Pang reminds us of the important ways that our brains help us understand the physical conditions around us, doing the heavy lifting that keeps us functional and, from time to time, even happy. As Pang reports “We experience only our brain’s internal representation of the outside world, which is limiting in two main ways. First, we pick up just a very small range of things. For example, we can see only a very small band of electromagnetic radiation . . . . Second, we have discovered the brain filters, corrects, and interprets the overwhelming amount of sensory data we encounter, which is essential if we are to make any sense of the world around us and to act within a complex environment. Our experiences, then, are different from what is actually out there in the world. This does not mean an objective reality doesn’t exist, or that what we experience is any less ‘real.’ But it does mean that they are different.”
Damien Pang. 2024. “Why Pink Doesn’t Exist.” Psychology Today, vol. 57 no. 2, pp. 35, 45.