9 ms·

Reality by Consensus

77 points by tomlockwood 5y ago

pjc50 5y ago
Bit heavy on the metaphor here? This reminds me a lot of Three Body Problem, one of the premises of which is that there is an alien civilisation that can mess with particle accelerators to prevent us from discovering how the universe actually works.
- tomlockwood 5y ago
  Even unfavourably comparing something I wrote to that book is a huge compliment!
kaetemi 5y ago
If my something changes, and someone "remembers" it always being like that, that sounds like gaslighting.
- quinnjh 5y ago
  Gaslighting works. The foundation of western culture is the greeks right? Because the greeks didnt get their knowledge from Kemet (egypt) before burning the library of alexandria right? I mean yeah the library got burnt but im sure there wasnt much in there right? And the maya... they had their thousands of books reduced to three. But we know about their culture because of cortez's descriptions right? They were awful bloodthirsty savages right? The three books left from their culture must have perfectly summed it up right? Reality is built on gaslighting at a point
h2odragon 5y ago
If you decide to defer "what is true?" to your tribe; you're still making the decision of "is this true or not", just adding in "what does the tribe think?" as another factor. As we cannot communicate perfectly, it's actually "What do I think the tribe thinks?" and even less likely to be a useful input. We keep doing that, then blaming the tribe for our misconceptions.
- tomlockwood 5y ago
  I see the language surrounding "tribes" a lot, and I wonder if the people using that language naturally and spontaneously evolved it, or if they encountered it somewhere - perhaps in their own "area", which they definitely wouldn't call their own tribe. The conceptual framework of tribes, in this context, seems to be applied similarly whenever I hear about it. And then similarly, the people who talk about tribalism seem to have decided, that they have risen above such things.
  - h2odragon 5y ago
    "Tribe" is not the best word in this context; it implies more connection... The group of people one looks to for confirmation of perceptions need not be "people you know and trust", just "people around you." However, I still hold that the opinion of 10 idiots is not intrinsically better than the opinion of a single idiot.
  - Bancakes 5y ago
    >they have risen above such things. We physically don't live in tribes, so it's a fallacy to mentally live in one. Being born in a tribe practically predetermines your life for the worse - takes out opportunity for change and immigration.
    - pasquinelli 5y ago
      i'm going out on a limb to say the comment wasn't about the word "tribe" or the merit of a tribe, it was about how people mimic each other without thinking. if what you think of as reality is determined by the group it will be in the million ways you never would've thought about. this is why people talk so often in tropes: the thoughts they're expressing aren't their own, they're just repeating tropes they hear. this way of talking of your tribe is just an example trope.
      - Bancakes 5y ago
        Do most people function like that in your honest opinion? Do you?
HKH2 5y ago
Our values are somewhat driven by consensus, and since we project onto the world the things we already know/believe in, I would say we do live in a reality partially defined by consensus, as far as we perceive it. I don't think you could demonstrate that you're not living in a reality by consensus. That would be proving a negative anyway.
RappingBoomer 5y ago
yeah, this is mostly true...see for example the entire academic school of existential psychology known as Terror Management Theory...there are a number of good books in this area, such as The Worm at the Core: The Role of Death in Life...also see the book Corruption of Reality by Schumaker... basically these books and the entire TMT field derives from anthropology and sees mankind as a social animal adapted to his environment, and that we are shaped by evolution to be adapted to our environment as a social animal and that nearly everything about mankind is some sort of evolutionary adaption, including our definition of reality...you might say that reality is defined socially...we are social animals, after all... one of schumaker's arguments is that because of our awareness of inevitable death, we filter and corrupt reality as part of an adaptation to our environment...we do this as cultural entities and not as individuals
- kkoncevicius 5y ago
  You probably meant to write "evolutionary psychology" instead of "existential psychology" ?
  - RappingBoomer 5y ago
    no, but you could say that existential psychology as it mainly exists today is merely a subset of evolutionary psychology.
    - mxmilkiib 5y ago
      Evolutionary psychology has been critiqued for being too essentialist, and essentialism and existentialism are relatively opposite concepts, so I'm curious as to how the situation you describe has come about.
      - RappingBoomer 5y ago
        sounds like word salad to me, but hey, that's just me...
Barrin92 5y ago
Article touches on a lot of 19th century pragmatist discussions on truth. William James gives a succinct description of the relationship between reality and consensus, and abstract/concrete ideas: "The popular notion is that a true idea must copy its reality. Like other popular views, this one follows the analogy of the most usual experience. Our true ideas of sensible things do indeed copy them. Shut your eyes and think of yonder clock on the wall, and you get just such a true picture or copy of its dial. But your idea of its 'works' (unless you are a clockmaker) is much less of a copy, yet it passes muster, for it in no way clashes with reality. Even though it should shrink to the mere word 'works', that word still serves you truly; and when you speak of the 'time-keeping function' of the clock, or of its spring's 'elasticity', it is hard to see exactly what your ideas can copy" So it is true that we 'make truth', but we do not make it as we please, as truth-making at some level is a discourse with physical reality and has to cohere.
- fallat 5y ago
  > [...] it is true that we 'make truth', but we do not make it as we please, as truth-making at some level is a discourse with physical reality and has to cohere. I love this. Thank you.
- bobthechef 5y ago
  > abstract/concrete ideas If by "idea" you mean "concept", then they can only be abstract. Images are of concrete things. "and when you speak of the 'time-keeping function' of the clock, or of its spring's 'elasticity', it is hard to see exactly what your ideas can copy" This sounds very imagist and Humean. Take any principle or any concept. Can you see the law of contradiction? The primality of numbers? That the sum of the angles of all triangles is 180 degrees? What about your concept of triangle? No, not the image in your mind right now. That's just one particular triangle with definite color and shape. I mean the concept of triangularity, that which is true of all triangles and that which makes the aforementioned law of triangles true. You can't imagine that either. Indeed, this is the basis for the Aristotelian proof of the immateriality of the intellect. If all material things are concrete (this or that triangle), and all concepts are universal (they apply to multiple things but do not exist on their own as such), then the intellect is not material. For if it was material, then it could not "contain" abstract concepts, only concrete images of particular triangles.
danbruc 5y ago
This makes no sense. This is about filter bubbles, right? With a dose solipsism so that minds can bend reality? Whether you or someone else or everyone else remembers or misremembers or not remembers the color of your first car has no bearing on the color or the existence of your first car. It has nothing to do with consciousness either, a photo of the car can also tell you what color it was. You or a group you belong to can hold all kind of believes about the world, consistent or not with reality. You can change or forget them but those believes will not alter reality. Or maybe I just don't get the point.
- fipar 5y ago
  But what you believe alters reality, there’s a feedback loop involved. I get your point that the color of your first car won’t change, but is there even an objective color to that car? My dad is colorblind and sees some colors differently than me. What’s the real one? If the numbers were reversed and the majority of population perceived as colorblind people do while I would be the minority, would that change the color of the car? I bet you’d say of course not because we can, say, measure the wavelength of the light deflected off the car at noon and agree on a color name based on the result. And I agree with that. But still, the color as perceived by someone can change reality. Just imagine a command such as “follow the red car” and whether the person carrying out the command is colorblind or not. Of course, there are real-life examples where the collective perception of reality ends up changing the actual reality and that are far more concerning than a car’s color (enough people believing something has led to wars, stonings, etc)
  - danbruc 5y ago
    Of course, there are real-life examples where the collective perception of reality ends up changing the actual reality and that are far more concerning than a car’s color (enough people believing something has led to wars, stonings, etc) I mean that is uncontroversial but one has to be careful. Perceptions and believes about one thing might affect the course of the future and things in the world, it will however not affect the thing you perceived. Your perception and believe about the color of the car can have all kind of effects in the world but they have no effect on the actual color of the car.
mdrzn 5y ago
I'm not sure about what I've read, but I have a headache now.
- jonnycomputer 5y ago
  I think the consensus is that you do not have a headache. Obviously you are only imagining it.
fipar 5y ago
This is not the same concept but it reminded me of the Collective Cognitive Imperative as introduced by Julian Jaynes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_cognitive_imperative https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_cognitive_imperativ... I may be misremembering (which, in a way, I suppose would be fit for the topic) but I don’t recall the emphasis on “joining a cult” that I get from the Wikipedia entry. My recollection is more along the lines of what enough people believe and understand influences what is perceived as real (a god speaking through an oracle) and what isn’t.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
yodegge 5y ago
This is one of the fundamental mysteries of quantum mechanics called the "observer effect". Experiments have proven that particles change their essence at the instant moment they are being observed. This discussion is not only philosophical, we can prove perception changes everything. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZH9OfoM1MiU https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZH9OfoM1MiU
- ben_w 5y ago
  That popsci video is — out of necessity, this is not a criticism of those in it — a massive oversimplification. One of the arguments on this topic is if there even is an observer effect at all, with one alternative being that the quantum wave function never collapses, instead it is our own wave function becoming entangled with that of the particles we observe: the part of us which observes |A> is correlated with the part of the particle wave function in state |A>, the part of us which observes |B> with the part of the particle wave function in state |B>. (And I'm also oversimplifying, because I’m still learning this stuff).
  - sumtechguy 5y ago
    The one issue I have always had with the 'observer' problem is that everything is 'seen' by something. But then I am a dullard on this junk and probably have it wildly wrong :)
    - ben_w 5y ago
      My (limited) understanding is that the problem you’re raising is exactly why quantum computers are difficult. I think it’s something like: yes, everything is “seen” by the rest of the universe, but “seeing” is done with discreet did-or-didnt happen events (mostly photons) which can be suppressed.
- hoseja 5y ago
  The observer effect has nothing to do with observers, it's just that entangling with large systems decoheres small systems where you can observe quantum effects.
defanor 5y ago
I expected that the article will draw an analogy with quantum mechanics (with "refresh" corresponding to measurement and entanglement, "forgetting" resembling a quantum eraser), or maybe lazy evaluation, but it went into search bubbling instead. Still a fun analogy, and nicely written, but not quite sure what's the point of the article.
- Filligree 5y ago
  This set of ideas is exceedingly interesting for use in fiction. There’s been quite a few different examples in the past, and I’m working on another one right now. I absolutely appreciated the extra perspective.
  - 34679 5y ago
    You may also be in interested in the Kantian view that true reality is unknowable, as all human knowledge is skewed by our perception. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noumenon https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noumenon
efitz 5y ago
It seems to me that the essay is attempting to describe the Google search engine.
gremlinsinc 5y ago
I'm a logical person. Thought myself well-grounded, agnostic after leaving Mormonism...etc... then last year I went down a rabbit hole on some Mandela effects, esp. ones that flip/flop. Short of it is - the Movie Apollo 13... I remembered it has "Houston we have a problem!" with frantic Tom Hanks. I was reading how it's the most misquoted movie line, and is actually "Houston we've had", and that a lot of people have seen this flip back and forth between the two states. Well, I double checked on youtube and sure enough... Houston We've HAD a problem was the correct/current iteration. Tom Hanks was also a bit more 'cool' like I'd imagine the real astronauts were... My wife watched it with me and can verify. Fast forward just 3 days. I'm reading a list of Mandela Effects still intrigued by things like the Cornucopia in Fruit of the Loom never existing... On this list: Apollo 13 Movie, previous: Houston We've Had a problem, current: Houston we HAVE a problem. Well, I immediately thought it was a typo. Till I opened youtube. It's now a more frantic Tom Hanks + Houston we HAVE a problem and different camera angles, etc. Oddly, just about all the links out there claiming it's the most 'misquoted movieline' are still there on many different sites from Buzzfeed to Ebaumsworld. Yet, that ONLY works if the ACTUAL line is Houston We've Had a Problem, because as you can probably attest -- in all of pop culture when that line is uttered it is almost 100% "Houston We have a Problem". In fact when I first saw the We've Had version, I chalked it up to bad memory because ...well it's just such an ubiquitous line and is used everywhere, in countless movies/tv-shows etc... My wife can attest - she witnessed the flip too. For like 3 months after that, I kinda went down some weird rabbit holes trying to find some control of the 'matrix' or simulation...before coming back down to earth. It rocked my world view. Personally, I think we're either a simulation or that the entire universe is conscious and what we think we're experiencing is a dream of sorts or something, the only way I'd buy multiverse is maybe if the multiverse is reaching some sort of entropy so worlds are 'popping' like bubbles and colliding so that people from different timelines end up together and dispute reality. If it's a simulation though, I was thinking this same thought that - everything we perceive or believe is a result of consensus, but I don't even think it's total human consensus -as much as it is potential network consensus... if 51% of the people you're likely to connect/network with online or off believe that it's Houston We've Had a Problem, that's what you'll see... say there's a deadly pandemic and people are dropping like flies, maybe those networks change faster... and thus things flip flop back and forth more... The biggest Mandela Effects seem to be related to popular content, so it's usually things where there easily has the majority of people who at least have a memory of something one way or another. For instance there's lots of biblical MEs like there used to be a scripture about the lion laying down w/ the lamb, but it never happened. There's also many spots in the bible where it feels like the word 'things' should be 'possessions' and 'alien' should be 'stranger'... and I don't even believe in the bible, some would say it's 'Satan', but what's he have against Apollo 13 or the Fruit of the Loom Cornucopia? or "Objects in Mirror MAY Appear closer than they appear" (may be is actually 'Can'). I think it could also be related to quantum physics double eraser / delayed choice experiments, but I'm not convinced that quantum physics doesn't actually lead us to discovering we're simulations. To be honest there's some trippy concepts/theories and actual experiments in that area.
Kim_Bruning 5y ago
There's an RPG that has this as part of the game mechanics: Mage:The Ascension. https://whitewolf.fandom.com/wiki/Consensus https://whitewolf.fandom.com/wiki/Consensus
suby 5y ago
It's an interesting idea which I'm not ready to outright dismiss, but I think we have some evidence that it cannot be completely true. There are universal laws of physics that have given shape to this reality which are not a result of conscious effort to conjure into existence. Look to things like germ theory causing illness well before anyone was consciously aware that it was a thing. Doctors were outright offended at the idea that they could in part be causing patient illness through unsanitary conditions. Still, I've been reading stories like some of those mentioned in this thread (ie: mandala effects) for years which really does make me wonder. I think my view of it tends to be that it's not that we're consciously creating or altering reality merely by having specific thoughts or through some type of force of will, but rather that the things we focus on tend to be shaped by that focus, because the focus and attention manifests in physical actions taken by us where we explore, discover, and build things related to that particular rabbit hole. It's how I've started thinking about the personal projects I work on. The quality of what I produce is a function of the quality of the initial idea + how much focus and attention I give to it. So on an individual level, if I continually have thoughts about a certain subject, these thoughts are likely to manifest in me taking actions which materially changes the universe. For example, I might be overweight and have thoughts about losing the weight, which might eventually lead to diet and exercise. On a more macro scale, I think if people are continually exposed to something they acclimate towards it. It becomes more acceptable. They might start to change their world views. So what enters into the consensus of collective consciousness (ie: large groups of people agreeing on, or at least focusing on a particular subject), it's people being continually pushed narratives and propaganda, as well as everyone being subject to the same laws of physics. For example, Trump either is or isn't a liar depending on the media sources you typically listen to. Another example would be climate change entering the masses consciousness and now (slowly) action being taken to combat it. This collective belief, similar to the losing weight example on an individual level, leads to collective action on a macro level. The universe bends to our will, but only if we are conscious enough to manifest that will. Until then we're just automatica burning the planet.
jonnycomputer 5y ago
Well if the world were to operate that way, and the consensus was tthat it does not operate that way, it would no longer operate that way, presumably ever again.
jerf 5y ago
"Imagine if you forgot what one of the rooms in your house looked like, and when you returned, it had changed, it was “refreshed”. It had refreshed, not into some absurd wonderland of glowing fungi and strange creatures, but to one consistent with what you believed a room ought to be. Perhaps there was a lightswitch outside, that now instead of turning on the fluorescent globe, turned on a LED one. Maybe the books on the shelves had refreshed, but the ones you remembered and remembered reading, had remained." It's a bit of a spoiler to link it in this context, it's really better to stumble on to this cold, but you don't have to imagine: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubNF9QNEQLA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubNF9QNEQLA
- tomlockwood 5y ago
  Amazing! Thanks :D
frameset 5y ago
I am reminded of the Phillip K Dick essay/speech "How to Build a Universe That Doesn’t Fall Apart Two Days Later". https://urbigenous.net/library/how_to_build.html https://urbigenous.net/library/how_to_build.html My particular favourite quote is: One day a girl college student in Canada asked me to define reality for her, for a paper she was writing for her philosophy class. She wanted a one-sentence answer. I thought about it and finally said, “Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away.” That’s all I could come up with.
- tomlockwood 5y ago
  Huge compliment, pkd is my favourite author. Thank you!
- jdonaldson 5y ago
  Ted Chiang has another interesting take on this, namely that perfect memory is often undesirable, and that the past often is molded to fit narratives about the present. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Truth_of_Fact,_the_Truth_of_Feeling https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Truth_of_Fact,_the_Truth...
gerbilly 5y ago
While I don't think that consensus can bend the laws of physics, I believe that humans largely construct their social reality. Buddhists often refer to things which are 'conditioned', i.e. dependent on conditions for their continued existence. Many so called truths humans believe in are conditioned, and also require maintenance (continued belief, and communication of the idea, embedding into institutions and laws etc...) to keep the alive. See: https://www.amazon.com/Social-Construction-Reality-Sociology-Knowledge/dp/0385058985 https://www.amazon.com/Social-Construction-Reality-Sociology...
carapace 5y ago
As far as I have been able to tell, we do live in such a world: reality is a dream, and the only truly concrete fact is subjective awareness. OP asks, "How would someone know they lived in such a world?" Well if you study and practice, like, at all, you find that "magical thinking" of what some call "co-creation" happens. If you keep going like that, you find that reality is fluid, up to the point where you can materialize or de-materialize physical objects including your own body. The time delay between imagining something and having it exist in the "real" world reduces. (This is the resolution of the riddle "Make the inside like the outside and the outside like the inside.") At that point, if you have your head on straight, you start to wonder who is really doing all this? Is it "I"? From there you begin to realize that your own "I" is an illusion and there is only one "I", the I of the Universe. So that's the way "out".
teddyh 5y ago
I prefer this one: The Case Against Reality https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4HFFr0-ybg0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4HFFr0-ybg0
MaxMoney 5y ago
atidbitty 5y ago
"Now imagine there was an algorithm that received signals about your beliefs, and refreshed your environment into something that aligned with them. The algorithm would decide, if you felt that there was a truth about the universe, to show you things consistent with that, and nothing inconsistent with it." you just described recommendation engines lol
- marcofiset 5y ago
  Pretty sure that was exactly the point of that segment.
atidbitty 5y ago
"Imagine if forgotten reality was up for debate! Was your first car yellow, or yellow-green? Did chicken always taste like that?" Imagined reality's memory is up for debate internally since your memories change over time, it is almost like the choice of debate is being taken away between the first version of a memory and subsequent versions as time passes while we keep retelling our memories to ourselves.

77 points by tomlockwood 5y ago

Bit heavy on the metaphor here? This reminds me a lot of Three Body Problem, one of the premises of which is that there is an alien civilisation that can mess with particle accelerators to prevent us from discovering how the universe actually works.

tomlockwood 5y ago
Even unfavourably comparing something I wrote to that book is a huge compliment!

kaetemi 5y ago

If my something changes, and someone "remembers" it always being like that, that sounds like gaslighting.

quinnjh 5y ago
Gaslighting works. The foundation of western culture is the greeks right? Because the greeks didnt get their knowledge from Kemet (egypt) before burning the library of alexandria right? I mean yeah the library got burnt but im sure there wasnt much in there right? And the maya... they had their thousands of books reduced to three. But we know about their culture because of cortez's descriptions right? They were awful bloodthirsty savages right? The three books left from their culture must have perfectly summed it up right? Reality is built on gaslighting at a point

h2odragon 5y ago

If you decide to defer "what is true?" to your tribe; you're still making the decision of "is this true or not", just adding in "what does the tribe think?" as another factor. As we cannot communicate perfectly, it's actually "What do I think the tribe thinks?" and even less likely to be a useful input. We keep doing that, then blaming the tribe for our misconceptions.

tomlockwood 5y ago
I see the language surrounding "tribes" a lot, and I wonder if the people using that language naturally and spontaneously evolved it, or if they encountered it somewhere - perhaps in their own "area", which they definitely wouldn't call their own tribe. The conceptual framework of tribes, in this context, seems to be applied similarly whenever I hear about it. And then similarly, the people who talk about tribalism seem to have decided, that they have risen above such things.
- h2odragon 5y ago
  "Tribe" is not the best word in this context; it implies more connection... The group of people one looks to for confirmation of perceptions need not be "people you know and trust", just "people around you." However, I still hold that the opinion of 10 idiots is not intrinsically better than the opinion of a single idiot.
- Bancakes 5y ago
  >they have risen above such things. We physically don't live in tribes, so it's a fallacy to mentally live in one. Being born in a tribe practically predetermines your life for the worse - takes out opportunity for change and immigration.
  - pasquinelli 5y ago
    i'm going out on a limb to say the comment wasn't about the word "tribe" or the merit of a tribe, it was about how people mimic each other without thinking. if what you think of as reality is determined by the group it will be in the million ways you never would've thought about. this is why people talk so often in tropes: the thoughts they're expressing aren't their own, they're just repeating tropes they hear. this way of talking of your tribe is just an example trope.
    - Bancakes 5y ago
      Do most people function like that in your honest opinion? Do you?

HKH2 5y ago

Our values are somewhat driven by consensus, and since we project onto the world the things we already know/believe in, I would say we do live in a reality partially defined by consensus, as far as we perceive it. I don't think you could demonstrate that you're not living in a reality by consensus. That would be proving a negative anyway.

RappingBoomer 5y ago

yeah, this is mostly true...see for example the entire academic school of existential psychology known as Terror Management Theory...there are a number of good books in this area, such as The Worm at the Core: The Role of Death in Life...also see the book Corruption of Reality by Schumaker... basically these books and the entire TMT field derives from anthropology and sees mankind as a social animal adapted to his environment, and that we are shaped by evolution to be adapted to our environment as a social animal and that nearly everything about mankind is some sort of evolutionary adaption, including our definition of reality...you might say that reality is defined socially...we are social animals, after all... one of schumaker's arguments is that because of our awareness of inevitable death, we filter and corrupt reality as part of an adaptation to our environment...we do this as cultural entities and not as individuals

kkoncevicius 5y ago
You probably meant to write "evolutionary psychology" instead of "existential psychology" ?
- RappingBoomer 5y ago
  no, but you could say that existential psychology as it mainly exists today is merely a subset of evolutionary psychology.
  - mxmilkiib 5y ago
    Evolutionary psychology has been critiqued for being too essentialist, and essentialism and existentialism are relatively opposite concepts, so I'm curious as to how the situation you describe has come about.
    - RappingBoomer 5y ago
      sounds like word salad to me, but hey, that's just me...

Barrin92 5y ago

Article touches on a lot of 19th century pragmatist discussions on truth. William James gives a succinct description of the relationship between reality and consensus, and abstract/concrete ideas: "The popular notion is that a true idea must copy its reality. Like other popular views, this one follows the analogy of the most usual experience. Our true ideas of sensible things do indeed copy them. Shut your eyes and think of yonder clock on the wall, and you get just such a true picture or copy of its dial. But your idea of its 'works' (unless you are a clockmaker) is much less of a copy, yet it passes muster, for it in no way clashes with reality. Even though it should shrink to the mere word 'works', that word still serves you truly; and when you speak of the 'time-keeping function' of the clock, or of its spring's 'elasticity', it is hard to see exactly what your ideas can copy" So it is true that we 'make truth', but we do not make it as we please, as truth-making at some level is a discourse with physical reality and has to cohere.

fallat 5y ago
> [...] it is true that we 'make truth', but we do not make it as we please, as truth-making at some level is a discourse with physical reality and has to cohere. I love this. Thank you.
bobthechef 5y ago
> abstract/concrete ideas If by "idea" you mean "concept", then they can only be abstract. Images are of concrete things. "and when you speak of the 'time-keeping function' of the clock, or of its spring's 'elasticity', it is hard to see exactly what your ideas can copy" This sounds very imagist and Humean. Take any principle or any concept. Can you see the law of contradiction? The primality of numbers? That the sum of the angles of all triangles is 180 degrees? What about your concept of triangle? No, not the image in your mind right now. That's just one particular triangle with definite color and shape. I mean the concept of triangularity, that which is true of all triangles and that which makes the aforementioned law of triangles true. You can't imagine that either. Indeed, this is the basis for the Aristotelian proof of the immateriality of the intellect. If all material things are concrete (this or that triangle), and all concepts are universal (they apply to multiple things but do not exist on their own as such), then the intellect is not material. For if it was material, then it could not "contain" abstract concepts, only concrete images of particular triangles.

danbruc 5y ago

This makes no sense. This is about filter bubbles, right? With a dose solipsism so that minds can bend reality? Whether you or someone else or everyone else remembers or misremembers or not remembers the color of your first car has no bearing on the color or the existence of your first car. It has nothing to do with consciousness either, a photo of the car can also tell you what color it was. You or a group you belong to can hold all kind of believes about the world, consistent or not with reality. You can change or forget them but those believes will not alter reality. Or maybe I just don't get the point.

fipar 5y ago
But what you believe alters reality, there’s a feedback loop involved. I get your point that the color of your first car won’t change, but is there even an objective color to that car? My dad is colorblind and sees some colors differently than me. What’s the real one? If the numbers were reversed and the majority of population perceived as colorblind people do while I would be the minority, would that change the color of the car? I bet you’d say of course not because we can, say, measure the wavelength of the light deflected off the car at noon and agree on a color name based on the result. And I agree with that. But still, the color as perceived by someone can change reality. Just imagine a command such as “follow the red car” and whether the person carrying out the command is colorblind or not. Of course, there are real-life examples where the collective perception of reality ends up changing the actual reality and that are far more concerning than a car’s color (enough people believing something has led to wars, stonings, etc)
- danbruc 5y ago
  Of course, there are real-life examples where the collective perception of reality ends up changing the actual reality and that are far more concerning than a car’s color (enough people believing something has led to wars, stonings, etc) I mean that is uncontroversial but one has to be careful. Perceptions and believes about one thing might affect the course of the future and things in the world, it will however not affect the thing you perceived. Your perception and believe about the color of the car can have all kind of effects in the world but they have no effect on the actual color of the car.

mdrzn 5y ago

I'm not sure about what I've read, but I have a headache now.

jonnycomputer 5y ago
I think the consensus is that you do not have a headache. Obviously you are only imagining it.

fipar 5y ago

This is not the same concept but it reminded me of the Collective Cognitive Imperative as introduced by Julian Jaynes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_cognitive_imperative https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_cognitive_imperativ... I may be misremembering (which, in a way, I suppose would be fit for the topic) but I don’t recall the emphasis on “joining a cult” that I get from the Wikipedia entry. My recollection is more along the lines of what enough people believe and understand influences what is perceived as real (a god speaking through an oracle) and what isn’t.

deleted 5y ago

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yodegge 5y ago

This is one of the fundamental mysteries of quantum mechanics called the "observer effect". Experiments have proven that particles change their essence at the instant moment they are being observed. This discussion is not only philosophical, we can prove perception changes everything. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZH9OfoM1MiU https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZH9OfoM1MiU

ben_w 5y ago
That popsci video is — out of necessity, this is not a criticism of those in it — a massive oversimplification. One of the arguments on this topic is if there even is an observer effect at all, with one alternative being that the quantum wave function never collapses, instead it is our own wave function becoming entangled with that of the particles we observe: the part of us which observes |A> is correlated with the part of the particle wave function in state |A>, the part of us which observes |B> with the part of the particle wave function in state |B>. (And I'm also oversimplifying, because I’m still learning this stuff).
- sumtechguy 5y ago
  The one issue I have always had with the 'observer' problem is that everything is 'seen' by something. But then I am a dullard on this junk and probably have it wildly wrong :)
  - ben_w 5y ago
    My (limited) understanding is that the problem you’re raising is exactly why quantum computers are difficult. I think it’s something like: yes, everything is “seen” by the rest of the universe, but “seeing” is done with discreet did-or-didnt happen events (mostly photons) which can be suppressed.
hoseja 5y ago
The observer effect has nothing to do with observers, it's just that entangling with large systems decoheres small systems where you can observe quantum effects.

defanor 5y ago

I expected that the article will draw an analogy with quantum mechanics (with "refresh" corresponding to measurement and entanglement, "forgetting" resembling a quantum eraser), or maybe lazy evaluation, but it went into search bubbling instead. Still a fun analogy, and nicely written, but not quite sure what's the point of the article.

Filligree 5y ago
This set of ideas is exceedingly interesting for use in fiction. There’s been quite a few different examples in the past, and I’m working on another one right now. I absolutely appreciated the extra perspective.
- 34679 5y ago
  You may also be in interested in the Kantian view that true reality is unknowable, as all human knowledge is skewed by our perception. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noumenon https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noumenon

efitz 5y ago

It seems to me that the essay is attempting to describe the Google search engine.

gremlinsinc 5y ago

I'm a logical person. Thought myself well-grounded, agnostic after leaving Mormonism...etc... then last year I went down a rabbit hole on some Mandela effects, esp. ones that flip/flop. Short of it is - the Movie Apollo 13... I remembered it has "Houston we have a problem!" with frantic Tom Hanks. I was reading how it's the most misquoted movie line, and is actually "Houston we've had", and that a lot of people have seen this flip back and forth between the two states. Well, I double checked on youtube and sure enough... Houston We've HAD a problem was the correct/current iteration. Tom Hanks was also a bit more 'cool' like I'd imagine the real astronauts were... My wife watched it with me and can verify. Fast forward just 3 days. I'm reading a list of Mandela Effects still intrigued by things like the Cornucopia in Fruit of the Loom never existing... On this list: Apollo 13 Movie, previous: Houston We've Had a problem, current: Houston we HAVE a problem. Well, I immediately thought it was a typo. Till I opened youtube. It's now a more frantic Tom Hanks + Houston we HAVE a problem and different camera angles, etc. Oddly, just about all the links out there claiming it's the most 'misquoted movieline' are still there on many different sites from Buzzfeed to Ebaumsworld. Yet, that ONLY works if the ACTUAL line is Houston We've Had a Problem, because as you can probably attest -- in all of pop culture when that line is uttered it is almost 100% "Houston We have a Problem". In fact when I first saw the We've Had version, I chalked it up to bad memory because ...well it's just such an ubiquitous line and is used everywhere, in countless movies/tv-shows etc... My wife can attest - she witnessed the flip too. For like 3 months after that, I kinda went down some weird rabbit holes trying to find some control of the 'matrix' or simulation...before coming back down to earth. It rocked my world view. Personally, I think we're either a simulation or that the entire universe is conscious and what we think we're experiencing is a dream of sorts or something, the only way I'd buy multiverse is maybe if the multiverse is reaching some sort of entropy so worlds are 'popping' like bubbles and colliding so that people from different timelines end up together and dispute reality. If it's a simulation though, I was thinking this same thought that - everything we perceive or believe is a result of consensus, but I don't even think it's total human consensus -as much as it is potential network consensus... if 51% of the people you're likely to connect/network with online or off believe that it's Houston We've Had a Problem, that's what you'll see... say there's a deadly pandemic and people are dropping like flies, maybe those networks change faster... and thus things flip flop back and forth more... The biggest Mandela Effects seem to be related to popular content, so it's usually things where there easily has the majority of people who at least have a memory of something one way or another. For instance there's lots of biblical MEs like there used to be a scripture about the lion laying down w/ the lamb, but it never happened. There's also many spots in the bible where it feels like the word 'things' should be 'possessions' and 'alien' should be 'stranger'... and I don't even believe in the bible, some would say it's 'Satan', but what's he have against Apollo 13 or the Fruit of the Loom Cornucopia? or "Objects in Mirror MAY Appear closer than they appear" (may be is actually 'Can'). I think it could also be related to quantum physics double eraser / delayed choice experiments, but I'm not convinced that quantum physics doesn't actually lead us to discovering we're simulations. To be honest there's some trippy concepts/theories and actual experiments in that area.

Kim_Bruning 5y ago

There's an RPG that has this as part of the game mechanics: Mage:The Ascension. https://whitewolf.fandom.com/wiki/Consensus https://whitewolf.fandom.com/wiki/Consensus

suby 5y ago

It's an interesting idea which I'm not ready to outright dismiss, but I think we have some evidence that it cannot be completely true. There are universal laws of physics that have given shape to this reality which are not a result of conscious effort to conjure into existence. Look to things like germ theory causing illness well before anyone was consciously aware that it was a thing. Doctors were outright offended at the idea that they could in part be causing patient illness through unsanitary conditions. Still, I've been reading stories like some of those mentioned in this thread (ie: mandala effects) for years which really does make me wonder. I think my view of it tends to be that it's not that we're consciously creating or altering reality merely by having specific thoughts or through some type of force of will, but rather that the things we focus on tend to be shaped by that focus, because the focus and attention manifests in physical actions taken by us where we explore, discover, and build things related to that particular rabbit hole. It's how I've started thinking about the personal projects I work on. The quality of what I produce is a function of the quality of the initial idea + how much focus and attention I give to it. So on an individual level, if I continually have thoughts about a certain subject, these thoughts are likely to manifest in me taking actions which materially changes the universe. For example, I might be overweight and have thoughts about losing the weight, which might eventually lead to diet and exercise. On a more macro scale, I think if people are continually exposed to something they acclimate towards it. It becomes more acceptable. They might start to change their world views. So what enters into the consensus of collective consciousness (ie: large groups of people agreeing on, or at least focusing on a particular subject), it's people being continually pushed narratives and propaganda, as well as everyone being subject to the same laws of physics. For example, Trump either is or isn't a liar depending on the media sources you typically listen to. Another example would be climate change entering the masses consciousness and now (slowly) action being taken to combat it. This collective belief, similar to the losing weight example on an individual level, leads to collective action on a macro level. The universe bends to our will, but only if we are conscious enough to manifest that will. Until then we're just automatica burning the planet.

jonnycomputer 5y ago

Well if the world were to operate that way, and the consensus was tthat it does not operate that way, it would no longer operate that way, presumably ever again.

jerf 5y ago

"Imagine if you forgot what one of the rooms in your house looked like, and when you returned, it had changed, it was “refreshed”. It had refreshed, not into some absurd wonderland of glowing fungi and strange creatures, but to one consistent with what you believed a room ought to be. Perhaps there was a lightswitch outside, that now instead of turning on the fluorescent globe, turned on a LED one. Maybe the books on the shelves had refreshed, but the ones you remembered and remembered reading, had remained." It's a bit of a spoiler to link it in this context, it's really better to stumble on to this cold, but you don't have to imagine: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubNF9QNEQLA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubNF9QNEQLA

tomlockwood 5y ago
Amazing! Thanks :D

frameset 5y ago

I am reminded of the Phillip K Dick essay/speech "How to Build a Universe That Doesn’t Fall Apart Two Days Later". https://urbigenous.net/library/how_to_build.html https://urbigenous.net/library/how_to_build.html My particular favourite quote is: One day a girl college student in Canada asked me to define reality for her, for a paper she was writing for her philosophy class. She wanted a one-sentence answer. I thought about it and finally said, “Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away.” That’s all I could come up with.

tomlockwood 5y ago
Huge compliment, pkd is my favourite author. Thank you!
jdonaldson 5y ago
Ted Chiang has another interesting take on this, namely that perfect memory is often undesirable, and that the past often is molded to fit narratives about the present. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Truth_of_Fact,_the_Truth_of_Feeling https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Truth_of_Fact,_the_Truth...

gerbilly 5y ago

While I don't think that consensus can bend the laws of physics, I believe that humans largely construct their social reality. Buddhists often refer to things which are 'conditioned', i.e. dependent on conditions for their continued existence. Many so called truths humans believe in are conditioned, and also require maintenance (continued belief, and communication of the idea, embedding into institutions and laws etc...) to keep the alive. See: https://www.amazon.com/Social-Construction-Reality-Sociology-Knowledge/dp/0385058985 https://www.amazon.com/Social-Construction-Reality-Sociology...

carapace 5y ago

As far as I have been able to tell, we do live in such a world: reality is a dream, and the only truly concrete fact is subjective awareness. OP asks, "How would someone know they lived in such a world?" Well if you study and practice, like, at all, you find that "magical thinking" of what some call "co-creation" happens. If you keep going like that, you find that reality is fluid, up to the point where you can materialize or de-materialize physical objects including your own body. The time delay between imagining something and having it exist in the "real" world reduces. (This is the resolution of the riddle "Make the inside like the outside and the outside like the inside.") At that point, if you have your head on straight, you start to wonder who is really doing all this? Is it "I"? From there you begin to realize that your own "I" is an illusion and there is only one "I", the I of the Universe. So that's the way "out".

teddyh 5y ago

I prefer this one: The Case Against Reality https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4HFFr0-ybg0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4HFFr0-ybg0

MaxMoney 5y ago

atidbitty 5y ago

"Now imagine there was an algorithm that received signals about your beliefs, and refreshed your environment into something that aligned with them. The algorithm would decide, if you felt that there was a truth about the universe, to show you things consistent with that, and nothing inconsistent with it." you just described recommendation engines lol

marcofiset 5y ago
Pretty sure that was exactly the point of that segment.

atidbitty 5y ago

"Imagine if forgotten reality was up for debate! Was your first car yellow, or yellow-green? Did chicken always taste like that?" Imagined reality's memory is up for debate internally since your memories change over time, it is almost like the choice of debate is being taken away between the first version of a memory and subsequent versions as time passes while we keep retelling our memories to ourselves.