From Lawrence J. Ryan, Wilsonville, Oregon, US
It seems to me that “The essence of reality” confuses the objective and the subjective. “What could be more real than experience?” your author asks. A human observer with three distinct iodopsin molecules in three distinct retinal cones will experience the red tomato differently than people with zero, one or two cone types. So, their subjective reality differs – so what? A physicist should instead measure the distribution of reflected wavelengths and their intensities under a specified light source. That is the objective reality. The rest is just spinning philosophical wheels with no traction (2 May, p 36).
Humans and animals evolved senses and perception of those sensations to maximise survival and reproductive fitness. Does our inability to detect X-rays mean they don’t exist? Obviously not. Did the world not exist before I was born? Well, it didn’t for me, and won’t after I die, but that doesn’t mean reality didn’t exist before me or won’t continue to exist after me (at least I hope not; that would be too great a burden).
