Few things have caused more conflict in the history of Man, than the belief that ones own view of the world more accurately represents objective reality than another. The truth of the matter is that none of us (read: very few) have a worldview that does not depart from reality somewhere along the way.
Our egos demand that we make assumptions about the world - survival in the material world requires nothing less. Though it is ordinarily the most effective method of learning, you simply cannot learn everything
experientially and remain alive long enough to utilize that knowledge.
You do not need to be run down by a car to know that it will be life threatening, you must take it on faith when your parents tell you to never run in the road. Some do not, of course, but then natural selection has to express itself in modern society somehow.
However, we clearly don't take everything on faith, and we are expected to find some things out for ourselves. (incidentally, finding a good balance between these two types of learning is the absolute key to good parenting) So this is where confusion sets in. What is the difference between something you must find out for yourself, and something you must trust other peoples opinion on?
The answer is, very little.
It is completely up to you whether you trust the judgements of others, or whether you would rather find out for yourself, but sooner or later we all come to a point in our lives where our perception of the world is coloured by not just our own assumption, but the assumptions of others, and of the opinions that they trusted, and so on into recursive infinity.
By the time it comes down to you, parts of your worldview may be on very shaky foundations indeed.
Which is absolutely fine and normal, providing that you are sufficiently open minded enough to adapt your prejudices, when they become incompatible with what your experience is telling you.
It is this
inability (or unwillingness) to adapt subjective opinion that causes conflict, not the making of the assumption itself.
In a very real sense, none of us truly experience what could be called objective reality - What we experience is in fact a chemical simulation of reality constructed by the brain, based on external stimuli. Your mind creates what you see around you, and for reasons of expediency it does not not give you the full picture. instead, it makes programmed assumptions based upon what you have learned about the world in which you live.
It has been well noted that multiple eye witnesses to the same event will give largely varying accounts of the same thing,
especially under stress. The mind acts as an incredibly powerful pattern analysis device, and routinely fills in the blanks in vision and experience to coincide with what it assumes is there. This can happen in a very obvious sense visually, but it is less obvious in the way that it effects concepts and philosophy. This does indeed have an effect on these areas of the mind, but it is harder to notice a gap in your philosophy than it is to notice a gap in your vision (something which is also easier to look at under calm objective conditions).
Pattern analysis incidentally is one of the main things which distinguishes the organic mind from the electronic, and is currently the primary challenge for artificial intelligence engineers. However, if you have read all of the above then you may notice that this would make computers far more fallible, and prone to
human like mistakes - perhaps not the computer you want in air traffic control. Currently, computers are always right - any
perceived faults are either mechanical (read: Human) errors, or programming (read: Human) errors. If they were capable of pattern analysis they would
undoubtedly be more imaginative and easy to talk to, even reason with, but they would be also capable of fundamental errors based on assumptions that a current computer wouldn't even be able to make. This may mean that they would be a niche application at best and at worst, a curiosity.
But back to the point in hand, which is that we do not see the real world, but instead an
electro-chemical simulation of it. It is possible to perceive the world in a way that is closer to what there is to see, and it involves dissolving the ego in such a way that your assumptions and opinions about the world are fundamentally weakened. There are many ways to reach this state, including contemplation, meditation, dancing, yoga, drumming, chanting, isolation tanks,
entheogens, and just plain will.
Once your ego has been dissolved and rebuilt, it is never the same again. Though you may make further
pre-judgements about the world, they will never be so strong as to preclude learning and adapting to new modes of thought.
One may ask why it is not desirable to permanently dissolve the ego, and though this has been touched on, we will expand. The state of ego loss, for those who have not experienced it, is unimaginably intense and divinely peaceful by turns, it is one of the most traumatic and also rewarding things that a mature human mind can undergo and can have more beneficial effect on the intellect that the most rigorous education.
However, for all these things, it is not a state of mind that can be sustained
indefinitely. Though it may give you incredible insight and profound powers of perception, the priorities that you have in this state are not conducive to a healthy lifestyle or indeed a long life. As stated before, assumptions keep us alive - they prevent us from doing dangerous or antisocial things, from walking into the road to taking our clothes off in the park. The ego is a valuable part of the minds arsenal and is essential to our material well being - It should not have "bad" connotations to it any more than the memory, or identity.
It is not the egos existence as much as its resilience that causes problems. It is the inability to learn new modes of thinking that causes many of the problems that our society has, and flexible egos would mitigate much of these. The ego is a tool, and like any other tool, knowing how to use it is as much about knowing its limitations as it is about knowing its capabilities.
Nosce Te Ipsum.
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