– if our perception is how our brain makes sense of things, how do we know what’s real?

Question

– if our perception is how our brain makes sense of things, how do we know what’s real?

In: 0

Answer 1

Famously, one thing you can know for sure is real is yourself, because *something* is out in the world asking itself this question. Everything else is fiddlier.

Answer 2

We don’t hence the expression “I think therefore I am” basically the only thing you can know for certain is that you exist everything else is a kind of filtered perception which may or may not be an accurate representation of the world around you.

Answer 3

Hi /u/cloakedbypeonies!

This is the core question of the field of [epistemology](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epistemology) which is a subsection of [philosophy of science](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_science).

Different schools of thought have given different answers to this question. The [Skeptics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skepticism) radically doubted every empirical observation, the [British Empiricists](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empiricism#British_empiricism) countered with an empiricist positivsm while the [Critical Realists](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_realism_(philosophy_of_the_social_sciences)) reject positivism and focus on the understanding of causal mechanisms, to name a few influential schools of thought. .

Due to the immensity of this field, I would suggest reading into some of the articles linked above and formulating a more precise question if you are still wondering.

Answer 4

A wise man once said, “how can mirrors be real if our eyes aren’t real?”