The Nature of Reality - by Bill Neal

From what I am capable of understanding, "reality" is based on two things - perception and agreement. First, we are aware that we exist. Then, whatever we perceive and interpret in our minds becomes the world that we live in. That world for one person is not necessarily the same for another. Individual perception of the sensory information we are surrounded by is the foundation of our sense of "reality". We only accept something as "real" if we can perceive it through our senses. Unfortunately this seemingly simple process is complicated by a function of our brains which is to filter out sensory information based on its effect on our survival and our ability to process that data. Some say that, for whatever reason, we use only 10% of the capacity of the brain. The outcome of the brain's function seriously affects our conclusions about the nature of what is "real".

An example of how our minds affect our perceptions is a story that someone told me once of a people who lived near a powerful waterfall, not unlike the Miwuk people of Yosemite Valley. It was a very beautiful place and the people counted themselves as very lucky to live in the midst of such beauty. The waterfall, however, was very loud. When friends and family would come to visit the people, they could not even hear themselves speak. The people who lived there, over time, had learned not to hear the noise. That not-hearing eventually became a permanent partial hearing loss. This is one way that our brains affect our perceptions while aiding in our day-to-day survival.

Once, after having taken a photograph of a very beautiful view, when the picture was developed I saw that there were power lines passing through the foreground view in the picture that I had not seen while I was there admiring that beauty. It made me wonder - what else do we not see, not hear or smell or taste or feel, and not even know that we are missing it? What loss of sensory information do we suffer everyday without even knowing it? If perception drives our version of "reality", how different is my reality from what it would be if I really "saw" the world?

Many years ago I was introduced to the art of mushroom hunting. My friend knew the safest and best-tasting mushrooms and how to cook them. The first time I went mushroom hunting with him it did not take him long to begin to fill his basket. I, however found nothing. I didn't understand it. I knew that I would not know what kind of mushrooms I found, that I would have to rely on him to identify them for me. But I found nothing. Finally I stopped to relieve myself. Looking down at the ground in front of me, I was shocked to realize that I was relieving myself on the mushrooms that I had not previously seen. It took that foolish act to begin to learn to "see" them. What does that tell you about our way of being in the world?

Perception, however, is not the whole story. Our minds interpret the information that our senses collect and prioritize it in association with interpretations already made. Those interpretations are made by agreement with other minds that say "this is the way it is". That becomes the reality that is handed down to us. Various terminologies have been applied to this "agreement" - we call it a mind/set or paradigm or conceptual worldview, etc. These paradigms are subject to periodic shifts based on various causes. The Native American worldview, for example, was shifted by contact with Europeans with a totally different version of "reality".

A paradigm shift is a metamorphosis, transformation, or revolution from what existed before. The latest agent or catalyst of change is the introduction of the personal computer and the internet. The effects of the introduction of these catalysts are still coming into being and is the subject for my messages of change to come that we can bring about together.

Next, in my note "Bringing About Change", I will discuss how I see these changes occurring. I hope that you stay with me through this process and add to this discussion your understanding of what is occurring right now.
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