PASSIVE PERCEPTION

 Not Paying Attention Intentionally   

 Out of necessity we learn to run on auto-pilot, paying attention mechanically and passively most of the time. This underscores the need to pay attention deliberately and voluntarily, thereby liberating our awareness from robotic activity, Daniel Goleman.

 This blog is about our “inattentional blindness”. * it is my effort to encourage you to pay attention deliberately to the way you see things. The way you see things is your perception. It is your worldview, point of view, your conception of reality. There are two problems with perception: it is partial and fallible. What you see is not all there is; you see only part of the iceberg. Much of the wholeness is hidden.

And your perception is also fallible. This blog is only about the fallibility of perception. The way you see things is the way you interpret things, and interpretation leaves room for error. Your perception determines what you do, which seems to make it very important. You can change your interpretation but you can’t change your partial blindness. My purpose is to encourage you to pay careful, intentional attention to your perceptive interpretation of the way you see things. I believe the way WE see things may be one of the most important factors in the world today.

Because things can change, and often do, you will also need to be able to change the way you see things. With your perception interpretation comes the need for uncertainty. In order to change the way you see things, you need to be uncertain about the way you see things. To be uncertain is to be open-minded; to be capable of change.

The problem with perception is that it is subjective. The problem with subjective is that it    isn’t objective. The trouble is you can’t take subjective youout of your perceptions. Objectivity is the subject’s delusion that observation can be done without him. Heinz von Forester. I like the way Kathryn Schulz explains this. Subjective  perception suggests interpretation. Interpretation implies “wiggle room —- space to deviate from a literal reading. Every step in the interpretative process represents a point of potential divergence between our minds and the world — a breach where mistakes can sneak in.

However, remember that even paying intentional attention to your perception is full of subjectivity, and interpretive wiggle room.

The situation turns circular as perceivers struggle to understand the process of perceiving. Human subjects turn into their own objects.  Humberto R. Maturana

 

* Inattentional blindness was made famous by Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simons in their book, The Invisible Gorilla, 2010.