Neuroscience and the misperception of reality | Letter

As living creatures, we are exquisitely evolved to interact with the world through perception, saysDavid HughesGaia Vince, reviewing Anil Seth ’s Being You: A New Science of Consciousness (The exhilarating new science of consciousness, 25 August), extols the thesis that because our perception of the world is a complex physical process, perception is itself a “hallucination” and “a big lie created by our deceptive brains”. But when we consider that dogs hear sounds we don’t, flies look through compound eyes, birds navigate using inbuilt GPS, it does seem perverse to claim that the very physicality of being alive downgrades perception to spontan eous fakery.Does, for example, the complex biochemistry of our arm and shoulder muscles make striking a tennis ball a hallucination? Are all our sensations of touch illusory? A Wimbledon winner and someone who has a burn would surely disagree. We are, as living creatures, exquisitely evolved to interact with the world through perception. Our survival depends on it. It is not dying of thirst that is a hallucination, it is the dehydration that accompanies such a death that causes hallucination: the misperception of reality.Continue reading...

Source: Guardian Unlimited Science - September 3, 2021 Category: Science Authors: Letters Tags: Neuroscience Psychology Science and nature books Consciousness Source Type: news