7/25/2023 0 Comments Collective hallucination![]() ![]() This involves getting people to see features of reality that they may not normally see. When we argue about politics, we are, to a large extent, trying to get others to see things the way we see them, to play the video game we’re playing. Religion is all about getting large numbers of people to play the same video game. It’s interested in the relationship between the video game you’re playing-the totality of what you see, real and imagined-and your experience of, and behavior in, the world. ![]() It’s all about figuring out what’s real for you. ![]() Psychology is far more agnostic about reality. It’s a systematic attempt to figure out what’s real via measurement and experimentation. Science is all about figuring out what’s out there. If I see a bat flying around the room all the time and you don’t, I might reasonably begin to suspect that the bat’s not real, that it’s just part of the simulation, part of the video game I’m playing. If everyone sees things, and I don’t, I might reasonably conclude that I was born blind. If everyone else sees color, and I don’t, I might reasonably conclude that color exists and I’m colorblind. The stuff that’s generated by the software (e.g., the bat I see flying around the room) looks every bit as real as you and the coffee table. Because much of what we see is just a function of the video game we happen to be playing. If I speak, you’ll hear my voice if you speak, I’ll hear yours.īut we could still be having vastly different experiences of the room. If there’s a coffee table in the middle of the living room that we could potentially trip over, you’ll see it in your simulation and I’ll see it in mine. The software was designed by natural selection to incorporate all, or almost all, of the key features of the immediate environment: those necessary to survival (e.g., where the walls are, the stairs, etc.). We’ve put on these things that look like night vision goggles. Imagine that we’re both playing one of those virtual reality video games. ![]()
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