I just read "Magician's End" by Raymond E. Feist, and, as usual with one of his books, some neurons in my brain kept firing after reading the last page. Some books have that effect on me.
Your perspective limits your reality. It also defines your reality, because we compare our definition of reality and the reality we perceive the whole time. When there are discrepancies, we do one of two things: Either we change our definition of reality, or, in most cases, we change the facts to fit our definition of reality. The mind is the easiest thing to fool, but it is completely adamant that it is completely foolproof and will go to extreme lengths to 'prove' this.
We know that there are sounds we cannot hear, things we cannot see, things we cannot smell, things we cannot taste, things we cannot feel. We also 'know' that all of these 'things' are energy at different levels and/or frequencies. What we don't know, is what percentage of these levels and/or frequencies we do perceive. We just know where our range of perceptions stop.
To try and put it into some kind of perspective for you, we do not know if we are listening to all the C-notes you can create on a specific guitar-string, all the C-notes you can create on that specific guitar, all the notes you can create on that specific guitar-string, all the notes you can create on that specific guitar, all the C-notes on a specific type of guitar, etc. We just limit our reality to what we can perceive, and ignore everything else. Because we are unable to perceive it, it does not exist.
Now think of another 'perspective' we inflict on ourselves. Filters. Filters our ego create to protect us from the world, to keep our perception of reality as simple as possible, to keep our reality easy to understand. It may be fundamentally wrong, but it does make sense if you ignore anything that does not confirm to it, and if you do not examine it too closely. We do not know they exist till we are made aware of them, and then the whole world change, because you rip out the old filter and replace it with a brand new one.
In another book I read an Artificial Intelligence ask the person it is talking to, to let it take 'the REAL turing test'. Let both of them pray for an hour, and see if God notice the difference. All kinds of filters are revealed by your reaction to this, and it is quite interesting to sit and work through them for a few minutes.
What is your perception of men? Of women? Of other races, of other cultures, of history, of religion, of specific religions, of work, of your intelligence, of your driving, of your roll in your family, in your community, on earth? Can you imagine how these filters cloud your perception of reality, how much you miss because of these filters? I know that I cannot, the way I cannot imagine the temperature and the pressure inside the sun.
I would love to say that I am more open-minded now than a few years ago, but it will be a lie. What happened is that I just became aware of more filters I have in place. Filters that are replaced more often, sometimes with old, comfortable ones. Most of the time I just accept that I use a lot of filters, and try to remember that it is just my personal version of reality.
Is there a God? Is time just a perception? Is there a multiverse? Is everything pre-ordained? Do I actually exist? Is there something like the past or the future, or does only the present moment exist, with the 'past' made up to create the sense of continuity? What would be the reason for this?
My perspective, your perspective. Or is there only my perspective after all? A perspective that will end with me, that will be replaced with another? What is your perspective, or is it still mine?
