Perception and Reality

Some patterns are there, some are not there. That some are not there doesn’t mean that none are there. Nonetheless, the reality of a pattern is still predicated on my mode of perception; that others agree, that it can be measured, only mean that we have this mode of perception in common, and a measuring instrument that we created for it, to condition our agreement to an external, conventional, criterion.

So this light on the construction crane that blinks once, then twice, then once, then twice, is really there, but saying that does not mean more or less than the fact that I am here, with a mind that has notions of numbers and succession, able to interpret a visual phenomenon under the form of this pattern. There are phenomena and I can count: so I will interpret this phenomenon by a count of it. Surely the phenomenon possesses a countable attribute for me to count; but that does not mean that I can believe thus to possess its definition. It may have, probably has, many other aspects that other perceptual agents find convenient to them. So when I say : “it blinks once, then twice, and so on”, I only mean : “I can count a visual stimulus from there once, then twice, and so on.” That is, unfortunately, all that I can perceive. Far from defining the object, this remark exhausts my ability to perceive it.

When I talk about the world, I am still talking about myself. When I describe the world, I describe its shadow (on the cave wall, have at it) through a very specifically shaped sieve: it tells me that there is a world, but the shape of what I see tells me about the sieve.