), 1-25.

|improve this answer
$\endgroup$
  • $\begingroup$ objective reality, is there any boundary between what we actually perceive and the true reality, I mean, Is there a definite objective reality? Is there possibility that some people understand more objective reality than others? $\endgroup$ – GraphicalDot Oct 16 '18 at 17:54

Your Answer

By clicking “Post Your Answer”, you agree to our terms of service, privacy policy and cookie policy

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.