Essay · Perception, internet & understanding
Seeing the World With Other People’s Eyes
An amateur effort of writing about how our perceptions are affected by others and how this shapes our expectations and experiences.
This is a writing that I tried to discuss something that was bothering me for a long time; that I wrote many years ago. It is a bit philosophical but I hope you will find it interesting.
I have been researching for the things I wanted for a long time now. I mean, when I want to have or do something, I dive into a deep google search, read articles or the anecdotal stories of others that did/had or wanted to do/have the same things. I was convinced that there is a treasure in the internet and I can read their experiences and have a rough idea about what I should expect and what are my chances to get to what I want. I was wrong, I was fucking myself with this approach to life and brought myself to the deepest hole of my life.
Humans are not capable of perceiving their surroundings as is. I was always skeptical about other’s opinions of their circumstances but I wasn’t sure why they were not reliable. It all clicked on me while I was taking a mandatory non-technical course from philosophy department. We are not capable of knowing the truth. We only know how we perceive it. The knowledge about things we have seen is created by our brain. There is no guarantee that, even all of us agree that something is green, we see that green the same way. Some may experience a shinier visual, some see a depressing tone. Somebody, even they have the same perception of us seeing red while looking at it, looks at the green things and call it green because everyone says that is green. So far, there is no way of knowing fully what one experience.
“We are not capable of knowing the truth. We only know how we perceive it.”
This phenomenon is caused by the fact that all of our sensory inputs are caught by non-perfect input devices and are processed and portrayed by specialized brain cells. The fact that brain cells, i.e. neurons are programmable with the high amount of exposure/trauma etc. makes this uncertainty a harsh reality in our life that we need to always keep in mind. To make things more accurate I have to say that this is mostly causing very little difference for majority of the people. So most of the people experience seeing a green thing the very similar way, if not the same.
Let’s examine an example how this is actually a big deal in our life even though its effect is very little. Assume we gave a bottle containing hot water which at the boiling temperature to someone and asked them what they feel. They will firstly say that the bottle is hot. The water is indeed at the hottest state it can be. What if their hand had a damage causing them to have little to none sensory input from their hands? In that case they would not understand that it is hot until their hand is burnt by it.
Assume we proceed to ask them to explain how this experience affected them; in other words, we move to next cognition layer on the conversation. They may say that it was a good/neutral experience or it was very exciting and flattering to hold the bottle, they may say that it has no effect whatsoever on them, even one may say that it was traumatizing for them. For some reason, they may lie. For some reason they cannot understand how they are affected. For some reason they may prioritize some effects to others and make a big deal of it.
Now consider yourself to be asked to hold the bottle after you witnessed three people going through this process. How would their answers affect your expectations? How altering your expectation affects your willingness and determination towards holding the bottle? Would it have the same affects on any other person?