From the I-function to the story teller

What I find most fascinating about the idea of taking in, or being altered by, other people's false "realities" or perspectives on reality is the part about it that's integral to every interaction and to every definition of reality. Considering the pervasive nature of the falsity and of the effect everyone has on everyone else, is it even possible to say that the view, system, or reality being affected was at all pure or "true" to begin with? In thinking about the nervous system, it seems as if we're finding a way to account for falsity not just coming from without but also coming from within -- from the I-function's always unique way of functioning, from physical and chemical differences, from randomness, from molecular habit. Maybe in order to account for the seeming reality of the story that each of us tends to know, we can say that the story is always false but that it's a pattern of little stories, a system of ways of thinking that we each get used to using and that we each use to filter our interactions with other people's systems.

I agree that reality is always a hypothesis. I don't think anyone can ever know for sure what reality is and whether one "true reality" really exists. Everyone is different and has a different I-function so everyone must experience different realities. How can anyone say they are truly seeing the same picture as another person even when these two people are looking from the same view?  I may agree with another person that an object is blue, but I will never truly know if what that person is really seeing is what I too think is blue because I only see what I can see and not what others see. What if it was possible that what I see as blue is what another person sees as what I believe to be red and that person only agrees that the object is blue because she's been taught that the color on the object is blue (but really if I were looking through that person's eyes, I would see red). These speculations lead me to agree that what I perceive as reality actually is a construction of the nervous system then. This is still not to say that one true reality does not exist, however. 

Like this question of reality, it is hard to tell what the world would look like if we were to eliminate all constructions. Again, how can we ever know if we only sense what we experience?

This leads me to the question of whether everything the majority of people say that is not real, such as dreams, ghosts, magic, imaginary friends, etc., could possibly be real. It could be real and we just call it imagination. Maybe we just need to fix the definition of imagination. 

 This is getting really trippy.... 

I fear I'm going to make myself unpopular and disagree with Molly's eloquent tripartate hypothesis of reality - everything we've discussed, every reality we've encountered, every mutual experience has all been mediated by salt water rushing into and out of.

 

All three of the realities discussed come to us and are interpreted by our brains; they are thus all subjective and subject to the same error as a "private" reality. While it cannot be denied that there is verbal agreement in the community as to the location of a wall, or a rock, or a planet, the only reason you know it's there is because someone saw fit to pass air past their vocal chords, which in turn struct your tympanum, was translated into electrical signals and constructed in your head as whatever you experience sound to be.

I wouldn't be surprised to discover years from now as our understanding of the cabling of the brain beings to flourish that we do perceive our subjective realities very differently. All you've experienced is background, with salient CSs associated with meaning by participating in a verbal community. What if it turned out that my auditory cabling shunts information solely to where most people process what they see? Much as a congentially blind person cannot fathom blue, my experience is such that what most people hear I experience as sight - because I cannot get out of my box I'd be none the wiser, kind of like an ex-boyfriend of mine was unaware that he had two uvula until someone took a good look.

 

A question for Professor Grobstein -

At the beginning of this dissection of sight, Professor Grobstein asserted that much the same processes are in play for the perception of other senses. However, one sense in particular is very different in the way it is processed in the brain, and I'm wondering if this may also allude to the I-function not only as story-teller, but as a definer or map-maker if you will. Smell runs from the olfactory bulbs straight to the proto-mammalian amygdala in the limbic system - it is not mediated by any of that wonderful neocortex we're so proud of. I have also read somewhere that cross culturally smell is not only an incredibly emotionally valent sensation, but that on the whole we as humans lack words to describe it.

I put forth, then, that the I-function is repsonsible in part of compartmentalizing "reality" into seemingly distinct senses by allowing our "higher" processes to interpret the information differently - the perception comes not only from what proteins we have to sense with, but also how it's put together. I cannot account for where or how this process occurs, but it seems to me that smell may harken back to a proto-mammalian synesthesia: it is tightly bound with another perceptive event (affect) and does not lend itself to critical analysis in daily discourse for a simple lack of words. I am guessing not being able to parse out the subjective experience of smell into words is a consequence of less cognitive processing and splitting of the experience before it is fed to whatever the I-function is. Synesthetes do not disprove this conjecture - instead they maintain vestigal proto-mammalian higher connectivity, and even this augmented perception has been shown to be subject to higher processing influences: one study found that color-grapheme associatations could be set by a childhood set of magnets.

In sum - I'm not necessarily saying that there's nothing out there. I'm just saying that just because you and your friend know about it doesn't make it anymore true than if you yourself knew it because it's all mediated by a system dedicating to constructing something by breaking it along characteristic fault lines which may actually have no bearing anywhere outstide of your head.

This might be backtracking a little, but I am still stuck on our discussion about light and color, and how the world is, in reality, colorless. I am so confused! Basically what I have taken from our discussion last week is that color is constructed by our brains and is assisted by functioning cones and rods. this color perception appears to be a creation of the I-function, at least according to what I've gathered from class. now i am REALLY confused because originally i conceptualized the I-function as being that which enables our voluntary awareness, and clearly color perception is coded in the unconscious (i can't force myself to become unaware of color and at the same time it is interesting that i have always perceived color involuntarily.) so now i wonder if the I-function is really what we described it to be in past classes and i wonder if this ever evolving process of defining the I-function is actually getting us anywhere, or bringing us closer to "getting it less wrong." Not to be cynical, but I've almost forgotten our original question for this class and i feel as though we have moved in a completely different direction than we intended. perhaps this is the whole idea! we are SUPPOSED to explore these different pathways of thought in order to come to different conclusions even if they do not necessarily wind up answering our original questions.
I was also confused about the idea of color and how when we see a color, it means that all the light waves are being absorbed EXCEPT that which we see. in other words, an orange is orange because all of the light waves are being absorbed in that particular body of matter except for orange. is this observation correct? and if so, what implications does it have for our current discussion about color being a construction of the brain and not necessarily reality? does this mean that dogs (who only see gray shades) are RIGHT since the world is actually gray in reality? this makes me think of that terrible movie Pleasantville where everything in the world is gray until the society acquires knowledge (or is it sin?) which enables them to eventually see in color. is seeing color better? why, evolutionarily speaking, do we see color and other animals do not?

  

         One thing that these discussions have left me doing is questioning everything that I personally "perceive", and the verbalized perceptions of those around me.  It seems to me that reality is a construction of may different inputs and boxes and I-function interpretations of those inputs and boxes (and actions created by the I-function itself).  The problem that still remains is that every person's I-function, boxes in our nervous system model and interpretation of inputs could potentially (and it seems to me are) different. 

          The intriguing point to me is how these differences are formed.  We talked earlier about how we only perceive those things that we have the proteins to perceive and that not everyone has the same proteins; however is it just random genetic mutation/selection that creates this variability, is it hereditary, socially constructed, or based on individual experience, and where does evolution tie into the whole mess?

         It is interesting also that regardless of what reality is objectively, subjectively, or collectively we have learned as a species to relate to one another regardless of the differences that exist between our individual perceptions of the world.  To me this is the important point, regardless of what is "really out there" or what isn't really out there, we have formed language that we agree upon, we have sophisticated communication system and have found a way to line up our realities so that we can connect to other who exist in our reality, and presumably they feel they can connect to us.  Whatever that connection is/means to the two individuals may vary greatly, but both parties are interested enough in the agreed upon reality/each other to stick around.

 

This is a really cool discussion! However, I wonder if maybe we're reading too much into the different "types" of reality that exist and whether absolution is applicable. Perhaps part of the purpose behind discovering that everyone "sees" things differently is ultimately an argument for some sort of cultural relativism...there is no absolute truth since perception is in the eye of the beholder, and therefore we cannot claim superiority of one viewpoint over another. For me, this sort of explanation makes me forget its neurobiological underpinnings and leaves me more confused...

 

The problem with believing in such a relativistic world is that there is no ultimate value system against which we can hold people accountable. While I agree that we should not consider people with different world views "abnormal," to say that every single person's reality is in some way acceptable, implies that action which is considered universally "bad" might actually be okie if that action is within the realm of an individual's personal reality. And doesnt this entire discussion suggest that there must be some ultimate reality against which all other realities are compared?

 

 

Like Zoe above me, I've been thinking about The Matrix for days. The line that first did it for me was when Morpheus says, "If real is what you can feel, smell, taste and see, then 'real' is simply electrical signals interpreted by your brain."

In trying to grapple with Professor Grobstein's suggestion of an eliminative reality, the best I've got is more questions. I found the idea of imaginating an eliminative reality interesting and challeging, so here's what I came up with:

If we were to somehow able to eliminate color and edges, then what would we be seeing at all? At best, maybe brightness (light intensity)? Going one step further, if we eliminated all forms of sensory input, would we wind up with pure "reality" or, as a consequence of terminating all forms of input into the nervous system, would the system just crash?

I really liked Molly's summary of the different definitions of reality. In our little groups on Tuesday I was having the same discussion about how there is no such things as one optimum type of 'reality'--rather we all experience different realities based on our experiences (inputs) and interaction with others. Just as individuals may have different perceptions and opinions about different issues, we all foster different realities. I would argue that our I-function is the storyteller..which is safe to say as it does not necessarily cover the whole picture. Based on our individual experiences our I-function uses those to conjure an image in our mind (or opinion) about different issues.

For example, an individual who has lived a sheltered life would not be exposed to the realities of issues such as racism. Therefore when this individual may read or hear about the issue of racism, or people's encounters with a 'racist'--this sheltered individual has a myopic vision and therefore may not necessarily believe that such a concept exists in the world.

What scares me most about this issue of the I-function being a storyteller, is once again whether we really are able to override our I-functions and 'edit' the view or story that it transmits. Because if everyone's 'world' is really not the same this can draw broader implications about whether deep down any reconciliation has been achieved in the world.

This discussion is rather fascinating. I used to think that all reality as perceived by the nervous system was real reality. Since everyone in class will say that we are taking Bio 202 class at Bryn Mawr, the real reality seems to be that we are taking Bio 202 (I guess this falls into the collective reality that Molly was explaining above). However, not all “realities” are real.

The colorblind cannot see red numbers in green backgrounds and vice versa (I’m referring to those colorblind tests with the green and red splotches that form numbers). Their reality says there’s no number in the picture, while others' realities do consists of numbers being in the picture. Which is the real reality and which is the fake one?

It’s a challenge to separate real reality from fake reality. I don’t think we don’t have the ability to differentiate them. Perhaps everything presented to us by our nervous system is a fake reality. Perhaps we're not really taking bio 202. This notion may seem farfetched, but there’s no way to prove or disprove it.

I think this discussion of reality and whether or not its existence is true or contrived by our nervous system for us to function is extremely interesting. Could it be that without our nervous system providing us with the intelligence of sense, the world around us really white silent noise? Crazy to imagine, but its something that I was thinking about this past week. I really liked the discussion about the tree falling in a forest and anyone being able to hear it; the response that someone provided to the class was that no, the tree would not make any sound because there was no eardrum available to pick up on the noise and actually hear its effect. To me, this definitely helps to substantiate the idea that the nervous system IS a storyteller, that our processed responses/reactions/interpretations of the outside environment all work together to create an image of reality unique to each person. I guess in a way, we are all living in our own little bubble, complete with the contrived concept of what reality really is in our minds. Our interpretations of the world include our nervous system painting up the rest of the missing picture, even if what it paints isn’t truly there, we make up for what is lacking so that it makes sense to us. Our understanding of the world and the idea of having logic and reason is all based on this need to ground our minds in something solid and relatable to people.

I was intrigued by the question of: what does it mean to know something?  It seems that to know something means that, even if the nervous system may not have experienced that something, the I-function has constructed a reality about it.  An idea offered in class by professor Grobstein it that the I-function creates the concept of reality so that it will continually check that reality.  Why does it need to continually check the reality?  (Why create a reality at all?  Why not just live?)  The I-function must be fulfilling some other function by constructing new realities…

I wonder if one function of reworking reality is to learn about and adapt to our changing environment.  Or, perhaps the I-function’s role is important as an inferring mechanism for experiencing those aspects of life that are not picked up through sensory pigments, such as understanding behavior or connecting to other people. 

Since reality is a construct of the mind based on the inputs that the nervous system receives through sensory input, and since it is important for the nervous system to continually be checking that input in case the environment is changing, perhaps these realities are just the I-functions way of keeping track of any input changes with respect to all other inputs to the nervous system.   But why do we have the ability to think about these realities?  

It seems, then, that our ability to access and even change our realities of the world around us and how we interact in it should serve a purpose beyond sensing the world.  We have great power in our ability to change our realities because it means that we can conceive of a world around us irregardless of what the nervous system senses of that world.  Thus, the I-function allows us the ability to try out theories about those parts of the world that we can not actively sense, but can only confer knowledge of through our indirect experience with them.  For example, we are able to make up theories about why other people do what they do by integrating those experiences of them obtained through the senses with those past experiences of interactions with them (based on our I-function’s past realities) saved in memory.  In this way, we can check current input with past input in different situations to see if the way that we are understanding a person’s behavior makes sense.  This seems to be a very good way in which we might use realities and since we are employing those realities to try and understand continually changing situations or entities, it is important to be constantly checking and reworking those realities against new input.

It seems that recently (both in class and in the forums) we've been debating whether or not there is one reality, no such thing as reality, or maybe even multiple realities. I think that this discussion, at least the discussions in class, may be slightly premature. Or rather, we seem to be skipping an important part of the conversation. Before we tackle the one/none/many reality debate, we need to determine specifically and explicitly what we mean when we use the term "reality".

What we mean when we use the word "real" drastically affects the structure of our discussion and the way in which we approach the debates we have been having in class. Even if we do not all agree to one definition of "reality", having explicitly considered multiple definitions will give us a framework on which to build our discussions. From the class discussions on Tuesday it seems that there are three main definitions of "reality" being considered by our class. These three definitions, which I have taken to calling the "objective", "collective" and "subjective", exist on a continuum.

"Objective reality" is a reality in which apart from our perceptions, there is "something" "out there", and that something is what is real. This is the position which has been supported through our history, first appearing in Plato's Theory of Forms. Under this definition of reality, the unchanging essential truth of the universe is not dependent upon perception. The sound that a tree makes when if falls in the forest is the same regardless of who does or does not hear it, and that is real.

"Collective reality", like objective reality, asserts the existence of "something" "out there", but unlike the definition of objective reality, collective reality holds that we cannot determine reality outside of perception. Instead, collective reality follows a sort of mathematical approach, maintaining that as more and more observations are gathered from different sources, the 'mean value' of these observations will more closely reflect the "something" "out there". Under the definition of collective reality, what is real is that which is determined by consensus.

Finally, "subjective reality" does not assert the existence of "something" "out there". Rather, reality is a personal construction which results from (and results in) perception. Subjective reality holds that what is "real" is the perception itself, not some hypothetical external phenomenon which may cause the perception. Subjective reality has no way of asserting existence outside of perception (nor does it want one). Thus, each person's personal perception results in his or her own personal reality. Under this definition, that which is real is that which is perceived.

These three conceptions of reality are by no means the only definitions of reality, and perhaps I've misrepresented what some of you said in class. If this is the case, I'm sorry and please don't hesitate to correct me, clarify your opinion, or add your own definition of what is real.