Reality Check

posted 05.3.20

Yesterday, was the first sunny day in a while. Like many New Yorkers, I donned my PPE and headed out for a bit of fresh air and freedom.

This was one of my few solo ventures since the advent of the pandemic. Sheltering in place in our 750 sq. ft. apartment has been surprisingly smooth for me and my husband. The worse it’s gotten is micromanaging each other’s dishware configurations when loading the dishwasher. We’ve tag-teamed most of our exercise outings (walks and bike rides) as well as late night forays to the building’s shared laundry room to avoid crowding into the space with our neighbors.

But yesterday, as the sunshine beckoned, and I grew antsy, my husband had to join a webinar. So I struck out on my own, stoppering in my earbuds, tuning in to Sam Harris’s Making Sense podcast, and power walking south along the Hudson River Park to the North Cove Harbor.

It wasn’t completely relaxing. I remained alert, pivoting to avoid the backdraft of mask-less runners and walkers when needed. But it was a pleasure to stretch my legs and catch some rays. I even left behind the sunscreen for the first real summer day of the season. And I allowed myself to be absorbed by the podcast, an interview with cognitive scientist Donald Hoffman on his theory of reality and perception. “Absorbed” does not equal “fully comprehended.” This was actually my second listen, and I plan to go in for a third. It’s heady stuff. But I’ll do my best to lay out what I think he’s saying.

Hoffman’s theory suggests that human perception of the world “out there,” is inaccurate. In fact, our instruments for knowing the world, our five senses, are more like filters, or even blinders, turning down the aspects of reality that distract us from the business of survival and passing on our genes. And we’re not talking about a few details here and there. The difference between reality and our perception is vast.

In Hoffman’s example, our relationship to reality is more like icons on a computer desktop. When we drag a “document” into a “trashcan,” we aren’t literally throwing a paper into a waste basket. The interplay of electricity, hardware, software, and computer coding is the “real” reality, hidden behind a simplified user interface, activated with a mouse click.

Over millennia, the humans who passed on their genes were not the ones who perceived the world as it really is. They were the ones who moved most efficiently in the world, hunting, sheltering and procreating while maximizing available food and resources. When taking down a saber-toothed tiger, too much information, or stimuli, can be deadly.

But Hoffman does believe there is some fundamental reality out there, the character of which may one day be discovered by math and science. Whew!!

As I strolled and pivoted my way along the Hudson, Sam Harris and his wife, the brilliant Annaka Harris, appreciated and challenged Hoffman, drawing on quantum mechanics, the hard problem of consciousness, panpsychism, and a bunch of other super complex stuff that I’m hoping to better understand on my third (or fourth!) listen.

Veering from the river, I looped back north along 6th ave., all the while striving to keep up with the podcast conversation. A nearby car horn momentarily distracted me from my concentrated listening, followed by raised voices. But I’m skilled at tuning out my surroundings, especially when a book or podcast is involved; my own adaptation, perhaps, of Hoffman’s reality-dampening desktop.

A figure swam into my peripheral vision, jerking me back to the rattle and hum of 6th avenue. I halted and removed my earbuds as the figure, a policeman, spoke: “You drop a hoodie back there?”

Disoriented, I shook my head as I patted my sides for the phantom hoodie.

“That’s not yours?” He pointed to a small heap of fabric, half a block away, on the sidewalk. As we watched, a cyclist maneuvered to the heap and plucked it from the ground.

I suddenly remembered the vest I’d brought along, my favorite, removed about half-way through my ramble. I also realized the car horn had been for me. A passing motorist must have witnessed the drop and tried to alert me.

“Yes!” I replied, embarrassed. “I’m sorry!” I gestured to my earbuds as if that would explain all.

He smiled as I hurried past, back to the corner where the cyclist, in face mask and blue latex gloves, awaited me.

I was touched and alarmed and grateful all at once, as the cyclist met my gaze and stretched his arm to full length to return my vest to me, violating the city’s social distancing mandate.

I was also acutely aware that at least three people, all of them strangers to each other and to me, had spontaneously collaborated on this kindness. In NYC. During a pandemic.

Despite my best efforts to escape reality, it had nudged its way back in. A reality of face masks and latex gloves, a reality devoid of hugs and handshakes, a reality where the risk of infection, illness and death is ever-present.

But a reality also of the arrival of summer, the staying power of simple kindness, and the balancing act of staying connected while respecting the science that enjoins us to keep us apart.

Artwork courtesy of Gary Rabinowitz