An organism’s perception is fundamentally limited by its sensory and neural processing capabilities. Different organisms have varying capacities to transmit and process information.
For instance, worms can process information at a rate of 100 characters per second (cps), humans at 30,000 cps, while computers operate billions of times faster.
Due to these limitations, humans can only sample portions of reality, especially when events occur too quickly for us to follow comprehensively.
When the incoming signals are consistent and repetitive, this sampling can provide a relatively accurate mental representation of the world.
However, when the information is chaotic, novel, or unpredictable, our ability to accurately perceive and understand reality diminishes.
This results in a distorted image of reality because our sensory systems cannot fully capture and process the rapidly changing information.
An organism’s ability to perceive information is dependent on the capabilities of its internal systems to process it—the nature of its sense organs and the speed at which impulses are carried through its neural systems. A worm can transmit signals at the rate of 100 cps (characters per second). In humans, the rate is 30,000 cps, but a computer can transmit billions of times faster. Our sensory limitations mean that many events “occur too fast for us to follow, and we are reduced to sampling experiences at best. When the signals reaching us are regular and repetitive, this sampling process can yield a fairly good mental representation of reality. But when it is highly disorganised, when it is novel and unpredictable, the accuracy of our imagery is necessarily reduced. Our image of reality is distorted.”
- Alvin Toffler, Future Shock