The axiom of reality
By: Vijnan Archives
Tags: Reality, Pranayama, Truth, Yoga, Axioms

Let us study this in a little detail. What is reality? How do we know the world, our existence, other’s existences are real? The only funnel of the world outside into ourselves is through our sense organs. Thus, in some simplified fashion, existence as we know it is a five-dimensional continuous stream into our brains.

You mean I am in the Matrix — No

Our organs merely are sensors; it’s the brain/mind that experiences it along with our memories. If you were to move to a beautiful location, the first few times, the sights and sounds would enamor you and you’d consider yourself blessed to be able to experience it. But once you’ve lived there for a few years, the same sensory data wouldn’t evoke the same awe, because you are perceiving the world through your senses and your memories. This leads to an interesting thought experiment: what if one had no memories? What if one lived in total amnesia, experiencing everything for the first time? Would this be a blissful or a horrific experience?

Focussing on the aspect of senses, we can tunnel a bit deeper. The writer, for one, is colorblind. He cannot discern between certain shades of red, brown, and green, and thus perceives the world in his own unique way. The reason for this condition boils down to certain cone cells, or the lack thereof, in his eyes. Thus, it is evident that having the right set of cone cells would bestow proper vision to him.

Let us go a bit deeper. We can agree that the total number of cone cells in one’s eyes are finite. We can also agree that the distribution of these cones (short, medium, and long) is unique (There has not been a study that looked at the distribution of cone cells across the entire human population. It is safe to assume each one of us has our own distribution). This leads to the conclusion that each individual possesses a unique set (distribution and quantity) of cone cells. Thus, each individual must perceive the light emanating from the world in a subtly unique way.

One could now extend this to the curvature of the lens in the retina, the number of optic nerve fibers, etc. These unique optical attributes decipher the world in a very subjective way. Having been born and raised with this unique set of optical sensory apparatus, the world is ‘learnt’ (and deposited into memories) to be in a certain way for every individual.

Now, an elephant’s or an octopus’ eyes would perceive the world in a different way, and their image of, say, a straight line, would be different from a human’s. Given these facts, the question can be asked: what is reality? What we see as a straight red line can be attributed to: the line is straight (human lens) and it’s red (individual cone distribution). Perhaps, the octopods would beg to differ. So is there a straight red line or is there something else? We could bring out our rulers and other man-made inventions to attempt to be objective, but we would lose focus on the fact that all of them “evolved” with our senses. There is no denial that there exists something. The question simply is: what is it?

But you need to catch it Joey

We have thus far established that everything that we know scientifically can be upended if any of the axioms turn out to be false. We agree that, at some level, we believe the axioms to be true, but we cannot know if they truly are much in the same way we believe the world around exists, but we cannot truly prove it to be so.