Reality and Illusion - The physical world

The man stands poised near the shore. He knows the fish is not where he sees it and spears his dinner with a clean hit. This knowledge has been passed down through the generations, and it is relatively easy to detect the illusion created by the refraction of light – simply put your arm or a stick in water and look at the way it appears to bend.

Having a good awareness of how our senses may be deceived was vital to survival for humans from the outset. Animals use camouflage to deceive, both in attack and defence, and so both detecting camouflage and exploiting it became an important human skillset that could be learned from collective experience.

We have always been aware that our senses can be deceived and also that we can work against that if we have other ways of validating what we perceive. And this is consistent with the way we learn to use our senses from birth; starting with touch, developing visual focus as we hold and move objects, seeing the same objects further away and developing visual perspective and so on.

However, there is considerable evidence that our perceptions and our interpretation of perceptions are prone to illusions (eg optical illusions etc) that demonstrate not only the limitations of our sensory “machinery”, but also the limitations of the mental models or patterns that we subconsciously apply or prioritise in interpretating sensory signals.

Where perceptions are inadequate or confusing, our brains may fill in the gaps to create partial or complete hallucinations based on underlying expectations derived from genetic inheritance, experience and culture, and any two people may see or hear different things.

Given this, we could conclude that perception is always unreliable as a way of understanding things in the world – understanding what reality actually is.

Depending on your views, this may be a matter of degree and there are ways of getting to know Reality better over time, or it may be an absolute consideration – “Reality is an Illusion!” - bringing into question whether reality exists at all independent of our minds.

This session is focused on questions of Reality and Illusion for the Physical World. In other sessions we may look more closely at what consciousness appears to be and whether this is illusory. But that is not the subject of this session.

Questions: Part 1

• What do we mean when we describe something as an illusion?
• What do illusions tell us about our capacity to understand reality?
  Questions: Part 2
• Do we believe that reality exists independently of us, and why? If so, how and how much can we know its nature?
  OR
• Do we believe that reality exists in the mind or is a product of the mind, and why?
  OR
  - Is there another way of looking at it? All ideas are welcome!
  This is not intended as a technical philosophical discussion, but for those interested in delving deeper into the related philosophy these may be helpful links:
• Reality - Wikipedia : Quite a good overview of the different positions
• Realism (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy) which also outlines non-realist positions and critiques of Realism
• Idealism (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy) ditto for Idealist positions.

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Anyone can attend this session. No experience in philosophy or knowledge of the subject is required in advance. Just come along and enjoy. Our events use the the 4Cs of community philosophy:

• Caring for others, making space for their contributions
• Collaborating to get a better mutual understanding rather than scoring points
• Critically assessing what we say, clarifying what is meant and asking what reasons support assertions
• Creatively coming up with alternative perspectives, rather than dogmatically sticking to our initial positions

We welcome everyone of a wide range of ages, social and educational backgrounds etc. Don't worry if you don't have a qualification in philosophy - almost no-one does. Occasionally, attendees will be asked to watch, read or listen to a short piece of material in advance of the session (as the 'stimulus' for discussion), but this will be minimal and will be made clear in the description of the session.

We ask for donations of £1 per session from those who can afford to pay to cover the costs of the Meetup subscription. First timers are exempt. Don't feel obliged to pay if you can't afford it - or pay less. Feel free to put £5 to cover five sessions or however you want to donate - this is left entirely up to you.