About natural virtual realities

On the top of the robot is mounted a rotating distance measuring device, maybe a laser radar. The robot can estimate the distance to the nearest obstacle in any horisontal direction. It's also equipped with some sort of graphical memory, where it can plot these distances, and in that way build a simple twodimensional map of its nearest surroundings. In the middle of this map there's a little circle or rectangle drawn, marking the position and size of the robot itself.

The next step in the thought experiment may be a little shaky, but anyway: we assume that we can equip the robot with consciousness. We turn it alive, and then we ask the question how it's going to be perceiving the world around it. And what use is it going to have of its little laser radar map?

Is the living robot going to find itself in the same reality that we do, with green trees, blue sky and scented winds? The laser radar map is then a small practical map that it can unfold and compare with reality, to orient itself, as we do when we use paper or GPS maps to better find our way?

Or is it rather like this, that the robot is going to be living inside of its own map? The simple dots and lines drawn in the map are perhaps to be perceived by the robot as real, actual walls and obstacles? The distances in the map are going to be regarded as real distances? When the robot focuses on the little circle or rectangle in the middle of the map, is it then going to be thinking "that's me" - "there we have my own material body"? I'm here making the statement that the latter alternative is correct. The robot will live inside its own map.

Science fiction? No, not even close, for this is precisely how we humans work, and have been working for several thousands of years, and probably our cats and dogs too. This text isn't really about robots, but about people (and cats and dogs), and how our brains fool us (!) to believe that the virtual model is identical with reality itself.

Logically, the idea is more evident and less astounding than one might think. The only problem is that it's fundamentally different from a way of perceiving the world that we are so very much used to. It is by no means difficult to produce and argument for it. A simple sentence will do: "What we consciously experience happens on the inside of the skull bone".

We realise of course that our world view is to a large extent based on information from the eyes, and the retinas of the eyes (assuming that we can see). We conclude that the brain "processes data from the retinas" and then suddenly "we can see the real world around us". This is utter nonsense, or at least, the part about seeing the real world could deserve some elaboration.

But I have to admit to my surprise, the very first time that it became clear to me that what I had always, obviously, perceived to be my material body, is in reality a virtual doll, created and maintained by the brain. We and the higher animals are all a bit like Lara Croft in the Tomb Raider videogame series, although we, unlike game-Lara, have objective material bodies too. (It's becoming more commonplace to model game characters after real people, but that's another story.) But we never see our objective bodies. In spite of their "firm realness" they appear like ghosts to our senses. We can only consciously observe the virtual doll that mimic their movements.

(The atoms build neurons, and in this context the neurons are more interesting than the atoms.)

Not everyone might agree that a twoandahalfdimensional photographic image should be called a virtual reality. I may be stretching that term a bit.

If the brain paints our bodies, why don't we always internally make ourselves wonderfully beautiful to boost our self esteem? And all in all, if the brain is the absolute boss over our experiences, and literally builds them itself, why doesn't it supply us with all conceivable rewards?

So comfortable are we in regarding our inner virtual world as identical with the outer objective reality, that we have learnt to understand hallucinations as something eerie, supernatural, suspect, unscientific and sick. The truth is that all we ever experience are hallucinations, in a strictly technical sense. The question is not how there can be errors in our perceptions. The question is how our awake, healthy and sober world view can be as precisely descriptive as it is.

What strict logic is it that dictates that our world model must be correct? None, really none. According to simple logic, our world view could be anything, precisely exactly anything. If an explanation exists at all why our perceptions make any sense, that would be Darwin's evolution. Our minds are useful for approximately the same reason that our arms and legs are useful.

Considering the detail of the surrounding world model, it appears almost implausibly fast, does it not? The brain may have us believe that it's more completely detailed than it really is, but still. I would assume that a detailed, correct and swiftly updated model is a rather expensive feature. It must have meant a significant advantage during the course of evolution, or else it would never have become, ahum, reality. Perhaps my own limited experience of computer games could offer a clue. Is it harder to make it in a game, if it's demanding and the computer is slow, so that it has a problem updating the screen? Yes, definitely, that is really so.

The virtual model of one's own body can perhaps help explaining how a material body can be equipped with emotions. It can't. The material body as such has no feelings. It is only the virtual model that the brain can paint any emotions it chooses on. But if, for instance, serious pain is only an invention of the brain, why is it so hard to ignore? The pain gets integrated into the internal world view, from which it is not so easy to escape, but what interest could the brain have in being cruel toward itself? Evolution again? "Try to avoid doing things that really hurt?" "If you´re still doing something that hurts, could you at least let the pain lead you to minimizing the damage?" It should be quite possible for the brain to paint emotions onto also other objects than our own bodies, but we don't seem to work that way? Hideous wallpaper is easier to ignore than appendicitis.

So, the brain doesn't have a direct access to the objective reality, except indirectly through signals from the sensory organs. All experiences of assembled reality must then be literally built by the brain itself. Now, it just so happens, that a small part of the objective reality actually does exist on the inside of the skull bone, and, somewhat ironically, this appears to be the part of reality where the brain displays its peak blindness. (It doesn't logically have to be that way, but it seems that's the way it is.) I'm not really a specialist in the anatomy of the nerveous system, but I've read that the brain contains very little of sensory cells, or none. The detailed functionality of the brain then, subjectivelly, does not belong to the subconscious, but to the unconscious. The brain does not observe itself while it's working. Worse than that, in the absense of all biological and anatomical research, we would not be able to know that we have brains. An objection is that the internal state of the brain can affect the model building, also in the absense of sensors, but I suspect just the same that we're rather much blind to what our own brains look like. "The brain is the black hole in the center of the galaxy of consciousness?" No, not really, a figure of speech at best.

If one is very anxious to believe, anyway, that it's actually the very real world that we perceive, then one would probably have to accept that our eyes are supernatural searchlights, with infinite speed spreading secret consciousness waves over exactly the part of the universe that we are currently observing. But if we close our eyes, then these extraordinary mysterious waves will be stopped in their path, and reach no further than the unlit inside of the eyelids. Here I could perhaps mention that there are many everyday situations where I am myself not all that very thorough, keeping virtual and real surroundings apart. Sometimes a whole day can pass by without a single thought about my impressions being virtual.

If there are (at least) two different kinds of distances, real and measurable distances in the real world, and virtual, private distances in the world we experience, then what about time? The simple argument, that the world we're conscious about, which we assume exists on the inside of the skull, cannot be identical to the real world, because it exists mainly on the outside of the head, that argument doesn't apply to time. But it probably doesn't matter. It seems reasonable that time also exists in an objective and a subjective version. The experience of time gets integrated into the same virtual scene that the other experiences occupy, right? We must add to the human senses, if they are five, six or seven, another one - the ability to estimate time. How was it? Vision, hearing, touch, taste, smell, balance, body posture... and time. At least. I've been told that "wetness" is not a sense of its own but rather a special case of temperature. Physicists who know their Einstein might point out that even the objective time is subjective in a specific sense. That may be so, and distances can be relative too, but that will not stop the brain from constructing its very own concept of time, which is entirely subjective.

Two short thought experiments, as an introduction to a rather deep question:

Would it be possible to build a robot with camera eyes and an ability to build a virtual model, similar to the human capacity? Yes, that's probably possible, in principle. But, could this robot be built in such a way that it remains only a soul-less machine? No more human than the microwave oven in the kitchen? Yes, I figure that that might be possible.

Is it conceivable that a living, conscious being could exist, who completely lacks the spatial awareness described here? Yes, perhaps. I may have myself experienced something similar, occasionally, while slowly waking up from a deep slumber.

These two thought experiments are a bit vague to prove much, but they seem to imply that this virtual, spatial ability, on its own, is not quite enough to fully explain consciousness. However, I'm personally convinced that this is a function that exists in the brain, and I'm encouraging others to accept that as a truth. Although understanding the idea is better than simply trusting me just like that.

If you've already read my essay "Set theory and digital souls" there could be a reason to try to clarify one point. That essay, actually a compilation of two emails, is about trying to predict physical law directly from abstract mathematics, sometimes referred to as Mathematical Realism. It's also about AI (Artificial Intelligence) and a possible connection between MR and AI.

This essay is a little bit about AI, but more about psychology. I'm trying to explain, to some part, how consciousness works. The two essays are really quite different, and share little common ground. But then, if you're going to put firm reality in question, why not do it twice?

A final thought, and maybe a way to let the two ideas get into some sort of contact with each other. Is a conscious being more probable, more credible, if it has a long history of evolution behind it, compared to if it suddenly emerges from pure coincidence? That would certainly seem to be true on planet Earth, but in the mathematical set of all conceivable creatures, would those with an evolutionary heritage be in an overwhelming majority? Unfortunately it's not so easy to just ask them.

Thank you to my parents for their support
and a special thanks to my uncle Hans-Olov Zetterström who has meant a lot for my understanding of science and math.