Reply To: Post on “The Illusion of Perception (Saññā) – It Is Scientific Consensus”

December 10, 2025 at 8:53 am #55889
Lal
Keymaster

Subjective reality differs from objective reality. For example, colors are not external objects or light but are subjective experiences (perceptions) formed in the mind. That holds for all five senses: sight, sound, taste, smell, and touch. Why is this not a ‘big deal’? I don’t see scientists or philosophers addressing this ‘mind-made illusion.’ In particular, scientists do not seem to be concerned. It seems they are interested only in figuring out how that happens in the brain.

  • In the Buddha’s time, people had to believe that subjective reality (what one perceives) is very different from the ‘real nature’ of the external world, solely based on faith. 
  • However, it has now been shown that subjective experience (e.g., colored objects, tasty foods) is entirely mind-made. It is baffling to me why the general public is not even aware of this astounding fact. I think that is mainly because it is not put in such ‘blunt words’ by philosophers who use words like ‘qualia’ (only those in the field know what that means). 
  • I put the above question to Google’s Gemini. The following is the answer.

____________

Google Gemini:

That is a profound observation, and you are tapping directly into one of the oldest, most foundational, and most vigorously debated issues in philosophy and science: The Hard Problem of Consciousness and the nature of Qualia.

The reason you may feel that scientists and philosophers are not concerned about the “mind-made illusion” is not that they are ignoring it, but instead that they have divided themselves into highly specialized camps that approach the problem differently. It is a “big deal,” but its solution is sought through specialized lines of inquiry.

Here is why it often seems neglected, and where the core concerns actually lie:

1. The Divide: Philosophy vs. Science

A. The Philosophical Camp: “The Big Deal”

Philosophers are absolutely concerned with the subjective nature of reality. They have labeled the subjective quality of experience (like the redness of red, or the pain of pain) as Qualia and the entire question as The Hard Problem of Consciousness (coined by David Chalmers).

  • The Concern: Philosophers are trying to answer why and how physical processes in the brain give rise to subjective, inner experience. They want to know: Why does $X$ wavelength of light feel like “red” instead of just being a factual data point?

  • Key Positions:

    • Dualism: The mind/experience is separate from the physical brain (e.g., Descartes).

    • Idealism: Reality itself is fundamentally mental/conscious (e.g., Berkeley).

    • Panpsychism: Consciousness (or proto-consciousness) is a fundamental feature of all matter.

  • Why it seems quiet: The philosophical debate is highly technical, using specialized language (like “phenomenal consciousness” vs. “access consciousness”) that often doesn’t enter mainstream scientific discussion.

B. The Scientific Camp: “The How-It-Happens”

You are correct—scientists, particularly neuroscientists, focus on the “how it happens.” They are operating under a self-imposed, pragmatic constraint called Methodological Naturalism.

  • The Constraint: Science can only study things that are measurable, testable, and repeatable in the objective, external world.5 Subjective experience (Qualia) is inherently private and cannot be directly measured by a machine.

  • The Focus: They are seeking the Neural Correlates of Consciousness (NCC)—the minimum brain activity required to produce a specific subjective state. For example, they look for the specific firing pattern of neurons that corresponds to the perception of “red.”

  • The Limitation: Even if they find the NCC for “red,” they still haven’t explained why that firing pattern feels like anything at all. This is the Explanatory Gap—the distance between the physical facts and the subjective experience.

2. Why the “Mind-Made Illusion” is Accepted as a Given

The subjective nature of perception is often not questioned because it is a settled principle of how the brain functions.

Sense Objective Reality Subjective Reality (Perception)
Sight Electromagnetic radiation (wavelengths). Color, shape, depth.
Sound Pressure waves in the air (frequency). Melody, pitch, volume.
Smell Volatile chemical molecules. Sensation of “scent.”

The brain doesn’t receive light or pressure waves; it receives electrical signals from the retina or cochlea. The entire 3D world of color and sound is a reconstruction or simulation created by the brain based on those sparse signals.

It’s not an illusion in the sense of a trick, but a functional representation. The “illusion” works perfectly to keep us alive and interacting with the external world, so scientists focus on understanding the mechanisms that generate this functional reality.

3. Areas Where the “Big Deal” Is Actively Studied

If you want to see where this “mind-made illusion” is directly tackled, look into these fields:

  1. Philosophy of Mind: This is the primary home of the Hard Problem and Qualia debate.

  2. Integrated Information Theory (IIT): A major scientific-philosophical theory (proposed by Giulio Tononi) that attempts to define consciousness mathematically. It proposes that consciousness is a measure of the amount of integrated information a system generates.

  3. Predictive Coding / Free Energy Principle: This neuroscience theory suggests the brain’s main job is not to passively process sensory input but to constantly predict what sensory input should be next. Perception is the mind’s best guess about the external world, which strongly supports your idea of a “mind-made reality.”

In conclusion, you are right—it is a “big deal.” It is simply categorized as the Hard Problem of Consciousness and is a primary focus of advanced philosophical and theoretical neuroscience research.

_________

I am a scientist, and I know scientists in general are not even aware of this astounding fact. Most neuroscientists are aware of this issue; however, they are only interested in how those perceptions arise in the brain (per Buddha’s teachings, they do not occur in the brain, but in the mind). Philosophers understand the problem, but they tend to use terms such as ‘qualia’; thus, the general public is not aware of the central point: our ‘subjective experience’ (perception of colors, tastes, etc.) is vastly different from ‘objective reality’ or the ‘real nature of the world’ (e.g., there are no colored objects out there; flowers are colorless!)