Philosophy
In our everyday experience, it seems as though perception is simply a matter of information hitting your sense organs and going straight to our brain. In reality, however, perception turns out to be an incredibly sophisticated and complex concatenation of various brain modules actively trying to interpret and synthesize the disparate information sent by the different senses. The reason perception may seem to be a passive phenomenon is that it's effortless, but that doesn't mean that there's not a hell of a lot of stuff going on in the brain. It just means that our brains have evolved to do all this amazing work without making us consciously aware of what it's doing.
But how do we know that perception is an active process of interpretation, synthesis and recognition? Well, a great place to start would be the lessons we get from the study of optical illusions, such as the following spooky Einstein illusion because even if you understand why you experience the illusion, you can't not experience it. Feel your brain fooling you:
For a great introduction to perception and optical illusions, check out Beau Lotto's TEDTalk.
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Philosophy
Einstein Mask Optical Illusion
But how do we know that perception is an active process of interpretation, synthesis and recognition? Well, a great place to start would be the lessons we get from the study of optical illusions, such as the following spooky Einstein illusion because even if you understand why you experience the illusion, you can't not experience it. Feel your brain fooling you:
For a great introduction to perception and optical illusions, check out Beau Lotto's TEDTalk.
- Philosophy: Brain In A Vat Argument ? Truth Revealed
Brains in a vat? That sounds terrifying, doesn?t it? Brain in a vat argument is one of the newest thought experiments in philosophy of mind (discussed by John Pollock). Many people raise objection to the brain in a vat theory but are there in fact any...
- The Dreams Of Aristotle
Aristotle wrote two short pieces on dreams and their meaning: On Dreams and On Prophesying on Dreams. In the first he presents arguments for the origin of dreams and their relationship to other aspects of human existence. In the second he analyzes whether...
- David Eagleman - Can We Create New Senses For Humans?
It's been a source of questions, awe and insight among philosophers for a long time to consider the fact that all mental representations are ultimately interpretations of electrical signals traveling through the brain. Yes, we may ordinarily think...
- Richard Dawkins: Growing Up In The Universe - The Genesis Of Purpose
Bringing his fascinating lecture series Growing Up in the Universe to a close, evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins discusses the way in which our brains represent the transcendence of the world. Our perception of the world is not a pure and accurate...
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