Tree in a forest

[bluehillside Retd.]

Bramble,

You've simply ignored most of my earlier post so I won't waste time pursuing this. You clearly don't want to engage.

He never will. When someone dismantles his attempts at reasoning he just ignores the falsifications and repeats the same mistakes and misrepresentations. I can't imagine what he gets out of it though.

[Bramble]

Bramble,

He never will. When someone dismantles his attempts at reasoning he just ignores the falsifications and repeats the same mistakes and misrepresentations. I can't imagine what he gets out of it though.

I was thinking the same. What's the point? Perhaps someone lost their laptop on the way to work and now a feral goat is treading randomly on the keyboard, generating the illusion we think of as Sriram in the strange VR reality that is this forum.

[torridon]

If we take life to be like a VR game because of all the subjectivity involved...it automatically makes sense to presume a world outside the Vr  world. You ask why....I ask why not?!

In a VR game we do step out of our own VR experiences. We have one identity in the game and another outside it.  We continue being the experiencer but our world and identity changes.

I think the analogy of someone donning a VR headset is not really true to the concept of the primacy of consciousness, in that, like that other chestnut, the driver driving a car, it is somewhat sloppy and misleading and it lends itself to an easy misinterpretation that aligns comfortably (for some) with the ancient notion of souls. 

Someone putting on a headset implies an ontology for the wearer that is not justified by a concept of the primacy of consciousness.  A headset wearer suggests a highly complex composite experiencer with a persistent identity whereas in a primacy of consciousness scenario, it is experience itself that is primary, not a composite experiencer. 

An experiencer would be a passing ephemeral agglomeration of experience, not something with its own persistent identity that can go around getting into different cars or donning different headsets.

[Sriram]

I was thinking the same. What's the point? Perhaps someone lost their laptop on the way to work and now a feral goat is treading randomly on the keyboard, generating the illusion we think of as Sriram in the strange VR reality that is this forum.

Communication is a two way process Bramble....!!   One is what I say...another is what you understand.  So, lets just close the discussion, shall we?! 

Thanks & Cheers.

[Sriram]

I think the analogy of someone donning a VR headset is not really true to the concept of the primacy of consciousness, in that, like that other chestnut, the driver driving a car, it is somewhat sloppy and misleading and it lends itself to an easy misinterpretation that aligns comfortably (for some) with the ancient notion of souls. 

Someone putting on a headset implies an ontology for the wearer that is not justified by a concept of the primacy of consciousness.  A headset wearer suggests a highly complex composite experiencer with a persistent identity whereas in a primacy of consciousness scenario, it is experience itself that is primary, not a composite experiencer. 

An experiencer would be a passing ephemeral agglomeration of experience, not something with its own persistent identity that can go around getting into different cars or donning different headsets.

Analogies are like that. They cannot be used in toto.  They are just meant to explain a specific concept within a context.

What do you mean...."it is experience itself that is primary, not a composite experiencer".    How can there be an experience without an experiencer?!!

[torridon]

Analogies are like that. They cannot be used in toto.  They are just meant to explain a specific concept within a context.

What do you mean...."it is experience itself that is primary, not a composite experiencer".    How can there be an experience without an experiencer?!!

That is the whole point of Hoffman et al who are arguing the primacy of consciousness.  A complex 'experiencer' would be something that derives from fundamental primitives of experience.   This thinking turns our traditional conceptualisations on its head.  Like a string theorist would make the case that all matter ultimately derives from strings, complex forms of experience must derive from fundamental underlying constituents, Hoffman calls them 'conscious agents', but that does not mean a conscious agent equates to an 'experiencer'. A conscious agent would be something that collapses a wave function to instantiate matter and bring about the apparent physical world for instance. An experiencer, such as you or I, would be an ephemeral passing agglomeration of trillions of conscious agents.  In other words, experience is fundamental, and experiencers derive from them through agglomeration.

[Stranger]

Some of you here seem to be admiring and even agreeing with Donald Hoffman...but you don't really get what he is concluding do you?!

What do you mean...."it is experience itself that is primary, not a composite experiencer".    How can there be an experience without an experiencer?!!

You've gotta appreciate the irony. This is the problem when you half-look into something, think it agrees with what you want to believe and then go on about how all these scientists and philosophers are agreeing with you.

Here's an extract from Hoffman's paper Objects of consciousness (with thanks to Udayana for providing it on the other thread):

Conscious realism and the conscious-agent thesis are strong claims, and face a tough challenge: Any theory that claims consciousness is fundamental must solve the combination problem (Seager, 1995; Goff, 2009; Blamauer, 2011; Coleman, 2014). William Seager describes this as “the problem of explaining how the myriad elements of ‘atomic consciousness’ can be combined into a new, complex and rich consciousness such as that we possess” (Seager, 1995).

[Stranger]

A conscious agent would be something that collapses a wave function to instantiate matter and bring about the apparent physical world for instance.

He seems to be saying that there is nothing but conscious agents. He maps the wave function of a free particle to interactions between them. He seems to think the physical world is a simplified representation of the infinite network of conscious agents.

Full marks for thinking outside the box, I guess, but it involves a shedload of assumptions and faces a number of difficult questions. It also seems to be somewhat self-defeating in that much of his early arguments depend on things he later concludes are not real. I can't say I find it particularly convincing.

[Bramble]

Communication is a two way process Bramble....!!   

At least you do irony, Sriram. Let's hope the self-awareness catches up in time.

[Sriram]

That is the whole point of Hoffman et al who are arguing the primacy of consciousness.  A complex 'experiencer' would be something that derives from fundamental primitives of experience.   This thinking turns our traditional conceptualisations on its head.  Like a string theorist would make the case that all matter ultimately derives from strings, complex forms of experience must derive from fundamental underlying constituents, Hoffman calls them 'conscious agents', but that does not mean a conscious agent equates to an 'experiencer'. A conscious agent would be something that collapses a wave function to instantiate matter and bring about the apparent physical world for instance. An experiencer, such as you or I, would be an ephemeral passing agglomeration of trillions of conscious agents.  In other words, experience is fundamental, and experiencers derive from them through agglomeration.

What? How can experience be fundamental and experiencers  derive from them? Why should experiencers be ephemeral passing...whatever?

I would say that experiencers are conscious agents themselves.  Of course, conscious agents are possibly at various levels because consciousness itself exists in various levels.  There could be trillions of conscious agents at lower levels but probably just one at the highest level.

[Udayana]

What? How can experience be fundamental and experiencers  derive from them? Why should experiencers be ephemeral passing...whatever?

I would say that experiencers are conscious agents themselves.  Of course, conscious agents are possibly at various levels because consciousness itself exists in various levels.  There could be trillions of conscious agents at lower levels but probably just one at the highest level.

It is just brilliant how in VR you can just up your spiritual level a couple of notches and save years of work explaining basic principles and showing how existence and the universe logically follows from them!

[bluehillside Retd.]

Sriram,

So, lets just close the discussion, shall we?!

You can't "close a discussion" that you've refused to engage with in the first place. Perhaps if you do find some self-awareness to you could try next to find some self respect and stop behaving this way?

[torridon]

What? How can experience be fundamental and experiencers  derive from them? Why should experiencers be ephemeral passing...whatever?

In the same way that an ocean wave is ephemerally substantiated by fundamental particles - sea water, say, none of which define the wave, and all of which will form part of some other structure once the energy has passed.  In the same way, a conscious being, enjoying eyesight and touch and taste, would be an ephemeral instantiation of trillions of fundamental conscious agents all dancing to a particular tune orchestrated by biology.  In this view, you, me, and Stranger are all ephemeral passing collaborative arrangements of many conscious agents.  These superstructures will come and go, but the primitive conscious agents themselves are eternal.  When there is no longer a 'me', channeling them for my particular vision or my particular taste, they will still go on doing there thang, helping to collapse wave functions or whatever.   No pun intended.

[Sriram]

In the same way that an ocean wave is ephemerally substantiated by fundamental particles - sea water, say, none of which define the wave, and all of which will form part of some other structure once the energy has passed.  In the same way, a conscious being, enjoying eyesight and touch and taste, would be an ephemeral instantiation of trillions of fundamental conscious agents all dancing to a particular tune orchestrated by biology.  In this view, you, me, and Stranger are all ephemeral passing collaborative arrangements of many conscious agents.  These superstructures will come and go, but the primitive conscious agents themselves are eternal.  When there is no longer a 'me', channeling them for my particular vision or my particular taste, they will still go on doing there thang, helping to collapse wave functions or whatever.   No pun intended.

I think what you mean here is similar to Prana. These are individual conscious agents that are present everywhere and which induce Life within objects. Prana is something elemental. It makes up what is the Mind and the Aura. It is a part of the normal world (never mind that science hasn't discovered it yet....but some people are getting there apparently). 

But we as individuals are beyond even the mind and aura.  We are Consciousness (Self, soul etc) that uses Prana in this world.  It is similar to a computer being powered by trillions of agents that we call electrons (electricity). But a User is still different. 

http://www.religionethics.co.uk/index.php?topic=16598.0

[bluehillside Retd.]

Sriram,

These are individual conscious agents that are present everywhere and which induce Life within objects.

Except of course that the evidence tells us pretty much the opposite of that. Consciousness is a property that emerges from interacting constituent parts that are not themselves conscious. Apart from that though...

[Outrider]

If we take life to be like a VR game because of all the subjectivity involved...it automatically makes sense to presume a world outside the Vr  world. You ask why....I ask why not?!

Except that, my point is that we don't have grounds to presume that life is a VR game - we have no evidence of anything outside of life in order to presume that. It's technically a possibility, but so are any number of outlandish notions.

In a VR game we do step out of our own VR experiences. We have one identity in the game and another outside it.  We continue being the experiencer but our world and identity changes.

Yes, but what makes us who we are doesn't change - the experiences we've had have been in some sense 'artificial', but the changes they've made to us as individuals are real, and we take those changes with us when we step outside of the game.  Those changes are, perhaps, significantly less profound when we know it's a game, but if we have no basis for presuming that, if we've lived the game as though it were real, who we are is a product of the game.

O.

[Sriram]

Except that, my point is that we don't have grounds to presume that life is a VR game - we have no evidence of anything outside of life in order to presume that. It's technically a possibility, but so are any number of outlandish notions.

Yes, but what makes us who we are doesn't change - the experiences we've had have been in some sense 'artificial', but the changes they've made to us as individuals are real, and we take those changes with us when we step outside of the game.  Those changes are, perhaps, significantly less profound when we know it's a game, but if we have no basis for presuming that, if we've lived the game as though it were real, who we are is a product of the game.

O.

But why do you say we have no evidence?!  All the things that we have been discussing on this thread and elsewhere, ideas of consciousness and subjectivity, Hoffman's ideas etc....are some of the reasons to believe that our life is like a VR game.

The point of this 'VR game' is to change and develop our consciousness.  Spirituality is essentially about experiencing the world through different bodies, changing our identity and becoming free finally.

We don't know that it is a game till the very last stage....which is what the illusion is all about. We think we are doing certain things for certain reasons (the carrot) while all the time something else is happening beneath the surface. At the last stage the illusion breaks, we realize the truth and our identity shifts. 

https://tsriramrao.wordpress.com/2019/11/04/reality/

[Stranger]

But why do you say we have no evidence?!  All the things that we have been discussing on this thread and elsewhere, ideas of consciousness and subjectivity, Hoffman's ideas etc....are some of the reasons to believe that our life is like a VR game.

Which just underlines the fact that you don't understand what evidence means.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Sriram,

But why do you say we have no evidence?!

Because evidence and conjecture are not the same thing. My conjecture that there may be leprechauns leaving pots of gold at the ends of rainbows is not evidence for leprechauns leaving pots of gold at the ends of rainbows.

As a few posts ago though you fundamentally mis-stated what science has to say about absolute truths, I suppose there's no reason to expect you to have a better grasp of what the word "evidence" actually means either.

[Outrider]

But why do you say we have no evidence?!  All the things that we have been discussing on this thread and elsewhere, ideas of consciousness and subjectivity, Hoffman's ideas etc....are some of the reasons to believe that our life is like a VR game.

Subjectivity is not evidence of a VR style existence, it's evidence of an absence of absolute knowledge.

The point of this 'VR game' is to change and develop our consciousness.

And you base this 'conclusion' on what, exactly?  That we, generally, change and develop our consciousness over time is not evidence that this is somehow 'the point' of life.

Spirituality is essentially about experiencing the world through different bodies, changing our identity and becoming free finally.

See, I thought that was what Dungeons and Dragons was about - don't get me wrong, I love D&D, but I understand that it's a hobby, not some hidden underlying mystery of reality.

We don't know that it is a game till the very last stage....which is what the illusion is all about.

If that's the case, how do you know now?

We think we are doing certain things for certain reasons (the carrot) while all the time something else is happening beneath the surface.

I think, here, is part of where you misunderstand certainly my take on things, and presumably a number of others, too: I don't think we do things for an overarcing purpose or reason, I don't think there's an underlying point to it all, I don't think there's an ultimate goal.

At the last stage the illusion breaks, we realize the truth and our identity shifts.

Well, no, at the last our identity stops.

https://tsriramrao.wordpress.com/2019/11/04/reality/

I think you mischaracterise the scientific/materialist view, here - I'm not suggesting maliciously - inasmuch as you think science considers there to be two realities, somehow.  There aren't, there is the objective reality, and there are a range of subjective partial understandings of that reality (which are, at the same time, part of that reality).  We operate, in a lot of instances, as though our subjective partial understanding were complete and accurate, but we appreciate that there are times when that's not appropriate (and, probably, times when we don't appreciate that it isn't, too).

One of those times is the idea of 'scientific fact'.  We operate as though most of what science has solidly demonstrated (evolution, gravitational effects, theory of electromagnetism etc.) were absolute truth, but when pressed a good scientist will concede that scientific enquiry only ever leads to provisional understandings.  It only takes one solid piece of contrasting evidence to undermine even the most fundamental understanding we have from science, that's the nature of a system that rests on experiential enquiry.  There is validity to be found in common experience, even more validity when that experience is moderated with non-subjective measuring equipment, but it's always - at least technically - provisional.

You suggest that our 'inner world' does not impact on the larger reality on its own, only inasmuch as it is expressed by us - the thing is, though, that 'inner world' and our thinking process that edits which parts of it will be let out in which scenarios, and those scenarios themselves, are all part of that larger reality - that's reality playing out.  There isn't a divide there, our inner workings are one more manifestation of the innumerable sideshows and feedbacks and cause and effect chains that are part of the reality of which we have a subjective understanding.  There is no more nor less mystery in why one of us cries at a funeral whilst another laughs than there is in why one leaf gets pulled under in a stream whilst another rushes to the sea.

You also suggest that we think the world is somehow immune to our activities, that we play out against a background that has a scheme that will continue regardless of us; partially the case (for me, at least) inasmuch as I think the world will play out in an inevitable pattern based upon where it started.  However, we aren't superimposed over that pattern, we are an intrinsic part of it - some of the things that happen don't happen despite our presence, they don't happen because of our presence, but they do happen through our presence, just as our presence happens because of things that came before.  We aren't outside reality subjectively looking in like it was a television show, we are inside the machine.  We are, to quote an old TV show 'the universe made manifest... stardust seeking to understand itself'

And so we return to the tree - and here is where our interpretation of the broader question manifests in this example.  You suggest that sound is not the compression waves in the air, it's our subjective impression of those compressions.  Our understanding of sound is through our senses, but the phenomenon that we experience is the sound, that's what we call those compression waves, but we call them that whether we're there or not, that's how physics works.  Reality is objective, that is sound - if we're there, we experience the sound, if we're not there we don't, but it's not dependent upon is, it's objective; our subjective appreciation of it is dependent upon us being there, but that doesn't 'create' sound, that allows for the experience of the sound.

If we put our hand on the tree itself, there is a tree - we feel the tree. If we aren't there, there's still a tree to fall, no-one questions that - sound is the same. Sound is a thing, and we've named that thing BASED ON our experience of it, but it's the thing that we've named, not the experience.

O.

[Sriram]

No...I don't think you understand my point. We tend to think that if we did not have senses and a brain, all external objects will continue to be what they are...just that we will not be experiencing them. Like a blind or deaf person.

If we (and all creatures) did not exist with our bodies and senses....how do you know that a tree will exist? A tree is a specific structure of molecules in a specific shape that our senses perceive in a specific way. To a virus or an electron it will not look the way it looks to us.  If our bodies do not interact with the light from the tree how do you know it exists or that it has any specific shape?  It could be just lot of empty space with elementary particles moving around...or maybe just Strings. It is our senses that interact with it in a specific way and create the impression of a tree.   

This is why I gave the example of Dark Matter. If we could see and feel Dark Matter, how would the world look and feel? Will we be able to see normal matter the way we do? Will we and the earth, planets, sun and stars be able to move around the way they do?

[bluehillside Retd.]

Sriram,

No...I don't think you understand my point. We tend to think that if we did not have senses and a brain, all external objects will continue to be what they are...just that we will not be experiencing them. Like a blind or deaf person.

Yes, that’s a reasonable assumption – that there’s an “out there” world. That’s not to say that Bishop Berkely (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Berkeley) was necessarily wrong about immaterialism and you’re not a brain in a vat creating your own reality, but even if you are what then would you do with that information? What choice in other words do you have but to proceed as if there's a reality out there?   

If we (and all creatures) did not exist with our bodies and senses....how do you know that a tree will exist? A tree is a specific structure of molecules in a specific shape that our senses perceive in a specific way. To a virus or an electron it will not look the way it looks to us.  If our bodies do not interact with the light from the tree how do you know it exists or that it has any specific shape?  It could be just lot of empty space with elementary particles moving around...or maybe just Strings. It is our senses that interact with it in a specific way and create the impression of a tree.

Now you’re eliding whether there’s an out there world into whether or not we perceive it accurately. If there is a reality external to us, it’s reasonable on the basis of intersubjective experience to conclude that some aspects of it at least are sufficiently accurately perceived to enable us to navigate it.     

This is why I gave the example of Dark Matter. If we could see and feel Dark Matter, how would the world look and feel? Will we be able to see normal matter the way we do? Will we and the earth, planets, sun and stars be able to move around the way they do?

That’s a bad example because there’s no evidence for dark matter – it’s just implied by observation that would need it to exist to explain what we see. You’d be on safer ground arguing that the reality we perceive without the aid of instruments is akin to seeing the world from inside a letterbox. We can’t perceive the very fast or the very slow, the very small, the ultra-violet, the infra-red, the very quiet etc. All these things are aspects of reality we know to exist only because we can measure them artificially, but again so what?

That’s your problem you keep running away from. Yes, of course there are all sorts of aspects of reality we can only identify with artificial means, and that maybe we will never be able to identify at all. None of that though takes you even one iota toward demonstrating that any of the assertions of fact you make (“auras”, Biofields” etc) are true. As ever, you’re just blurring the possible into the probable with nothing to take you from the former to the the latter. It’s the thinking of a twelve-year-old, but for some reason you seem to be entirely unable to progress beyond it.

PS I notice by the way that you've just ignored your recent mistake about the nature of evidence, despite people taking the trouble to correct you on it. Why is that?

[Outrider]

No...I don't think you understand my point. We tend to think that if we did not have senses and a brain, all external objects will continue to be what they are...just that we will not be experiencing them. Like a blind or deaf person.

Exactly, yes.

If we (and all creatures) did not exist with our bodies and senses....how do you know that a tree will exist?

That's not actually the same issue - whether I think it's the case and whether I can prove it are different things.  All the scientific evidence in the world that I can produce only shows that reality has been consistent so far, that's no guarantee that it won't change tomorrow.  I have to operate on the understanding that it won't, but I can't prove it.

A tree is a specific structure of molecules in a specific shape that our senses perceive in a specific way. To a virus or an electron it will not look the way it looks to us.

Notwithstanding the idea that nothing can 'look' like anything to an electron, which operates at the level at which electromagnetic quanta carry light...  let's instead think of a dog.  A dog's sensory apparatus is significantly different to ours, the interpretation of that sensory input is almost certainly vastly different again... they still hear the sound of a tree falling.  If I'm not there and the dog is, the sound is heard because the sound is not dependent on either me or my particular interpretation of it.

If our bodies do not interact with the light from the tree how do you know it exists or that it has any specific shape?

Hypothetically, through measuring equipment which can interact with light, with accounts from people who do have the correct sensory apparatus.  I guess this is graduating the question to 'If a tree falls near a deaf person does it make a noise?' - the answer is still yes.

It could be just lot of empty space with elementary particles moving around...or maybe just Strings.

At some level, whether we can see it or not, that might be what it is, or at least one way of interpreting what it is.  We have a word - tree - for the macroscopic level that we interact with, that's useful for our living, and if we start to look at a different level (microscopic, quantum, whatever) then that understanding of 'tree' becomes less useful, but it doesn't suddenly become invalid.

It is our senses that interact with it in a specific way and create the impression of a tree.

No, it is our senses that interact with various aspects of THE TREE that give us an impression of the tree, just as they'd give a dog an impression of a tree (which it might not have a separate conception of, to be fair).   

This is why I gave the example of Dark Matter. If we could see and feel Dark Matter, how would the world look and feel?

Different, but dark matter would feel like dark matter because it would interact in the same way consistently - the reality would remain consistent, because it's not dependent upon whether we can or do interact with it, we are dependent upon that.

Will we be able to see normal matter the way we do? Will we and the earth, planets, sun and stars be able to move around the way they do?

Again, our subjective sense of things could differ - my understanding of green could be different from your understanding of green, I might interpret brass musical tones differently to you, but that's my intepretation based on my experience vs your interpretation based on your experience; the particular green remains that particular green, a particular brass tone stays as a brass tone whether you hear it, I hear it, a dog hears it, an electron doesn't hear it or there's nothing to hear it.

O.

[ekim]

Again, our subjective sense of things could differ - my understanding of green could be different from your understanding of green, I might interpret brass musical tones differently to you, but that's my intepretation based on my experience vs your interpretation based on your experience; the particular green remains that particular green,

... as is the case of those with Synesthesia.

[Sriram]

Exactly, yes.

That's not actually the same issue - whether I think it's the case and whether I can prove it are different things.  All the scientific evidence in the world that I can produce only shows that reality has been consistent so far, that's no guarantee that it won't change tomorrow.  I have to operate on the understanding that it won't, but I can't prove it.

Notwithstanding the idea that nothing can 'look' like anything to an electron, which operates at the level at which electromagnetic quanta carry light...  let's instead think of a dog.  A dog's sensory apparatus is significantly different to ours, the interpretation of that sensory input is almost certainly vastly different again... they still hear the sound of a tree falling.  If I'm not there and the dog is, the sound is heard because the sound is not dependent on either me or my particular interpretation of it.

Hypothetically, through measuring equipment which can interact with light, with accounts from people who do have the correct sensory apparatus.  I guess this is graduating the question to 'If a tree falls near a deaf person does it make a noise?' - the answer is still yes.

At some level, whether we can see it or not, that might be what it is, or at least one way of interpreting what it is.  We have a word - tree - for the macroscopic level that we interact with, that's useful for our living, and if we start to look at a different level (microscopic, quantum, whatever) then that understanding of 'tree' becomes less useful, but it doesn't suddenly become invalid.

No, it is our senses that interact with various aspects of THE TREE that give us an impression of the tree, just as they'd give a dog an impression of a tree (which it might not have a separate conception of, to be fair).   

Different, but dark matter would feel like dark matter because it would interact in the same way consistently - the reality would remain consistent, because it's not dependent upon whether we can or do interact with it, we are dependent upon that.

Again, our subjective sense of things could differ - my understanding of green could be different from your understanding of green, I might interpret brass musical tones differently to you, but that's my intepretation based on my experience vs your interpretation based on your experience; the particular green remains that particular green, a particular brass tone stays as a brass tone whether you hear it, I hear it, a dog hears it, an electron doesn't hear it or there's nothing to hear it.

O.

You are still not in the same wavelength. 

I am not talking about differences in the working of our senses or differences in brain chemistry.  I am talking about interacting with the world.  Let me see if I can explain...

What is the world essentially...?  No one knows.  People however think that at the smallest level (that we can think of currently) the world is Strings. Some tiny bit of energy vibrating in 11 dimensions and transforming itself into the world. That is the most basic picture of 'reality' that we have currently (I think).

After this, there are different levels of reality...at the elementary particle level, atomic level, molecular level and so on. If we could perceive at each of these levels, reality will appear different....

Alright...then why are we not seeing all these realities but only seeing a tree? This is because at our scale, our senses and brain show us that 'reality'.....that is why.  Not that the tree is actually real....but that our interface with the world works like that and shows us molecules arranged in that form.

If we had a different type of interface, reality would appear different.....such as being able to see and feel Dark Matter, for example. Or being able to see molecules  or atoms or electrons moving about....whatever.

So, my point is that the tree is not 'real' in an absolute sense. It is real only as far as our interface is concerned.

Dogs and other creatures share the same interface. Instruments and cameras are also made in line with our interface (senses). So obviously, they all show the same 'reality'.