#epistemology # [[Epistemic status]] #shower-thought # George Orwell ![[DALL·E 2022-06-20 20.56.28 - It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. Digital art.png]] <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40961427-1984" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px"><img border="0" alt="1984" src="https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1532714506l/40961427._SX98_.jpg" /></a><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40961427-1984">1984</a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/3706.George_Orwell">George Orwell</a><br/> My rating: <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4738702222">5 of 5 stars</a><br /><br /> Perception or hallucination?<br /><br />"Sweet exists by convention, bitter by convention, color by convention; atoms and void [alone] exist in reality."<br />~ Democritus<br /><br />There is two kind of realities, the one which we perceive through our senses and the interpretation from our mind, the software of ran by our brain, and objective reality, the reality which exists whether or not a human observe it.<br /><br />In Plato's allegory all men live in a cave illuminated by a fire which casts their shadows on the walls, and only a few ones can notice the shadows.<br /><br />"Indeed, the line between perceiving and hallucinating is not as crisp as we like to think. In a sense, when we look at the world, we are hallucinating all the time. One could almost regard perception as the act of choosing the one hallucination that best fits the incoming data"<br />~ VS. Ramachandran<br /><br />Orwell illustrate a society where the human software is perpetually reprogrammed to serve the goal of the party, a group who understoods that in order to bend reality, you only need to bend human nature.<br /><br />In The Matrix, humans are fooled by machines into a digital world that seem so real, but in 1984 they don't even need to use advanced technology, just manual brainwashing is enough to create this virtual reality.<br /><br />In the end, I doubt the party can fully opacify truth, Roger Penrose said<br />"Real mathematical truth goes beyond mere manmade constructions"<br />So the truth is necessarily in front of our eyes, all the time, you cannot prevent a human mind to discover it at some point.<br /><br />"ACHILLES: It goes like this: Two monks were arguing about a flag. One said, “The flag is moving. ” The other said, “The wind is moving. ” The sixth patriarch, Zeno, happened to be passing by. He told them, “Not the wind, not the flag, mind is moving. ”"<br />~ Douglas R. Hofstadter - Godel, Escher, Bach_ an Eternal Golden Braid-Basic Books<br /><br />Reality is always subjective to the observer.<br /><br />How do you know we are not living 1984?<br />When you search The Internet, the resulting information is selected by Google algorithms, how different is Google from Big Brother? Do you love Google?<br /><br />Back to the book, a bit of naïve view of capitalism, typical "capitalism is evil" with no objective argument.<br />Also, the motives to do evil just for the sake of power from the party are not very convincing.<br /> <br/><br/> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/103091881-louis">View all my reviews</a> ![[DALL·E 2022-06-19 14.07.12 - The paradoxal doublethinking happening within man mind, surrealist, by Escher.png]] ![[DALL·E 2022-06-18 19.35.53 - The paradoxal doublethinking happening within man mind, surrealist, by Escher.png]]