The Problem with Perception (Part 1 of 6)

Every problem in your life, every one, is a perception problem. Think about this for a minute. Think about the problems that confronted you today. Think about your health, bank account, relationships, work, laundry, or drive home. Whatever it is, how do you know you have it? The answer, of course, is simple. We see the pile of work on our desk. We feel the pain in our stomach. We hear the creditor’s phone call. We smell the motor burning up in our car. From this perspective, perception’s link to our problems is relatively clear. Perception is the medium of our problems, the medium of all experience. We’ll start there.

Webster defines perception as “the faculty by which man holds communication with the external world or takes cognizance of objects outside the mind.” Ostensibly, our senses, the seeming agents of our perception, bring data to the brain in the form of light waves, sound waves, nerve impulses, etc. As many of us know, or have heard, the brain then filters out most of what it deems unimportant, and we perceive what we unconsciously “think” is important. This is helpful, since interpreting some 400 billion bits of information per second is a little cumbersome when driving down the road!

Not only are we not seeing the whole of reality, but we all see what we see differently. Many of us have been in a psychology class or a criminology class during which an individual enters the room, usually in a hooded garment, accosts the professor, and takes his or her wallet or purse. Nobody in the class knows that it is a set-up except for the professor, who then asks the class to describe the perp. Inevitably, there are almost as many descriptions of the intruder and what happened as there are students in the class. Some say male; some say female. Some say he had a gun; some say she had a stapler. Some say the hoodie was black; some say the intruder was wearing a hat! Perception is faulty. It is not exact. It is never reality.

Science echoes the same. Nothing is as it seems. First, we recognize ourselves with our basic senses. We see our reflection in the mirror. We feel our legs, our arms, or our fingers. Quickly, science shows us that there is more to the story than meets the eye, as we discover that we are actually made up of countless cells, which we quickly realize are made up of an ever- enlarging number of smaller units, molecules, atoms, etc. Quantum physics comes along and says that when we look closer still, the distinction between our body and the chair upon which we sit begins to blur. Closer still, and there is nothing but infinite space, infinite possibilities. Similarly, what we experience evolves as our perceiving devices evolve. In the not-so-distant past, x-rays, ultrasound, and DNA didn’t exist for us, because we didn’t have the ability to perceive them. Were they there prior? Where does the image rendered by x-rays exist? Where is the sound which we label “ultra”? All of which may beg the age-old question, “If a tree falls in the woods, does it make a sound?” Simply: of course not. Sound depends on a perceiver. Sound, like all perception, is an interpretation of the brain, which is designed to receive the sound waves, transform them into a mental image, and give that image a name. Without the interpretation device, there is no sound. How could there be? Where would it be? A rabbit hole? Depends on if you perceive one.

Perception, then, is simply what we think we see, hear, feel, smell, or taste. Again, perception is never the whole picture; it is an interpretation of reality, a substitute for reality. Lau Tzu once opined, “That is real which never changes.” Perception depends on change. There must be a subject observing or experiencing an object or sensation that is different or changed in time, space, or even memory. Everything we perceive will change. Was it real before it changed? Is it real now? Perceptions are unreal, because they change.

So, if perception isn’t reality, then what is it? If something isn’t reality, by definition, it has to be an illusion. Illusions seem real, but they aren’t. When a magician saws her assistant in half, it seems real, but we know it isn’t. Perception is an illusion of reality based on our own interpretation of sensory data filtered through the lens of our own awareness. In other words, none of us look at the same situation or the same thing in exactly the same way. We all bring our own past experiences, thoughts, and beliefs to the table thus altering “reality” to fit our own understanding of what we have seen, heard, etc. Therefore, what I hear you say, or see you do, cannot help but be influenced by my own notions of the words that you have used, the tone in your voice, past experience, etc. There is no objective reality here. Whatever I see, it is I who determine what it means. Whatever I hear, it is I who determine what it is I’ve heard. Sure, we may collectively agree on some things, but I still choose. What we begin to realize as we bounce further down our current rabbit hole is that everything we perceive is actually a symbol for our own belief, our own thoughts, and our own awareness. Our belief then, actually determines what we perceive. Stay with me here. Since perception is the medium of our experience, and what we perceive is really our choice, it is only a bunny hop at most to conclude that what we experience is but our choice. What we experience is our choice. Read the last sentence one more time. Ponder it. Let it sink in. Depending on how far you are willing to go, there will likely be some pain, some resistance. It will pass.