Perception and the Mystery of the Unknown

If you are seeking true Reality, since Reality is All, it must be here, now.
If you are seeking your true Self, since you are here, your Self too must be here, now.
Whatever word you are using for ‘That’, you may not see It, you may not know what It is, but for sure It must be here, now.
No need to reach It by any progressive practice.
And what is here, now?
An amazing amount of manifold perceptions that appear and disappear in the boundless sentient space that you are.”

What is perception?
The word ‘perception’ comes from the Latin percipi, which is formed by the prefix per- (‘through’, ‘by means of’) and by the verb capio, whose ancient indoeuropean root kap- means ‘to receive’, ‘to take inside’, ‘to contain’. See for example the Greek kaptein (to take, to understand), the Latin caput (head) and capere (to take, to contain, to grasp, to understand), the German haben (to have) and haupt (head, to capture), the Italian capo (the head), captare (to pick up, to receive) and catturare (to capture).

So, if we provisionally rely on the viewpoint of both contemporary science and common sense, the term ‘perception’ means to take what is ‘out there’ into oneself through some means of knowledge. The per- (‘through’, ‘by means of’) is quite relevant here: actually the so-called sense data are not taken inside just as they are, because they are processed by some intervening means of knowledge (sensory channels and thought) that inevitably change them. Therefore we don’t simply receive bare sense data as they are, but rather build up an inner description of them: perception is a mental construct. Moreover, each perception singles out one aspect of reality that appears as if it were separate from the Whole: thence a dualistic and delusive description of reality arises which we mistake for reality itself, bringing forth a sense of separation, lack and alienation that is the source of all our suffering.

There are three main aspects that coalesce into perception, namely sense data, conceptual thought and attention. We usually believe that bare sense data (i.e. colors, tastes, odors, sounds and tactile sensations) are the ‘objective side’ of perception, i.e. what is ‘given’ out there. But this is not the case at all. In order to explain, let’s briefly analyze visual experience according to the psychology and physiology of perception.  First of all, we never actually see objects like trees, clouds, houses, cars and so on. In fact, we can only see light. Light is a narrow range of frequencies belonging to the wide spectrum of electro-magnetic waves. Beyond this narrow range, higher and lower electro-magnetic frequencies (like, for example cosmic rays, infrared rays, radioactivity or radio waves) are totally invisible to our eyes.

When light comes across any object, some frequencies are ‘absorbed’ by the object according to the specific ‘vibrations’ of its atomic structure, while other frequencies are ‘rejected’ (i.e. reflected) by it. Only the latter reach our eyes, so we are unable to see both the objects and the light frequencies that fit their atomic vibrations: we can only see what objects reject, which is somehow similar to a photographic negative image. When light reaches our eyes, it energizes the optic nerve, where electro-magnetic stimula of light are ‘translated’ into electro-chemical pulses, which activate the nervous system in such a way that a magic show of colours appears in our consciousness. Therefore colours are quite different from the electro-magnetic waves that originate them, although we could assume that one and the same wave-pattern is traveling along different ways of transmission (i.e. electro-magnetic and electro-chemical pulses). But this ‘translation’ process goes even further, because we don’t see mere patches of colours: our brain adds lines, edges, patterns, forms and perspective, according to some instant interpretative rules, such as, for example, “interrupted colour means ‘behind’”, “uninterrupted colour means ‘in front’”, and so on.  So what we call ‘bare sense data’ are actually a mental construction at the end of a complex process of translation operated by our nervous system.

This process of translation-interpretation becomes more and more complex with the activation of the second aspect of perception: conceptual thought based on language. In perception, through names and concepts we organize sense data in patterns that we recognize as separate objects (houses, cars, trees, and so forth).  According to Constructivism, every experience is an interpretation of bare sense data through language, therefore we cannot perceive what we haven’t a word for. Moreover, all that is perceived through different names appears as a fragmented set of discrete entities. In the field of linguistics, Benjamin Whorf writes:

“We say ‘See that wave’. […] But without the projection of language no one ever saw a single wave. […] Scientists, as well as all, unknowingly project the linguistic patterns of a particular type of language upon the universe, and SEE them there, rendered visible on the very face of nature. […] Segmentation of nature is an aspect of grammar. […] We cut up and organize the spread and flow of events as we do, largely because, through our mother language, we are parties to an agreement to do so, not because nature itself is segmented in exactly that way for all to see […] We dissect nature along lines laid down by our native languages. The categories and types that we isolate from the world of phenomena we do not find there because they stare every observer in the face; on the contrary, the world is presented in a kaleidoscopic flux of impressions which has to be organized by our minds – and this means largely by the linguistic systems in our minds. We cut nature up, organize it into concepts and ascribe significances as we do, largely because we are parties to an agreement to organize it in this way – an agreement that holds throughout our speech community and is codified in the patterns of our language.[…] We are constantly reading into nature fictional acting entities, simply because our verbs must have substantives in front of them. We have to say […] “A light flashed”, setting up an actor, […] “light”, to perform what we call an action, “to flash”. Yet the flashing and the light are one and the same! […] By these more or less distinctive terms we ascribe a semi-fictious isolation to parts of experience. English terms, like “sky, hill, swamp”, persuade us to regard some elusive aspect of nature’s endless variety as a distinct THING. […]”

Thus English and similar tongues lead us to think of the universe as a collection of rather distinct objects and events corresponding to words.

In Indian thought, the ancient precursor of this constructivistic perspective is the concept of nāma-rūpa. Nāma means ‘name’ and rūpa means ‘perceptible form’. They are joined together in one compound word just to emphasize that we can only perceive a form through a name.

No name, no form.
Many names, many forms.

So our perception of a multiplicity of separate entities comes from language. The Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad says:

“Now, all this universe was then undifferentiated. It became differentiated by name and form: it was known by such and such a name and such and such a form. Thus to this day this universe is differentiated by name and form; so it is said. ‘He has such a name and such a form.’ […] He who meditates on one or another of Its aspects does not know, for It is then incomplete: the Self is separated from Its totality by being associated with a single characteristic. The Self alone is to be meditated upon, for in It all these become unified. Of all these, this Self alone should be known, for one knows all these through It, just as one may find an animal which is lost through its footprints.”

Later on, Śaṅkara and advaita-vedānta mantained that the illusory perception of multiplicity arises by superimposing concepts (stocked in memory) on ‘what is’ now, in such a way that the indivisible Whole appears as a mass of discrete entities limited by their names. Superimposition (adhyāsa) and limitation (upādhi) through names and concepts are the origin of māyā’s illusion.

For example, a rose seems completely different and separate from garbage or from a thorny branch.  Nevertheless, that which now we call ‘rose’ was in fact a thorny branch fifteen days ago and in another fifteen days, it will be garbage.  A rose even seems separate from water, from the earth, from the clouds and from the sun, and yet it is literally made of the nourishment absorbed from the earth, the water sprinkled from the clouds and the light of the sun, which warms it.  ‘Rose’, ‘branch’, ‘garbage’, ‘water’, ‘earth’, ‘cloud’, ‘sun’ are only different names assigned time and again to one, indivisible process that we call ‘universe’, where no particular form can be isolated from the Whole just as in a river no single eddy can be separated from the current’s overall motion.

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