Seeing is believing. Yet optical illusions and acid trips make clear that what we see is a function of what we think and believe. Might perception and experience be a creative response, enabling us to live in a strange and unknowable world? Or do they provide a direct link to reality?

In this issue of IAI News, a neuroscientist and a philosopher go head to head on the thorny question of reality. All experience is fabricated by the brain, argues neuro-imaging expert Karl Fiston in part one of Down the Rabbit Hole. If that is true, asks philosopher Berit Brogaard in part two, then where does this leave our most fundamental beliefs?