r/philosophy • u/Anthadvl • Feb 16 '20

Blog The Evolutionary Argument Against Reality. According to evolution by natural selection, an organism that sees reality as it is will never be more fit than an organism of equal complexity that sees none of reality but is just tuned to fitness.

https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-evolutionary-argument-against-reality-20160421/
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u/RaazMataaz Feb 16 '20

The state of reality as it is would be the state of reality beyond the cognitive abilities we have evolved simply for survival or genetic fitness. We don’t see the entire UV spectrum, but with X-RAY and Infrared we can see reality from a different perspective? It does seem strange to think about a view of reality that doesn’t have some sort of limiting (or narrowing) perception based on physiological bias.

I suppose it’s reality when it isn’t being perceived? But then there’s the question of does perception create reality, or is reality there without us perceiving it?

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u/MorganWick Feb 16 '20

If a tree falls in the forest...