9 ms·

Reality is a Shared Hallucination (1997)

173 points by MichaelAO 10y ago

tumbas 10y ago
but what are halucinations then? #pressTheIssue
overcast 10y ago
Quite the imagination on this one.
jhallenworld 10y ago
Reality is a MUSH? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MUSH https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MUSH
randomdrake 10y ago
This was a cool read. Fun to dig through the Internet to figure out where the article came from. Searching around, this appears to be Part VIII of a collection from Howard Bloom[1] entitled "History of the Global Brain" that looks to have been written over the course of 1997 for Telepolis[2]. It looks like these writings were put together in a book, published in 2000, called Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind from the Big Bang to the 21st Century[3]. There are a lot more links, images, formatting, and other stuff in the original articles. You can start with Part I of this series, called "Biology, Evolution and the Global Brain," still available online[4]. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Bloom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Bloom [2] - http://www.heise.de/tp/artikel/2/2227/1.html http://www.heise.de/tp/artikel/2/2227/1.html [3] - http://www.abebooks.com/9780471295846/Global-Brain-Evolution-Mass-Mind-0471295841/plp http://www.abebooks.com/9780471295846/Global-Brain-Evolution... [4] - http://www.heise.de/tp/artikel/2/2102/1.html http://www.heise.de/tp/artikel/2/2102/1.html
zeko 10y ago
I was actually hoping that this would be an article explaining how reality is literally a shared hallucination, and not just an eye grabbing metaphor for explaining how non-autistic people perceive reality.
- lisper 10y ago
  It's actually the literal truth if you take a quantum-mechanical view: http://www.flownet.com/ron/QM.pdf http://www.flownet.com/ron/QM.pdf https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEaecUuEqfc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEaecUuEqfc
  - wyager 10y ago
    No, it's not. QM doesn't have any confirmed solution to the measurement problem, and no seriously considered solution has anything to do with intelligent observation or consciousness. Anyone who claims to have a profound philosophical argument inspired by QM is almost certainly a charlatan.
    - Noseshine 10y ago
      A "philosophical" argument is pretty useless. Unless you manage to devise experiments for your those theories. And QFT can at least inform you about "reality" - and how little the one in a human head has to do with it. Since QFT is "real" (shown to work), if our perception was based on "reality" we should not have had such trouble to a) come up with it, and b) understand it.
      - wyager 10y ago
        Our perception of reality absolutely agrees with QFT -- in the medium-energy medium-scale environments that humans operate in. Everyday physics is a limiting case of QFT. Our mental heuristics don't work for very high/low energies or small/large scales because we don't operate on those scales. We had no reason to evolve other heuristics.
        deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
        Noseshine 10y ago
        I think I understand your point - but I had a very different angle. What you write actually is fully in support with my point. You simply declare as "reality" that what you perceive, the model we (our brains) have come up with. But that's exactly it - that's your version of "reality" created by how you look at it - with "macro" sensors. Different sensors would have a different result. In addition we don't even have raw sensor data in our mental world model, instead the data is extremely processed before it is assembled to our mental model of the world. Take a neuroscience course on perception, I recommend. Somebody said we live in a VR world created by our brains, and that is a good fit. Of course the input that goes into creating that "VR world" is from sensors getting data from interactions with the actual world. If you don't understand what my point is don't say "you are wrong".
callesgg 10y ago
Here is a quote from an article about consciousness "One of the processes important in perception is the comparing of current input with similar past experience. When we see a friend, a memory image of his face is presented to our consciousness along with the sensation of his actual present appearance. This memory image (which can be called a schema) blends with the current sensation, so that the perception is a combination of the two. The relative strengths of each source of information probably vary from person to person." It not scientific or proven true. It does however work as a model for a part of peoples perception that fits quite well to peoples behavior.
- jplasmeier 10y ago
  I think we put a little bit too much faith in the scientific process for dealing with cognitive processes (note: I have little background in cogsci or related fields, just books I've read). There's so much happening in our unconscious minds that is difficult or impossible to scientifically dissect. This applies to physical, quantitative methods (measuring the possibly quantum coherent electron transfer inside our brains, or actually getting a grip on the LFP of every neuron in a brain, etc.) as well as more qualitative approaches in psychology/cogsci (language limits this). Neuroscience is making leaps (I'm currently reading "The Neural Basis of Free Will" by Tse [0], it's tough as I've not take a neuro course but it's fascinating) but lacking a "reflective" ability outside of our experience will limit what we can truly know about our experience. It seems waxing philosophically is our only option, barring some kind of breakthrough. [0] https://www.amazon.com/Neural-Basis-Free-Will-Criterial/dp/0262528312 https://www.amazon.com/Neural-Basis-Free-Will-Criterial/dp/0...
- aidenn0 10y ago
  I'm not sure how you can simultaneously claim that a model has predictive power but is not scientific.
  - callesgg 10y ago
    It is my personal experience/opinion not something that is scientifically proven.
tealounge 10y ago
In case anyone is interested in the author's bio: http://howardbloom.net/howard-bloom/about-howard-bloom/ http://howardbloom.net/howard-bloom/about-howard-bloom/ Howard is a piece of work, he used to always sit in the exact same chair in a Brooklyn cafe every night for years. It is now closed and I wonder where he ended up. I haven't given his work a chance, I'll admit, mainly because of that outrageous bio and the content of some of his work. I'd prefer to remember him as that eccentric guy in the coffee shop.
- zeroer 10y ago
  > Bloom has been published in arxiv.org LOL
- ikeyany 10y ago
  The URL itself is outrageous, let alone the bio.
voidhorse 10y ago
I prefer Harold's work myself, and at first glance thought this piece was by him, and was, admittedly, for reasons any other fans of his work probably can understand, quite surprised.
slantaclaus 10y ago
Compared to what?
swayvil 10y ago
This bit is nice Crowds of silent voices whisper in our ears, transforming the nature of what we see and hear.
adrianratnapala 10y ago
I am still reading it, but already I see it unnecessarily engages in a postmodernist-like confusion of map and territory. > Yet you know sure as you were born that there's a broader world outside ... [you know a bunch of other things about reality] ... At this instant, reading by yourself, where do these realities reside? Inside your mind. Memory in a very real sense is reality. Bloom is absolutely right that memory is central to all this. But it's a category error to say that just because your knowledge of reality is through memory, that memory is the only realitiy. Ok, it's logically possible there is no external reality, and all that exists is just my (Ratnapala's) memory. But even then the distinction remains. Then, the lying medium (memory) is real, but the content of those memories is not a reality.
- sp332 10y ago
  I don't think it's talking about external reality. It's talking about the past. Your memories are the real, even physical residue of your experience of the past. And the past doesn't exist anymore in any other form.
  - orly_bookz 10y ago
    And then the fun part is that every time you remember a memory, you re-encode it and (probably) slightly alter it. When you vividly remember an event from a decade ago it most likely did not happen like you remember. They've done longitudinal studies on people's memories of things like JFK assassination and 9/11. People swear they remember it clear as day but it never really matches up to what they were actually doing... Memories are bunk, is my point. Only media can really record history.
    - collyw 10y ago
      And media can be manipulated. Its like 1984 when you think about it.
    - Nadya 10y ago
      >Memories are bunk, is my point. Only media can really record history. I don't trust media because Berenstein bears is the proper spelling [0]. I died when I was 6 years old after an asthma attack and shifted into another timeline where I survived. It shares most of the same details but likes to throw a few typos in to check if I'm paying attention. I'm not sure the purpose of these tests, but I'm sure I'll figure it out. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confabulation#Mandela_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confabulation#Mandela_effect /s While confabulation is a severe problem with human memory, I don't trust media because history is written by the winners.
peter303 10y ago
Extremely ancient idea in eastern philosophy. Though they dont assign anatomical causes.
- kleer001 10y ago
  ... and the shoe gazing hobby horse of literally every 150th high school nerd.
anonymouslee 10y ago
If you're into this sort of thing you might enjoy a more rigorous treatment from an actual neuroscientist, David Eagleman. http://www.pbs.org/the-brain-with-david-eagleman/episodes/what-is-reality/ http://www.pbs.org/the-brain-with-david-eagleman/episodes/wh...
zer0gravity 10y ago
Evolutionary this makes sense. When the ways in which you can die far outreach the way in which you can stay alive, if you don't adopt fast the correct rules you're gone. And you do that by just copying the behaviour of individuals you perceive. It's called imprinting. However as the individual matures ( talking about humans here ) this should fade away, and critical thinking should take its place, but apparently doesn't really happen.
FrankyHollywood 10y ago
Well since we can't prove it isn't true, it must be true. Just like invisible gods :)

173 points by MichaelAO 10y ago

tumbas 10y ago

but what are halucinations then? #pressTheIssue

overcast 10y ago

Quite the imagination on this one.

jhallenworld 10y ago

Reality is a MUSH? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MUSH https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MUSH

randomdrake 10y ago

This was a cool read. Fun to dig through the Internet to figure out where the article came from. Searching around, this appears to be Part VIII of a collection from Howard Bloom[1] entitled "History of the Global Brain" that looks to have been written over the course of 1997 for Telepolis[2]. It looks like these writings were put together in a book, published in 2000, called Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind from the Big Bang to the 21st Century[3]. There are a lot more links, images, formatting, and other stuff in the original articles. You can start with Part I of this series, called "Biology, Evolution and the Global Brain," still available online[4]. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Bloom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Bloom [2] - http://www.heise.de/tp/artikel/2/2227/1.html http://www.heise.de/tp/artikel/2/2227/1.html [3] - http://www.abebooks.com/9780471295846/Global-Brain-Evolution-Mass-Mind-0471295841/plp http://www.abebooks.com/9780471295846/Global-Brain-Evolution... [4] - http://www.heise.de/tp/artikel/2/2102/1.html http://www.heise.de/tp/artikel/2/2102/1.html

zeko 10y ago

I was actually hoping that this would be an article explaining how reality is literally a shared hallucination, and not just an eye grabbing metaphor for explaining how non-autistic people perceive reality.

lisper 10y ago
It's actually the literal truth if you take a quantum-mechanical view: http://www.flownet.com/ron/QM.pdf http://www.flownet.com/ron/QM.pdf https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEaecUuEqfc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEaecUuEqfc
- wyager 10y ago
  No, it's not. QM doesn't have any confirmed solution to the measurement problem, and no seriously considered solution has anything to do with intelligent observation or consciousness. Anyone who claims to have a profound philosophical argument inspired by QM is almost certainly a charlatan.
  - Noseshine 10y ago
    A "philosophical" argument is pretty useless. Unless you manage to devise experiments for your those theories. And QFT can at least inform you about "reality" - and how little the one in a human head has to do with it. Since QFT is "real" (shown to work), if our perception was based on "reality" we should not have had such trouble to a) come up with it, and b) understand it.
    - wyager 10y ago
      Our perception of reality absolutely agrees with QFT -- in the medium-energy medium-scale environments that humans operate in. Everyday physics is a limiting case of QFT. Our mental heuristics don't work for very high/low energies or small/large scales because we don't operate on those scales. We had no reason to evolve other heuristics.
      - deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
      - Noseshine 10y ago
        I think I understand your point - but I had a very different angle. What you write actually is fully in support with my point. You simply declare as "reality" that what you perceive, the model we (our brains) have come up with. But that's exactly it - that's your version of "reality" created by how you look at it - with "macro" sensors. Different sensors would have a different result. In addition we don't even have raw sensor data in our mental world model, instead the data is extremely processed before it is assembled to our mental model of the world. Take a neuroscience course on perception, I recommend. Somebody said we live in a VR world created by our brains, and that is a good fit. Of course the input that goes into creating that "VR world" is from sensors getting data from interactions with the actual world. If you don't understand what my point is don't say "you are wrong".

callesgg 10y ago

Here is a quote from an article about consciousness "One of the processes important in perception is the comparing of current input with similar past experience. When we see a friend, a memory image of his face is presented to our consciousness along with the sensation of his actual present appearance. This memory image (which can be called a schema) blends with the current sensation, so that the perception is a combination of the two. The relative strengths of each source of information probably vary from person to person." It not scientific or proven true. It does however work as a model for a part of peoples perception that fits quite well to peoples behavior.

jplasmeier 10y ago
I think we put a little bit too much faith in the scientific process for dealing with cognitive processes (note: I have little background in cogsci or related fields, just books I've read). There's so much happening in our unconscious minds that is difficult or impossible to scientifically dissect. This applies to physical, quantitative methods (measuring the possibly quantum coherent electron transfer inside our brains, or actually getting a grip on the LFP of every neuron in a brain, etc.) as well as more qualitative approaches in psychology/cogsci (language limits this). Neuroscience is making leaps (I'm currently reading "The Neural Basis of Free Will" by Tse [0], it's tough as I've not take a neuro course but it's fascinating) but lacking a "reflective" ability outside of our experience will limit what we can truly know about our experience. It seems waxing philosophically is our only option, barring some kind of breakthrough. [0] https://www.amazon.com/Neural-Basis-Free-Will-Criterial/dp/0262528312 https://www.amazon.com/Neural-Basis-Free-Will-Criterial/dp/0...
aidenn0 10y ago
I'm not sure how you can simultaneously claim that a model has predictive power but is not scientific.
- callesgg 10y ago
  It is my personal experience/opinion not something that is scientifically proven.

tealounge 10y ago

In case anyone is interested in the author's bio: http://howardbloom.net/howard-bloom/about-howard-bloom/ http://howardbloom.net/howard-bloom/about-howard-bloom/ Howard is a piece of work, he used to always sit in the exact same chair in a Brooklyn cafe every night for years. It is now closed and I wonder where he ended up. I haven't given his work a chance, I'll admit, mainly because of that outrageous bio and the content of some of his work. I'd prefer to remember him as that eccentric guy in the coffee shop.

zeroer 10y ago
> Bloom has been published in arxiv.org LOL
ikeyany 10y ago
The URL itself is outrageous, let alone the bio.

voidhorse 10y ago

I prefer Harold's work myself, and at first glance thought this piece was by him, and was, admittedly, for reasons any other fans of his work probably can understand, quite surprised.

slantaclaus 10y ago

Compared to what?

swayvil 10y ago

This bit is nice Crowds of silent voices whisper in our ears, transforming the nature of what we see and hear.

adrianratnapala 10y ago

I am still reading it, but already I see it unnecessarily engages in a postmodernist-like confusion of map and territory. > Yet you know sure as you were born that there's a broader world outside ... [you know a bunch of other things about reality] ... At this instant, reading by yourself, where do these realities reside? Inside your mind. Memory in a very real sense is reality. Bloom is absolutely right that memory is central to all this. But it's a category error to say that just because your knowledge of reality is through memory, that memory is the only realitiy. Ok, it's logically possible there is no external reality, and all that exists is just my (Ratnapala's) memory. But even then the distinction remains. Then, the lying medium (memory) is real, but the content of those memories is not a reality.

sp332 10y ago
I don't think it's talking about external reality. It's talking about the past. Your memories are the real, even physical residue of your experience of the past. And the past doesn't exist anymore in any other form.
- orly_bookz 10y ago
  And then the fun part is that every time you remember a memory, you re-encode it and (probably) slightly alter it. When you vividly remember an event from a decade ago it most likely did not happen like you remember. They've done longitudinal studies on people's memories of things like JFK assassination and 9/11. People swear they remember it clear as day but it never really matches up to what they were actually doing... Memories are bunk, is my point. Only media can really record history.
  - collyw 10y ago
    And media can be manipulated. Its like 1984 when you think about it.
  - Nadya 10y ago
    >Memories are bunk, is my point. Only media can really record history. I don't trust media because Berenstein bears is the proper spelling [0]. I died when I was 6 years old after an asthma attack and shifted into another timeline where I survived. It shares most of the same details but likes to throw a few typos in to check if I'm paying attention. I'm not sure the purpose of these tests, but I'm sure I'll figure it out. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confabulation#Mandela_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confabulation#Mandela_effect /s While confabulation is a severe problem with human memory, I don't trust media because history is written by the winners.

peter303 10y ago

Extremely ancient idea in eastern philosophy. Though they dont assign anatomical causes.

kleer001 10y ago
... and the shoe gazing hobby horse of literally every 150th high school nerd.

anonymouslee 10y ago

If you're into this sort of thing you might enjoy a more rigorous treatment from an actual neuroscientist, David Eagleman. http://www.pbs.org/the-brain-with-david-eagleman/episodes/what-is-reality/ http://www.pbs.org/the-brain-with-david-eagleman/episodes/wh...

zer0gravity 10y ago

Evolutionary this makes sense. When the ways in which you can die far outreach the way in which you can stay alive, if you don't adopt fast the correct rules you're gone. And you do that by just copying the behaviour of individuals you perceive. It's called imprinting. However as the individual matures ( talking about humans here ) this should fade away, and critical thinking should take its place, but apparently doesn't really happen.

FrankyHollywood 10y ago

Well since we can't prove it isn't true, it must be true. Just like invisible gods :)