9/19/2013

Perspective.

Experiments.



Perspective: the state of one's ideas, the facts known to one.

I'm back with more food for thought and it's the idea of perspective. Which is basically the way in which you see and understand things as an individual. We're all individuals and so we all have different and also similar perspectives on different things. So in a way there are no solid facts or right and wrong, in a sense that everything we know and understand was developed by our own or someone else's perspective.

Let me explain using an allegory I once heard from wise man.

I just chuckled. "A wise man".
Well he is wise and he is a male, so yeah. A wise man said...

If a boy grew up being told that the colour Yellow was called Blue. He grows up knowing and believing this, until he's is challenged by someone. This person tells him that he is wrong and that colour he calls Blue is in fact Yellow. 

Would you say the boy is wrong?

Of course. It's not Blue it's Yellow. However, he's technically not incorrect. 
We all believe that it's the colour Yellow because that's what we've been told. That's our perspective, just the same as he who believes it's Blue. So why is he wrong and we're right, when we're all (including him) basing our knowledge on what we've been told. 

It's difficult to challenge someone on what they have grown up understanding, because that is what has been embedded in them. It even trickles down to trivial things like whether bread should be kept in the fridge or not, whether to eat rice with a spoon or a fork (FORK), how to season your chicken. It's all about perspective.

E v e r y t h i n g we know, we have been taught or we have observed from others and accepted it as the norm. If a a child grows up around a family who pee in the toaster, they will strongly believe that peeing in the toaster is acceptable. How do you argue that? 

This is why our environment/surroundings play a huge part in shaping who we are. It's from what we see that we develop our own perspective on things. Which determines how we react to certain situations and to a certain extent the things that we like and don't like.

Linking back to a previous post of mine titled "Thoughts, Motives and Intentions". In this post I spoke about how your thought processes, determine the way you behave. Your thought processes are influenced by everything and everyone around you. The way you think (your perspective) and then as a result behave, is controlled/determined by your peers, family and friends and the media.

Ahhh the media. That's a whole other topic...

4 comments:

  1. This is great. Philosophy even. I think everyone ought to understand how truly influenced we are by our surroundings, God knows whether we will ever realise for ourselves how much of a problem this is.

    Thanks for this *unanticipated and unwanted grin*

    www.ammieandsharrie.blogspot.co.uk

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  2. This actually had me thinking you Know. But everything you said was very true. Or was it?

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