There is an old myth of the Invisible Ships.
The story goes that when the explorers first arrived in the Americas, the appearance of their large ships was so foreign to the native people that they could not see them.
Then, one day, a Shaman noticed the movement of these strange objects and the way the water was interacting with them, and he figured out that they had to be ships.
Whether this story is true or not, it begs the question.
Do you believe we see reality as it is?
Well, let’s look at a few examples and see how deep we can go down the rabbit hole!
What do you See?
A few years ago, there was an online debate about the color of this dress.
About half of the people saw a Black and Blue Dress, and the other half saw a White and Gold dress.
The dress is the same, so how could people dress differently?
Then there was this video.
Cars vanishing on the side of a bridge.
These aren’t magic tricks. They are everyday things we see over and over again.
Now, let’s look at a few straightforward images.
How old is the woman below?
What animal do you see?
In both images, you can see multiple things. There is a young woman and an old woman, a rabbit and a duck.
Even when we have all of the data in front of us, there is more than one way to look at things, and we fail to see the entire picture.
When we study perception, these are the types of conundrums we face.
The deeper we go, the clearer it becomes that our entire experience is reconstructed and that we don’t see the world as it is but as we are.
Understanding perception shines the light on the nature of experience and how we construct our experiences and give them meaning.
This has deep and profound implications.
This can help us better understand each other, ourselves, the nature of our limitations, and even our reason for being.
So, let’s jump into the deep end.
Our Senses & Limited Information
This deterministic view is so wrong that it is like believing the world is flat because it appears that way.
First, we only have 5 senses, and only through these senses do we know the world. We don’t have direct access. What we know is our sense perceptions.
Second, there is way too much information for our senses to handle, so our senses filter and limit the information we can perceive.
How much information do our senses actually perceive? Here is a breakdown:
Sight: We see about 0.0035% of the Light Spectrum
Sound: We can only hear in the 20 Hz to 20,000 Hz range, effectively 0.1% of sound.
We are swimming in a sea of information and don’t perceive 99.9% of it.
Lastly, the information that we perceive is itself limited.
It comes from a single point of view in time and space, which is why it was so easy for our ancestors to assume that the earth was flat. Because from their point of view, it looked that way.
What about the information that we get?
Perhaps the information is so high quality that it alone is enough to accurately represent reality as it is.
Let’s explore the nature of information.
Is Information Meaningless?
情報は無意味なのか? はい
If you spend a few minutes thinking about this question, the answer will be a resounding ‘Yes’.
There is no inherent meaning in information.
Information itself is meaningless.
But this goes far deeper than not being able to understand Japanese.
Let’s use vision as an example.
The information we get about objects depends on many environmental factors, such as light, luminosity, the color of other objects, and so on.
If any of the variables change, the image we get in our retina also changes.
What this means is that the same object can produce many different images.
It also means that many different objects can produce the images we see.
In other words, no clear 1:1 relationship exists between the object and the image we see
Here is an example:
As a result, every image you see can have many different sources.
In this way, the information of the image itself is meaningless.
So, how do we make sense of the information?
The brain acts as a prediction engine.
It takes the very limited information it has and tries to predict reality based on past experience, knowledge, beliefs, and the information in the environment.
Let’s see how this works.
Brain as a Prediction Engine
The brain doesn’t see, hear, touch, taste, or smell.
The brain only receives a stream of electrical impulses from our senses, and from these impulses, the brain produces our perception of the world.
Perception is informed guesswork, where the brain uses all of the information it has, including your prior experiences, expectations, beliefs, and knowledge, to produce the very experience you are having right now.
Here are a couple of examples:
Our brain's predictions aren't perfect. What we get is the brain's best guess, which is our experience.
This best guess is shaped by your prior experiences, the context of the shapes and other colors, and our perspective, all of which produce the experience of a grey line that looks different on the right and left sides.
However, our perception are deceiving us as the grey line is the same throughout, only the background is changing.
At this point, most of this makes sense, and you might have heard about it before.
But here is the kicker, we aren't just receiving limited information and trying to guess meaning.
The real takeaway is that we perceive and interact with information through our values and beliefs, which helps construct our experience and give it meaning.
Now, let’s explore this more deeply because it has profound implications for your life.
How do we Make Sense of the World?
Now, let’s examine our actual experience.
We feel like we are aware of everything and taking it all in, that we know what is going on, and that if something important happens, we will notice it.
But is this true?
The fact is that there is too much information to take it all in. At this moment, your brain is processing ~11 million bits of information, and you are consciously aware of about 40 of them.
Processing information takes a lot of brain resources, so we focus our attention on what is most important and valuable to us, and we miss the rest.
To illustrate how focused attention works, see if you can pass the test below.
Can you count how many times the Team in White Passes the Ball?
The Monkey Ball experiment showcases the limits of our attention.
By paying attention to the ball, we miss the Monkey and when the background changes color!
Now, armed with this knowledge, see if you can spot the differences in the experiments below:
We pay attention to what is important and what has meaning to us and ignore the rest.
So, we see and experience the world according to our actual values via our attention and action.
We are NOT swimming in a sea of Information or a world of Objects, but a sea of Meaning and Relevance.
How do we Prioritize the World According to Values?
At any given moment, we are presented with a world of possibility. We can’t see everything at once or explore every possibility; we are limited in space and time, and so we have to prioritize.
We set our attention and move our eyes toward what we value. The objects we see aren’t just dead, meaningless objects; they have meaning and value for us. We do so via our values system as we decide what to pay attention to.
We bring our system values into every situation and automatically filter for them. One of the things we all value is our NAME.
A great example of how we can attend to something without being aware of it is the Cocktail Effect.
Imagine you are at a dinner party. You're in a large ballroom where there are groups of people talking to each other. You are in a deep conversation with a close friend.
You are not eavesdropping; in fact, you hardly notice any of the other people. Then, out of nowhere, you hear your name mentioned across the room.
You hear it even though you weren’t listening for it.
This is the Cocktail Effect. We are filtering information according to our values a priori.
Another way we organize our values and perceptions is via our Personality.
How does Personality Impact our Perception?
Personality is quite powerful, and it can account for how and why people interpret the same situation differently.
Personality traits cause people to perceive situations in a particular way. They help focus attention on what is important and move towards it. As we move towards our values via our goals, our personality can help us stay on track.
Here is a quick breakdown of each trait, how it perceives and what it would do at our dinner party.
Openness (to Experience)
World Perception: People high in Openness tend to be curious, imaginative, and open to new experiences. They may perceive the world as a place full of possibilities and opportunities for exploration. They're more likely to enjoy variety, challenge conventional thinking, and appreciate art and beauty.
Perceptual Filter: Creative and abstract thinking. Preference for novelty over routine.
Dinner Party: They would look for someone to converse deeply with.
Conscientiousness
World Perception: Highly conscientious individuals are organized, dependable, and disciplined. They tend to see the world as an ordered structure where goals can be achieved through hard work and planning. They may focus on details and rules, aiming for efficiency and high standards.
Perceptual Filter: Order, responsibility, and the practical steps needed to succeed.
Dinner Party: They would notice if things are out of order, if the host is doing a good job, and so on.
Extraversion
World Perception: Extraverts are outgoing, energetic, and sociable. They often perceive the world as a social playground rich with opportunities for interaction, excitement, and collaboration. They're likely to seek out social stimuli and engage more directly with their surroundings.
Perceptual Filter: Social cues and potential for engaging experiences.
Dinner Party: They are the life of the party.
Agreeableness
World Perception: Agreeable people are compassionate cooperative, and value social harmony. They tend to see the world as a community where kindness and cooperation lead to positive outcomes. They may focus more on social bonds and the emotional states of others.
Perceptual Filter: Emotional expressions of others, cooperation, and conflict resolution.
Dinner Party: They are there to help and support. If someone gets too drunk, they are usually the ones helping.
Neuroticism
World Perception: Individuals with high levels of Neuroticism may perceive the world as threatening or overwhelming. They are more prone to experiencing negative emotions like anxiety, sadness, and anger. This trait can color their perception, making them more sensitive to potential risks or stressors.
Perceptual Filter: Threats, uncertainties, and potential problems.
Dinner Party: They are the first to notice when things go wrong.
A big part of the reason why different people see the world so differently is due to personality.
As each personality walks into our dinner party, it filters the environment according to its values, perceptual filter, knowledge, and past experiences.
Now, let’s look at the power of prior knowledge.
Prior knowledge acts like a little bit of consciousness. When you come in contact with it, it adds to your experience.
How Does Prior Information Impact Conscious Experience?
Prior information directly shapes our experience.
Let’s look at a few examples:
Holding a guitar is vastly different than holding Elvis Presley’s Guitar.
Money is both just a piece of paper and far more than just a piece of paper.
The border between the two countries is a line in the sand and also far more than just a line in the sand.
In this way, information is a paradox. On one end of the spectrum, information alone is meaningless. On the other end, when information is perceived and combined with our consciousness, there is a lot more information than the original data.
Perhaps a good way to think about information is akin to computer code. Alone, it’s useless and meaningless. Code in a good machine can do good things; Code in a great machine can do wonders.
Now, the last piece of the puzzle is accuracy.
Even though we perceive far less than 0.1% of the information in our environment, is this enough to give us an accurate view of reality?
To what degree is our experience of the world an accurate portrait of the world itself?
For this, we have to look at Evolution and how we evolved to perceive.
Did we Evolve to Perceive the World Accurately?
Many of us believe that we evolved to see the world accurately.
And this seems like common sense.
After all, seeing the world accurately seems like an advantage, as it allows one to make better, more well-informed decisions and drive out the less accurate species.
However, this has been debunked.
We have evolved to survive and procreate, not to see reality accurately.
To survive and procreate, we have evolved to use shortcuts.
Shortcuts are cheap and effective, which is how we can make do with so little information.
Seeing reality, on the other hand, is difficult and expensive.
Evolutionary Game Simulations
Donald Hoffman and his team ran hundreds of thousands of evolutionary game simulations with many randomly chosen worlds and organisms.
Some organisms saw all of reality, some of reality, and some saw only fitness.
So who wins?
In every simulation, the organisms that saw only fitness drove the organisms that saw reality to extinction.
They discovered that the relationship between seeing reality and survival is ZERO.
So, what are the implications of Donal Hoffman’s research?
How Our Experience is a Simulation
All we know is experience and a byproduct of experience.
When you look at an apple three feet away, what you experience is not an apple three feet away but your own consciousness.
What we experience is our own perception, not reality itself.
The experience that we have is actively hallucinated by our brain
Our hallucinated experience of the world is like a user interphase.
The user interphase is not here to show us reality but to hide it.
Like putting on an Apple Vision Pro, the user interphase is designed to be useful and fun while hiding the reality of the computer (machine code, diodes, resistors, etc).
If you had to deal with all of that code, you wouldn’t be able to effortlessly watch a video, edit a picture, or do any work.
By hiding the reality of the code, the device can be fun and useable.
Your User Interphase
In this same way, space and time, as we perceive them right now, are our interphase.
The physical objects are icons.
Our beliefs and assumptions are like the operating system.
Information we perceive and use is akin to mini-programs.
Like the Apple Vision Pro, you can take the symbols seriously so you don’t delete the wrong file.
Yet, you don’t want to fall into the trap of taking your perception literally and believing the icons are really there.
Vast Implications.
We live in a world, a realm of endless possibilities and information.
However, we don’t know anything about the external world directly.
All we know, all we will ever know, is our own experience.
So, we have to stay very humble about what we actually know.
We need to acknowledge how much of what we assume to be true is just a belief about reality—a belief so powerful that it can focus our attention and shape our experiences.
We need to be more empathetic and compassionate for people who believe differently and are having a different experience.
And remember…
We don’t see the world as it is but as we are.
In the end, what we are left with is a mirror.
A mirror that shows us our limitations and how we are experiencing these limitations.
We don’t live in the world but in our own world.
Resources:
The sensory desktop. In This will make you smarter: New scientific concepts to improve your thinking. Edited by J. Brockman. Harper Perennial, New York. 135-138. D. Hoffman. 99.
Computational evolutionary perception. Perception, 41, 1073-1091. (Special issue in honor of David Marr.) D. Hoffman, M. Singh.
Seth, A. (2017). Anil Seth: Your brain hallucinates your conscious reality. TED Talk.
Chicago
Does evolution favor true perceptions? Proceedings of the SPIE 8651, Human Vision and Electronic Imaging XVIII, 865104. DOI: 10.1117/12.2011609. D. Hoffman, M. Singh, J. Mark.
Jonason, P. K., & Sherman, R. A. (2020). Personality and the perception of situations: The Big Five and Dark Triad traits. Personality and Individual Differences, 163, 110081.
Duggal, R., & Arora, S. (2019). Influence of mental load on inattentional blindness. IAHRW International Journal of Social Sciences Review, 7.
Chicago
Martinez-Conde, S., & Macknik, S. L. (2011). 10 top illusions. scientific american mind, 22(2), 30-35.
Simons, D. J., & Levin, D. T. (1997). Change blindness. Trends in cognitive sciences, 1(7), 261-267.