Perception is created by the interaction of our minds and five senses: taste, touch, smell, hearing, and sight. In some circles, thought is held as a sixth sense.

Can something exist without being perceived? George Berkeley coined “to be is to be perceived” to support his belief of immaterialism – material substance is not real, and it is a construct of our minds. He also posed the original question that turned out to be translated as “if a tree falls in the woods, does it make a sound?”

Let’s all entertain a notion that existence can go only as far as we can see or hear. So as we journey through the world and observe it with our eyes, it unfolds only because we believe it does, but once it’s out of earshot/sight, it fades. No sounds, no colors, no anything. How can you disprove this? Set up cameras, or talk to another human who was where you were? Can videos be faked? Can humans lie? All and all the data has to view by the senses to validate.

In the 90’s quantum physics offered a theory that turns “to be is to be perceived” on its head. A demonstration showed that perception can change/affect the behavior of what’s being observed.   So, existence may not be there when you don’t directly observe it, but now when you look at it, your act of watching affects what you are observing.

Think about this..do you have a friend, relative, co-worker, wife, husband and hold critical information that would shatter their existence if you told them? Guess what, they may have similar information about you. Until it was observed it didn’t exist but once it was it changed shape based on the observation. To add an, even more, feeling of dread to the concept “to be is to be perceived” a group of people can see a single event and interpret it in many different ways. So what really existed?

It can be very frightening if we rely on perception to acknowledge our existence because what we see or hear (perceive) is not always the truth we believe it to be. Perception in many instants is an illusion.  Maybe the key to true perception is mastery of our instincts or intuition and not our physical senses. Hopefully, as we learn more about how we see visuals in our minds when our eyes are closed and how do we hear an inner voice (thought) when there is no sound, we will experience to the totality of perception. But then again, maybe ole George Berkeley was right, maybe we are immaterial and our life experiences are all “make-believe” of our collective agreed-upon illusion.

Words by Oneiric Omnestar!