Everything is Meaningless
Understanding Why
In my previous blog, I gave a quick snippet into why all information we receive is meaningless and why humans don’t necessarily have access to reality. In this blog, we’re going to go in depth and to understand why!?
Disclaimer — These are not my findings or my research. I am merely fascinated by Beau Lotto’s work and this piece is just my ‘perception’ (if I may) of his work.
So, let’s get into it.
1. We don’t sense all that there is to sense.
Our senses are limited to the 5 that we inherited: sight, smell, hearing, touch and taste (in case you forgot, no judging). Now whatever we perceive through each of these senses is limited. It can be extended to some extent — thanks to technology — but biologically, we cannot develop new senses (I have no idea about evolution in the future scenario — so I’m going to rest this point here).
But to take Lotto’s example on light; we humans cannot see ultraviolet (UV) light but reindeers can! Reindeers have this biological gift so that they can locate food. Similarly, do you think birds see a single blue just as we do when they look at the sky? Not really. Birds have polarized vision ‘which allows them to see the electromagnetic structure of the sky, and not just shades of blue’. So really, they see a ton of patterns which change depending on the angle of the sun which they use to navigate themselves through the sky.
To summarize, we are only getting what our limited senses give us. ‘While energy is realistic, it is not the reality of objects, distance, etc., even if it is created from fragments of that physical world.’
2. The information we take is in a constant flux
To quote Heraclitus, the Greek philosopher — ‘change is the only constant in life’. Everything outside of our perception is constantly changing and naturally, it changes our perception too. How many times have you changed your perception about something or someone? Lotto says that “our reality is in a state of endless transformation, so even if our brain did give us direct access to reality, as soon as we perceived that reality it would have already changed. Indeed, this is why our brains evolved…”
3. All stimuli are highly ambiguous
Imagine if I smile out of the blue. Would you be able to tell why I’m smiling? It could be an expression of joy, happiness or sarcasm even. But how would you know? The smile could mean anything. Unless you learn about the context, the smile is ‘behaviorally meaningless in and of [itself]’. Similarly, a dog barking or moving its ears back could mean anything. Our brain develops to process these different pieces of information to help us survive the constant change in information — which we perceive as reality. But the truth is that there could be numerous other pieces of information that could help us land at the same meaning really.
4. There is no instruction manual
If we think of the earliest humans, none of them were taught to perceive. Our brains evolved to form perceptions with a purpose to survive! None of the information they consumed came with a manual on how to react.
If you still don’t believe that our ‘reality’ is only our perception, and that we actually have access to ‘reality’, “people, places and situations don’t come with how-to guides for responding usefully, and neither do objects.” Can you imagine having an IKEA-like manual to ask a girl/guy out to a date the first time? (Though you’d want one, wouldn’t you?)
To illustrate this further, Lotto writes that “objects constrain behavior; they don’t dictate it.” For example, a rock doesn’t tell us what to do with it. We could use it as a tool, a weapon, a paperweight, or anything else for that matter. How you use it would depend on the context or the situation. Coming back to the point — that all information is meaningless, especially without some kind of analysis. We create a response based on how we perceive (or analyse) the situation and then react. This response may not always be the response apt for the situation, but we do it based on how we understand or perceive the situation best.
Our state of denial may not let us believe that we don’t actually have access to reality. But, is not having access to reality a bad thing? Lotto believes that humans have survived ‘because’ of our ability to not see reality. “We see our past ecology’s interpretation, and this helps our brain respond in a way that is behaviorally useful.” If we were to conclude here, the meaninglessness of information doesn’t matter. What matters is what we do with the information. We must actively engage with ambiguous information in order to change the constructs of our brain and build on our perceptions.
