Our perception of reality.?

Question

A few years ago, after a severe accident, I had a Tracheoctomy, (Hole put into my neck so I could breathe), however, because air no longer passes over our vocal chords you can no longer speak.
However, when I was trying to speak or even shout, I could hear my voice whilst others couldn't. If that is true of our hearing, what about our other senses? If we don't perceive the world around us as others do, what is the true perception of reality. Like, when we hear our voice on a recording it sounds different than what we think we sound like! Do we see what is really there or is it our brains that tells us it's perception of what is there. Is what you see as Blue the same as what other people see as Blue?
Can we be living in the Matrix? : )

Some interesting answers. However I haven't been able to pick the best as all of the good answers have dealt with only one or two aspects of our perception of reality. I was hoping for an answer that encompassed all aspects of our perception. Using our 5 senses as a template for an answer. So I will leave it up to others to decide the best answer.
Good Luck.

Answer 1

Have you ever been to an event that was reported afterwards in a newspaper? Did you find yourself thinking the reporter was emphasising something trivial and/or leaving out something important?

Go on and ask any two people who've experienced the same event, and usually their reports will differ.

That to me is the clearest evidence that each person's perception of "reality" is different from everyone else's. Buddhists go further and say there is no such thing as "reality", only appearances to our minds. The Person-Centred Approach works from a similar premiss: that each person's 'reality' is true for them. For example, if a person says she "sees threatening spirits coming out of the wall at night", those beings and the interpretation of them as threats are both real for that person, and they are still real even if someone who was next to them doesn't see them.

Answer 2

No we are not living in the Matrix . When I see red it my be a different red that every one else see , bu through a process of learning and reinforcement we all agree whatever I see is red .
Your report about the tracheotomy is very interesting .
Ask yourself this , when you dream and you are asleep does it feel like a dream or reality . Why when people loose a limb do they still get the urge to scratch an itch that's not there . I guess that the brain is still sending out signals , distorting what we perceive as real . Its reality that tells us its not . Perhaps because you were not aware of the damage to your throat you still received the messages , and to your it was reality . Have you ever heard a song from the past or the radio inside your head . You can hear every lyric even when you are not aware that you know the words to the song .

Answer 3

It's nice every now and then there's an interesting question. I think you have touched the tip of a very large iceberg. "What the Bleep Do We Know Anyway" is a good video to rent if you haven't already seen it (not sure if I got the title quite right). It discusses quantum weirdness and human (mis)perceptions in amusing detail.

I will limit my detail to your last query, about color perception. I have read that color can be perceived differently in each person. As long as we all agree that's "blue" - who would know the difference? However, we also say that dogs can only see a few colors, so we must know something about the cones contained inside of a dog's eye and how they work. Or if someone is color blind, I am not sure but I suspect that can be determined with medical equipment.

The true perception of reality is perhaps only what each of us makes of it. If it's true for you, it must be "true" - as far as you are concerned.

Physicists were thinking "black body spectrum" and "cosmic microwave background radiation," and voila, there it was, just waiting to be discovered. Same with the discovery of the Tau particle. As physicist Isaac Rabi put it, "Who ordered that?"

Answer 4

Very basic level of thinking.
We are all conected by energy so yeah were in a sort of matrix, and we all look on things in different ways and from different view points. Reality is real though in this reality, maybe in another reality there are colours we dont even see in this dimension, but because of the light we have and the way we have evolved our perception of reality cant be to far out from each other i thinks its physically unlikley.
You questions sound like the quest for the meaning of life..... but look and think and question what you see, know and wonder about whats beyond what you know and these questions arnt that hard to realise, but the more you explore you more you will understand untill ya oblitereate reality and come into physcoality.
Thundercats are go !!!!!!!!!!!

Answer 5

In 03 I too had to have a trachea put in, though my experience seemingly was very different to yours - re 'the hearing of my voice'.

As for the 'blue' and ones perception of it. i tried an experiment over a few years where i asked people to give me their definition of the expression, 'feeling blue,' and if they could, then point out the shade (or closest to it) that related to the feeling.

The upshot of this can be summed up by saying that the shade of blue, as did people definition of that expression, ranged from the 'sky blue of a summers day' across the spectrum to 'the blue of a police officers uniform.'

So, I wonder just what that tells (or at least suggests) to us!


As for ones own voice.....

I worked in an environment where I had feedback through a headset of my voice all day long (for years), and had to admit that I could use my voice in a way which I enjoyed (and was told that I should be working in radio). However, when listening to tapes of my own voice, 'I HATED it.' It sounded 'contrived.'

There was no way I was going to have it stand up to scrutiny by anyone. I felt far too vulnerable for that to happen.

Regards.
Sash.

Answer 6

So many places adopted ideas of illusion of this world and our perception of it. For example: child born, he knows nothing about new place.By the age of 5 he is completely here. And if you say by that time "Table" or "room" he will know what is it even if he never went or saw that object. He has a matrix of what it will look like. About your voice: from the birth you had it, so your matrix of your voice is stronger for your perception than it's disappearance

Answer 7

Perception IS reality and, yes, it can and does vary from person to person.

BTW, we "hear" our voices differently than what we sound like for 2 reasons. First, our ears are behind our mouth so we hear the sound from behind. Second, we also hear (which is simply vibrations) from inside our own head.

Answer 8

Great insights!
Over 90% of the world population lives by ego; which functions by perceptions that has accepted as truths.

Answer 9

Is the central nervous system as mathematically certain as physics or mechanics? In physics all equipment must be calibrated to interdependent constants. In the wild all animals must be accurate in their pursuit for prey, for food, for defense or become extinct. Could a billion years of death from error allow many errant animals to survive their imperfections? I think not.

Answer 10

I believe we do live in something comparable to the Matrix. I actually read a really interesting book about it. The online version can be found here http://www.harunyahya.com/matrix02.php