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5 The Mind-Made Firmament
with no contradictions, for all the data received through the senses, as well as all
our experience interacting with external things. What we see of the world are
the forms and features which our brain has designed. Do the shapes of objects,
as they present themselves to us in visual awareness, look like what they “really
look like”? Posing this question is wrong-headed, because to “look like” is
subjective and mental: In the physical world, unseen objects do not “look
like” anything. The appearance of objects is a psychological phenomenon, and
“appearance” has no meaning outside the context of a viewer.
This simple fact is almost universally disregarded. People (including scientists) would rather pretend that what they perceive is exactly what there is,
even though they are fully aware that is not correct. In fact, we all know that
it’s not correct. For example, when you taste a lump of sugar, you know that
your sensation of sweet is purely in your mind, and has no connection with
the carbohydrate molecule that triggers a taste bud to fire. It is the same when
you experience the fragrance of an orange blossom. When you listen to music,
you know that what you experience hearing is categorically different from the
vibrations of the airmass, though the vibrations are the physical trigger that
brings you the experience of music.
None of the above is surprising, and in fact is common knowledge. However,
we have far more difficulty acknowledging the same fact in connection with
the things we see. We are aware that vision is one of our senses, and that it
plays the same role as all the other senses in bringing us external data. It should
therefore be easy for us to admit that what we experience seeing is categorically
different from the external triggers that act on our eyes. (It should be like the
difference between the sensation of sweet and the carbohydrate molecule). But
in fact, we have a tremendous resistance against admitting that fact. Why such
a resistance?
The reason is that we are biologically designed to believe that what we see is
Reality with a capital R. You might say we are wired to have the conviction that
the external world has exactly the form that appears to our eyes.The compulsion
to do this is so strong that even when we have understood logically that there is
no such thing as appearance outside of vision, we continue to think of objects in
the world each having its own objective shape and appearance. We are almost
incapable of shaking this off.
It was already mentioned in Chapter 2 that, although the image of things
such as trees and houses is formed in our head, that’s not where we have the
experience of seeing them. Rather, we perceive them in the space around us, just
the “right” distance away from us, each in its own designated place. If you think
of it, we are in fact hallucinating the objects of vision in surrounding space.
This paradoxical fact is in the very nature of sensory perception. Everything we
5 The Mind-Made Firmament
with no contradictions, for all the data received through the senses, as well as all
our experience interacting with external things. What we see of the world are
the forms and features which our brain has designed. Do the shapes of objects,
as they present themselves to us in visual awareness, look like what they “really
look like”? Posing this question is wrong-headed, because to “look like” is
subjective and mental: In the physical world, unseen objects do not “look
like” anything. The appearance of objects is a psychological phenomenon, and
“appearance” has no meaning outside the context of a viewer.
This simple fact is almost universally disregarded. People (including scientists) would rather pretend that what they perceive is exactly what there is,
even though they are fully aware that is not correct. In fact, we all know that
it’s not correct. For example, when you taste a lump of sugar, you know that
your sensation of sweet is purely in your mind, and has no connection with
the carbohydrate molecule that triggers a taste bud to fire. It is the same when
you experience the fragrance of an orange blossom. When you listen to music,
you know that what you experience hearing is categorically different from the
vibrations of the airmass, though the vibrations are the physical trigger that
brings you the experience of music.
None of the above is surprising, and in fact is common knowledge. However,
we have far more difficulty acknowledging the same fact in connection with
the things we see. We are aware that vision is one of our senses, and that it
plays the same role as all the other senses in bringing us external data. It should
therefore be easy for us to admit that what we experience seeing is categorically
different from the external triggers that act on our eyes. (It should be like the
difference between the sensation of sweet and the carbohydrate molecule). But
in fact, we have a tremendous resistance against admitting that fact. Why such
a resistance?
The reason is that we are biologically designed to believe that what we see is
Reality with a capital R. You might say we are wired to have the conviction that
the external world has exactly the form that appears to our eyes.The compulsion
to do this is so strong that even when we have understood logically that there is
no such thing as appearance outside of vision, we continue to think of objects in
the world each having its own objective shape and appearance. We are almost
incapable of shaking this off.
It was already mentioned in Chapter 2 that, although the image of things
such as trees and houses is formed in our head, that’s not where we have the
experience of seeing them. Rather, we perceive them in the space around us, just
the “right” distance away from us, each in its own designated place. If you think
of it, we are in fact hallucinating the objects of vision in surrounding space.
This paradoxical fact is in the very nature of sensory perception. Everything we