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September 08, 2014

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Interesting::

"Can we know that the black shapes are more real than the white one? Yes, because the square doesn’t survive our efforts to locate it"

That's not true. The white square is as real as the incomplete black circles. It is your subjective experience (perception) that decides whether it is one or the other, or anything in between.

That "the white square disappears with close scrutiny" is not a true statement. That depends upon how you are applying your perception - equally of which is viable in the opposite direction: the white square appears with close scrutiny.

You attempt to take a philosophically ambiguous premise with a spectrum of possible outcomes and draw a singular truth from it: "it is what I say it is". Simply moronic.

Anonymous, I'd say you are the one who is missing the point. The illusory white square doesn't exist as an entity in itself. Place something over the black shapes, or even one of the black shapes.

You'll find that the white square goes away. It is an optical illusion. The mind creates it. Yes, that mental creation is real insofar as it is perceived. But not everything perceived is real. Mirages, for example.

Likewise, dreams exist in a personal mental world, but not in the shared intersubjective world. This is Harris' point: the self appears real to our subjective perception, but it doesn't have an enduring reality outside of the mind that perceives it.

Very good post Anonymous

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