What You See

It is remarkable how several different folks can see the same event and each have a different interpretation of it. I have done no Reasearch into this but my intuition says that this is due to the fact that humans base understandings on emotion first or fact first. The memory we create is then either emotive or almost visual in the way that we can access it.

This may be complete bullshit. What also may be bullshit is my idea that we cannot understand how the other half thinks. If we are of the type that recalls linearly i.e. fact memories in their order, it is impossible to understand an emote. The result is not just differences of opinion on events but a really inability to have a discussion.

Therefore we talk at each other or past each other but we really do not have the capacity to really discuss things. The favourite conversation ender for the emotive person is ‘well, let’s agree to disagree.’ It is very difficult to exchange ideas when the starting points are so different. A linear thinker understands that a principle is immutable across experience. Truth for instance, something just is and we have three ways recall it to another. Tell it, not tell it, or tell it in a way that is shaped by emotion.

An example of this is the question of what is life. A linear will come up with a definition (principle) which will the exist from the moment of conception to that of death. An emotive will equivocate this base on what they feel. Well it may be but, because of finances, or marital status or emotional well being and any number of other conditions we feel it would be in the best interests …. You know the rest, the result is an ability to justify breaking the principle that life is to be protected.

Here’s another example, a very simple principle espoused by the Reverend Martin Luther King. Judge not a man by the colour of his skin, but by the content of his character. This statement is a resharing of a more basic tenant that all men are created equal. This is not the case today as this now is more like, societal biases create inequalities therefor we must find ways to provide equity to those who are different. And then those who believe that go about finding further and further divisions amongst us to show these differences. At one time we had gay rights, now we have an alphabet of disparaged gender bent individuals all looking for redress.

We can even be more fundamental than this. Ask a linear thinker, what is a man, and you will be told it is the human that creates sperm, or has the physical traits to be able to make sperm. Ask what is a woman and the answer will be the human that can generate ovum and carry a fertilized ovum to term and give birth. Or have (or had) the parts which provide that potential. These traits just are, you cannot be assigned them at birth.

But these traits do not take into account how the individual feels about their ‘assignment.’ Currently the song ‘Man I Feel Like a Woman’ has a significantly different meaning than when Shania first wrote it. Sung by a man today, it could mean thatis what he feels like, a transgender anthem so to speak. It could also mean I am horny, I need a gal. As Shania sings its it is a statement of femininity, yet it could be a lesbian anthem also. When I hear it and see Shania al can only think yes, and you look like one too, thank god!

So when we look at things from an emotional rather than factual basis many different understandings can happen. When I see something or hear about something it just is, facts are as they are. A man gets shot, it doesn’t matter what my feelings are about the man, he was shot, that is wrong. Colour of his skin, political beliefs, prior actions or any other mitigations can change the fact killing another is wrong. Of course I am not naive, there are justifications for killing such as self defence or defence of another. These are legal justifications not necessarily moral ones.

One last point here, it may have to do with the subject or not, but I found this next idea intriguing. Folks on the political left report mental illness at a rate 38%, moderates at 29% and conservatives at 20%. Are there mitigating factors like willingness to discuss an issue, sure I will buy that. Regardless though could t also be possible that a lack of God in one’s life means a possible increase in mental unwellness?

I guess then in the final analysis principles and where they come from make for a vastly different criteria for seeing the world then a self-centred emotion based view-point. I cannot say which one is better as I only understand one. Certainly though its serves me well.