The 0.0035 Percent World

The tiny window we sometimes mistake for reality

I first encountered a number through Gregg Braden that stopped me in my tracks:

0.0035 percent.

He used it while discussing how little of the electromagnetic spectrum human beings can see. I initially understood the idea to mean that we perceive only 0.0035 percent of everything happening around us.

That is not quite what the science establishes.

The electromagnetic spectrum does not have a simple, universally agreed-upon total width from which one definitive percentage can be calculated. The answer changes depending on the endpoints and mathematical scale being used. So I do not treat 0.0035 percent as a precise measurement of all reality.

I treat it as an arresting reminder of something science does establish:

Human perception gives us access to only a narrow portion of the physical world.

The human eye typically detects electromagnetic wavelengths from approximately 380 to 700 nanometers—the band we call visible light. Beyond that small window are infrared, microwaves and radio waves in one direction, and ultraviolet, X-rays and gamma rays in the other. NASA’s overview of visible light describes that limited range.

Those other forms of electromagnetic radiation do not become unreal simply because my eyes cannot see them.

My eyes were not designed to detect them.

That realization raises an extraordinary question:

How much of what I call reality is reality itself—and how much is simply the portion my biological equipment allows me to experience?

The Human Dashboard

Imagine driving a car.

The dashboard tells me my speed, how much fuel I have, perhaps the engine temperature and whether something needs servicing.

It does not show me everything happening inside the automobile. I do not watch every combustion event inside every cylinder, every electron moving through the electrical system or every chemical reaction occurring inside the catalytic converter.

All of that is happening.

I simply do not need to see it in order to drive.

Perhaps human perception works in a similar way.

Natural selection did not need to give us an exhaustive picture of reality. It favored senses useful enough to help our ancestors survive and reproduce: find food, avoid danger, recognize faces, locate shelter, choose mates, raise children and navigate their surroundings.

For those purposes, our biological dashboard works remarkably well.

But I should not confuse the dashboard with the automobile.

And perhaps I should not confuse my perception of the universe with the universe itself.

The Invisible Room

Consider the room in which I am sitting.

It appears relatively quiet.

But imagine that I suddenly acquired additional senses. Imagine seeing the radio and Wi-Fi signals passing through, reflecting within or being absorbed by objects in the room. Imagine seeing infrared radiation emitted by my body and the walls. Imagine becoming directly aware of magnetic fields and the ceaseless movement of molecules in the air.

The room I thought I understood might become almost unrecognizable.

Nothing new had to be added.

The observer changed.

The invisible world was not created when I gained the ability to perceive it. It was already present.

My inability to perceive something directly tells me very little, by itself, about whether that thing exists.

The Butterfly’s Universe

Other creatures do not inhabit precisely the same perceptual world I do.

Some birds and insects perceive ultraviolet information that is invisible to human eyes. Certain snakes detect infrared radiation through specialized heat-sensitive organs. Other animals respond to electrical fields, vibrations or chemicals with sensitivities dramatically different from ours. Evidence also indicates that various animals use Earth’s magnetic field to orient and navigate, although scientists continue to investigate how that sense works.

A review of sensory ecology and animal perception describes the remarkable diversity of these sensory worlds.

So whose experienced world is the real one?

Mine?

The bird’s?

The snake’s?

The bee’s?

Perhaps none of us receives the whole picture.

Each organism receives a biologically useful interface with whatever underlying reality may be. Different creatures look through different windows.

My window happens to be human.

Don’t Make the Leap Too Quickly

This is where an idea like this can become seductive.

If human beings see only a narrow portion of the electromagnetic spectrum, it is tempting to say:

Aha! That proves spiritual dimensions surround us, but we cannot perceive them.

No.

It does not.

The existence of radio waves does not prove the existence of souls.

Infrared radiation does not prove telepathy.

Ultraviolet light does not prove that consciousness survives death.

The scientific observation tells us something narrower: human sensory systems detect limited categories and ranges of physical information. Claims beyond that require their own evidence.

I want to maintain that boundary because mystery becomes less interesting—not more—when I pretend to know what I do not know.

But the scientific fact itself still leaves an enormous door open.

The limits of my perception are not necessarily the limits of existence.

That is enough to keep me interested.

What Else Can’t I Detect?

The electromagnetic spectrum is only one category of physical phenomena.

Human beings also hear only a limited range of sound. We do not directly perceive atoms. We do not see gravitational fields. We do not consciously monitor most of the chemical reactions occurring inside our own bodies. We cannot look directly into another person’s consciousness.

Much of reality becomes available to us only after an instrument translates something imperceptible into something our senses can understand.

A radio does this.

A telescope does this.

A microscope does this.

An MRI machine does this.

A Geiger counter does this.

Technology continually expands the human sensory interface.

In a strange way, science has spent centuries constructing artificial senses.

And as those senses improve, the world available to human understanding becomes larger.

What Does This Say About Human Potential?

Does our limited sensory range mean human beings possess enormous dormant abilities waiting to be unlocked?

Maybe—but the electromagnetic spectrum does not establish that conclusion.

My inability to see radio waves does not mean meditation will eventually allow my eyes to detect them. Biological receptors have physical limits.

There is, however, another kind of human potential that is much better supported.

We can recognize the limits of our senses and develop ways to reach beyond them.

I cannot see a galaxy billions of light-years away with my unaided eyes.

Humanity built telescopes.

I cannot see DNA.

We built microscopes.

I cannot detect radio waves.

We built antennas.

I cannot intuitively grasp much of quantum mechanics.

We built mathematics.

Perhaps one of humanity’s greatest abilities is not possessing unlimited senses. Perhaps it is knowing that our senses are limited—and then using curiosity, cooperation and intelligence to extend them.

The Ego’s Little Window

This connects with something I have been exploring about the ego.

My physical senses give me a limited window into the external world. Perhaps my ego gives me a similarly limited window into my inner and relational worlds.

The ego says:

This happened to me.

I want this.

I don’t want that.

I’m afraid of this.

I need that.

She likes me.

He doesn’t respect me.

I’m succeeding.

I’m failing.

From inside that perspective, interpretations can feel like reality itself.

But perhaps they are another dashboard.

Useful.

Necessary.

And sometimes inaccurate.

In The Meaning We Give Things, I explore the space between what happens and the story I create about what happened. That same distinction matters here: the world I experience is not raw reality arriving untouched. It is reality filtered through senses, memories, expectations, fears and beliefs.

When I settle beneath that activity into what I call the soul level, the world often looks different. I explain those terms more fully in Ego & Soul: What I Mean by Them.

The circumstances may not have changed.

The observer has.

And once again, changing the observer changes the experienced world.

The Humility of 0.0035 Percent

Perhaps that is the greatest lesson I take from the number.

Not supernatural power.

Humility.

I walk through an enormous universe equipped with a few pounds of brain tissue, two eyes, two ears, a nose, a tongue, nerve endings and a nervous system shaped primarily to keep a primate alive.

From that tiny observation station, I occasionally announce:

I know what reality is.

That is almost funny.

Perhaps the wiser statement is:

I know what reality looks like from here.

That leaves room for science.

It leaves room for mystery.

It leaves room for consciousness.

It leaves room for discoveries not yet made.

It leaves room for the perspectives of other people and other living creatures.

And most importantly, it leaves room for me to be wrong—a theme I explore from another direction in Being Right: How Certainty Becomes Identity.

Another Horizon

Behind everything I see is an enormous electromagnetic universe I cannot see.

Science has already demonstrated that much.

What else remains outside the range of my biological instruments?

I do not know.

Perhaps nothing mystical whatsoever.

Perhaps things stranger than anything I can presently imagine.

I do not need to fill the darkness with beliefs merely because I find mystery exciting.

I can leave it open.

Perhaps that is the most honest relationship I can have with the unknown.

I can stand inside my narrow window of perception, look toward a reality extending far beyond it and say:

I don’t know what’s out there.

Then smile.

Because for a mind like mine, those may be some of the most liberating words in existence.

References and Further Exploration

• Gregg Braden’s official website — the writer and speaker through whom I first encountered the 0.0035 percent idea. I have not identified the specific talk or program in which I heard it.

• Visible Light — NASA Science — an introduction to the portion of the electromagnetic spectrum normally visible to human eyes.

• Exploiting Common Senses: Sensory Ecology Meets Wildlife Conservation and Management — a peer-reviewed overview of diverse sensory modalities across animal species.