Why are we so obsessed with privacy?

[brainstorm]

What worries me isn't as much our status as stupid animals - which is obvious - but our propensity for confusing our *image* of reality with reality itself. This may very well be an evolutionary shortcoming of the whole "brain" experiment.

It is true that without consciousness and imagination there would be no "image" of reality to distinguish from reality itself. Likewise there would be no philosophy of realism, which creates an impediment to critical recognition of disparities between reality imagery and reality effects or alternative (unrealistic) ideas. It's funny to me that every innovation in knowledge or practice is always construed as "unrealistic" prior to its inception. Realists have trouble grasping that there is a necessary gap and lag between reality and its imagery and philosophy.

Actually, though, it's not really a shortcoming that humans confuse reality imagery from reality effects because no animal actually has the capability of perceiving reality directly. Studying animal behavior closely reveals that animals are synthesizing sensory data with expectations as well, in the cautious way they respond to stimuli and approach problem-solving.

I would say it is actually an astounding level of intelligence that allows for the possibility of distinguishing between reality imagery and reality effects. When I say "reality effects," do you realize I mean non-representational experiences, i.e. sensory perceptions and experience prior to cognition? If you were to try to deal directly with reality without generating and negotiating imagery to assist you, I think you would be in pretty sad shape.

On the other hand, when first becoming aware of the radical distinction between reality imagery or realism ideology and reality itself, it is easy to fall into a sort of paralysis. If you doubt all your cognitive imagery and ideas because they are not direct reality, you would either have to reset yourself to go back to regarding your imagery as reality or you have to develop the ability to act on tentative and conflicting information, which requires somewhat more of a balancing act.

Anyway, this is one of those topics that should probably be restarted as a new thread. Why isn't there a button to automatically start a new thread and link it from a current post. That would make it much easier to avoid hijacking threads, I think.