Saturday, October 3, 2009

Life: The Ultimate Subjective Experience

Life, as we experience it, is a pure subjective experience. That is to say that no two people will ever view life in exactly the same way. The possibilities are as limitless as the number of parallel universes theoretically existing, but that's a topic we'll get into some other time. We all come into this world with no preconceptions, basically a blank slate. Though as we experience events throughout life, what we experience, when, and how we choose to respond to these events defines how we perceive life as a whole. We all see, taste, hear, feel, smell, and think differently because of the way our brain has learned to interpret these signals. The smell of coffee makes me thirsty, it may make others sick. The sound of nails on chalkboards make some cringe but not others. It's really amazing to think about the possibilities of perception because we all walk through life living our own personal movie, in which we ourselves are the main character and everyone else just actors we come in contact with throughout life. To yourself you are the main character, but to everyone else just an actor in their current scene. The effect of this phenomenon is that we'll never really know each other as we actually are, that is who we are to ourselves. Everyone can only make an estimate on who each other is as a person, but like a TV not showing all the pixels we don't get the whole picture just little bits here and there.

3 comments:

  1. Nice post. I totally agree with you. Our perceptions are formed through experiences and models. Once we become aware, we can, and have a choice to change them.

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  2. This is well written but I disagree with you a little. I think we're not quite blank slates, we're disposed one way or another. That is to take nothing away from the amazing power of the will, but it's something to be considered. We're disposed (for example) to believe our parents and are totally shaped by their perceptions and beliefs - look at how hard it is to overcome racism or religious beliefs.
    I think you'd agree that making some choices eliminates the possibility of seeing others. Because we're disposed to trust our caregivers - evidence: we have to learn not to - we begin life from a slanted perspective rather than a blank one.

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  3. You're right I agree with you on that now. Being that we have little consciousness at young ages as we develop it is our caregivers that give us our first cognitive state. Though after enough experience and wisdom with life we can choose to change what we've developed into.

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