Perception vs Reality

What is reality?

How do you view your world?

Do you see a world outside of you?

Or do you see a world within you?

Maybe, both?

Questions, questions.

And this blog is not meant to provide answers, answers.

Rather, it is meant to help you ask yourself how you view reality.

Simply pondering on the question of reality will guide your mind towards perception.

Why?

Because perception & reality seem to be joined at the hip.

No matter how hard we try to fight it…

It seems like our subjective world & our objective world are more intertwined than we can imagine.

At least, that’s what it feels like.

What is Perception?

Perception is defined as:

Becoming aware of our senses.

That’s the definition on Google.

However, that seems a bit incomplete.

Our senses are just a part of it.

‘What’s the other part?’

Our mind.

Our mind is needed in order to activate the perception process.

We absorb data from our external world thru our 5 senses.

Seeing, smelling, tasting, touching & feeling.

The data is absorbed thru our body as signals.

And our mind is able to formulate that data on the basis of space, time & causation.

Have you ever been in a conversation physically, but not mentally?

Code for, you weren’t paying attention lol.

Sure, you were HEARING the words that were being said.

But you’re mind was elsewhere.

Therefore, the senses of your ears alone did not complete the perception process.

Being aware of the data of senses PLUS mind is what leads to perception.

What is Reality?

Reality has a blurry definition on Google.

It is defined as:

The state or quality of having existence or substance.

That is a vague definition because now it opens up questions of interpretation.

With the definition above, is your dream a reality?

What about the content that you consume on a YouTube video?

Although the figure on the YouTube video LOOKS real…

It is just a jumble of pixels plus audio.

Not the actual person.

Rather, a depiction.

When we ponder these questions, we begin to wonder, at what point do we draw the line on reality?

Is it simply the reality out there or do we factor in our interpretations as well?

With the rise of the information age, a lot of intrinsic meaning is being taken away from entities.

One great example is in Traditional media.

Big corporations like NBC, ABC, FOX, etc.

Prior to new media, there was the interpretation that big letterheads were the sole relayers of information.

But with added communications technology, news corporations at smaller scales are coming out.

Picture popular accounts you follow on YouTube, Twitter & Podcast for your information.

In the information age, plenty are ditching the industrial age paradigm.

Information REQUIRES an individual to PERCEIVE the content in order to assign value.

Therefore, we can no longer say if the information has intrinsic value or not.

As technology gets more advanced, reality is being blurred.

The Relationship Between Perception vs Reality

Perception vs reality are 2 worlds we need to understand in terms of improving our communication skills.

Why?

Because communication requires us to control perception.

For example…

I could present a lie to you right now by saying a loved family member of yours tragically passed away.

By using my words, I create a story, framing the perception of your family member dying.

Perceiving the information to be REALITY, you begin crying.

This information suddenly became real to you.

Outside of the mode of communication, nothing is wrong with this family member.

Rather, I just lied.

But YOU do not know that.

Which is why you gave a human response.

The relationship between perception & reality is that the 2 worlds are tied to the hip.

And both worlds influence one another.

Perception influences reality to a strong degree.

And our perception colors the information that we receive from our senses.

This is important to learn because, in a Utopian world, we create an objective world where there is no misinterpretation.

But this is impossible.

As community scales, perception is a variable that needs to be incorporated when factoring in what has a state of existence or substance.

This is crucial information to learn in terms of improving communication & avoiding miscommunication.

Your reality is not someone else’s reality.

WHY?

Because your perception is not their perception.

Why So Many Answers Lead Back to the Mind

Watch top performers in any field.

It seems like they give similar responses to their questions on a lot of topics.

But one of the most common answers you will hear them give?

‘It’s all a state of the mind.’

This is a profound answer because the answer discusses the practicality of what we have been talking about thus far.

Perception and reality are joined at the hip.

This is why top performers became top performers.

We believe that they went thru something highly difficult.

From our reality, this seems like a borderline impossible task.

But in their reality, they perceived everything in a much different context.

It’s because as they trained in their field, their perception became different than ours.

What we dub impossible or difficult to overcome…

What we view as hard work…

-They view as possible.

-They view as play.

Remember at the beginning of this blog, we talked about perception REQUIRING the mind.

Not the senses alone.

Therefore, with simple logic…

Reality is up to the interpreter.

What ‘looks’ concrete, gets blurrier the more we zoom in.

What seems like common sense rules, become more polarizing as society scales.

That’s because reality involves perception.

Perception factors in mind.

And all minds are different.

Even if we get in similar data from our senses.

Our interpretations will be blurry.

The Final Point of This Message

This post was not meant to give you any answers.

But rather, help you question the world around you.

-Ask yourself questions when you want to ask others questions.

-Try to understand where others are coming from when you disagree with them.

-And see why miscommunications happen.

Transitioning from the world of hard skills into the world of soft skills is daunting because of the lack of solidified rules.

That’s why a lot of engineers are great with machines, but poor with people.

It’s because machines don’t argue back.

But people do.

Reality vs Perception.

Was that ever the right framing?

Or is it Reality AND Perception?

Personally, the second one sounds much more suitable…

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– ArmaniTalks