Reality is Perceived

Our senses and the devices we create to extend our senses, are filters through which we perceive reality. We don’t get to sense all of reality. Then, our minds take in the streams of information from our senses, and filter them further. Our attention or focus, our preconceptions, our mood, all determine the way we filter information from our senses. If we are feeling guilty, we may be more likely to hear other peoples’ conversation as criticism. If we are feeling proud, we may be more likely to hear those same conversations as praise.

If our perceptions are wrong then no amount of logical excellence will give the right answer. So it is a pity that almost the whole of our traditional intellectual effort has been directed at logic and so little at perception.

Logic will not change emotions and feelings. Perception will.” (Edward de Bono, Textbook of Wisdom, 1996)