If we all had a choice as to what type of existence we could live in, what would it be like? Is it not possible to skew your reality to the scope of the way you would want it to be? Don’t some people live in their own dream worlds throughout their lives, and simply percieve environmental stimuli as according to their reality? Take for instance a beautiful woman who always recieves her way. Is she not in a reality all her own. Created by her own manipulation of the people around her. She throws a fit and her boyfriend responds accordingly. Though I realize this is not completely choosing her existence, it is skewing her reality to the point where she sees fit. If something doesn’t fit into her ideal reality then she will reject it, by possibly ostracism, or throwing a bigger fit. In which in most cases would eventually bring about her projected outcome, keeping her reality, real.
An interesting thought, to be sure. Yet, how can we say that it seems that people “skew” their reality to a point that suits them? By judging this action in others, might we not be doing the very same thing?Allow me to attempt an explanation: through trying to understand human nature, and the views of reality, we are actually attempting to twist and manipulate all that we observe so that it fitst into a logical explanation for us. I mean, by acknowledging that one alters one’s perception so that it works for them, you bring into question your own logical perceptions. Perhaps I’ve now resorted to rambling. So, I will leave it at that. (“that” being a rather ineffective train of thought.) Thank you for the new perspective… -niki
We can say that because we, well me and others who have admitted to it, adapt to the various experiences lived via existence by choosing the meaning we place on them.
Viktor Frankl’s oft referred to book, “Man’s Search for Meaning” is a clear demonstration of this as it was lived, in the real world, under some of the most brutal conditions imaginable.
And I agree human beings twist their perceptions to suit their needs. All human beings have needs, above the most basic, many of these needs can only be fulfilled by twisting one’s perceptions to meet one’s needs. The world doesn’t alter itself according to our wishes, so, in many cases, to see our wishes fulfilled requires that we alter how we view the world.
Unless I am mistaken, part of Philosophy is stripping away these assumptions, or at least, examining them closely to see if they are, in fact, reasonable.
Thus:
“The unexamined life is not worth living.”
- Socrates
Niki said:
Im not judging OUR actions and making assumptions about them. I am simply observing these actions and attempting to recieve different views on the subject. But of course, everyone sees the world as they wish to see it. Believe it or not, when I look into the sky I dont see the same thing you do. Perhaps this suggest that reality isnt reality at all. For something to be real this has to be truth, fact, or known. Though we can say that what we see is real in our own mind, making it our reality, that doesnt mean the next person sees the same thing. I suppose reality is simply biased as is related to self.
First, you say “If we all had a choice…?” Why would you doubt that we do? Please explain.
Secondly, you speak of skewing, which sounds like self delusion. Skewing implies error. A skewed result is not an accurate result. Take the case of extreme predjudice. Entirely false but nevertheless men who are the prisoners of their own predjudices will always consider their predjudice to be an accurate perception of reality until they learn otherwise.
Thirdly, perception is reality, when you are speaking of reputation and influence. When you are speaking of how men think about something, then their perception of something is the reality of that something, at least to them. They will continue to act based upon their perception until that perception is changed. This is what the art of politics and the art of public opinion making is all about. Create a perception and thus influence the vote.
Fourth, your post hints at the self-fullfilling prophecy. I decide something is going to turn out a certain way. My expectations drive my actions, My actions engineer the very outcome that I predicted and expected. Thus, my perception of how something is going to turn out has a major impact on the reality of how it turns out. If I have a postive mental attitude, am confident in my ability to influence the outcome favorably, overcome my fear of failure, and take those steps to achieve my desired result, then I am far more likely to get the reality I want.
Fifth, the very concept of a visionary who sees the world as it has never been and asks “Why not?”, an idealist taking action to create his ideal, and inspiring others to join in working together to achieve the ideal, this is a major part of what human history is all about. Also, the history of the world is all about the conflict of ideas. Free trade, Marxism, One Man One Vote, Manifest Destiny, Christianity, Naziism, and on and on and on. To say that ideas do not alter the reality of the world would be to rewrite the history of the world. The history of mankind teaches that there is nothing on earth so powerful as ideas to alter reality.
Finally, there are people who believe that nothing is impossible to mankind. Whatever we can imagine, some believe we can do, whether or not we should do it. Some take this so far as to hold that we have vast untapped potential that we have only to develop and we will become increasingly more and more Godlike over time. Some think the only reason we don’t fly is because we believe we cannot fly. Or that the only reason we cannot create something out of nothing is because we can’t overcome our limiting belief that it is impossible for us to do it.
Clearly, there is truth in the statement that you choose your reality. How far one takes that is a personal choice.
When I say “if we all had a choice”, I am comparing this to the reality we already percieve. I believe for the most part we do choose our own realities, but at the same time are not aware of doing so. Therefore, I worded it, hence the opening of my question, as if people did not realize that they could choose their own reality, though after reading the rest of my post they might have come to the assumption that they can.
v. skewed, skew·ing, skews
v. intr.
To take an oblique course or direction.
To look obliquely or sideways.
As defined by dictionary.com, I am using the word to describe a change or distortion of what would have taken place if in fact the distortion had not taken place. The question should be if there was no distortion would the outcome have been ‘real’, as compared to what reality may be, or is it ‘real’, because reality is what we percieve it to be. I cannot agree that this act of skewing or distorting can be referred to as self delusion, for if someone is self deluding, there is deception in regards to self. Yet, though this may seem as a delusion to others, to that person, there is no delusion because what they believe, due to certain actions, becomes reality. Take the example of the beautiful woman. If she believes she should be treated above other homely females and should get her way when wished, her actions of throwing tantrums or batting her eyes could very well yield a result in which her belief comes true. Then it can not be a delusion, for it is real, and there are facts to prove it is real.
I agree, with the ladder, but considering reputation and influence I am not so convinced. I can perceive that my reputation is highly regarded, and my influence is weighted heavily in certain areas. This conclusion can only be reached through the senses which leads to my awareness. So, say I am a political figure and all the above “seems” to be true, for people do take into account my ideas and I am in a place of power. Though in my reality I am perceived as these things, in someone else’s reality my reputation is simply an estimation of how others view me, so how could it be backed by facts when one persons sees it as high, while another may perceive it as low. When looking at it from another way, I suppose reputation could be disputed, for if one is well known, then he truly has a high measure of reputation. It would all depend on how you are defining reputation, for it can also be related to good or bad. Whew, now on to the influence side. Influence is only how someone else perceives the other persons power to sway or affect, based on prestige, wealth, status, or ability. It is percieved in each individual mind, not consistent within everyone, so it must be considered in a seperate reality according to the individual.
Couldnt have said it better myself. Great analysis.
You bring up an interesting concept. I also agree with you. I’m not sure if you believe in the idea of a collective subconscious, but I believe that if it is true then with it lies all the secrets to life and unleased possibilities. If we could possibly all grasp this concept of positivity and realize the potential we have within ourselves, then as a human race we would be able to achieve things we never thought possible. I sometimes think about that in relation to extraterrestrial life. If they have or will contact us, I believe the reason they would have advanced so much in technology would be because possibly they have obtained this level of potential. Just a thought.
So? What’s wrong with that? We are not just servants to our senses but to our moods or temperaments and experiences too. The morning might be beautiful but if I had a miserable night then I don’t hear the birds chirping outside, I don’t feel the fresh morning air, all I know is that I feel grouchy and perhaps don’t want to go to work. 
Here’s the point -
Even though we all have the same senses, our moods and experiences interfere and so we all perceive reality differently, isn’t that the reason life is so varied and so beautiful or ugly accordingly for all of us? So! When the girl above skews reality to fit her and her sesnses, surroundings, moods and dispositions, she is not really skewing it. That is reality for her!
Reality is in the eye of the beholder. All we can do is observe and define our own perspectives but i think its important not to take our own perspectives too seriously, or rule others out. I think we choose alot of what we experience subconciosly and the rest of the time we accomodate other people.
Illa.
Yeah, then she marries the man who doesn’t let her get away with it. She battles with her reality because she hates it.
Heather Lewis wrote:
Ummmm, I dont know if I can agree with that. I actually think she enjoys her reality, but only on a conscious level. I believe on a subconscious, or unconscious level she isn’t satisfied with it. She marrys the man who doesn’t let her get away with it because she feels true attraction for him. This is the one man in her life who isn’t giving her want she wants, something new, something different, intriguing(spelling). This naturally brings about an attraction in which she probably can’t explain. She doesn’t battle with her reality, he does.
Heather Lewis wrote:
Ummmm, I dont know if I can agree with that. I actually think she enjoys her reality, but only on a conscious level. I believe on a subconscious, or unconscious level she isn’t satisfied with it. She marrys the man who doesn’t let her get away with it because she feels true attraction for him. This is the one man in her life who isn’t giving her want she wants, something new, something different, intriguing(spelling). This naturally brings about an attraction in which she probably can’t explain. She doesn’t battle with her reality, he does.
If that were the case, then life would be a neverending cycle. If you choose only what you wish to see, then you will never be able to look outside of your barrier. It would be the same thing, day in and day out, without you ever knowing what should be going on around you.
Finnally one of you stumbling dopes is on to something! Life is a never ending cycle. You do choose what to see, and you never will be able to look outside or your bubble. And “it” is the same thing, day in, out, up, down and whichever other directions your days go in.
What you all seem to be stubling around is Heisenberg’s Uncertanty Principle, you change the measurement through the act of measuring.
And humans can fly very simply and without any mechanism; all you have to do is jump, then, the same way an arrow misses a target, miss the ground.
You lost sight of the main point, “Choosing your reality and existing as you wish.” As such YOU are the one who doesn’t see what’s going on around you, but the girl in the query chooses her life and lives it as she so pleases and lives it more realistically than you do. You are fake!
Oh! My God! That is so original. It’s really good to be here. So long as the ground doesn’t move from underneath me
illativemindindeed wrote:
So here is my question: why should this woman believe she should be treated better than any other woman just because she is pretty? I agree with you if your point is that she might believe she should be treated better for this reason, but this in itself does not put her belief beyond criticism no? And then again we can still ask why should she attribute “getting her way” with her beauty necessarily? Maybe it was because of something else she did?
I believe that illativemindindeed means that sometimes beutifull girls don’t need to live up to the standards of lesser ones because they’re oftenly more spoiled. I’d say the character he made up is ignorant because of her beuty.
I suppose what would be labelled here as normal existance would be one where people arn’t ignorant of the things around them. Such as the beutifull girl skews things because she only sees them her way right?
However, there are many who have a false perception of themselves. They are overconfident or unreasonably confident. Take the performing arts. Let’s take a person who thinks himself funny but is not. He pursues a career as a stand up comic. Every time he goes on stage he bombs. He can’t understand it, because he percieves that he is funny. Finally, no one will let him go on stage anymore because the reality is, he is not funny. They try to tell him, you are not funny. But his ego won’t allow him to accept it. This poor guy spends his life frustrated that the rest of the world can’t see how funny he is…He becomes a pathetic loser because he can’t accept the gulf between his perception of reality and what actually is. He is diluding himself.
I think you are getting at the subjective versus objective. The Nagel vs Nietzsche debate. Personally, I tend to lean toward Nagel and feel that they are not flip sides of a coin but rather opposite ends of spectrum, and that while we cannot arrive at perfect objectivity, we can never get a 'view from nowhere", but we can trend toward the objective or toward the subjective. As to reputation, it is others who determine our reputation, so it tends to be toward the objective end of the spectrum because it finds agreement among competent informed people who take into account the relevant data. Influence is the effect we have on the judgements of other people. This tends to be more subjective, because there could be any number of criteria that influence their decision and I am only one. So it is a more subjective judgment on my part. I may easily overestimate my influence on you. And you may easily overestimate my influence on you as well. You may feel that I motivated your decision but in fact there could have been any number of contributing factors. I think, for example, that people who are unhappy with their lives may commonly blame it on the influence of their parents. At leas that is not unusual. However, when a 30 year old man makes this claim, you would have to say that it is a bit subjective to say the least.
Collective subconscious? You are referring to Jung? To the collective which predates the personal and is the repositary of all the religious, spiritual, and mythological symbols and experiences? And that these archetypes are the conceptual matrixes or patterns behind all our religious and mythological concepts, and indeed, our thinking processes in general. I think Jung was speaking in a biological sense and thought it was inherited, that even the remotest times are still temporal, although I read that he abandoned this thinking later in life.
No, I don’t believe that we are pre-programmed with a collective subconcious or unconcious memory of all these ancient concepts. To me this smacks of instinct, and I do not believe that man has any instinctive behavior beyond the most rudimentory. I think one thing that distinquishes man from the animals is this lack of any instinctive preprogramming and that each individual man has to use his reason to figure things out. I think a lack of instinct is one thing that distinquishes sentient beings from animals.
However, what I do believe that is a powerful force, is the ability of the mass media to implant things into the collective consciousness. I think Madison Avenue thrives off this. I think that the major events, symbols and icons that dominate our lives form the collective consciousness of entire generations of people. And that the collective character of each generation is formed largely by the major events that happen during their collective lives and by the response of national leaders to those events. I think that the ability to program the collective thinking of the masses is far from a precise science but is used quite effectively to create “social desires” in whole generations of people, and personally, I think these artificially created social desires are a negative influence in our lives. Wise men recognize the distinction between social desires and natural desires and tend to shed the social ones.
It would be hard to deny that there is a collective consciousness, and that is often a negative influence. But I would not agree there is a collective subconscious influencing us, particularly one that dates back to ancient times.
pair o docks,
She feels she should be treated differently becuase she alwayse has been treated differently. Trust me on this. After a while, the woman expects special treatment because that is what she has always had.
Would an extremely wealthy woman expect to marry a homeless man? It could happen, but she wouldn’t expect it. I think it is a true sign of character if a beautiful person can keep an open mind to many different realities that could affect her. So she marries a bum, but her life could get more than she ever dreamed. Once she closes her mind, she has decided to live within the means of only one reality, what she has had and expects. I say expect the unexpected. 
What barrier is that? Within the mind there are unlimited possibilities. Also in the universe there are unlimited possibilities. The mind and the universe are the same thing.