George Orwell, objectivity, and the reality behind illusions.

Illusions are often defined as perceptions that deviate from an objective, common-sense reality, but some recent arguments claim this definition is invalid because external reality may be a fiction or cannot be truly represented by our senses. This paper first warns, drawing on George Orwell, that denying objective reality risks suppressing independent thought and critical evaluation. It then argues that anti-realists mistakenly assume their opponents hold a reductionist metaphysics where only fundamental physics is real. Instead, a non-reductive metaphysics ascribes real existence to multiple levels of dynamic systems—from subatomic to ecological—making objective reality partly accessible to our senses and allowing a definition of illusions as deviations from veridical perception.

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Abstract

Illusions are commonly defined as departures of our percepts from the veridical representation of objective, common-sense reality. However, it has been claimed recently that this definition lacks validity, for example, on the grounds that external reality cannot possibly be represented truly by our sensory systems, and indeed may even be a fiction. Here, I first demonstrate how novelist George Orwell warned that such denials of objective reality are dangerous mistakes, in that they can lead to the suppression and even the atrophy of independent thought and critical evaluation. Second, anti-realists assume their opponents hold a fully reductionist metaphysics, in which fundamental physics describes the only ground truth, thereby placing it beyond direct human sensory observation. In contrast, I point to a more recent and commonly used alternative, non-reductive metaphysics. This ascribes real existence to many levels of dynamic systems of information, emerging progressively from the subatomic to the biological, psychological, social, and ecological. Within such a worldview the notion of objective reality is valid, it comes in part within the range of our senses, and thus a definition of illusions as kinds of deviations from veridical perception becomes possible again.