The senses

Perhaps the most confusing thing about our senses is that the data they transmit to our brain is being interpreted in contrasting and often conflicting ways, simultaneously objective and subjective, literal and metaphorical, real and imaginary.

For example, when I see the television set in a hotel room, I know it is a real object even if I interact with the device via a remote, and never touch it. Still, relying only on my eyes, I have full confidence that it is as real as the couch I'm sitting on, and that if I took the few steps separating the couch from the television, I will be able to touch it with my hands. I can even predict the smoothness of its surfaces, and the sensation of the heat it emits.

I also know that Superman and the rest of the characters in the movie I watch on the television, are not real, but that the actors portraying those characters are real. Little children, on the other hand, are convinced, until a certain age, that their beloved characters are real and...