Thinking at a cosmic scale: cognition vs. absolute reality Pt. 1
January 19, 2024
Limited Perception:
Mankind’s perception of reality is limited by the scope of his biological constraints. It evolved to fit the needs of his surrounding environment: geographically limited, small communal groups. Plato referred to this as the world of appearances with our body taking in stimulus and interpreting it. People must not see the world of appearances as absolute reality. Ultraviolet and infrared colors very much exist, but they’re at so low and high frequencies that the human eye cannot perceive them. It was only when scientists discovered these frequencies that they became a part of the world of appearances. Humans cannot perceive everything.
Warped Cognition:
It cannot be underscored how warped the brain individually and collectively interprets stimulus. This warped perception is not necessarily bad. After all, they were suited for efficiency towards mankind’s survival. The human face plays a large part in identifying and recognizing a person from another. Facial recognition for humans is quite sensitive to human facial structures considering how intricate and detailed faces are. Efficiency is key. The cross-race effect is the bias to more easily identify faces to their own racial or ethnic group. I theorize this effect occurs as humans evolved to live with people of the same racial/ethnic group, it is only a recent phenomenon that people of diverse backgrounds could meet with transportation massively improving. The most evident symptom of our cognitive sensitivity is how efficiently humans can differentiate faces that aren’t human despite holding similar characteristics. Anything that reaches extremely human-like characteristics but “just doesn’t” feel human is perceived as uncanny- the Uncanny Valley describes this perception. Robots and photorealistic CGI often fall into this camp. This sensitively applies to survival too, not just social purposes; a predator attempting to hide can readily be detected through their eyes. As a result, misidentification is common seeing eyes and faces where there are none. Humans cannot correctly interpret everything.
It is the recognition of these flaws and opening up your mind that will help you understand this series of articles. The world is enormous; thus, we have to think enormously- beyond our perceptions and into absolute reality.