We tend to believe that the world we experience is an objective reality simply "read out" by our senses. When we open our eyes to see the sea, feel the breeze, or hear the seagulls, it feels as though an objective world is pouring itself directly into our minds. However, scientific understanding reveals that our sensory experience is not a passive reception but an active, creative act of interpretation generated by the brain every moment of every day.
Perception is the Brain's "Best Guess"
The signals arriving at our eyes and ears—the light waves hitting our retinas and the pressure waves entering our eardrums—are ambiguous and come without inherent labels. They don't tell the brain, "I am a seagull," "I am the sea," or "I am blue." The brain's fundamental job is to make sense of this ambiguous sensory data, figuring out where the signals came from and what they mean. This complex process is known as perception.
To accomplish this, the brain constantly utilizes prior knowledge about the structure of the world to make its best guess of what is causing the sensory input. Sometimes, this prior knowledge is built deep into the evolutionary structure of our brains, such as the assumption that light generally comes from above. This knowledge subconsciously governs how we interpret shadows and depth. It is not a matter of "I’ll believe it when I see it," but rather, "If your brain believes it, then you will see it."
We See What is Useful, Not Always What is Real
Because we are evolved biological organisms with limited brain capacities, our perception is not necessarily geared towards showing us the absolute real world. Instead, we perceive the world in the way that is most useful for our survival.
A prime example of the brain’s creative interpretation is color. Does color actually exist in the world? Not really. There are only light waves of different wavelengths. From those wavelengths, the brain actively generates an infinite variety of different colors. It does this because it allows the brain to track objects effectively even as lighting conditions change. As the artist Paul Cézanne once said, "Color is the place where the brain and the universe meet."
The Reality of Inner Perceptual Diversity
Since perception is an active, interpretive act, each of us experiences a slightly different interpretation of the same sensory data. We are familiar with external diversity (differences in height, skin color, etc.), but we are less familiar with inner perceptual diversity. For instance, the exact shade of "blue" you experience when looking at the sky might not be the same shade of blue that I experience, even though we both correctly label it as "blue."
This idea was made famous by a viral phenomenon years ago: the photograph of "the dress." Half the world saw the dress as blue and black, while the other half saw it as white and gold. People on both sides were so convinced their vision was the truth that they couldn't comprehend how others saw it differently. The photograph was badly exposed, making it highly ambiguous. The color perceived depended entirely on the assumptions the viewer's brain made about the ambient light surrounding the dress.
A Lever for Better Communication
If we can see a simple photograph so differently, how can we assume that we experience other aspects of the world—or even deeply held beliefs—in the same way? The answer is: we probably don't.
Recognizing that our literal experience of the same shared world is fundamentally different is a powerful lever for better communication. It forces us to acknowledge that many challenges in human interaction may be rooted in the fact that our individual experience is unique and precious. We do share a reality, but the way we experience it is entirely dependent on our own brain.
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