Is "reality" what you see or what you'd want to see?

Vision is a highly mediated process. The image on the retina of your eye is only a sketchy beginning; it’s not much of an exaggeration to say that the eye merely suggests to the visual cortex what it should see . Not only will the visual cortex of your brain ignore a great deal of that retinal image, it will actually fill in stuff that it thinks ought to be there. That omission and filling in isn’t a conscious process, so I wouldn’t say, as you did, that it’s what you “want” to see; it’s more what you expect to see. You do, of course, see unexpected things from time to time, but there is a considerable threshold of impact that has to be met for that unexpected thing to actually register consciously.

Reality is what is in the world, but how we understand it is all in our minds. Our minds interpret our sensory input, but our sensors are faulty and don’t give us all the data. And my mind ranks it differently from yours.

So while reality is the same, the experience is individual.

Why would it be the latter?

@zenvelo I agree…

I agree with @thorninmud that it is more what we expect to see. If we take “see” to mean perceive using all our senses as well as our analytical capabilities, I would say it’s even more what we expect to see.

We all construct models of reality in our minds. We use data from our perceptions to populate these models. We have a vested interest in having the data confirm the model. That way we feel like we can deal with reality.

It is when reality becomes very unexpected and very uncertain that we start to freak out. It is very difficult to incorporate the new information or data into the model. Those who can be flexible and incorporate more new data will deal with change more easily.

Those who insist the data must conform to the model get their knickers in a twist when the data don’t fit. They go through all kinds of gyrations to convince themselves it does fit; often coming up with fantastic theories. Thus are religions born and carried on.

I am working on it being “what I want to see”.

@Shippy That is also called “denial”.

This is a subject that has been debated since time began. No one knows for sure what reality is.

For the sake of discussion, I will stick to the common sense definition that you and I all exist and our reality is what we sense. However, when it comes to “see/hear what we want to see/hear” there is a lot of room for study. Our senses are filtered through our brain, and who knows what goes on there.

My sister and I were brought up very closely together, yet we remember most events/people differently. She misbehaved a lot more than I did, and remembers our father as a strict, mean disciplinarian. I remember him as strict, but loving and caring. Reality depends a lot on perspective.

My view is reality is what we think we see.

I know reality by what I see and what I’d like it to be instead, if that counts. At least in most cases. I can recognize reality, desire and fantasy well enough though, and make the clear distinction between them, or so I think. But maybe I’m just a butterfly, dreaming that it’s the sky.