Reality & Perceptions

The Rigveda, composed between 1500 and 1200 BCE, states, "Reality is one, though wise men speak of it variously."

In our childhood we had read this story of an elephant and some blind men who had never been exposed to an elephant. Excerpts below, from Wikipedia.

• A group of blind men heard that a strange animal, called an elephant, had been brought to the town, but none of them were aware of its shape and form. Out of curiosity, they said: "We must inspect and know it by touch, of which we are capable". So, they sought it out, and when they found it they groped about it. In the case of the first person, whose hand landed on the trunk, said "This being is like a thick snake". For another one whose hand reached its ear, it seemed like a kind of fan. As for another person, whose hand was upon its leg, said, the elephant is a pillar like a tree-trunk. The blind man who placed his hand upon its side said the elephant, "is a wall". Another who felt its tail, described it as a rope. The last felt its tusk, stating the elephant is that which is hard, smooth and like a spear. Each one feels convinced that he is right, & the other is trying to mislead him.

 Blind men describing the Elephant

Image Courtesy: Google Images

 Shortly thereafter, a sighted man enters, and describes the entire elephant from various perspectives, the blind men then learn that they were all partially correct and partially wrong. While one's subjective experience is true, it may not be the totality of truth.

Well this was a fable from ancient India, which was very popular with the kids, but modern science is coming to a similar view after studying the human brain in general and human information processing and storage systems in particular, and has coined various phrases like sense organs, reality, perception, memory, etc to explain the same.

• Sense organs are organs that contribute to our five senses of sight, hearing, taste, feel and smell.
• Reality is the state of things as they actually exist.
• Perception is the way in which something is regarded, understood or interpreted.
• Memory is the faculty by which our mind stores and remembers information.

Here we are not going to go into the parts of the brain per se, but merely look at how we human beings process the information that we receive from the external world, through our five senses, right up to the stage of taking action, its feedback to the brain, and further processing. The schematic model, image below, would help us in understanding as to how the information is processed by us human beings.

Information Processing Model

Image Courtesy: Google Images.

It is interesting to note that we enter this universe as human beings with a clean slate - an empty memory. As we develop from a single cell, we are exposed to multiple experiences. Our mind stores all our 'experiences', as also our 'learning', in to this memory through a process of 'Information Processing'. The process starts with our sense organs, which senses the object. This information is stored for a very short duration by our sense organs and is lost if our attention mechanism does not pay attention to it. The information is then processed by our central decision maker, which interacts with our memory system to make sense of the information, as also to decide on the course of action. It is of interest to note that this processing is single channel, & is based on what already exists in our memory system. New and complex information leaves our central decision maker at a loss. Also, at any given time we may not have all the information to take a decision. Our brain makes a model based on the available information with our sensory organs and our memory and takes a decision; action follows, which is fed back to our sensory organs once again with the loop continuing.

From all of the above it is evident that two people witnessing the same information, may not have the same perception of the situation, as their memory system and their attention mechanism may have been exposed to different experiences, and learning. Our reality is governed by our perception of any event, situation or task. Thus two people will visualise a totally different reality, which is based on their individual perceptions. I had never been conscious of the widespread prevalence of cancer, until one of my close ones was diagnosed with it. Human information processing systems have limited resources and pay attention to only the stimuli that directly concerns them in the present/ past.

What does it all imply? It implies that in a novel or complex situation, every person will have a different perception of what is important; what is happening, and what actions need to be taken. Thus the same situation will present multiple realities to multiple people, and like the elephant story above, nearly each one of these realities would be partially correct, and partially wrong. How then do we proceed further, especially in complex/ novel situations, like the COVID 19. Since every one's perception, & thus subjective reality, would be partially correct, it is best to resort to discussion, rather than argumentation.

In any discussion, 'what' is right is the important thing, whereas in an argument, it becomes more of 'who' is right. Since in such cases every one is partially correct, it is important to discuss. so as to reach from our subjective reality, to the objective reality. Understanding the simple childhood fable of the 'Elephant and the Blind men' is key to maturity, as well as for moving from our subjective truth towards the absolute truth; absolute truth however may never be known to us mortals.

Different approaches by different peoples across the globe in response to the COVID 19 is a result of this. Once the best approach is studied, after the event, it would lead to better and more informed decisions in the future, as the lessons/ experiences of this occurrence would be now stored in our memory system.

Any one interested in the subject can access my previous blog here.