Human Perception: The Illusion of Material Reality

Human perception constructs a useful but misleading picture of reality, similar to a pilot relying on instruments.

### The Illusion of Reality: Understanding Our Perception of the World
* ✈ Scientists liken human perception to a pilot flying in bad weather, relying **solely on instruments** without a clear view of the outside world.
* 📊 Just as a pilot uses dashboard indicators to navigate, humans interpret reality through **sensory experiences**, which can be **misleading**.
* 🧠 A team of neuroscientists from the Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging found that organisms must **encode their environment to survive**, suggesting that perception is not direct but **constructed**.
* 🎨 Each species, including humans, has its own unique set of sensory indicators, leading to an evolutionary "**best guess**" of reality that is **not necessarily accurate**.
* 🔬 Research from the University of California reveals that our senses are designed to create a **useful but ultimately false picture of reality**, tailored for survival.
* 🤔 As Professor Donald Hoffman points out, this raises the fundamental question: "**What is reality?**"
* 🌌 If what we perceive as matter is merely a **constructed illusion**, it prompts deeper inquiry into the **essence of existence** and our true understanding of the **world around us**.

The world’s smartest scientists are saying it’s actually not. Imagine a pilot flying an airplane at night in bad weather. He can’t peek into the world outside of his plane… …all he has are the instruments on his dashboard.

Indicators of speed, air pressure, all kinds of dials that tell him about a world he cannot directly see. They’re very reliable and provide the pilot with what he needs to maneuver safely through his environment. Well, of course not.

Just because the menu in a restaurant can give you accurate information about the food, it isn’t food. The menu is not the meal. It seems like you couldn’t possibly confuse the two. And yet this is exactly what human beings do all the time…

…by looking upon our world as fundamentally material. We deal with matter and therefore assume that it is reality. But matter is only our dashboard, it is the interface we use to interact with reality. All we have are these ‘indicators’ to touch, smell, and feel, so our intuition tells us those indicators are all there is.

In this sense, the way humans deal with matter is like pilots flying by instruments… …without a clear-glass windshield. We can never see the actual reality ‘outside.’ Although many scientists are trying. Like this team of neuroscientists from the Institute of Neurology of the Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging in London.

They discovered that organisms must represent their environment in an encoded manner to survive. Every species, including human beings, has their own set… …of dials and indicators: the forms and colours we see… …the sounds we hear, the flavours we taste.

What we see is an evolutionary ‘best guess’ constructed by our biology. It paints a nice picture. But a picture isn’t reality. This is the startling conclusion arrived at by a
team at the University of California. Through analysis and experimentation they’ve shown that our senses
are evolutionarily built to construct a useful...

...but untrue picture of reality. One that suits our survival. As Prof. Donald Hoffman likes to say: It may all sound very complex, because… well, it is! But it all comes down to the most important question of all: What is reality?

If it stands to be quite different from the colors,
shapes, sounds and textures that we call ‘matter’... ...then what is it? When we get down to the essence, what do we see and what do we get?

Why Our Reality Is Not What It Seems...

Essentia Foundation

Scientists argue that our perception of reality is limited, like a pilot relying solely on instruments in bad weather.

The instruments provide necessary information but don't represent the complete reality outside the plane.

This is compared to how humans perceive matter as reality, while it's only an interface for interaction.

Neuroscientists found that organisms encode their environment for survival, using 'dials and indicators' like colors and sounds.

Our perception is an evolutionary 'best guess,' a constructed picture, not reality itself.

Research from the University of California shows our senses create a useful but untrue picture of reality for survival.

If reality differs from what we perceive as matter (colors, shapes, etc.), then what is its true nature?