"We perceive. This is a hard fact. But what we perceive is not a fact of the same kind, because we learn what to perceive"
Carlos Castaneda.
Nothing could be more right. Perceptions are indeed limited, more importantly, biased. That perhaps answers a lot of the misunderstandings that result in human interactions. Poor understanding resulting in egos getting hurt, though intentions were noble.
In fact, one sees biases everywhere. They are also called ‘conditioning’. There are strong ones that operate at a global level like say, the general perception that Muslims as militant or unpatriotic until proved otherwise. They need to do the ‘extra bit’ to prove that indeed patriotic. Subtle ones like branding Islam as conservative religion. You hear a Muslim defend his faith and suddenly, your mind marks him as fanatic. Maybe it is that beard or the cap. Well, I just picked a few new ones here to prove my point. That’s all. In fact, we shouldn’t forget the clichéd ones like colored people being inferior.
We owe our perceptions, our conditionings to the inputs during our formative years. Our upbringing, our family values, the education one had and friendship developed, books new papers read, channel watched. In fact any god-damn input that goes in and unfortunately does not go out. Those that gets stored get used to mould future assumptions. We constantly accumulate, categorize and compare in learning, concluding our opinions. They become our faith or they become the person you are. A hindu or Christian, a keralite, an engineer…. Perception is thus not based on instant data but past data. As the brain gets crowded you give the person or object being perceived very little chance of being different though he is. As you meet and get to know a person, your mind raises to ‘categorize’ him. Move him from the ‘unknown’ to a known category as you decide on your response to such ‘type’ of people. Somehow you cannot accept a person as he is, fresh each time you encounter him. Accepting the possibility that he is changed or different.
How many of us, anymore, still look in the face of our father while we talk to our old man. We have been seeing him for like ‘all our life’ and have firm conclusions about him. You no longer listen and look at him as a new person, even though you know he has changed from the last encounter. We assume too much. We are talking to him assuming him to be this and that. Such and such characteristics. Our minds have already cleared an image and opinion about him and closed taking in future inputs. When this is the case, many things happen.
Like , you do not pick the changes. You only look for and only recognize what you already know or assume about the person. You are in a haste to map everything (pattern matching) that you see to what you know, ‘ignoring’ or not processing what you don’t expect! Now suppose your dad drinks and you don’t approve of it. And suppose he looks little happy or jolly when he is inebriated. Now, every time you see him happy, you assume he had a peg or two. The funnier thing is that our nose expects to catch the alcohol and even if you get another fragrance your senses might fail you. Or even you start thinking, ‘Ah, the old man has taken a mouth fresher or something’. Why? Because you never expected him to try a mouth freshener. Or because you already know your dad drinks and you expect it.
Btw, my dad does not drink.
It is the same everywhere, data shows that very often if you show (confidently) some photo card as an ID to a familiar guard you see each day, he would let you in. It may not even be your card. The reason again is that the guard expects to see your card and also ‘sees’ your card in whatever you show (unless of course you show something stupid as a flower). This is perhaps the beginnings of art of magic even. You perceive what you expects.
If you think you are not being fed false data, let me give you another simple example. Something you can try out. Next time you bath, do it complexly blind. I mean switch on the lights as usual. You know where the toiletries are anyway. Shower, soap, perfume, towel. Everything. Now close your eyes and gently go about the routine shower you take. You stand in the shower, wash yourself, apply soap and towel. All have their unique style. While you go about the whole thing, it might amaze you that you still ‘see’. Mind just starts throwing at you all the images as you need them. When you are applying soap to your toes, you can see that. You take the towel and as you start drying yourself, you see all this. Guided perfectly. See, you are being fed data. Old data.
Now you realize why your mind or brain ‘wanders’ even when your eyes are open during bathing. You don’t process what you each instance. That optimization you do is the reason for not living in the present. That gives us the false perceptions.
Castaneda was right. We have learnt what to perceive that we no longer perceive what is!
Carlos Castaneda.
Nothing could be more right. Perceptions are indeed limited, more importantly, biased. That perhaps answers a lot of the misunderstandings that result in human interactions. Poor understanding resulting in egos getting hurt, though intentions were noble.
In fact, one sees biases everywhere. They are also called ‘conditioning’. There are strong ones that operate at a global level like say, the general perception that Muslims as militant or unpatriotic until proved otherwise. They need to do the ‘extra bit’ to prove that indeed patriotic. Subtle ones like branding Islam as conservative religion. You hear a Muslim defend his faith and suddenly, your mind marks him as fanatic. Maybe it is that beard or the cap. Well, I just picked a few new ones here to prove my point. That’s all. In fact, we shouldn’t forget the clichéd ones like colored people being inferior.
We owe our perceptions, our conditionings to the inputs during our formative years. Our upbringing, our family values, the education one had and friendship developed, books new papers read, channel watched. In fact any god-damn input that goes in and unfortunately does not go out. Those that gets stored get used to mould future assumptions. We constantly accumulate, categorize and compare in learning, concluding our opinions. They become our faith or they become the person you are. A hindu or Christian, a keralite, an engineer…. Perception is thus not based on instant data but past data. As the brain gets crowded you give the person or object being perceived very little chance of being different though he is. As you meet and get to know a person, your mind raises to ‘categorize’ him. Move him from the ‘unknown’ to a known category as you decide on your response to such ‘type’ of people. Somehow you cannot accept a person as he is, fresh each time you encounter him. Accepting the possibility that he is changed or different.
How many of us, anymore, still look in the face of our father while we talk to our old man. We have been seeing him for like ‘all our life’ and have firm conclusions about him. You no longer listen and look at him as a new person, even though you know he has changed from the last encounter. We assume too much. We are talking to him assuming him to be this and that. Such and such characteristics. Our minds have already cleared an image and opinion about him and closed taking in future inputs. When this is the case, many things happen.
Like , you do not pick the changes. You only look for and only recognize what you already know or assume about the person. You are in a haste to map everything (pattern matching) that you see to what you know, ‘ignoring’ or not processing what you don’t expect! Now suppose your dad drinks and you don’t approve of it. And suppose he looks little happy or jolly when he is inebriated. Now, every time you see him happy, you assume he had a peg or two. The funnier thing is that our nose expects to catch the alcohol and even if you get another fragrance your senses might fail you. Or even you start thinking, ‘Ah, the old man has taken a mouth fresher or something’. Why? Because you never expected him to try a mouth freshener. Or because you already know your dad drinks and you expect it.
Btw, my dad does not drink.
It is the same everywhere, data shows that very often if you show (confidently) some photo card as an ID to a familiar guard you see each day, he would let you in. It may not even be your card. The reason again is that the guard expects to see your card and also ‘sees’ your card in whatever you show (unless of course you show something stupid as a flower). This is perhaps the beginnings of art of magic even. You perceive what you expects.
If you think you are not being fed false data, let me give you another simple example. Something you can try out. Next time you bath, do it complexly blind. I mean switch on the lights as usual. You know where the toiletries are anyway. Shower, soap, perfume, towel. Everything. Now close your eyes and gently go about the routine shower you take. You stand in the shower, wash yourself, apply soap and towel. All have their unique style. While you go about the whole thing, it might amaze you that you still ‘see’. Mind just starts throwing at you all the images as you need them. When you are applying soap to your toes, you can see that. You take the towel and as you start drying yourself, you see all this. Guided perfectly. See, you are being fed data. Old data.
Now you realize why your mind or brain ‘wanders’ even when your eyes are open during bathing. You don’t process what you each instance. That optimization you do is the reason for not living in the present. That gives us the false perceptions.
Castaneda was right. We have learnt what to perceive that we no longer perceive what is!
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