What Is Reality?
This post will be a bit different than the others. First I will discuss some arguments surrounding what current neurological scholars know about how the brain/ nervous system works. As there is a HUGE amount of complex information on this and as we can go VERY much into the nitty gritty details of the biochemical pathways etc, I am going to make this VERY top level. All people have a brain. You need to think of the brain as a super complex computer which receives information from your body and computes that information and stores whats important as well as problem solves and processes. We know that from a very young age the brain has unlimited possibilities before genetically induced neuronal trimming occurs. There is some who think that this might be how an individual is set up with tons of potential to become anything they want to be. Personality and tendencies are not completely flexible however, some genetics do in fact play a role into perception, namely how your brain processes that information biochemically and which areas of the brain are used and to what extent.
Consciousness :
I will again return to the idea of the brain as that of a computer. If you were to disconnect a computer from all input what would happen to it?! Say someone was to be born completely blind, completely deaf completely mute and having no sense of touch, would they have an internal monologue? Would they be conscious? Some argue that internal monologue is only the result of knowing language and that we actually lack one as infants.
These are just very brief points to get your thoughts rolling. Later on I will do a very in depth post on the topic.
I hope to encourage some of you readers to participate a bit more. I would like your inputs on what you perceive as reality. Some questions I will ask. I would like to keep spiritual discussion out of this. The point is not to discount religion at all. I want us to address this from a merely cause and effect basis.
1. How do you know that your body is your body?
2. How do you define reality?
3. How do you know the people you talk to every day have conscious thought?
4. What is an internal monologue and do animals have one?
Please answer these as numbered from a purely scientific stand point. The reason for this is because it helps us to view this with tangible evidence.
Posted on June 3, 2010, in Opinions and tagged Consciousness, God, neurology, Perception, Reality. Bookmark the permalink. 3 Comments.
The Alchemist 
1. I do not know for sure that my body is my body other than I receive stimuli from it and can compute those stimuli, however when I sleep i am unsure of what happens.
2. I define reality as my own minds measurement of my own chemical memory through space and time. I know I am me because I remember being me yesterday and the day before that etc. If I were to wake up and not remember then I would never know I was me in the first place and perhaps my own internal self would cease to exist, but biologically I would still be me.
3. I don’t. In fact some probably don’t! =) But I would assume that like most biological systems I am not the only one out there. I believe people have variations on what their internal monologues are like, how they are structured and what their sense of self is for each person. I believe its this inherent biological variation that creates personalities etc.
4. An internal monologue is the self’s way of measuring well self. I am not apart from the concept of animals having a monologue or even consciousness. However I do feel consciousness has to be universally defined first for anyone to ever answer that question.
Having been fully sedated for surgery, I do have the experience of not feeling my body and the uncomfortable sensation that comes with the nerves becoming fully active again leaving me to feel ‘whole’. As my docs have told me – I am very familiar with my body which comes from paying both intellectual and sensory attention to they way I feel in different parts of my body throughout a given day.
2. Reality is malleable inwardly and outwardly directed self perception that changes over one’s life span as one’s experiences and understandings, belief systems shift.
3. Actually I don’t think most people I talk to on given day have conscious thoughts.
4. An internal monologue is the way we self edit our thoughts and actions. From a developmental psychological perspective, some times these inner dialogues are created from the favorable or unfavorable input we have received from our parents, siblings, close friends that created a strong self impression . I think deciding that animals have this same level of socialization/self identity is a form of anthropomorphism – while humorous not real.
Hi, I hopped over to this site from reddit. This isn’t not something I would regularly read, but I loved your thoughts on it. Thank you for making something worth reading!