From Perception to PhysicsWe know that our universe is a bit unreal. The stars we see in the night sky, for instance, are not really there. They may have moved or even died by the time we get to see them. This delay is due to the time it takes for light from the distant stars and galaxies to reach us. We know of this delay. The sun that we see now is already eight minutes old by the time we see it. This delay is not a big deal; if we want to know what is going on at the sun right now, all we have to do is to wait for eight minutes. What we see, however, is not quite real; we have to "correct" for the delay in our perception due to the finite speed of light before we can trust what we see.
Now, this effect raises an interesting question -- what is the "real" thing that we see? If seeing is believing, the stuff that we see should be the real thing. Then again, we know of the light travel time effect. So we should correct what we see before believing it. What then does "seeing" mean? When we say we see something, what do we really mean?
Seeing involves light, obviously. It is the finite (albeit very high) speed of light influences and distorts the way we see things, like the time delay in seeing the sun. What is surprising (and seldom highlighted) is that when it comes to sensing celestial motion, we cannot back-calculate the same way we take out the delay in seeing the sun or the stars. If we see a celestial body moving at an improbably high speed, we cannot figure out how fast and in what direction it is "really" moving without making further assumptions. One way of handling this difficulty is to ascribe the distortions in our perception to the fundamental properties of the arena of physics -- space and time. Another course of action is to accept the disconnection between our perception and the underlying "reality" and deal with it in some way.
This disconnect between what we see and what is out there is not uncommon in philosophical schools of thought. Phenomenalism, for instance, holds the view that space and time are not objective realities. They are merely the medium of our perception. All the phenomena that happen in space and time are merely bundles of our perception. In other words, space and time are cognitive constructs arising from perception. Thus, all the physical properties that we ascribe to space and time can only apply to the phenomenal reality (the reality as we sense it). The noumenal reality (which holds the physical causes of our perception), by contrast, remains beyond our cognitive reach.
One, almost accidental, difficulty in redefining the effects of the finite speed of light as the properties of space and time is that any effect that we do understand gets instantly relegated to the realm of optical illusions. For instance, the eight-minute delay in seeing the sun, because we can readily understand it and disassociate it from our perception using simple arithmetic, is considered a mere optical illusion. However, the distortions in our perception of fast moving objects, although originating from the same source are considered a property of space and time because they are more complex. At some point, we have to come to terms with the fact that when it comes to seeing the universe, there is no such thing as an optical illusion, which is probably what Goethe pointed out when he said, "Optical illusion is optical truth."
The distinction (or lack thereof) between optical illusion and truth is one of the oldest debates in philosophy. After all, it is about the distinction between knowledge and reality. Knowledge is considered our view about something that, in reality, is "actually the case." In other words, knowledge is a reflection, or a mental image of something external. In this picture, the external reality goes through a process of becoming our knowledge, which includes perception, cognitive activities, and the exercise of pure reason. This is the picture that physics has come to accept. While acknowledging that our perception may be imperfect, physics assumes that we can get closer and closer to the external reality through increasingly finer experimentation, and, more importantly, through better theorization. The Special and General Theories of Relativity are examples of brilliant applications of this view of reality where simple physical principles are relentlessly pursued using formidable machine of pure reason to their logically inevitable conclusions.
But there is another, competing view of knowledge and reality that has been around for a long time. This is the view that regards perceived reality as an internal cognitive representation of our sensory inputs. In this view, knowledge and perceived reality are both internal cognitive constructs, although we have come to think of them as separate. What is external is not the reality as we perceive it, but an unknowable entity giving rise to the physical causes behind sensory inputs. In this school of thought, we build our reality in two, often overlapping, steps. The first step consists of the process of sensing, and the second one is that of cognitive and logical reasoning. We can apply this view of reality and knowledge to science, but in order do so, we have to guess the nature of the absolute reality, unknowable as it is.
The ramifications of these two different philosophical stances described above are tremendous. Since modern physics has embraced a non-phenomenalistic view of space and time, it finds itself at odds with that branch of philosophy. This chasm between philosophy and physics has grown to such a degree that the Nobel prize winning physicist, Steven Weinberg, wondered (in his book "Dreams of a Final Theory") why the contribution from philosophy to physics have been so surprisingly small. It also prompts philosophers to make statements like, "Whether 'noumenal reality causes phenomenal reality' or whether 'noumenal reality is independent of our sensing it' or whether 'we sense noumenal reality,' the problem remains that the concept of noumenal reality is a totally redundant concept for the analysis of science."
From the perspective of cognitive neuroscience, everything we see, sense, feel and think is the result of the neuronal interconnections in our brain and the tiny electrical signals in them. This view must be right. What else is there? All our thoughts and worries, knowledge and beliefs, ego and reality, life and death -- everything is merely neuronal firings in the one and half kilograms of gooey, grey material that we call our brain. There is nothing else. Nothing!
In fact, this view of reality in neuroscience is an exact echo of phenomenalism, which considers everything a bundle of perception or mental constructs. Space and time are also cognitive constructs in our brain, like everything else. They are mental pictures our brains concoct out of the sensory inputs that our senses receive. Generated from our sensory perception and fabricated by our cognitive process, the space-time continuum is the arena of physics. Of all our senses, sight is by far the dominant one. The sensory input to sight is light. In a space created by the brain out of the light falling on our retinas (or on the photo sensors of the Hubble telescope), is it a surprise that nothing can travel faster than light?
This philosophical stance is the basis of my book,
The Unreal Universe, which explores the common threads binding physics and philosophy. Such philosophical musings usually get a bad rap from us physicists. To physicists, philosophy is an entirely different field, another silo of knowledge. We need to change this belief and appreciate the overlap among different knowledge silos. It is in this overlap that we can expect to find great breakthroughs in human thought.
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In this immensely thought-provoking book, Thulasidas explores our
notions
of
space
and
time
and
shows
how
our
sense
of reality
rests
on
uncertain
supports.
Space
is
unreal
the
same way sound and smell are unreal, and time is no more real than mathematics.
In
a
space
created
by
the
brain
out
of
the
light falling on our retinas (or the Hubble telescope), is it a surprise that
nothing
can
travel
faster
than
light?
Generated
by
our sensory perception and fabricated by our cognitive process, the space-time
continuum
is
the
arena
of
physics.
Looking
at reality as a cognitive model of perception, Thulasidas sheds new light on spiritual philosophies, both Western and Eastern. Exploring the overlaps among the sciences and philosophies with
impressive
surety
and
clarity,
The
Unreal
Universe
looks set to revolutionize the way we think of reality and understand both modern physics and ancient spiritual writings.
