From NeuroHub: Helen Edgar asks who decides what is real, after a night at Brian Cox’s Emergence show

A recent post on The Wider Existence, NeuroHub’s own blog, published on 31 October 2026, is a reflective essay by Helen Edgar. It asks a simple-sounding question with no simple answer: who gets to decide what is real?

The piece was sparked by Professor Brian Cox’s live show, Emergence, which Helen saw the night before writing. The show explores how complex beauty, from snowflakes to the human brain to the web of galaxies, emerges from a few laws of nature. Helen says she came home “with my head spinning, in a good way!”

The trouble with “hallucination”

Helen has been thinking about the word “hallucination” in relation to symphrenia. She writes that once something gets that label, it tends to be dismissed, and the person can be left feeling they can’t trust their own perceptions.

She draws on neuroscientist Anil Seth’s idea that ordinary perception is a kind of “controlled hallucination”: the brain makes best guesses, checked against our senses. On that view, seeing and hallucinating sit on a spectrum rather than either side of a wall.

Physics, vantage points and being believed

With a clear note that she is not a physicist, Helen wonders about light from distant stars, which shows the sky as it was, and Einstein’s relativity, where different observers can give equally valid descriptions. She asks whether reality might be more relational than we were taught.

She links this to neurodivergent life. She writes that many neurodivergent people notice the whine of electrics or the flicker of a light others insist is steady, and are told nothing is there. She connects this to Miranda Fricker’s idea of testimonial injustice, where someone is believed less because of who they are, and to Damian Milton’s double empathy problem.

The post also touches on research into people who sense a partner after bereavement, the Hearing Voices Movement, and a study suggesting culture shapes how voices are experienced.

Helen is clear that distressing experiences shouldn’t be ignored, and that “Some people do need support, and that support matters.” What she hopes for is “a little more curiosity and a little less certainty”, and more listening before deciding what counts.

She describes the ideas as her own wonderings rather than scientific claims, and welcomes corrections and conversation.

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