Is Reality a Construct?
This is what I asked myself when I finished arguing with my mother for the 2020th time.
Why? Because we never understand each other. You know what I’m talking about. It’s a common story — it’s the story of humanity.
Many movies deal with this theme. Not with mother arguments; but with the nature of reality. In The Matrix, Morpheus asks, “What is real? How do you define real?” In Blade Runner, Rick Deckard questions the replicants’ realities. In Memento, Leonard struggles with finding the ‘real’ reality.
These movies taught me that whatever the nature of reality, you have to discover it yourself.
Let’s dive in.
Senses and Infinite Brain Scales
We are constantly bombarded with external stimuli. We sense every reflected light, every sound, every texture, every taste, and every smell. We have the ability to interact with the environment, getting immediate feedback.
We see birds flying, we hear them sing, we touch the tree they’re sitting on, we taste the vanilla ice cream in our mouth, and we’re smelling the fragrance of spring flowers.
All this happens simultaneously and feels real, because our brain makes it so. And this is primarily why we think that reality is objective.
Besides, everything I see, hear, touch, taste, and smell, you do too, right? Well yes, but not really.
We share the same sensory systems — vision, hearing, touch, taste, smell — and we receive the same external signals, except in the case of damaged sense organs or genetic disorders.
But sensation and conception are different processes:
- Sensation is how we sense the world around us.
- Conception is how we edit that sensed information in our minds.
We may sense the same reality, but we conceive it differently.
We don’t consciously construct the world around us; we unconsciously filter everything we sense through our past experiences, our cultural conditioning, our beliefs, and other subjective criteria.
This mental filtering is why each individual interprets reality in a different way. All our thoughts, values, and actions are based on our interpretations.
Therefore, two individuals will never have the same worldview.
This phenomenon has a neurological basis. Any signals we receive are sent to processing areas in the brain.
When they arrive at the frontal cortex — the logical part of our brain — they are combined with other higher mental processes and then flow into the stream of consciousness; this is when a person becomes consciously aware of the information.
But because this takes a while — one or two seconds — our brain uses a shortcut.¹
It’s called the amygdala — a brain region responsible for memory, decision-making, and emotion. We don’t control it; it’s activated automatically.
The amygdala keeps track of everything, and attaches emotions to every experience before we even become conscious of it.² ³ ⁴ And these emotions turn into feelings when we become aware of the experience.⁵
The brain is malleable because it has the ability to change throughout our lives — this is called neuroplasticity.
Therefore, everyone shapes his brain in a unique way, with different experiences and different feelings from the moment he is born.
Subjectivity has neurological roots.
We unconsciously collect experiences, turn them into temporary memories, and if the attached feelings are powerful enough, we put them in our memory bank. There lies an internal “Concept Scale,” which weighs memories as positive or negative.
The way we view concepts depends on how the scale tips; negative memories connected to a concept help us build a negative attitude towards it, and vice versa.
“And so you could say that all your perceptions, in all their variety and all that color and made up of a vast composite of little yeses and little nos. In every conceivable variation.”⁶
– Alan Watts
Obviously, the process is a lot more complex since we associate multiple memories with multiple concepts.
Our memory bank and its infinite number of scales are the architects of our worldview — our paradigm. And, as a result, of our reality.
Paradigms and Reality Tunnels
Paradigm is a peculiar word. It comes from the Greek παράδειγμα (paradeigma), which means example.
In 1962, its meaning changed because of Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, which brought a revolution to our understanding of how scientific progress works.
Kuhn defines a scientific paradigm as: “universally recognized scientific achievements that, for a time, provide model problems and solutions for a community of practitioners.”⁷
Paradigm’s meaning evolved and is now used as worldview.
Our paradigm consists of our attitudes towards all the sets of concepts we have developed; it’s the glasses through which we look at the world; it’s what we believe to be true and, consequently, what we believe to be false.
Paradigms, besides individual, can be collective as well. A collective paradigm is the way a group of people views the world — that can be a family, a town, a society, or a whole species.
One of the most prevailing paradigms is that of human rationality. We think we are rational, having objective opinions, beliefs, and values.
But, in reality, we are biased because of our different paradigms. It’s our emotion that’s holding the wheel, not our reason.
You like to image yourself in control of your fate, consciously planning the course of your life as best as you can. But you are largely unaware of how deeply your emotions dominate you. They make you veer toward ideas that soothe your ego. They make you look for evidence that confirms what your already want to believe. They make you see what you want to see, depending on your mood, and this disconnect from reality is the source of the bad decisions and negative patterns that haunt your life.
– Robert Greene, The Laws of Human Nature
Everything gets filtered by our paradigm. The great philosopher Robert Anton Wilson calls this filtering a reality tunnel. He says, “We believe what we see and then we believe our interpretation of it, we don’t even know we are making an interpretation most of the time. We think this is reality.”⁸
We create our reality tunnel and interpret the world accordingly.
We talk about the same concepts but, having different interpretations of them, we mean totally different things.
You see this everywhere, from everyday arguments with your mother to debates on politics with friends. It’s your mother’s opinion versus yours, it’s your friends’ values versus yours.
What is right and what is wrong? What is normal? What is fair? These are questions with no right answer.
We have our own answers which depend on our memories; on our feelings about concepts; on our paradigm; on our reality tunnel; on our constructed reality.
If everything is subjective, can we ever agree on anything? It depends.
Are we capable of wearing someone else’s reality tunnel glasses and see the world through a different set of eyes? And what if we see another version of the truth? The mere idea frightens us because we’ve grown up believing solely on our interpretation of reality.
This is why humans argue and why there is conflict. The first conflict was that of God’s with Adam and Eve.⁹ Then it was Adam’s first two sons Abel and Cain.¹⁰ Generation after generation, conflict remains. It’s a story as old as humanity.
War is the only constant in human history, while peace is merely seasonal.
This is why, in the Japanese anime Code Geass, the Britannian Emperor Charles Zi Britannia says, “Yes, the very existence of man is discriminatory. That is why there is war, violence, and unrest.”¹¹
Our species comes with many flaws, because of a design made for an ancient environment in which we don’t live anymore.
Our inability to see through other reality tunnels is one of those. Being self-righteous we can become judgmental in an instant. We’re hardwired to discriminate against anything different; it’s both in our culture and our biology.¹² ¹³ ¹⁴ It gives us a sense of importance and pleases our ego.
Jordan Peterson reminds us to first set our house in order before going on to criticize others. But how often do we do that?
Arrogance is easy, humility is hard.
We think we’re better and smarter than we really are.¹⁵ We constantly deceive ourselves.
It’s an Achilles’ heel which we pretend doesn’t exist. Living in denial is pleasant until reality hits us with a poisonous arrow. Is it not time to stop deceiving ourselves?
How to Change Your Factory Settings
If we mindlessly act in accordance with the defective parts of our nature, we’ll never improve as human beings.
And since our nature can’t change, we have to accept it. “Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed,” said Francis Bacon, father of the scientific method.¹⁶
That is why the first step towards solving a problem is becoming aware of it.
We must first realize that we’re imperfect and then acknowledge our weaknesses.
An unhealthy mind is superficial, arrogant, and only sees the world through its own reality tunnel.
A healthy mind stays open and humble, while it acknowledges that there are multiple reality tunnels and then tries to see through them.
That requires the ability to “change channels,” as Robert Anton Wilson puts it. And this is how we improve, not only ourselves but society as well.
Change the channel, change the world.
“In my walks, every man I meet is my superior in some way, and in that I learn from him.”¹⁷
– Ralph Waldo Emerson
This quote transformed me; it opened my narrow mind. It taught me how to stay humble and appreciate every person I meet. I know you’re thinking, “what if that person is bad?” I say you can learn even from bad people — what to not do and what to avoid.
It is not easy to change channels, because our mind wants to navigate a single reality.
Our factory settings and default filters are set on one channel only — our channel — and any attempt to add new ones is met with internal resistance.
We find all sorts of reasons for not changing because our ego is an excuse-producing machine, which works overtime. Be patient with yourself, because it takes time to fix the ego machine.
You can start with three rules:
- Really listen when someone talks to you.
- Don’t take anything personally.
- Remember that most problems aren’t simple but complex.
Practice active listening
When you’re having a conversation stop trying to win. It’s not a race. Control your urge to speak.
Instead, become present in the moment and start listening to what people are saying.
You can help people by listening to their problems; this is the only way you can understand them.
“We have two ears and one mouth, therefore we should listen twice as much as we speak.”¹⁸
– Zeno of Citium
Don’t get offended
By embracing the idea of reality as a construct it’s easy to see why you shouldn’t get offended and take things personally.
We all have beliefs, and all of us come from filtered positions.
Therefore nothing is offensive in and of itself, which means that getting offended becomes our choice.
By getting offended and taking things personally you’re making the gap between reality tunnels bigger.
Conversation then becomes useless, just verbiage. And this leads to nowhere.
Instead, if we value conversation, we’ll try to bridge the gap between reality tunnels.
Entertain your mind with different worldviews, different reality tunnels.
Realize that there’s no single truth
A consequence of having a single reality tunnel is believing you have all the answers.
But problems are never simple, especially human ones.
There are things in other reality tunnels that we can’t see because we focus only on our own reality tunnel.
A single reality tunnel can never contain everything. There is no single, ultimate reality.
All models are wrong, but some are useful.¹⁹ The map is not the territory.²⁰
If the greatest philosopher of all time said that the only thing he knows is that he knows nothing, then how can you even think you know anything?²¹
Never assume you know everything. Fight your inner ignorance. Practice humility instead.
Progress
These rules have helped me become a better person.
People appreciate a good listener because it shows respect.
People like having fun, and it’s much easier to have fun if you don’t get offended.
Humility implies self-esteem; people like self-esteem.
Remember, you will never become perfect at this. But it’s not perfection you should be seeking; it’s progress.
“The only sensible goal, then is to try to build a reality-tunnel for next week that is bigger, funnier, sexier, more optimistic and generally less boring than any previous reality tunnel. And once you have built bigger, funnier, happier universe of thought, build a bigger and better one, for next month.”
– Robert Anton Wilson, Prometheus Rising
Understanding that reality is subjective is a liberating idea.
It means we can choose better things to give a fuck about, as Mark Manson would say.²²
I try to change channels every day. For there is so much hidden knowledge in all those other reality tunnels; they are different worlds waiting to be explored.
And maybe someday I’ll be able to tune into my mother’s channel, and finally see the world through her eyes.
That way I will finally understand her; or just get infected with a constant urge to argue.
It remains a mystery.
Endnotes
- Michael S. Gazzaniga, Human, part 1, chap. 2, p. 67
- Gallagher, M., & Chiba, A. A. (1996). “The amygdala and emotion.” Current Opinion in Neurobiology, 6(2), 221–227.
- Maren S. (1999). “Long-term potentiation in the amygdala: a mechanism for emotional learning and memory.” Trends in Neurosciences. 22 (12): 561–7.
- Anderson, A. K. (2007). “Feeling emotional: the amygdala links emotional perception and experience.” Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 2(2), 71–72.
- Damasio, A., & Carvalho, G. B. (2013). “The nature of feelings: evolutionary and neurobiological origins.” Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 14(2), 143–152.
- https://www.alanwatts.org/1-5-9-game-of-yes-and-no-pt-1/
- Thomas S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolution, Preface, p. 10
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZBDUJ0yiVg
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Original_sin
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cain_and_Abel
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Du2mLuK9edk
- Efferson, C., Lalive, R., & Fehr, E. (2008). “The Coevolution of Cultural Groups and Ingroup Favoritism.” Science, 321(5897), 1844–1849.
- De Dreu, C. K. W. (2012). “Oxytocin modulates cooperation within and competition between groups: An integrative review and research agenda.” Hormones and Behavior, 61(3), 419–428.
- Sheng, F., Liu, Y., Zhou, B., Zhou, W., & Han, S. (2013). “Oxytocin modulates the racial bias in neural responses to others’ suffering.” Biological Psychology, 92(2), 380–386.
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
- Francis Bacon, Novum Organum I, 3, p. 47
- Ralph Waldo Emerson, Letters and Social Aims, p. 313
- Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers R.D. Hicks, Ed., book VII, chap. 1, section 23
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_models_are_wrong
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Map%E2%80%93territory_relation
- Plato, Apology, section 21d
- Mark Manson, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck
This article was originally published in my blog Newpercept.
