It’s time to see things differently… to improve your life | Beau Lotto

Our brains evolved to make sense of uncertainties, so there's no need to fear doubt

When you open your eyes, do you see the world as it really is? Humans have been asking themselves this for thousands of years. From the shadows on the wall of Plato's cave in The Republic to Morpheus offering Neo the red or the blue pill in The Matrix, the notion that what we see might not be what is truly there has troubled and tantalised us.

In the 18th century, the philosopher Immanuel Kant argued that we can never have access to the Ding an sich, the unfiltered "thing in itself " of objective reality. Great minds have taken up this perplexing question again and again. They all had theories, but now neuroscience has an answer.