Re:Chucking Books... (Score 1)

There are patterns within perceptions that mirror those in the environment. Much of the nature of the environment, belonging to those patterns, is preserved in the perception. A computer scientist could say that aspects within a perception 'hash' to aspects within the environment.

If this wasn't the case - if your perceptions bore no correlations to your environment - then they would quickly lead to your death. One moment, you'd be looking at this post on your computer screen, and the next you might see a rabbit hanging upside down eating doritos - neither image correlating at all to what was actually going on around you. You might not be mouse clicking right now - you might actually have your hand in a tiger's mouth.

In short, to survive in an environment, a system must have methods to obtain accurate, objective information about its nature. For us, those methods are hearing, sight, taste, touch and smell. Perceptions do give us some objective information, or we'd be dead.

ps How's your hand?