Digital photography. Limited edition prints size 78 x 114 cm, 50 x 71 cm
“We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts, we make the world.”
Buddha
Do we perceive reality as it is? Many philosophers have thought about this at different times. Immanuel Kant in "Critique of Pure Reason" came to the conclusion that everything cognizable with our senses is a body phenomena. The "thing in itself" is inaccessible to our understanding. The brain converts electromagnetic waves into brightness and color, air vibrations into sound, chemical molecules into smells, the vibration frequency into temperature, and molecular structure into density. Until the beginning of the 20th century, scientists still harbored hopes of knowing the "true reality" with precision instruments. However, quantum mechanics seems to have dashed that hope forever. The reality we perceive is a model created by our brain. In many ways, it can be compared to a video game running on a computer. This is a map of reality or its description. A paradigm is it's generally accepted model, with all its inherent limitations.
Guided by internal map, our mind constantly asks itself the questions: where is this, and is it that? With a schematic image of a mountain, a pine tree, a lake, and a lighthouse in front of it, it adjusts its neural webs to search for a mountain, a pine tree, a lake, and a lighthouse. The rest will remain mostly unnoticed. I have a good example to illustrate. Insurance companies keep investigations and statistics on all their payouts. Among them are head-on collisions between cars and planes that make an emergency landing on the highway. In the vast majority of cases, car drivers do not see the plane until the moment of collision. In reality of most people airplanes do not travel on roads. Now imagine that not only physical objects, but conscious and unconscious ideas about ourselves are drawn on this map. It doesn't care whether we like what comes to our consciousness or not. Just like Google search or the Facebook feed algorithm, it selects the most relevant information according to our thoughts and expectations. Only what we believe in can happen in our lives. This applies equally to reptiloids, aliens, the fear of getting sick, the possibility of spontaneous recovery, wealth, enlightenment or happiness. Reality is self-hypnosis, no matter what beliefs or values we hold on to. When the description of our reality is rigidly limited, we feel trapped in a tight shell. Such a life is similar to the Groundhog day movie. Only by expanding our personal paradigm do we become creators of our own reality.
Guided by internal map, our mind constantly asks itself the questions: where is this, and is it that? With a schematic image of a mountain, a pine tree, a lake, and a lighthouse in front of it, it adjusts its neural webs to search for a mountain, a pine tree, a lake, and a lighthouse. The rest will remain mostly unnoticed. I have a good example to illustrate. Insurance companies keep investigations and statistics on all their payouts. Among them are head-on collisions between cars and planes that make an emergency landing on the highway. In the vast majority of cases, car drivers do not see the plane until the moment of collision. In reality of most people airplanes do not travel on roads. Now imagine that not only physical objects, but conscious and unconscious ideas about ourselves are drawn on this map. It doesn't care whether we like what comes to our consciousness or not. Just like Google search or the Facebook feed algorithm, it selects the most relevant information according to our thoughts and expectations. Only what we believe in can happen in our lives. This applies equally to reptiloids, aliens, the fear of getting sick, the possibility of spontaneous recovery, wealth, enlightenment or happiness. Reality is self-hypnosis, no matter what beliefs or values we hold on to. When the description of our reality is rigidly limited, we feel trapped in a tight shell. Such a life is similar to the Groundhog day movie. Only by expanding our personal paradigm do we become creators of our own reality.