I was at Ad-Roc’s place last week and his wife had a friend over. One of those people who is wise beyond their years. Think of Ivan, but prettier.
(Sorry bud - you’re more handsome than ya are pretty).
Anyways, we had an amazing discussion about people’s little worlds - their realities. It’s like everyone goes through life in their own bubble, or interpretation of reality.
Our bodies are instruments through which we filter information and form perceptions or constructs of what constitutes reality. Hey, I’m sure this stuff is old hat for Philosophy and Psych majors, but it’s all new to this Economist.
Sorta.
Part of communication between humans has to do with the differences in perceived and intended meaning. When someone asks how you are doing, you can reply with the usual “fine”, but so much can be said simply in the tone of that word. If you have the tone wrong, then someone could perceive you to be sarcastic, not doing fine or doing fiiiine.
I always figured that there exists an exact, independent truth out there (it’s the Fox Mudler in me), and the primary obstacle to discovering it is my perceptions and biases. We could all look at the same piece of art, for example, and it would elicit different emotional responses based on our own set of biases and experiences (see the last post). It all reminds me of this one Mitch Hedberg quote:
My friend said to me, “Man, this weather is trippy.” I said to him, “No, man, it’s not the weather that is trippy. Perhaps it is the way we perceive it that is indeed trippy.” Then I thought, “Man, I should have just said, ‘Yeah.’”
The primary point I am getting at here has to do with our belief structures, which have roots in our experiences, environment and subjective preferences. By ’subjective preference’ I am speaking of things like personal preferences - things where you have to say “hey, you’re you, and I’m me - and that’s totally ok - it’s what works for you”. The sorts of things that determine our taste in music, clothing or cuisine.
There’s this one quote by Robert Anton Wilson that’s been embedded in my mind since the day I read it.
“What the thinker thinks, the prover proves.”
Basically, if you can imagine it, you can prove it.
Imagine for yourself two distinct persons in your mind’s eye - the Thinker and the Prover. The Thinker in you comes up with some belief or question whereas the Prover in you seeks out or filters information in order to justify this belief, this reality of yours.
Say for example, I woke up one day believing I was God. (Obviously, I’m not, but humour me here). The Thinker says “I AM” and the Prover immediately tailors information to suit this belief. Basically, I could go about my day and find evidence of me being God because my belief system is selecting in favor of information that bolsters this belief, while selecting against or discounting information contradictory to it. And so I walk around all day having this belief that I AM.
If that reality is strong enough - get this - I could get others to ‘buy in’ to my reality if their own reality is weak. I’ve imagined this to be the modus operandi of magicians. They are experts at creating a false reality and getting people to suspend their disbelief long enough to buy into it.
Looking at this example further, I would likely soon begin to surround myself with people who believed I was God. I would exclude people from my reality in some way.
“You don’t think I’m God? - I don’t know ya. There’s something wrong with you.”
Yes. Once you’ve been able to get people to ‘buy into’ your reality, you create a fake ‘us v them’ paradigm wherein the rest of the world’s crazy, and you are the only sane ones on the planet. Think of David Koresh, Scientology, fascism, politics and religion . . . yeah I just lost a few friends on that one. Whatevs. It’s what works for you 
Thank you, Eric Hoffer, for introducing me to that.
Everyone, to an extent, lives in a bubble of subjective reality, usually based on subjective preferences. Goths tend to hang out with Goths and athletes tend to hang out with athletes. This is because we feel that someone who’s in the same shoes as we are “gets us”. They understand.
I can think of another example to illustrate this further. Imagine for yourself or pretend to be a beautiful woman, going about your day. Just stunning and all that. I would think that many beautiful women would have a good idea that they are that way, possibly due in part to the fact that all they hear when they walk down the street from the male of the species is something like this:
“Hey baby. You’re beautiful. Can I take you out sometime?”
. . .
“Wow. Gawd you’re hot. Wanna f*ck?”
. . .
” OW OW OW OW!!!”
Imagine that, 30 times a day. I’ll bet many females would tend to come to the belief that all men are pigs, and that she is morally obligated to take their phone numbers (or worse, give out her own) just so she doesn’t have to feel bad about not reciprocating.
Thirty times a day. Imagine what your reality would be like.
So imagine what would happen if someone came along and said:
“Wow . . . nice . . . boots! Well, they’re not that cool. I was just bein’ nice.”
It’d probably snap a person out of their trance.
Now think about this. After an entire day of lecherous males creepily creepin’ on a female, some guy reneges on a complement about her boots.
Who’s going to stand out in her mind that day?
In summary, economists often talk about “product differentiation”, or distiguishing two products of identical price along the lines of produce characteristics (think Coke v Pepsi). People go through their mundane lives, their routines, their habits, and occasionally something snaps them out of their trance. And they remember it.
What if we all went around, observing people and their routines and said something to them based on such observations, with the intent of snapping them out of their little reality?
Hey, a person could make enemies. But on the other hand, one could make a ton of friends that way, and be remembered by someone. That’s what we all want, isn’t it?
To be remembered . . .
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