Models of Reality

We're not relating with the reality but instead reality as it appears to be to us. This is a core psychological truism that is relevant here as understanding this makes us increasingly humble, flexible and pragmatic. These characteristic make happiness, especially the higher levels of happiness, much more readily obtainable. When we think in terms of beliefs as opposed to truths we're acknowledging we, or someone else, doesn't know the truth as they, or can't know the truth. We not omnipotent, not some kind of God, instead we perceive reality via our modest array of senses which are only capable of perceiving a small slice of what is out there. That small slice is then filtered for relevance given we've got objectives to satisfy and because our primate brain can only process a very limited amount of data. We have beliefs, we have our perspective, we have a model of reality but that model of the world we hold in our brain isn't the reality. This model/map is like a map of a city we consult to orientate ourselves and to better navigate from A to B. But the information on that map is limited, some likely outdated and is not the actual city. It's a useful limited representation of the city/reality. Of course, if it's widely inaccurate then it's not useful at all and is more of a hinderance than anything. Much better to know we don't have the relevant information so we can seek it than to believe we already do but don't.

You have to be knowledgable to know you don't know

the more you know, the more you know you don't know.

In its efforts to learn as much as possible about nature, modern physics has found that certain things can never be “known”. Much of our knowledge must always remain uncertain. The most we can know is in terms of probabilities. Prof Feynman.

While our senses are limited they provide us some data regarding the environment which our brain organises into our model of reality. If we want to get a bottle of milk, for example, our brain refers to our beliefs/model of reality regarding how we can satisfy that motivation. If we believe there’s milk in the fridge, and that belief is accurate, then this motivation is easily enough satisfied and we then focus on satisfying the next motivation in the queue. If we have to venture out to get milk it’s likely our brain already has an understanding of where to obtain milk.

We weigh up the believed cost - effort, $$, other factors etc - involved in getting that milk and decide whether the believed reward is worth the believed cost. If we believe it is we venture forth

We satisfy our motivations via the options we believe we have to do so. Our motivations do not exist in a vacuum- they’re in our ‘basket of motivations’ competing with other motivations for our time and energy. We’re just choosing the best path we believe exists to satisfy the bulk of them/ the ones presently to the fore.

If we’re humble we can accept this, accept our model of reality is not the reality. We can understand we’re well served by having it as accurate as reasonably possible in the spheres relevant to us. We then prioritise which beliefs we want to be reasonably accurate and put the effort into upgrading them.

This life thing stops being fun if we keep taking ourselves down blind alleys.