The evolution of perception
Can our relationship to reality transform? Q&A with Bernardo 28th Oct 2025
So the timings of the meeting on Tues 28th Oct will be:
6-8pm UK time / 7-9pm CET / 2-4pm EDT
"Naïve realism" is the idea that we perceive reality exactly as it is.
Modern science and ancient philosophies both reject this idea. Plato likened ordinary perception to shadows on the wall of a cave. Recent neuroscience points to the inescapable fact that our experience is a best guess. A 'controlled hallucination' based on tenuous incoming data.
But could the very nature of perception evolve?
Obviously, other species are experiencing the planet with very different senses to our own. What about our ancestors? Other cultures? Perhaps even, if we enquire with an open mind, our next-door neighbour....
In some oral traditions things aren’t fetched from a hidden storehouse so much as brought forth from potential by right relations.
In Māori, for example, “Coming into the light” names a process from generative potential through to Te Ao Mārama - the world of light. Rituals reenact that movement rather than opening a warehouse of ready-made forms.
Perhaps our technological metaphors for perception distort a more natural relationship with reality itself.
Tomorrow we discuss these possibilities within the context of Bernardo Kastrup's Analytic Idealism - the philosophical position that the nature of reality is consciousness. This continues an earlier discussion on his metaphor for perception being like an airplane cockpit dashboard.
Scroll down on this page to see the questions that were submitted on this theme, which we'll be diving into Tues 28th October, 2025
6-8pm UK time / 7-9pm CET / 2-4pm EDT
Amir Giles
I look forward to seeing you there!
Amir
Zoom link
Tues 28th October, 2026
6-8pm UK time / 7-9pm CET / 2-4pm EDT