The mind-boggling possibilities of the ways in which various species, including us human and pigeons might perceive reality from their own subjective point of view based on their distinct biological make-up. Unearth a novel theory that bridges the perception gap between our two species and may point the way toward deeper understanding and cooperation.
The Pigeon’s Ultraviolet Vision
Pigeons, and a lot of other animals with tetrachromatic vision, can see the fourth color — ultraviolet. This broadens their color range much beyond the tricolor (red, green, blue) viewable by the human eye.
We see lots of colors and patterns all around us, but to a pigeon the world is an astral tapestry of hues none of us can view. Some flowers, meanwhile, have complex ultraviolet patterns that direct pollinators such as pigeons to their nectar. This leads to the same intriguing question: in fact does it mean that humans, and pigeons are living in a single reality?
The question of the nature of reality has befuddled philosophers in droves. According to the traditional realist view, there is one world that exists just as it is; it contains characteristics which may have existed long before people walked upon this earth. And yet, this strikes me as common sense — that they perceive the universe through different senses than we do.
Enactivism: A New Perspective
Enassociationism Recently, an alternative theory called enactivism advanced. According to enactivism, even cognitive states are essentially ecological, and for a cognitive being, to be is to enact its environment based upon the long-term regularities in their distinctions outlined by biological and experiential organisation.
This means that the world in which each form takes up a place is moulded by its own unique shape and structure, constructing a life-world that compares to other forms. Analog to how an organism repairs and maintains its own body it builds/shapes its environment transporting it with the elements that are relevant/meaningful/important to him.
Enactivism does a good job of explaining the different character of perceptual experience, but it raises puzzles. What explains the convergence of different species — How is it that the way life-worlds work our for humans and pigeons seems to be so successful enabling us to make contact with each other? But how, for a start, do you study the experiences of other creatures when each species is ‘locked’ in its own private reality?
This is the problem that the authors of Differences by Design wanted to fix in their new paper.
Conclusion
An intriguing and novel resolution of this conundrum, said to be based on the process of inquiry itself, is inquiry-based realism. It permits the differing perceptival powers of various species to sand-box their own realities, whilst also bending over backwards to suggest that reality can be real but not in exactly the same way as traditional realism googles it.
Rather, through focusing on pragmatic agreement and in essence shared goals, I argue that over time we may be able to improve our understanding of the realities occupied by non-human animals. We have to look at other species to get first-person insight, and that could bring whole new domains of reality into the science domain we all share (a conceptual age).
This new perspective implies so much, but in short, it reframes how we might now resist carrying out the human problem that fails to see most of what is ever real — and by doing so invites us into deeper curiosity and humility with nature.
