Perception and Reality
DABBLING IN THE WEIRD STUFF
“Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.”
—Albert Einstein
Have you ever wondered whether everyone sees colors the same way? What if the color you call red, someone else calls blue? Whenever she looks at the sky, she sees what you call red, but she has always been taught that the color she sees in the sky is called “blue,” so that is the name she gives it. There is no way to prove that such inconsistencies don’t exist, because we only have access to our own sensations. Even if we agree about the properties of light waves and that their corresponding effect on brain activity is generally the same for everyone, it does not necessarily follow that individual experiences of color are identical.
The color conundrum is just one of many puzzles raised by the interaction of perception and reality. To understand the physical properties of any object, like a piece of artwork, we must rely on our senses, but how much can they really tell us about reality? What can you say with complete confidence about the cover of this book? You might say that it is smooth, or solid. But, on a microscopic level, it may contain mountainous peaks and valleys, and on an even smaller scale, its subatomic particles might not even be touching! So what is it like in reality? Can we ever know? —CKG
QUESTIONS TO PONDER
•When you analyze a piece of artwork, are you analyzing its objective reality or just your subjective experience of it?
•Is all of reality relative to experience, or are there certain truths that are the same for everyone? If so, what are they?