Difference between revisions of "Reality"

Revision as of 13:26, 7 December 2016

Reality is the conjectured state of things as they actually exist, rather than as they may appear or might be imagined. We can include in this definition also everything that has existed, exists, or will exist. We will include physical existence as well as mental existence (thoughts, imaginations, dreams). We do not want to go into the philosophical depth of the reality, but want to look at the reflection of reality in the mind.

As it turns out, reality as something outside of ourselves is huge and cannot be captured completely in the brain. Therefore, the brain selects what is coming to our attention. Reality in this sense is the perception of reality. Experiments have shown that there can be huge differences in perception.

In the context of success, perceived reality is essential, because we base our actions on the perceived reality, not the reality per se. Perception of reality is also socially based, as many experiments have shown. Reality per se might be something that cannot be changed easily, but perceived reality is much easier to change and is the basis for changes in the reality.

In fact, the human brain works quite opposite to the usual belief, which thinks that reality is reflected in the mind. The truth is, that the mind creates a prediction (or a model) of reality, and then looks for confirmation. This way, it is impossible to be unbiased when looking at reality, our prediction colours whatever is there. This mode of predicting reality and then confirming the prediction is built-in to our brain, and cannot be changed. However, it is possible to change the prediction.

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In this sense, the brain is a powerful realization device. It takes our prediction/expectation of reality given by thoughts, mental images, and feelings and realizes them by watching out for confirmation. This is shown in the figure as filling the empty glasses of thoughts, feelings and mental images with reality. Of course, there are some limitations. Our expectations have to be in some sense compatible with reality, and important items for survival cannot be filtered out.

Because that is the whole idea of this predict - confirm: it helps the brain to select important information for survival. This is the main task of our brain, and it works on it all the time. It creates perceived reality based on our senses and our thoughts, feelings, and mental images.

We understand now, that our reality is created by our brain based on our thoughts, feelings, and mental images. In this course, we will work on changing our thoughts, feelings, and mental images in order to change our reality.

Limitations

The brain is a creative device, and is not equipped for destructive purposes equally well.

The first known problem is that the brain can only handle negation with first creating the negated thing, and then somehow destroying it. Small children will most often be attracted to forbidden actions. If you tell them not to do //xxx//, the most natural thing is to do it. A better way is to tell them what they are supposed to do. You can use this also yourself, for example by thinking "I must remember abc." instead of "I must not forget abc."

The second known issue is that the brain is mostly concerned with ourselves, and many messages sent out to others are translated into messages of ourself. So if you claim "You are an idiot.", your brain will readily translate this into "I am an idiot."

Finally, the prediction of reality has to have some level of compatibility with reality. Normally more than 50% truth are enough. For example, if you expect the traffic lights to show red whenever you approach, and reality is that this is true in 50% of the cases, you will get enough confirmation for your expectation to believe it.