Could things exist that humans can’t perceive?
I was thinking that what we perceive is limited by our evolution. For example look at an Ant. The Ant can not see the things humans can and it can not comprehend or hear the things that humans can. The Ant is limited by its evolution. The Ant does not know what a universe is or what planet it is on. The Ant can...
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answers:
JASON say: I'm sure they do. We evolved with senses required to let us survive on this planet, when they talk about visible light being a tiny fraction of the electromagnetic spectrum, what they show you exists is enormous in proportion, but how far does it go, does it come back on itself?
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americathebrutalful say: We can’t even smell or hear things a dog can.....that’s how limited we are
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Clive say: Correct. We have evolved with the senses that are most use to us. And other animals are better than us at some things. Dogs have much better noses. And there are insects that can see into the infra-red or the ultraviolet - we only have any idea what that looks like because we've been able to invent ways of detecting this.
That's what makes us different. Our brains have developed far enough that we can work this out, and understand things like quantum physics that appear to make no sense at all.
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Zirp say: "could"?? No there MUST BE. Our senses don't have infinite sensitivity. that's why infrasound, infrared, ultrasound and ultraviolet exist
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Jeffrey K say: Absolutely right. There must be many things that we are not aware of. These could be physical things, like other stars or galaxies, or new laws of physics, like Quantum Gravity Theory, or facts about reality, like the Many World of Quantum Mechanics. There is certainly lotrntuak for new technologies we didn't invent yet. New branches of math will be discovered. And new ways of thinking.
It makes you wonder what amazing things advanced aliens could tell us. And what wonders we will discover in the future.
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Ronald 7 say: They already do
In the depths of the Mariannas Trench there are the weirdest fish you could could ever see
There are cell like creatures that can actually live in solid ice
You name it, life finds a way to coin a phrase from Jurrasic Park
But it is true
I have been keeping fish for 20 years
We had Guppies at one time, they are prolific breeders
I once got an extra tank and carefully separated the Females from the males
They are easy to sex, but that is another story and belongs in the Pet Section
You can imagine my amazement when the Females all fell pregnant
Again easy to see
On closer inspection, one of the fish had turned male !!
Life really does find a way
Have you ever heard of Hermafrodites ?
In Theory, if all Females of Humans were gone
Nature really would find a way
You cant argue with Nature
The same goes for Space
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jehen say: Of course. 200 years ago there was no concept of the Electromagnetic spectrum other than visible light and radiant heat. We can't perceive radio waves. The laws of physics suggested they are there and eventually detectors and transmitters were developed so that we can use this utterly invisible phenomenon. Today we know that there is 'something' accelerating the expansion of the universe - we call it dark energy. We know that there is 'something' unseen and undetected that is 'holding together' the large structures (galaxies) of the universe. We call it dark matter, since the effects appear like gravity. These forces can't be linked to any of the known properties of energy or matter that we can 'perceive' or detect, other than observing their effects. So no one could conceive of radio until we understood the human detectable portion of electromagnetic spectrum - light and heat. No one could conceive of dark energy or dark matter until we had the capacity to measure the cosmos to know there is 'something'. So there may be quite a bit more hidden reality that is in front of our noses, but have no capacity (at the moment) to perceive or understand it.
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Climate Realist say: Quarks, viruses, very distant galaxies, life on other planets, God.
Lot's of things exist that humans can't perceive.
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joedlh say: You've got one or two things wrong in your question. Evolution is not a thing that "limits" perception or cognition. It describes the process by which new species come into being and develop. What you're asking is if a species' perceptual and cognitive capabilities places limits on the range of things that can be perceived or conceived. The answer to that question is yes. With respect to perception, the capability of the senses is a governing factor. Some insects can see ultra-violet light. Humans can't. That's a limitation in the perceptual realm. Brain power is another. An ant may be able to see Jupiter in the night sky. But ants did not develop telescopes that enabled learning more about Jupiter. As for humans missing some things, I can't see a quark or an atom, or even a molecule. And then there's the whole dark matter/dark energy thing that nobody has yet been able to figure out.
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Pearl L say: anything is possible, you need to ask god this question, hes the only one that would know
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Alan S say: Yes, just look at all the things that we know now that we didn't know 50 or 100 years ago, even 10-20 years ago. There is so much that we don't know and probably never will, at least not anytime soon. It wasn't too long ago when no one knew about DNA.
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sparrow say: Definitely, for one thing, we can't see micro organisms; bacteria and virus.
Also, we can't see radio waves, or infrared (like snakes can). Also, physicists
think there are other dimensions that we can't detect. We can only detect 4 dimensions:
length, width, breadth, and time. And the best mathematicians have worked out the
latest theory, that there are 11 dimensions, some too small for us to see.
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CarolOklaNola say: Yes. My cats can see me in the infrared in dim light conditions a lot better than I can see them. They also have better hearing than I have. Humans are blind and deaf compared to cats and dogs and bees.
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say: we don't know. if it's there, we've never been able to perceive it and never will.
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Luca say: If it's limited by evolution we're only talking about biological limits and human have plenty of them. We can see only a very narrow "light" interval (and not very well either), we can't hear frequences too high and too low, we can't sense things that are too small or too light, plus other things like: we die if we get too close to thing that are very hot or very cold and stuff like that.
Luckly we have technology that helps us measure these things, so we can produce and measure radio waves with antennas and parabolas, we can see small things with microscopes, STM, etc... we can see far things with telescopes, and so on.
There are still more things that we believe they exisist but that we can't see even with technology on our side, like Dark Matter, Dark Energy, etc...
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