Is reality real? These neuroscientists don't think so

[NullTuples]

7. Many years ago I had a professor

...who taught a course that overlapped biology & physics. Maybe even a bit of philosophy and sociology.

First day, he'd put an apple on the table and have us assert what the reality of the object was.

"It's an apple" the first student would inevitably say.

So the prof would repeat this but add an additional word, "So, to clarify: it's a whole apple?" as he turned it around to reveal it was only a half an apple.

Everyone would chuckle with that feeling of, "Aw, you got me, I see where this is going".

"It's red" another student would say. To which he'd cover the apple and hold up different red cards; the student had to pick the one that matched the red of the apple without seeing the apple. Then he'd ask another student who often picked a different red.

And so on, his point being that although there was no doubt that objectively a certain object existed on the table, each of us perceived it and internalized it very differently.

By the end of that first segment he had everyone in a sense of wonder that our human senses, nervous systems and brains could communicate with each other accurately at all.

Then he'd take out a set of calipers. A scale. A color meter. And we quickly learned that by using standards and objective tools we could indeed accurately communicate the same reality to one another.

"This," he would say, "is your introduction to science".