The world we perceive is both a given and something we create.

Meaning-making

      From the time we begin distinguishing ourselves from others we struggle to order our world so that we can determine our place in the scheme of things.

      None of us starts from scratch. The language we learn, the parental attitudes we absorb and the cultural conditioning to which we are exposed, furnish the initial grid we super-impose on our experience.

      There is an element of drivenness in our meaning-making. Our psychological security is dependent, among other things, on our ability to locate ourselves in a world of meaning. This passion to order our world is an important aspect of our humanity.

      Meaning-making is shadowed by pathological distortions. The frantic desire to overcome gnawing insecurity may freeze the process. Further re-interpretation is resisted. This same insecurity will cause others to opt for pre-packaged explanations to relieve them of the responsibility of coming to their own conclusions.

A common-sense assumption

      Most people assume that what they perceive as reality, is reality; that perception is free of ambiguity. They are unaware of the filter ordering their perceptions.

Challenges to this assumption

      Plato argued that reality, in the most profound sense, belongs, not to the physical world, but to an archetypal world of Ideas or Forms, of which the world perceived by our senses is a pale reflection. For millennia, Eastern philosophy has contended that the universe, as it presents itself to our senses, is an illusion. [49]

      Few would deny that our perceptions are selective. We notice some things and not others. If this were not the case we would be overwhelmed by impressions.

      We also interpret reality in the process of perceiving it, by imposing on it an interpretive grid. This grid, in ordering the data, privileges some elements over others. Furthermore, the grid not only determines how we shape reality; it also influences the way we experience it.

Emotion

      Interpretive grids determine emotional responses.

      Workers and management will interpret the same situation differently. What one person regards as mild flirtation may be considered seduction by another. What is deemed polite in one culture will be regarded as rude in another.

      Rational Emotive Therapy, which seeks to alter a person's responses by modifying their worldview, is based on the premise that emotional responses are triggered by the way situations are interpreted.

      The traffic between worldview and emotion, however, is two-directional. While worldviews trigger emotional responses, emotional responses also influence worldviews.

      If we are assaulted, the fear or terror evoked will colour our view of the world. This usually occurs in one of two ways. We may come to regard the world as a nasty place. On the other hand, the severity of the trauma may causes us to repress all memory of the incident.

      James Hillman illustrates the second response from the experience of Henry Kissinger.

      Kissinger's father lost his teaching job in Furth, in Nazi Germany, because he was Jewish. Looking back upon his early years, Kissinger claimed, in 1958, that his life in Furth had left no lasting impression. In 1971, he confirmed this observation, arguing that the course his life had taken could not be explained on the basis of what had happened to him as a child. The seriousness of such events is lost on children. [50]

      But was Kissinger really unaffected by what was happening about him? As Hillman suggested, during these years Jews were persecuted and beaten, excluded from schools and playgrounds, forbidden relationships with non-Jews and had their citizenship rights taken away. What was even more significant was the fact that Kissinger's mother remembered her children's fright and puzzlement when Nazi youths marched by, taunting the Jews.¹

      The memory of these years was so effectively repressed that Kissinger had no access to it. This memory "gap" distorted those aspects of his worldview that related to childhood experiences in Nazi Germany.

Myth

      We create myths--explanatory stories--about ourselves that situate us in our world. Once created, these myths, which represent the intensification of our worldview, enjoy a life of their own. We rarely recognise the degree to which our attitudes and conduct are beholden to myths of which we are unaware. Myths persist, not only because they are essential to our emotional security, but also because they are rooted in the unconscious, in the bodyself, and in our language.

The New Physics

      I have argued that we interpret reality through pre-conceived grids. The New Physics takes us one stage further by contending that perception helps create reality.

      Research into quantum mechanics suggests that there is no objective observer, no separation between observer and what is observed. The observer, in the process of observing, participates in the creation of what is observed. Researchers, for example, have found it impossible to measure both the location and momentum of a particle at the same time. The act of measuring one alters the other.²

      Most of us are aware of this phenomenon in our personal relationships. We influence others by our attitudes towards them. [51]

      Meaning-making, therefore, involves not only observation and interpretation, but also an element of co-creation.

Significant shifts

      Our worldviews are working hypotheses. They are continually being re-drawn.

      There are times when we experience significant shifts in perspective. These sometimes occur when our resistance to change is overcome. This resistance, fuelled by anxiety, transforms a gradual transition into a dramatic transformation. Significant shifts in perception may also be a consequence of our unwillingness to yield to energies that fuel our personal growth.

      Ken Wilber has drawn a helpful distinction between two processes, which he has called translation and transformation. He contends that when increasing understanding threatens to undermine our current view of reality, we translate, or rework the symbols that embody it. However, there is a limit to what this reworking can accomplish. There comes a time when we need to surrender to maturational forces carrying us forward. When this happens, the old self dies and we are transformed, reborn into the next level of development.³

Widening circles

      Living in the late 20th century has its drawbacks, not the least of which is that an Everest of knowledge threatens to overwhelm us.

      We live in a world in which experts find it difficult, if not impossible, to keep up with current research in their narrow specialities. Like these experts, most of us are forced to confine our focus to a tiny area on the knowledge spectrum. This area may be further circumscribed by ideological boundaries associated with cultural, religious or political traditions.

      The fact that we are aware that our perspective is restricted is intimidating. We are tempted to shut ourselves off from additional sources of knowledge and to find our security in a limited worldview. To do otherwise, to open ourselves to [52] challenging insights is scary. As Jung realised, if we banish prejudice and open our minds we could discover that we have to throw away everything we have previously thought.⁴ To remain open is a big ask. The alternative, however, is to engage in deliberate self-deceit.

      It is important that we are not spooked by the magnitude of the task of revising our worldview. We will never grasp anything like the total picture, but it is important that we are open to taking on board what we can. We will be better able to do this when our security derives, not from our maps of reality, but from our experience of it.

      The further we progress the more we are aware of our ignorance and the more comfortable we are with not having a final answer. The reason for this is that we begin to realise that it is not necessary for us to understand everything. What is important is that we should learn to flow with the energy that has launched us into the adventure.

Two approaches

      There are two ways we can map reality. The first involves observation and measurement. The second requires us to experience the reality we are investigating. The second approach is often dismissed as subjective. However, if we exclude personal experience from consideration, we are dismissing a large slice of life from our investigation.⁵

      The two approaches are not alternatives. There are complementary. As Karen Armstrong has argued, Muslim Sufis, Jewish Kabbalists, and Christian mystics blended philosophy and mysticism.⁶ Some of our greatest scientists have drawn inspiration from both streams.⁷

      Accepting that the two approaches complement each other preserves both from distortion. It helps us recognise that science and philosophy may, in certain circumstances, represent little more than academically sophisticated expressions of a basic, neurotic impulse, ⁸ particularly where they are energised by insecurity. We will also be willing to concede that undisciplined self- exploration, [53] fuelled by the same insecurity, can result in vague observations, and, at worst, in psychological distress.

Towards simplicity

      One maxim that has guided scientific discovery is the proposition that the simpler explanation is liable to be the correct one. This principle was annunciated by the medieval English philosopher, William of Occam.⁹ The application of "Occam's razor" to hypotheses challenges their complexity and invites the formulation of simpler explanations. Simplicity is also the goal of personal development.¹⁰ [54]

[LS 49-54]