How Our Collective Unique Views of the World Could Lead To Systemic Failures

So You Think That What You See Is Real (SYTWYSIR)?  But have you ever heard of the Cartesian Theatre? This is in a nutshell how our brain works. We normally collect external stimuli via our eyes, ears, hands and other external senses. These stimuli are organized by the little guy sitting inside our brain (“the stage manager”) to make an internal ‘picture’ of the external world. So the stage manager gives a perceived visualisation of the external world. Go ahead: close your eyes and imagine some scenery. You can see it, even with your eyes closed! So what you think you see does not have to be real! In fact it’s always an illusion.

Now to the core part of this blog. Why might our collective unique views of the world lead to systemic failures? Well, it’s not because we cannot sense (see, hear, …). A systemic failure might occur because what we THINK that the truth is, is only our own internal representation of that truth (not yours or mine but from all the others ofcoures). And that perceived truth might be counterclockwise to another’s perceived truth. Let’s say the little guy in our brain perceives the world as a place, where egoism and greed are normal and should be promoted and a sustainable society is oke but not if you have to pay for it. Now if this little guy accidently also happens to have a lot of societal power or mandate or influence over other people or over big (e.g. financial) outcomes, he might be able to create or sustain a systemic failure just by his perceived view of the world.

So what do we need to do? Well, suppose there are a lot of those little guys out there wandering around in our collective brains, and those little guys have the potential to create or sustain systemic failure, then we need to find a way to enter these guys brains. So that we might inspire them to re-translate there own unique perceivement of their external world into a perceived imaeg of a beautiful, golden age world where abundance is the norm and sharing has become daily routine. How wonderful would that be if that could succeed! Happy stage manager hunting!