Perception, Naive Realism, and Our Inability to See Reality For What It Is
Written by: Matthew Sabatine
Image credits belong to: geralt | Pixabay
“For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ.” 2 Corinthians 10:4-5
It has been said that William James, who is quoted as the “Father of American psychology” in the 1800s, compared human attention to a “spotlight.” The spotlight hits the center or focus point of the stage, environment, or site upon which you are facing. There, upon the spotlight, you will direct most of your attention. The fringe part of your attention sits on the periphery of your center-focus point, which will include stimuli and data that are pretty irrelevant to your focus, leaving not much of it to get processed. The margin exists outside of your circle of attention or any perceivable stimuli, and is therefore completely unprocessed and irrelevant.
Human memory has been compared to an archive where information can be kept, filed, organized, and unearthed. Cognitive load theory becomes important here. I understand it to mean that the output of mental effort and processing capacity will decrease as multiple tasks, distractions, stimuli, and data increase. Attention and working memory work together. A divided attention means less working memory will be available.
Research has suggested that we are not the adroit multi-taskers that we assume ourselves to be. Although we cannot equally split our attention in all directions at once and we have limited cognitive resources, people can refine their ability to process multiple stimuli. It is said that Morse-code operators have been able to converse meaningfully while recording 100% of a message.
This makes a profound statement about our ability to view objective reality.
Naive realism is the propensity to assume that you are unlimited in seeing reality for what it objectively is. You forget that you have a propensity to be biased, irrational, and uninformed. You assume that biases and irrationalities only hinder those who disagree with you.
My experiences with people online and offline throughout the years have persuaded me to believe that most of us are naive realists at heart, despite how much we try to be anything to the contrary. To escape naive realism, we must wholeheartedly trust in God, who knows objective reality, and not lean on the understanding of self (Proverbs 3:5-6).
Even modern scholarship agrees that we should step back from our naive realism, no matter how much our pride wants us to dive into our naive realism. I think the naive realism of our psychology may help to explain why we overestimate our knowledge and get into silly but consequential rhubarbs with loved ones, friends, and strangers. Evolutionary theory may have an unfriendly history with Christianity. But cognitive psychologist, Donald Hoffman, has an idea on consciousness that makes me realize the deficits of our naive realism.
In this YouTube video titled “Nothing You See is Real”, cognitive psychologist, Donald Hoffman, likens our perceptions and consciousness to a “visualization tool” that is used while seeing the things of nature and the universe. He likens evolved consciousness to a virtual reality headset that is assumed to be “the final reality,” like someone who makes “the rookie mistake” of forgetting that he is playing Grand Theft Auto while playing it.
Hoffman states:
“If you just look at your face in the mirror. If you look, what you see directly is just skin, hair, and eyes. That’s all you see. And if you looked inside, if someone opened your skull, you’d just see neurons and so forth. But what you know firsthand is that you cannot see your hopes, your dreams, your aspirations, your love of music, your mood. It’s all a VR experience. No physical object, including my body, is conscious. Strictly speaking, my brain isn’t conscious because my brain, in fact, doesn’t exist unless I render it.”
Hoffman analogously states that we are the cause of our own brains and neurons coming into existence, because, when we look in front of ourselves, we provide ourselves with the steering wheel of our own virtual reality game. Looking to the right or left puts the steering wheel out of view, making it nonexistent until we reposition our focus in front of ourselves.
According to Hoffman, reality is a simulation in which we provide objects to ourselves on an as-needed basis. What is unneeded is gathered and discarded as garbage. Our desires naturally belong to us, analogous to how artificial intelligences have been given their properties. In this simulation, consciousness is “exploring through us” in a myriad of ways. Our understanding of cause-and-effect is limited to the sketches and illustrations of this space-time continuum, because we are unable to see beyond it. In this simulation, no one knows the “trillions of toggling voltages and magnetic fields and circuits” that occur within one turn of the wheel in ultimate reality’s supercomputer.
For each conscious human, consciousness is trying on different headsets and dynamics of 3-dimensional viewpoints while perpetually journeying throughout the universe of unknowns. To know the unknowns, including the emotions and moods that cannot be seen from other minds, a person’s consciousness must project itself outward to gather data and pull itself back in to analyze the data.
Many may find some mysticism and esotericism in Hoffman’s conscious realism. But this video reminds me of humanity’s fallibility and the fact that we are the opposite of what is all-knowing, a property that belongs exclusively to God and His Son Jesus Christ.
What cannot be scrutinized at every second is essentially inscrutable to consciousness, and so consciousness is always left to the task of guessing about those inscrutable things.
A conversation between Iain McGilchrist and Jordan Peterson helps to instantiate this well. Peterson states that he worked with anorexic clients for a while who “cannot see their body as whole” and instead only “fixate on parts.” The inability to see yourself in gestalts or combined holistic parts leads to the inability to properly contextualize things, which can then lead to improper differentiation between what is acceptable and unacceptable. McGilchrist comments that the “right hemisphere sees the body as a whole but the left hemisphere only recognizes parts.” Two competing hemispheres in one brain leaves the body image unrealized for what it is in totality.
McGilchrist states:
“It's a misconception that when we make things explicit, we are closer to the truth. Because what we often do when we make things explicit is that we conflate a half dozen more different considerations so that our intuitive and unconscious minds are able to weigh remarkably effectively. We substitute for that holistic vision a single thing that collapses into the explicit statement that we make. And so all the time that you are having to make explicit what you would do, and under what circumstances, you are limiting the world, you are driving it down and down to less and less meaning.”
William James' spotlight analogy tells me that our narrow tunnel vision does not allow us to see reality for what it is at all times. You can be within close proximity of an event as it takes place but not be a reliable witness to it if it occurred on the margin or fringe areas of your view.
I think an objective reality still exists, despite how much we struggle to observe, assess, and record that objective reality. The Bible primarily influences me to speak positively about this objective reality. The Bible includes stories and characters and philosophies that make me realize our struggle for truth is a testament to our intuitive awareness that there is a reality that exists outside of ourselves. Jesus is the answer to our struggle. John 8:31-32 tells us that we will know the truth, and the truth shall set us free, when we act in accordance with His Word and become His disciples. We are fighting a spiritual battle that is ultimately not physical nor fleshly, even though we have physical bodies of flesh. 2 Corinthians 10:4-5 tells us that “For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ.”
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Sources:
[2] Attention | Boundless Psychology | | Course Hero
[3] Making Memory: New Study Explains the Brain's RAM | Cedars-Sinai
[4] Cognitive load - Wikipedia
[5] Naïve realism (psychology) - Wikipedia
[6] Proverbs 3:5-6 - Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not... (biblestudytools.com)
[7] (4) "Nothing You See is Real" | Donald Hoffman - YouTube
[8] (9) The Matter with Things: Peterson and McGilchrist | #278 - YouTube
[9] John 8:31-32 NIV - Dispute Over Whose Children Jesus’ - Bible Gateway
[10] 2 Corinthians 10:4-5 NKJV - For the weapons of our warfare are not - Bible Gateway