What is Reality?

Is reality an entity, a concept, or no more than an invention of language that we have given meaning? Why is it so important for us to know not only what reality is for ourselves, but for others as well? We try to define it, to control it, make others see it our way, and avoid seeing reality through another’s perspective. Why do we feel that the way we experience our surroundings and events is such a part of our identity? Are we afraid that if we strip away the labels, the groups, the culture, or the nationalism that there will be nothing left? Isn’t it still reality even when it isn’t recognizable? Should we be afraid or should we feel infinite with possibility?

Why is it so important for us to know not only what reality is for ourselves, but for others as well?

This section explores reality experienced from non traditional, unrecognizable, and outlying positions. Through the extremes we hope to show that changing one’s opinions or one’s reality does not strip away the self. Remember that we hold on the hardest when we feel fear and that even if you change yourself entirely, your experience won’t be erased, it will be what propels you to your future.

Browse the Fight With Your Mind curated links to inform, update, and evolve your views. 

Fight With Your Mind challenges you to read about perceptions or experiences that are wildly different than your own, to expand your universe by adding that new information into your repositories, and to use the open mind you have when exploring to try to understand the differences in the people you interact with.

Our curated articles dive into some mind bending subjects that we have included to loosen the tight attachment most individuals have to their perceptions. Letting go of our perceptions teaches us the humility necessary to see where we are wrong.

Nothing is universal, not even color

Loosening our death grip on our opinions is easier once we understand how perception isn’t universal. A study reveals how even the perception of color is informed by language.

We predict ourselves into existence

Exploring consciousness and the predictions we use to create the world around us. If we construct our world, partially with predictions, we should be aware that those same predictions dramatically impact the way we see others. Judge less by knowing more.

What is Spin?

Feeling like we understand something stops us from asking what it is. Not knowing things isn't dumb, but pretending you do is. We can learn a lot from good scientists who prioritize information and the truth above the comfort of having answers.

The influence of language on our perceptions

Our language informs what we experience, making the world a place that we can only see as it is because of the words we have to describe it. We should all think about the words we speak, especially because of the role language plays in shaping reality itself.

Linguistic relativity

All observers are not led by the same physical evidence to the same picture of the universe, unless their linguistic backgrounds are similar.
The infinite varieties of human perception

People with time-space synaesthesia experience the past, present, and future entirely differently than the rest of us. Can gaining an understanding of these alternate perceptions make us more open to change in ourselves?

Life and Death–and the gray area between

If we are a collection of atoms, and our atoms go on long after we’re gone, should this change how we look at life and death? If even death isn’t black and white, then maybe we should reconsider drawing hard lines in our lives as well.

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    Facing our fears so we can understand our differences, for the purpose of a shared reality

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    The universe will always be as large as it is, regardless of whether or not we can see the whole thing.

    Our perceptions might as well be how we define reality. We can all observe one event, and regardless of how simple or straightforward that event is, we have seen time and time again that our perceptions will differ. This extends to our emotional state as well, with difficult events bringing insights that almost re-write the pain to be positive growth. Knowing that humans can’t seem to agree on a universal reality could be looked at as a terrifying thought, or depending entirely on how we choose to see things, it could be extremely intriguing. This choice holds a great deal of power because it means that the ability to see something differently is inside the self.

    Hate is not our belief system, or morals, or right vs wrong–it is fear of the unknown.

    Humans really enjoy knowing things. The state of not knowing makes us so uncomfortable that we conjure and hypothesize or sometimes outright make up answers to satisfy the gap that information should fill. When we don’t know something, we don’t like to admit it, but more often than not we allow lack of knowledge to simply turn to fear. Fear most commonly expresses itself as hate, and it accounts for almost every prejudice we have toward each other. People that don’t understand differences hate differences. Hate is not our belief system, or morals, or right vs wrong–it is fear of the unknown. This is extremely difficult to accept and most humans flat out reject this simple and statistically overwhelming piece of psychology, even if it is out of their character to reject information.

    If we do accept this, then we realize that hatred, and therefore prejudice, is a completely fixable problem. Fixable does not mean easy, and being humble enough to deprogram and then learn the necessary information takes guts. Stepping outside the self, enough to really imagine a different set of circumstances that are nothing like your own experiences takes practice. It requires that we are always willing to learn. It asks us to commit to leaving room for future information to alter what we feel should be our conclusion. This does not mean to live in a state of flip-flopping and to never own opinions or make conclusions. It means that we can never let ourselves stop learning.

    Change cannot be fought any more than time can be reversed. There is no point in trying to return to another time by wishing days past could be again.

    The moment we believe we have learned enough is the moment we join the side of hate. Time is a cruel thing to those that hate change because it is the entity that ensures change is constant. Change cannot be fought any more than time can be reversed. There is no point in trying to return to another time by wishing days past could be again. What we can do is learn from our past and take our lessons into the future. Living in this state of acceptance naturally fights misunderstanding and hate and gives peace to the self. It is because of this that we should honestly celebrate our differences as they are opportunities to explore and understand more of the world. Instead of feeling small because we realized we knew less than we thought about the world, we can enjoy and marvel at how much more of the world there is that we get to experience.

    One does not lose the self or a part of their identity when they change their mind. We should be willing to explore outside the box ideas because of how much more interesting they would make the world if we could understand how they are possible.

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UPCOMING

Causality

What we see is not reality but a useful perception intended to help us through our world more systematically. All of our perceptions are constructs of the brain and do not actually exist out in reality. The brain uses depth, light, and other perceptive cues to interpret what is there and combines it with memory to create what we believe we see before our eyes. In science, we can show how both time and space are dependent on the observer, and there are several quantum truths that imply that reality changes based upon whether or not an observer is present. If we can’t trust our eyes, and reality seems to have multiple sets of rules, is there anything that we can really know, or any common reality that we can share? Here we talk about something that everyone does agree on, causality, and how understanding why it is the thread through everything helps us to find truth in a soup of perceptions.

UPCOMING

Answers in our DNA

Several migrating species display an astonishing innate ability to replicate the migration patterns of previous generations without learning or following them first. This allows the novice offspring to migrate earlier than the experienced adults of the flock, with the adults rejoining the offspring later in the season. Unless you are a believer in a complex bird language that can communicate directions, this phenomenon can be explained by memories stored in DNA. Here we explore what other answers could potentially be unlocked through DNA and innate memories. Is it possible that pieces of our history are stored inside ourselves? Could advancements in the study of our universe ultimately be unlocked through this amazing code of information?

UPCOMING

Expanding societal systems to apply the lessons of history

From democracy, to communism, to socialism, to monarchy, to anarchy – Outside of thought experiments, real world examples of different societal systems across history share a common property of failure. Seemingly, all examples, when given time, move away from the ideals they were founded on and from the original goals the system was created to achieve. Why do we feel the need to choose one system instead of making a grand system, a supersystem, that is formed from the best ideas of each? Why don’t we incorporate the lessons painfully learned from their weaknesses? Here we explore the history of the ideals these systems were founded on as well as the real world examples of these systems that share the name but left the ideals behind.

UPCOMING

Using a lie to reveal the truth

Magicians use deception to create illusions intended to entertain audiences. When an audience no longer understands that they are being deceived, and instead believes that magic itself is occurring, is it the responsibility of the magician to reveal the trick? Can magicians be helpful in spotting deception in society’s corrupt entities? Is using deception to reveal the truth different than using deception to conceal the truth?

UPCOMING

Football: a case study of Marketing in sports

The lights, the brands, the music, the timing, the tribalism, and the seamless transition between the sports event, the advertisers, and the program that sports fans watch at home. Football is possibly the best example of marketing in its most efficient and effective gear. Marketing tactics are implemented to steer your actions, amplify your emotions, and maximize spending. However, football is a shared experience that is special without the extravagant performance, the influential tactics, or the flashy camera angles and interactive graphics. It transcends race, religion, and politics, and provides a platform for people with differences to come together. Can we establish common ground with those we don’t understand by talking about football? Can that common ground be built upon to bridge our differences?

UPCOMING

Comedians

Comedy is a tool that can be used to reveal the truth. Comedy is so effective at stripping back discomfort, that sometimes it can be the only way to talk about the truth when it is especially ugly. Comedy helps us face truths in ourselves and truths in others–and when we can laugh together, we struggle less to see that we are more similar than we imagine. In our political atmosphere, a few comedians have ventured into using comedy to make political points, and like any good tool, comedy can also be used as a weapon. We talk to comedians that are using comedy to bring people together instead of tearing people apart, to see if laughter is the solution to all of our differences.

UPCOMING

Poetic Naturalism

While naturalism is the "idea or belief that only natural (as opposed to supernatural or spiritual) laws and forces operate in the world", poetic naturalism understands that the way we find personally relevant meaning to life does not naturally emerge from a purely scientific approach. Science is a rigorous method of finding what is true or false, while poetic naturalism encourages extending the conversation to include contemplation into what is right and wrong. It integrates scientific reasoning methods into our personal purpose-seeking and meaning-making, with an emphasis on Bayesian techniques.