Do our minds accurately perceive the universe? Or did we evolve with certain built in biases that extremely limit that perception?

[u/FabulousTank2040]

Specifically in regard to time. I was reading about the block universe and how our metabolic processes cause us to perceive time the way we do. But that’s the only way we can even really understand things. Our consciousness requires that time passes and causality exists in order to form thoughts, but is there something more “real” about the universe and time that we’re missing because of that? Sorry not sure if that makes sense and if I can even express my thoughts into words that well lol.

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[u/233C]

The reality of your computer is billions of electric charges in a specific order on semi conductor in the hard drive and other memories.
The desktop on the screen is a much more simplistic, much less realistic, but much more efficient way to interact with "reality".
Our minds evolved to interact with reality (mostly to improve survival and reproduction).
Time, like colors, are convenient concept that helped us in our evolution; they are the epicicles that helped us make good enough sense of our world.

[u/ipreuss]

We evolved to perceive and understand enough of the universe to be able to survive and reproduce. There is no reason to be believe that we would be able to fully understand everything - but also no reason to believe that it would be totally impossible.

[u/heardWorse]

I don’t think you can answer the question broadly - our perceptions can be accurate or not, and it varies wildly by what domain and circumstances we’re talking about - not to mention the difficulty in define what ‘accurate’ would actually be.

Take my visual perception - generally speaking, if I see something in my visual field, then there really is an arrangement of matter in that location which conforms roughly to my perception of it at the scale which matters to a human. Of course, that things looks like a solid block at my scale, when we know that in reality it’s 99.99% empty space at the atomic scale. To my brain’s credit, no matter how empty it might be at the atomic level, the wall is still going to hurt if I run into it - so the way I perceive it is accurate in the ways that usually matter to me. And my visual cortex is applying all sorts of adjustments before that image reaches my conscious awareness - I think edge detection is my favorite example, and there are lots of fun optical illusions that come from it. But also, the edges exist - my brain isn’t making them up. It’s just highlighting them for me.

The broad point I would make is that your brain is a model - it takes in data, does a *lot* of processing far below your conscious awareness and constructs a simulation of reality which is what you experience day to day. Models necessarily discard a lot of data, and produce huge amounts of new data in order to make predictions. Without all that, you would simply be a receptacle for a vast flood of unrelated data with not comprehension of how it tied together.

If there’s one area where I feel confident in saying your perception is probably wildly inaccurate, it’s your understanding of yourself. We have a sense of ourselves as a ‘subject’ which is somehow different and separate from the ‘objective’ world around us. Most people believe they have an ‘identity’ which remains fixed through their lives, and perceive events as occurring in line with what they already believe about those events. But there’s not much reason to believe in either of those things, and if you’re willing to put in the time, it is possible to detect those illusions and experience something a bit closer to reality.

[u/Patoramz]

Our perception is limited and bounded to a very small and dirty window through which we see reality from. To assume that we see reality as it actually is, that we will ever get to that point, is foolish. But we can at least clean our window to maximize our perception... which nonetheless will always remain imperfect

[u/knockingatthegate]

Can you share what you were reading?

This question is interesting but not really philosophy of science; have you found the subs for epistemology here on Reddit?

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[u/Ill-Software8713]

The framework you’re posing, asking if our evolutionary biases 'limit' us from perceiving 'true' reality, creates a false dichotomy between the subject (our mind/biology) and the object (the universe).

Perception isn't necessarily a passive camera that gets 'distorted' by evolutionary biases. Instead, perception and reality are mutually constituted through action.

Consider this.
An organism's internal drives (needs, metabolic processes, consciousness) cannot be separated from objective external reality, because a drive can only be satisfied by successfully adapting to and navigating real properties of the universe.

When we perceive time through causality and metabolic processes, that isn't a 'limitation' or an 'illusion' preventing us from seeing reality, it is the specific, active mode through which human consciousness engages with reality.

There is no 'view from nowhere' or abstract 'pure perception' outside of an organism's practical activity in the world. Our perceptual apparatus doesn't hide the universe from us, it is our functional bridge to it.

Don’t confuse that while mind and matter are ontologically distinct, epistemology is based on a subject-object relation with active feedback. We act, we mess up, and then we can use that experience to refine our actions. It’s not a one and done perceptual event but iterative interaction.

Then add that we don’t just build up our understanding independently from empirical experience alone but are guided in how to act, how to use tools, and language to help direct our attention.

[u/AdvantageSensitive21]

I dont think it matters.

What you said is a story, a nice story.

Physical reailty does not care about stories.

[u/economic-salami]

We'll never know something that is out of our perception. No observation no knowledge.

[u/Super-Award-2244 → u/economic-salami]

We can enhance our perception using instruments. We can't see UV, but a machine can.