Do we see reality as it is?

A third of our brain is used for visual perception. Our eye is like a 130-megapixel camera, and it transmits back the images in real time to billions of neurons for further processing and we see the world.

Actually, we re-construct the reality in our brain, hence the illusions and delusions are there. Natural selection makes us see what is needed for survival and reproduction.

Here below is an illusion, The triangle filling the white space actually does not exist in reality/

The Kanizsa Triangle Illusion

Evolution made us not see reality, in order to have better adaptation.

What we consciously see is our brains’ best guess.

Why it is important to understand and learn more about this subject?

as AI taking over our daily lives, and we are spending more time on the internet. we are bound to get manipulated by these illusions and tricks in different ways.

If you visit a big grocery store and observe how things are arranged and how they make you walk longer distances, this is sophisticated cognitive science to make you purchase more.

Election time, you would see a variety of ads that are designed with the help of cognitive science, you visit a casino and sophisticated cognitive science is at work.

The best way to understand this as a layman is to think and compare the objects you see in your daily life or like icons on a desktop, space and time are the desktops, like underlying computer hardware and its complex electronic circuits are hidden from us from the desktop, the reality is hidden from our perception to reduce the complexity and we see what we need to survive ( Source Donald Hoffman https://youtu.be/oYp5XuGYqqY )