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Rhizoid
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Representative Realism
#1805678 - 08/12/03 01:00 PM (20 years, 8 months ago) |
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I found out one day that there is a name for the world view I have had since I was a kid. It's called "Representative Realism". It says that we never experience the world outside our own minds directly. All we humans can experience is an inner world of perceptions created by our own minds. The normal "baseline" mode of experience is to create perceptions that correlate with signals from the outside world, signals that are received through our senses. But the created perceptions don't always correlate very well with the signals, as is sometimes revealed after double-checking the signal. However, the experience of such perceptions appears just as real as any well-correlated perception.
When I first tried LSD, the open-eye visuals demonstrated very clearly that the world perceived is something that depends on the state of my brain, and that it can deviate quite a lot from an inner world that is well-correlated with outside reality.
So my LSD experiences strongly confirmed my world view of representative realism (which I didn't know had a name), and I always assumed that other people who tried hallucinogens would find a similar understanding of the nature of human experience, if they didn't have it before. But it seems I was wrong about that, because I have since encountered psychonauts with world views that range from pure subjective idealism to naive direct realism.
But still, even in my most profound psychedelic experience (which was with shrooms), I have had no reason to believe that what I remember from the experience was anything other than percepts existing within my head. That doesn't make it one bit less profound, however.
If the nature of perception is representation, then it makes sense why we experience things like shapes, colors, faces, words, etc, and not the underlying medium upon which the representations are created (the electrochemical firing patterns of neurons in the brain). And it opens the door to other possible mediums for representation, and also raises the question of where exactly the boundary between the correlates (the originating reality and its representation) is located: If the percept is an abstract pattern, then it may represent many elements of reality at once that are correlated with it.
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Malachi
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Re: Representative Realism [Re: Rhizoid]
#1805852 - 08/12/03 01:36 PM (20 years, 8 months ago) |
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this sound like what I've heard termed "perceptionism", a relativistic compromise. ?
could you explain "pure subjective idealism to naive direct realism"?
-------------------- The ultimate meaning of our being can only be fulfilled in the paradoxical leap beyond the tragic-demonic frustration. It is a leap from our side, but it is the self-surrendering presence of the Ground of Being from the other side. - Paul Tillich
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Rhizoid
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Re: Representative Realism [Re: Malachi]
#1808295 - 08/13/03 02:33 AM (20 years, 8 months ago) |
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Naive direct realism is when you say that reality exists independently of your mind, and that you perceive that reality directly, and you know intuitively the nature of reality.
Subjective idealism is when you say that there is no reality except for peoples minds, and there are no external objects that give rise to perceptions. There are just minds and perceptions within those minds. The illusion of an objective reality is just a conspirational game our minds play for fun. Any subjective percept is just as real as any so-called objective percept.
That's my understanding of these philosophies, but I have probably missed something.
The tripper who is a direct realist doesn't interpret hallucinations as the effects of altered brain functions, he interprets them as a different parallel universe which is just as real as ours, to which his mind is temporary transported through the magic of LSD.
The tripper who is an idealist thinks that reality is all in the mind anyway, so LSD is just something that tricks him into changing his mind for a while.
I've seen both of these types. Some more comparisons:
To a direct realist, a tree falling in the forest makes a sound even if nobody hears it, because that is an effect that falling trees always have.
To an idealist, a tree falling in the forest can't exist if no one perceives it, so of course there is no sound.
To a representative realist, a tree falling in the forest makes the air vibrate even if nobody hears it, but there is no sound because sound is a perception, while vibrating air is the reality that correlates to the sound perceived.
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fireworks_god
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Re: Representative Realism [Re: Rhizoid]
#1808371 - 08/13/03 04:01 AM (20 years, 8 months ago) |
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Representative Realism is a pretty sound way of looking at things. I believe that is the way my mind works, although I think that there is a lot more reality than what we are exposed to, and I never shut my mind out from those possibilites.. I believe that the world that we are in IS real. However, I also believe that there are other things beyond what we normally experience as real, that we are only capable of seeing so much right now.
It always seems to me that I experience things a little bit more than most, that I am capable of seeing what is really going on.. sort of hard to explain. Like, when I am in a given situation, I look at things from the viewpoint of us as actors following different roles, when someone does something, I think about their motivations, what is really going on.. I would definitley make a great script writer, and my imagination is so vivid, I'd be the best. I actually plan to get into that, after I find some success in the music world, because that is a game I want to play, too. I'll be able to use those connections to put out the movies, too, like Rob Zombie.
Anyways, yeah. Peace.
-------------------- If I should die this very moment I wouldn't fear For I've never known completeness Like being here Wrapped in the warmth of you Loving every breath of you
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ShadowsEnd
Give me 1 shroomrating plz!
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Ya man Rob Zombie makes some sick movies. Have you seen "The house of 1000 corpses" That movie is stright fucked up.
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fireworks_god
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Re: Representative Realism [Re: ShadowsEnd]
#1808896 - 08/13/03 10:21 AM (20 years, 8 months ago) |
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I haven't seen it, but I've heard a lot about it..
I'd be making all kinds of movies, entire worlds.. I know I'm definitely capable of some fucking killer ones, too. A lot of it would be rooted in comedy, too. All I can say is this "the illegal weasel trade", "The Man-Beast", and many more concepts... unbelieveable. Peace.
-------------------- If I should die this very moment I wouldn't fear For I've never known completeness Like being here Wrapped in the warmth of you Loving every breath of you
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Deiymiyan
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Re: Representative Realism [Re: Rhizoid]
#1812983 - 08/14/03 09:43 AM (20 years, 8 months ago) |
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"It says that we never experience the world outside our own minds directly. All we humans can experience is an inner world of perceptions created by our own minds." ------------------------------
A few years back, I had a friend who was doing a post-graduate in Psychology.
He once told me that one purpose of our brain was to act as a filter because there is so much information out there... To prevent one from insanity due to information overload.
Question: Would it seem plausible that use of various mind altering substances "open up" that filter, thereby, causing more info to enter?
He also mentionned, that, what we do, when we think, is simply remembering. So I guess, even when you come up with a novel idea, based on that tidbit of info, you are, in fact, remembering something that was always with you to begin with.
Any thoughts?
-------------------- Dei Gratia de integro, Veni Vidi Vici: In Nomine Domini..
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Swami
Eggshell Walker
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Re: Representative Realism [Re: Deiymiyan]
#1813070 - 08/14/03 10:21 AM (20 years, 8 months ago) |
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He once told me that one purpose of our brain was to act as a filter because there is so much information out there... To prevent one from insanity due to information overload. Without senses and the brain's processing of such input, there is nothing to filter. Once the information is coming in, then the brain "decides" what information is important. So the filtering is obviously secondary. For example, when you look at a scene, your brain typically only processes the difference between the scene a moment ago and the current scene, which is how we more easily detect movement.
Question: Would it seem plausible that use of various mind altering substances "open up" that filter, thereby, causing more info to enter? This is not quite right. More info does not enter, but the brain loses some of its ability to discern what is important, so more is brought into awareness causing possible sensory overload. For example, you are typing an e-mail while the radio is playing. Under normal conditions, you might not even be aware of what song was playing as your brain deems that a distraction to the task at hand. While tripping, you may be unable to lower the "noise".
-------------------- The proof is in the pudding.
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fireworks_god
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Re: Representative Realism [Re: Swami]
#1813090 - 08/14/03 10:27 AM (20 years, 8 months ago) |
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Quote:
Swami said: [This is not quite right. More info does not enter, but the brain loses some of its ability to discern what is important....you may be unable to lower the "noise".
So, is this good or bad? Sometimes we are programmed to think things have the most importance, when in fact they shouldn't... Peace.
-------------------- If I should die this very moment I wouldn't fear For I've never known completeness Like being here Wrapped in the warmth of you Loving every breath of you
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Deiymiyan
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Re: Representative Realism [Re: Swami]
#1813269 - 08/14/03 11:24 AM (20 years, 8 months ago) |
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"Without senses and the brain's processing of such input, there is nothing to filter. Once the information is coming in, then the brain "decides" what information is important. So the filtering is obviously secondary." ------------------
Agreed. ============
"....the "noise"." ------------------
I think, we are speaking synonymously on this part... Albeit, my choice of words could have been better.
When I said: "..causing more info to enter.", you called it "noise".
By having more info to consciously deal with, in terms of processing, at such a given moment, you seem to support it when you said: "...so more is brought into awareness... ".
However, due to increased confusion of the brain's now altered way of processing this input relating to some of the effects of a particular substance, it becomes difficult to focus on any one thing.
Perhaps that is partly why, in that case, remembering becomes fuzzy...
The focus of a tripping mind, then, would appear to "open up".
-------------------- Dei Gratia de integro, Veni Vidi Vici: In Nomine Domini..
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Rhizoid
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Re: Representative Realism [Re: Deiymiyan]
#1822073 - 08/17/03 04:03 AM (20 years, 8 months ago) |
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Aldous Huxley compared the brain to a valve in The Doors of Perception:
According to such a theory, each one of us is potentially Mind at Large. But in so far as we are animals, our business is at all costs to survive. To make biological survival possible, Mind at Large has to be funneled through the reducing valve of the brain and nervous system. What comes out at the other end is a measly trickle of the kind of consciousness which will help us to stay alive on the surface of this Particular planet. To formulate and express the contents of this reduced awareness, man has invented and endlessly elaborated those symbol-systems and implicit philosophies which we call languages. Every individual is at once the beneficiary and the victim of the linguistic tradition into which he has been born--the beneficiary inasmuch as language gives access to the accumulated records of other people's experience, the victim in so far as it confirms him in the belief that reduced awareness is the only awareness and as it bedevils his sense of reality, so that he is all too apt to take his concepts for data, his words for actual things.
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fireworks_god
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Re: Representative Realism [Re: Rhizoid]
#1822079 - 08/17/03 04:16 AM (20 years, 8 months ago) |
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That makes sense to me, and if a certain mushroom has the ability to open the valve and let everything flow through for awhile, then what is wrong with that? hehe Peace.
-------------------- If I should die this very moment I wouldn't fear For I've never known completeness Like being here Wrapped in the warmth of you Loving every breath of you
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