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eshuster's picture

If we can't see reality, does it exist?

In class we discussed how we don’t really see what is actually there. We have areas in the eye that do not have photoreceptors and the areas that do have photoreceptors are organized in a way that makes no sense. If these photoreceptors enable us to see what they have the ability to see (2-d) how do we know something is 3-dimensional? I can’t understand how we think we are seeing reality but we are actually just seeing 2 dimensional images with blind spots that lie make us think we are seeing reality? But my question is, What is reality? And, why do we want to see it?

 

If we see what our eyes have been engineered to see and we think it is reality, then is it like the movie, “The Matrix” where we think we are living in reality but we are actually not? If our eyes have holes that our brain fills, do our brains also have holes that our neurons fill in? If we have a blind spot in one of our organs then why would it seem so outrageous that we have some kind of “blind spot” in other organs or maybe even all our organs?

 

What is reality? Who decides what reality is? If we are all individuals and we have our own perspectives then don’t we all just have our own version of reality? How can someone dictate what reality is or isn’t if they are experiencing their own version of it? Is this website real or is it something our brain imagines is there because we think we see it, but what we are seeing is a screen that tells us we are looking at a website? This topic makes me question everything because it’s a topic of reality. How can I think of reality if I don’t know what reality is? How do we define this term, “reality”? Is it just seven letters that has been programmed into our brains to believe what we are seeing is really what this term means?

 

I feel as though I am going around in circles and cannot stop questioning what reality is. I want to know what I am seeing is the truth and it is the reality but now I am not sure it is? I seem to look at objects thinking, well if I move my head this way am I seeing everything or am I still seeing some type of a “blindspot”? Do we have “blindspots” everywhere? How do we know? How can we be sure?

 

On a different side of the same topic, I want to pose another question, How does 3D animation work? We usually see the characters but can see through them, so how do we trick our mind into believing that something is going into the audience if we can somewhat see through the image and know that it is not really there? Is it our eyes that are doing the thinking even though we know it is fake? How do we see and believe that this three dimensional image is really there? If we are looking at the light coming off an object and our brain is analyzing the different types of light coming off different objects to create this image what is 3D and how does it trick our minds?

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