Philosophical teaching 5
We talked about the physical plane, trying to insert the discourse we have made in a broader context, which included the concept of illusory perception of reality, going so far as to argue that reality is not what you see and that it appears so under the influence of your mind; which has the undoubted ability to modify what you perceive with its patterns.
I have just used the word "undoubted" and - of course - this will not seem to some of you as undoubted; So let's try to look for some practical examples to clarify the reason for my categorical statement, also because this argument - which may seem so simple - nevertheless involves a totally different way of conceiving reality from the one you are used to.
Naturally, to make my exposition a little more lively, I will devise - as is my custom - an artifice and I will take as guinea pigs for my two examples two hypothetical people whom I will call one Pinco and the other Pallino.
The simplest case of modification of reality by perception is that in which the perceptive capacity of an individual is physiologically impaired in some way; Consider, for example, the hypothesis that Pinco suffers from that impairment which prevents the perception of certain colors, for example green, and which is commonly called color blindness.
Now it is evident that our Pallino will sweat the proverbial seven shirts to convince Pinco that the pen he is writing with is not blue but green; this is the simplest example, but it nevertheless shows how much reality can be perceived differently due to a physiological difference even if, in this case, the difference is small and superficial.
Let us now consider an example in which it will be Pallino who suffered a psychological trauma so strong as to cause him to have mystical hallucinations; it will then happen that Pallino will see, for example, the image of St. Chrysostom in heartfelt prayer projected on a wall; which, evidently, Pinco will not perceive.
Some of you - particularly fussy - may say that the example is not fitting, as hallucinations are not real but mental; well, I say io, it could also be, but who guarantees it? How many seers in the history of man have been taken for schizophrenics, dissociated, visionaries, mad and only because they saw things that others could not see? And I remind you that here we are not talking about which reality is more real - that of Pinco or that of Pallino - but we are simply discussing how reality can be perceived differently according to mental schemes.
It therefore seems clear to me - in this case - that although there is no physiological damage, the reality perceived by Pinco and that perceived by Pallino are completely different.
What better example can there be than this to show how much the perception of reality is modified by the influence of the mind? I would say none, so I would dare to say that theundoubted that I used at the beginning is made legitimate by this very example. I repeat, therefore, that the mind has the undoubted ability to modify the perception of the same object by two different people, even if only in its formal aspect.
How many times has each of you been a Pallino, reading a few passages from a book and happening to read words that are completely different from how they were printed, without even realizing it, unless the sentence was particularly absurd or someone did not note? I would say that all the books on medical pathology, psychiatry and psychology are full of Pinchi and Pallini - even physiologically healthy - who perceive strange things, unusual yet real for them, due to the interference of their ego in the perception of reality.
This means that, for each of you, the reality that surrounds you is largely an illusion; this means that the reality of each of you coincides only in certain points with the reality of all the other individuals.
If any of you were to ask: “But, then, do the things I see around me - for example a table - really exist or do they not exist? What is real about the physical plane? Is it all an illusion or something, does some form really exist? "
Well, we have never stated that matter does not exist and that forms do not exist, but we have instead affirmed that forms exist even though they are perceived differently and subjectively by each individual.
This means that if all of you had the same perceptive abilities you would perceive all forms in the same way and, if you had enough fine ones, enough not stimulated by the ego, looking at a table, you would all see it in the same way, down to the smallest ones. features.
So we can say the same thing that was once said in other shores:
“Will we be able to overcome what the ego influences in an individual, even on a perceptual level?
Mountains, at a certain point, are no longer mountains. But when one goes even further and comes to complete the tour of the Whole to re-enter oneself, then one discovers that the mountains are again mountains; then we discover that reality exists objectively and that it is only due to individual limits and difficulties that it appears different from being to being ”. Scifo
In reality it is not clear to me. I think we all have the same perceptual abilities derived from the senses. For all of us, a table is a table with that shape, that type of material, that color. It is the connotation of that table that is different, not the perception; by connotation I mean the adjectives that the ego puts on it. If we did not all have the same perceptive abilities we would not grasp the same "real" things: the world in which we operate, the people we meet. Without our perceptive channels, the world as we understand it does not exist. I do not know, I hope I have not brought confusion to the reader and I apologize to Scifo because, despite being a bit chewing on reality and illusion, I am still a protesting ass.
Thank you.
I see her like you Catia. Thanks to Scifo, however, that he explained things about which the subject of subjective reality had made me bewildered.
Eye Samuele to reassure you too much, what Scifo shows is only one aspect of reality, the basic one.
Postulated that the table is objective, it depends in which scene, enjoyed by which spectator and with what existential purpose it is placed, and in what time.
But it is not a topic to be addressed here ..
Thank you. Very complex topic, on which I thought I only understood something. But now I'm not even sure of that something anymore ...
Very interesting topic!
Therefore; the ego at the mercy of its emotions, of the mind, of its needs, distorts reality, consequently influencing the perceptive capacity derived from the senses.
Is it so?
To Luana.
Yes, that's right.
To make us understand with a practical example, the Guides brought the case of eyewitnesses to a car accident: the versions of each of them differ in some part (sometimes even very broad) from those of the others, because they are managed by the ego that he tends to notice first what strikes him personally and to adapt the interpretation of his perceptions to his needs for preservation and embellishment of himself.
In fact, what Scifo says is familiar to me. I often find that the realities perceived by different subjects are different. Then there are different rations. I am not talking about things that belong to a shared codification on a large scale, such as the perception of an object, such as the table, even if going into the philosophical aspect the problem remains. I'm talking about how facts are interpreted which then create different reactions depending on who lives them. The fact is the same, but everyone puts his own in the interpretation and therefore in the elaboration of the same. Does objectivity exist? I do not think it is for us humans, by virtue of the limits of this condition, but we can commit ourselves to go further, aware of the fact that ours is a partial vision, predisposing us to an opening towards a broader vision that contemplates other possible interpretations.
Reading the comments and Gian's example are helpful. I share and subscribe to Natasha's words: it is in sharing the same scene that it is easy to grasp the different perceived aspects, more complex to broaden the vision to what is codified as an object for common use ... thanks to all *