Is there anything beyond human perception?

rustygull12 said:"In light of this, when we address the realm of sensory perception and cognitive processing, one simply cannot rely upon it as a definitive metric or concrete proof of any actual existence."
Well, they aren't wrong, are they? It strikes me as a rather futile exercise to even bother asking whether something exists if we lack the fundamental capacity to perceive it in the first place.

Rachel Bishop said:It truly makes no sense... mostly because the question regarding perception is framed
entirely backwards.🙂
When a premise is fundamentally flawed, a logical answer becomes impossible.
The catch lies in the punctuation... there it is...

The issue is that the question "does something exist that we cannot perceive?"
assumes our senses act as a window to reality. They don't. What we experience doesn't actually exist in that specific form—nor in that spatial-temporal configuration—outside of our own sensory processing (as Jack so aptly noted, perception isn't a metric or proof)
So, what is worth questioning?
The real inquiry shouldn't be about what exists beyond perception... but rather, what on earth is perception actually doing if it isn't performing the function we assumed it was. If it isn't accurately mirroring some supposed "external world"—which it clearly isn't—then what is its purpose? 😉

Hannah Barnes said:At the dawn of the 20th century, researchers hit a wall because
certain phenomena simply couldn't be "seen"—they were beyond direct measurement.
This creates a fundamental friction with the traditional scientific mindset:
"If I can't see it, touch it, or measure it, it doesn't exist."
The fallback, predictably, is mathematics; if visual confirmation fails, one must rely on calculation and

everything seems fine on paper...
Yet, even within the mind of a scientist, basic human psychology takes its toll.
Centuries of established scientific dogma, particularly those rigid principles from the 19th century...
Materialism—the old-school, reliable, scientific kind—demands physical proof.
Then there is Schrödinger's cat.
Are we meant to believe it is neither alive nor dead until someone decides to look?

The implication is that only what we measure (and only at the moment of measurement) earns the right to exist!

This is an old philosophical dilemma...
Our senses are inherently deceptive.
What truth can actually be gleaned from such flawed perceptions?
Cogito...

Consider this thought experiment:
An air traffic controller looks at a radar screen and sees a Boeing 747 flying from Chicago to New York...
carrying 300 passengers at an altitude of 33,000 feet.

But what does the controller actually see? Just a tiny blip on a glowing screen.
Is that blip the plane? Or is it just a blip?

If the controller makes a mistake and that blip vanishes from the display...
has he effectively killed 300 people?

Did they even truly exist, given that all he ever perceived was a single dot?

Do things persist when they fall outside our perception?

A brick falling toward my head certainly doesn't look the way I

perceive it. Under ultraviolet light, X-rays, or at a subatomic

level, its appearance would be entirely different.
Its trajectory, viewed from the sun, would look completely different; it moves at roughly

some 19 miles/s along a tangent to Earth's orbit, while the velocity toward

my head is almost
negligible. My perception of that brick is fundamentally wrong...
But it is the only reality I have.

One could conclude that perception is purely relative.

Can I then conclude that through my very act of perceiving, I am either creating or

deconstructing—that I am actively influencing reality?

It reminds me of how small children cover their eyes and insist:
"You can't see me!"

Lawrence Robinson5 said:One of the answers to this (which leans heavily into quantum mechanics and increasingly into certain branches of psychology) goes like this:

Perception doesn't perceive what is given; it creates that "given." Our senses are the architects of reality.
Think about that famous experiment involving electrons being fired through two slits onto a screen, which yields two different results: when we aren't monitoring what’s happening during the experiment, the traces on the screen show interference patterns—basically energy in its most fundamental form. But the moment we observe the process itself, they show the traces of material particles. Is that just a coincidence? No way in hell...
The lesson here is: paying attention means making things concrete. And once you realize that, the question "what should we be seeing?" turns into a total farce... because it's like asking, "well, what am I supposed to be thinking?" It comes down to free will: in perceiving, in thinking, and in acting... we are beings that manifest ourselves in the most fundamental sense of the word.

In this way, every observer—anyone who directs their attention—is an active participant in constructing "reality." Reality is exactly what we see it to be, but that doesn't mean it looks the same to another observer. Nor does it mean one version is any less real than another. There are overlaps and alignments, sure, but also massive differences...
On top of that: there's a huge difference between seeing—creating—and then interpreting what has been created. It’s this closed loop where the creation is constantly being re-examined and reshaped...
Asking "am I really seeing what I think I'm seeing?" is just a fast track to uncertainty and feeling powerless. Only a positive response, an affirmation, allows us to take what we've seen and keep building and moving forward... if we deny that, we're basically stripping away the foundation we need to build our own lives.

I honestly don't know where to start with this one because there’s just so much to unpack, but I feel like I really need to get my thoughts out there while they're still fresh in my mind. You know how it is when you've been sitting on a feeling for a while, just letting it simmer, and then suddenly everything clicks? Well, that's where I am right now. I was thinking back to this one afternoon last summer—I was grabbing a coffee over in Seattle, just watching the rain hit the window—and it hit me how much our perspectives shift depending on who we're talking to. It’s funny how we all perceive the same reality through such different lenses, isn't it? Anyway, I’ve been following the discussions here lately, and I noticed something interesting about the way people are reacting to the recent news. It feels like there's this underlying tension that nobody wants to call out directly, but it's definitely there, vibrating under the surface of every conversation. I was reading some of the points made by Lawrence Robinson5 earlier, and while I see where they're coming from, I can't help but feel like we're missing the bigger picture by focusing so heavily on the immediate fallout. We tend to get caught up in the "what happened" instead of asking "why did this happen in the first place?" It's a bit like when you're trying to fix a leaky faucet; you can keep tightening the handle all day, but if the pipes underneath are rusted through, you're just wasting your time. We need to look at the structural stuff. I’m curious to hear what everyone else thinks, though—do you feel like we're being too reactive, or am I just overthinking things again? I have a tendency to do that, I know, but I truly believe that if we don't slow down and actually analyze the root causes, we're just going to end up spinning our wheels in the same mud over and over again. kaže:
🙂
That’s really just how it works, isn't it? We’re basically out here constructing our entire reality through whatever we choose to focus on or how we decide to perceive things. So, I’ve been sitting here chewing on this for a while, just staring at the ceiling and wondering if we’re actually the ones calling the shots or if we’re just reacting to things as they happen. It really comes down to that age-old debate: are we defining our reality, or are we just shaping it as we go? It’s one of those deep, late-night thoughts that keeps you up when you should be sleeping. On one hand, you feel like you have this incredible agency—like you're out there carving your own path through life, making decisions that set the course. But then, you look at the bigger picture, all the external forces, the way society moves, and you start to wonder if we’re just molding something that was already halfway formed before we even stepped onto the stage. I remember being back in high school, thinking I had everything figured out, that every choice I made was a definitive strike on the anvil of my destiny. Now, having lived through a few more chapters, it feels a bit more nuanced than that. It's less about a single, decisive act of "defining" who we are and more about this constant, slow process of "shaping." Like working with clay; you think you know what the sculpture is going to look like, but the material has its own temperament, its own resistance. You adjust, you smooth things over, you add a little here and take a little away there. Is there even a difference? If you spend your whole life shaping something, aren't you eventually defining it? Or is the definition just the end result of a million tiny, messy movements? I’m curious where everyone else stands on this. Are we architects building from a blueprint, or are we just sculptors trying to make sense of the stone? It’s kind of wild when you really stop to think about it, but everything starts out totally raw and shapeless—just this massive, undefined void—and that’s exactly how we get to build our own little worlds. We’re basically architects of our own reality, aren't we? We take all that chaos and start molding it into something meaningful, shaping not just our own private headspace, but the entire shared experience we all navigate together. It’s like we're constantly sketching out the blueprints for the life we want to live and the society we want to inhabit.
There’s just something fundamentally right about the act of creating. It isn't just about making stuff; it's about that deep, soul-level satisfaction you get when you take an idea floating around in your head and actually bring it into the physical world. I was sitting on my porch the other day, just watching the sun go down over the suburbs, thinking about how much empty space we leave in our lives when we aren't building or composing or tinkering with something. Honestly, I think we all have this primal need to leave a mark, even if it's just something small. There's a certain kind of peace that comes from being in that flow state, where the rest of the world just fades into the background and it's just you and whatever you're working on. It feels honest. It feels like we're doing exactly what we were put here to do. 😉 So, I’ve been sitting here thinking about this whole concept of temptation—you know, that tug-of-war between doing what’s right and just giving in to whatever feels good in the moment—and honestly, it’s such a heavy thing to wrap your head around. When we talk about being tempted by "good" versus "evil," it sounds like something straight out of an old Sunday school lesson, but if you really dig into it, it’s basically just the fundamental struggle of being human. It’s that constant friction we feel in our souls every single day. When people talk about being tempted by "evil," they usually mean the obvious stuff—the dark impulses, the selfish urges, or those moments where you just want to take the easy way out even if it hurts someone else. It's like that feeling when you're driving down a highway near Chicago and you see a massive billboard for a greasy burger joint when you know you should be sticking to your diet; it's that immediate, visceral pull toward something that might feel good for five minutes but leaves you feeling pretty empty afterward. It's the impulse to lash out, to lie to get out of trouble, or to just be plain selfish because it's easier than being decent. But then there's the weird part—the temptation of "good." This one is much harder to explain, but I think it’s just as real. It’s that pressure to be perfect, to always take the high road, or to sacrifice everything for a cause, even when it's draining you dry. Sometimes we feel "tempted" to be virtuous just because we want the praise or because we want people to look at us and think, "Wow, they're such a saint." If you're doing the right thing just to feed your ego or to check a box, is it actually virtue, or is it just another form of selfishness? It’s like trying to follow every single rule in a massive handbook just to stay on everyone's good side, even when your gut is telling you to just breathe and be human. I guess what I'm getting at is that life is basically one giant balancing act. We're constantly caught between these two extremes, trying to navigate the messiness of our own desires while also trying to be "good" people. It’s not always black and white, and I don't think anyone ever truly gets it figured out. We're all just out here, stumbling through the gray areas, trying to figure out which pulls are worth following and which ones are just going to lead us into a ditch.
I honestly feel like, in the grand scheme of things, the best thing we can actually do during this downtime is just focus on that deep, internal process of self-discovery—you know, that whole "creating yourself" thing. It’s easy to get caught up in the noise of everything else, but if you really sit with it, there's nothing more important than figuring out who you are and what you're building within yourself.

It’s kind of like when an artist is deep in the zone, you know? You know that feeling where you’re working on a canvas and everything just starts to blur together? There’s this moment where you might actually lose yourself in the work—where you pour so much of your soul into those brushstrokes that you basically become one with the painting just to make sure it captures every single nuance of who you are. You want it to be perfect, a true reflection of your inner self. But honestly, at the end of the day, you have to snap out of it. You’ve got to pull back and remember that you’re the one holding the brush, and that the masterpiece belongs to you. You can't let the art swallow you whole if you want to stay in control of the craft. I honestly don't even know where to start with this one, but I feel like I have to get it off my chest because it’s just been weighing on me all day. You know those moments where you're just sitting there, maybe staring out a window in downtown Chicago or grabbing a coffee at a local Starbucks, and everything just hits you at once? That's kind of where I am right now. It's about the work—not just any job, but the actual soul-crushing or soul-saving essence of what we put out into the world. We spend so much of our lives grinding away, chasing that next promotion or trying to hit some arbitrary deadline set by a manager who doesn't even know our middle names, but we rarely stop to think about the "work" itself as a reflection of who we are. It's more than just a paycheck or a line on a resume; it's like this tangible piece of your existence that you leave behind in every email, every project, and every conversation. I was thinking about this while watching a documentary last night, and it really made me realize how easy it is to go on autopilot and lose that sense of purpose. We need to be more intentional, you know? Like, if you're going to do something, do it with your whole heart, even if it's just something small. Otherwise, what's the point of all this hustle? It’s easy to get lost in the noise, but finding that spark again is what actually matters.It’s kind of like a reflection of everything going on inside a person—everything they’ve built within themselves over time. You know? It’s like that internal reality is being projected outward, almost like a visual representation, just so the rest of the world actually has a way to see it.
So, if you really sit down and chew on it, reality is basically this whole loop where what’s happening on the inside and what we perceive on the outside are just two sides of the same coin... but in truth, they aren't even separate things to begin with. It's all one indivisible, unbroken whole. I like to think of the image we see as just a projection—kind of like a beam of light from our own consciousness hitting a canvas of awareness... and honestly, once you strip everything else away, that's really all there is to it.🙂
So, what is it that we always, without fail, end up doing...?
It’s like we’re constantly on this mission, you know? Always and without exception, we take the things that are invisible and somehow make them visible. We take the shapeless, messy stuff and try to give it some kind of structure, or we take those quiet, subtle moments and turn them into something loud and audible. I honestly think we do it all just so we can finally catch a glimpse of who we really are... or maybe there's something else going on there.
I mean, at the end of the day, we already are exactly what God intended us to be.

Look, I think affirmations are fine and all, as long as they’re actually doing what they're supposed to do... but there's a dark side to them. If you start using them just to try and force reality—like you're trying to cement these specific images or outcomes into existence at any cost—then you've gone off the rails. Honestly, it reminds me of one of those hundred-year-old grandmas who’s had so many plastic surgeries that she’s basically falling apart. You know the type? It’s like watching a horror movie where her nose, her ears, her hands, even her legs just start dropping off because the whole thing is so artificial and forced. Once you start trying to manufacture your own truth through sheer willpower, the whole structure just starts to crumble.
I saw it too, but man, my brain is just a total sieve today—I completely blanked on what they actually called it.🙂

Laura Johnson4 said:Is there anything you believe simply doesn't exist?

Or perhaps it’s just that you aren't able to perceive it?

Or maybe it's a bit of both?

I suppose by even asking if something can be non-existent, you're implying that it's actually possible for something to NOT EXIST in this world (which sounds like a pretty wild claim 😁). In other words, you're leaving the door open to the idea that there might be things out there that are just beyond our sensory reach.

It seems logical, really—everything exists. Or rather, everything that you are aware of exists. Anything you don't know about, and that doesn't concern you or occupy your thoughts because it hasn't even crossed your mind... well, for all intents and purposes, it doesn't exist to you.

There are things that suddenly "become" part of our reality, and then there are things that have always been there, depending on how you look at it.

But what about the things we will never truly know or encounter? Who knows what might be happening all around us right now that we lack the necessary tools to actually detect. 😁

Do aliens exist? 😲

Sandra Wilson68 said:So, people love to debate whether there’s stuff out there we just can't perceive. But honestly? Here's some proof that even the stuff we *can* perceive isn't really "there"—I'm talking about the entire material universe.

I already touched on this in one of my earlier posts: the entire material universe is nothing more than the physical and mental activity of consciousness. As an independent "action," the universe doesn't actually exist—it’s just consciousness acting as the engine behind everything. Now, I want to get specific about what that actually means in practice when we say the material world is just physical and mental activity, rather than its own thing.

Take lightning striking across the sky as a starting point: does lightning actually exist? Honestly, no. It’s just a physical discharge of electrons happening in a split second while those electrons strain and snap. The electrons are what truly exist before and after the flash. In this scenario, we perceive the lightning—which doesn't really exist—while we don't perceive the electrons, even though they're the only things that actually do.

It’s the exact same deal with the entire material universe. It’s just one massive lightning bolt—a "Big Bang"—that struck and hasn't stopped surging yet. We’re sitting here perceiving this flash we call the "material universe" through our senses, even though it doesn't truly exist. Meanwhile, we can't even sense its universal shaver, and we're still stuck wondering if that thing even exists at all.

I’ve already laid out my position on this: the universal shaver is real. You don't "hear" it or sense it with your physical ears; you perceive it non-physically, deep within yourself. It exists as the force we call "consciousness"—that core survival instinct that governs everything from our physical grit to how we think, feel, remember, and understand. We need these abilities just to function as servants, turning darkness into light. When you add it all up, proving to yourself that you exist as a servant capable of serving is the ultimate proof that the Universal Sevač exists. We are essentially just one point within that Universal Sevač—one part of the material universe itself.

Look, if you want anyone to actually wrap their head around the idea that the material universe doesn't mean squat for existence, we need to flip the script. We have to explain it differently and use a better example to show that this whole thing is nothing more than the "shaving" action of some universal Sevač.

Let’s start with a basic fact: the material universe is nothing more than a complex organization of movement and labor by some unknown CREATOR. We only assume this being exists because our senses aren't wired to actually perceive it. Take a country, for example—a massive economic machine driven by people moving and working. Now, ask yourself: does the state actually exist? The answer is NO. It doesn't exist. All that exists are individuals whose actions and labor create what we call a "national economy." No one has ever actually perceived "the state" itself; they only ever perceive people. If you wiped every single person out of an American system, there wouldn't be a "state" left behind. There would be nothing. People are the fundamental elements that build the economic community we call a nation.

If we follow that same logic and start questioning whether people even exist, we’ll end up at the exact same conclusion: we don't. It’s a wash. Think about it—the human body is basically just an organized economic community. It's a system of moving parts and labor where cells act as the individual elements making up the larger "community" of the body. If you strip away every single cell, there’s nothing left. They are the only things that actually exist in relation to the body.

But that only works if you assume cells aren't basically just little economic systems—organized networks of movement and action. And we already know they are. If you follow that logic, cells don't even really "exist" in the way people think. It’s just atoms and molecules making up the foundation. You strip those elements away from the cell, and there's nothing left. Period.

We’re probably going to end up realizing that even atoms don't actually exist. They're just economic collectives—basically just organized clusters of energy and matter particles moving around together.

Which elementary particles have scientists actually proven don't exist? Because even those are just some kind of VIBRATIONS—basically just movement or work being done by some unknown creator we can't even wrap our heads around. It’s like those particles only "exist" while that creator is actively exerting force and moving, and once they stop, everything just vanishes back into nothingness. Just like lightning in the sky disappears the second it stops flashing.

If you've actually had the patience to stick with me this far, I think it’s pretty obvious now that asking "is there anything we can't perceive?" is a total waste of time. It’s way more logical to ask: "Does everything we *can* perceive actually exist?" Obviously, both questions only apply to sensory perception, because nothing we sense through our physical senses ACTUALLY EXISTS. This doesn't apply to non-sensory perception—the way we perceive ourselves, our immaterial, sensorially unknowable CONSCIOUS SELF (THE EGO). That is the only thing we can be absolutely certain truly EXISTS. It's the force behind all the effort, movement, and action that we observe with our senses—things we merely *think* exist, but they DON'T. All our struggles, movements, and actions aren't about "existence"; they're just "states." Movement and action aren't "being," they're just a specific "state" of what exists, which can start, persist, and end. In total, we have "THREE states" of existence, or rather, THREE STATES OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 1. A state of rest where nothing energetic or material exists. 2. A state of effort, movement, action, strengthening, and evolution—the rise that we call energy, matter, and physical form. And 3. A state of gradual slowing down, weakening, aging, decline, leading to final decay and a return to that initial state of rest—a state without energy, matter, or physical form. These three states repeat eternally, which is what we call "vibration" or "biological rhythms." Or in Hinduism, "reincarnation."

Based on these states, CONSCIOUSNESS—acting as the force known as the "instinct for self-preservation"—isn't ONE, but TRIPLE.

It's worth noting that up until today, the six major world religions—Babylonian, Ancient Egyptian, Ancient Greek, Ancient Roman, Hindu, and finally Christian—have all taught that the power that creates and maintains everything through work, thought, and skill is TRIPLE.

Later.

Hannah Barnes said:Oh, God.

Hannah Barnes said:At the dawn of the 20th century, researchers hit a wall because
certain phenomena simply couldn't be "seen"—they were beyond direct measurement.
This creates a fundamental friction with the traditional scientific mindset:
"If I can't see it, touch it, or measure it, it doesn't exist."
The fallback, predictably, is mathematics; if visual confirmation fails, one must rely on calculation and

everything seems fine on paper...
Yet, even within the mind of a scientist, basic human psychology takes its toll.
Centuries of established scientific dogma, particularly those rigid principles from the 19th century...
Materialism—the old-school, reliable, scientific kind—demands physical proof.
Then there is Schrödinger's cat.
Are we meant to believe it is neither alive nor dead until someone decides to look?

The implication is that only what we measure (and only at the moment of measurement) earns the right to exist!

This is an old philosophical dilemma...
Our senses are inherently deceptive.
What truth can actually be gleaned from such flawed perceptions?
Cogito...

Consider this thought experiment:
An air traffic controller looks at a radar screen and sees a Boeing 747 flying from Chicago to New York...
carrying 300 passengers at an altitude of 33,000 feet.

But what does the controller actually see? Just a tiny blip on a glowing screen.
Is that blip the plane? Or is it just a blip?

If the controller makes a mistake and that blip vanishes from the display...
has he effectively killed 300 people?

Did they even truly exist, given that all he ever perceived was a single dot?

Do things persist when they fall outside our perception?

A brick falling toward my head certainly doesn't look the way I

perceive it. Under ultraviolet light, X-rays, or at a subatomic

level, its appearance would be entirely different.
Its trajectory, viewed from the sun, would look completely different; it moves at roughly

some 19 miles/s along a tangent to Earth's orbit, while the velocity toward

my head is almost
negligible. My perception of that brick is fundamentally wrong...
But it is the only reality I have.

One could conclude that perception is purely relative.

Can I then conclude that through my very act of perceiving, I am either creating or

deconstructing—that I am actively influencing reality?

It reminds me of how small children cover their eyes and insist:
"You can't see me!"

Sandra Wilson68 said:Nobody even pays attention to my posts! It’s like there isn't a single philosopher on this entire forum. Just one believer who, after reading my stuff, crosses himself, lets out a massive sigh, and wails: "Oh, God."

Louis;11387085 said:If we're already questioning whether things exist beyond our perception, then here's some proof that even what we *can* perceive doesn't actually exist—namely, the entire material universe itself.]

I mean, if we follow that logic—if "even what we can perceive, like the whole physical universe, doesn't exist"—then I guess you don't really exist either. Not really. Your arguments wouldn't exist, and there'd be no reason for any of us to keep reading your posts, let alone bother commenting on them, right?

I suppose I should have seen this coming, given the current state of things... though that doesn't make the realization any less exhausting. Anthony Rivera17 says:
Whether we call them higher states of consciousness or expanded realities, it's possible that there are paradoxes currently beyond our grasp... or perhaps, given the limitations of our current way of thinking, we simply lack the capacity to perceive them at all... it all leads back to the same point...

I often find myself preoccupied with the idea of comparing people to animals... I wonder if an animal, when moving from one place to another, possesses any inkling that it is traversing the landscape of America or perhaps Uzbekistan... It seems incapable of grasping our concept of an "expanded reality," seeing the paradoxes of our existence much as we view their incomprehensible mysteries... To them, our most profound questions would likely seem trivial, easily explained by higher consciousnesses operating within realities far more complex than our own...