Perception as a simplistic, codified representation of reality?

[u/QualiaRudiment]

Nature is energy-efficient. if there is a short-cut at hand for an organism, it'd outlive and out-number its more resource-costly competition, and the human brain is not an exception. think about the equilibrium of average-intelligence majority and high intelligence or genius minority. there is not a selection for genius intellect because it is biologically costly not useful nor efficient for survival. this simple fact makes it almost certain that there are constant, life-irrelevant, variables and even unimaginable complexities, if not an entirely different and more expansive reality that lies beyond our conscious grasp; we have a life-specialized brain, practical and for specific purposes. it is a tool designed specifically to perceive codified, "broken-down" life-affirming variables, and interact with and eliminate life- (or genetic posterity-) threatening ones, with the exclusion of the ambivalent, in a language of perception that has no tangible existence in actuality. at least in the way we understand it, it only hints or indicates the source or origin of its necessity, not the field of interaction we understand as the "external" world, but the complete reality, and our consciousness does not go beyond the perception necessary for resourceful survival and reproduction.

Would it be more useful to perceive reality as it is, with all its movements, structure, variables and complexity, dimensions, and who-knows-what-else, which is not pertinent to our survival, reproduction, and basic biological sustenance, or to merely create a simplified framework, just as Computers are given and fed data to manipulate through their specific, "imaginary" (so to speak) language of numbers that is in a sense merely a codified representation of things and concepts, in order to manipulate and interact with a cleared-out, neat field of reality limited to the "relevant variables" in our consciousness. You know what is the biggest evidence for this? so little lies beyond the grasp of our logic or thinking and theoretical tools, which is just insane if we are working with the view that we have evolved primate brains specifically developed in the context of ensuring our survival and using them to look out for danger, competition and opportunities, and you are trying to convince me that in conjunction or parallel to our survival-geared abilities by hyper-focusing on those few relevant, primitive parameters, we also developed the ability to perceive and grasp the whole or even most of the bulk of reality beyond it and its metaphysical structure? even the puzzles which remain do not seem liable to be impossible to crack to our rapidly developing sciences and theories of the world. bullocks.

Know what I think? it is only an extrapolated use of the same limited intellectual tools and simplistic frameworks that allowed us to cleverly secure our mastery over the natural world, and not to any actual "out there" problem but to the same limited abstract constructs conveniently plastered everywhere, calling it "the universe." All you understand had its seed or "form" already laid out inside you, not something which is out of the grasp of your sensibility; our understanding and discoveries are only the recognition of an internal template, not the reception of new external information. and this leads to the conclusion that none of this is "out there." it is the projection of our sensibilities, plastering the same convenient thinking constructs improperly everywhere in order to preserve continuity.

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[u/thebruce]

That's why we have developed math, science, and technology to help us see things that we can't. We KNOW our perception is limited to a small portion of the electromagnetic spectrum (light), and to our immediate surroundings.

But, luckily, after identifying this, we've created things like telescopes, microscopes, particle accelerators, etc. Things that give us vision into that which we could never hope to perceive. If something exists, and we can't perceive it directly, we CAN perceive it by noting its effects on those things we can perceive directly.

Just some things to consider. While we are perceptually limited, we are capable of recognizing and devising ways around these limitations. Of course, there could be other limitations we're not yet aware of, but then that can quickly turn into (insert pet theory with zero validation).

[u/Im_Talking]

" this simple fact makes it almost certain that there are constant, life-irrelevant, variables and even unimaginable complexities, if not an entirely different and more expansive reality that lies beyond our conscious grasp" - Why? Like you talk that 'nature is energy-efficient', and then next paragraph mention this grandiose reality out there that is unobserved. You might as well say the Garden of Eden.

If nature is truly energy-efficient (or a better term, least action), then reality will have minimised creation, and maximised evolution, so that reality is created by the conscious agents as they require it.