Latest / Sri Aurobindo Studies / Developing a Power to Perceive and Understand Ourselves and Our World by Minimizing the Distortions and Biases That Are Inherent in Our Human INstrumentation and Process

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Developing a Power to Perceive and Understand Ourselves and Our World by Minimizing the Distortions and Biases That Are Inherent in Our Human INstrumentation and Process · Sri Aurobindo Studies

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  Whenever we try to understand something, we are met with
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  various types of inherent biases that skew the determinations we
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  make. Not only our our senses, our
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  perceptions, and our thoughts subject to various forms of
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  filtering, but they are also skewed by our past experience,
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  the fact that our minds fill in missing data based on what we
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  expect to see, and we interpret everything through the filter of
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  our memories, our emotional framework, and our contextual
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  relationship to what is being perceived.
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  In quantum mechanics, the Heisenberg uncertainty principle
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  adds another layer to the entire process, even beyond our
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  inherent biases, namely that the very fact of observation changes
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  what is being observed in order to reach the truth of anything.
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  We therefore need to undertake considerable efforts to 1st
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  understand what kind of biases and filters we are employing in
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  our perception, and 2nd work to minimize their impact on the
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  resulting analysis and conclusions we draw.
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  For instance, if we desire a certain outcome or adhere to a
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  certain point of view, we will tend to interpret what we see
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  based on those filters. We either get a confirmation of
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  what we already believe, or we get the opposite of it and we
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  then react with a rejection, an interpretation that fits our
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  preconceived notions. Our senses are subject to being
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  misled. What we see, what we hear, what
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  we feel are all partial and are also subject to manipulation
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  based on on our position as an observer in relation to the
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  object of our perception, as well as through careful
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  tailoring of information by those seeking to influence our
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  perceptions or due to innocent but nevertheless inaccurate
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  factual data. It is not just a matter of
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  factual data, however. We have our own expectations.
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  Ideas and preconceived notions that go into how we interpret
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  and respond to things. Then we overlay our mental
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  process, our emotional needs, our experience and memory, and
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  our training and education over the perceptions.
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  Desires play a rather large role in how we respond to things,
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  whether we are attracted or repulsed, whether we are
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  responding out of fear or antipathy or some kind of
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  chemistry of attraction. The idea then, in order to
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  approach a more unbiased view of the world and the situations
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  that we experience, is to find ways to systematically abstract
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  ourselves from this entire baggage of the external ego,
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  personality and the limitations of the external physical, vital
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  emotional and mental being. The practice of shifting to the
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  standpoint of the witness consciousness is an important
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  part of this process, so that we can identify and minimize the
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  influence of these factors on our perceptions of the reality
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  that we interact with. The Mother notes quote.
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  To be perfectly sincere, it is indispensable not to have any
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  preference, any desire, any attraction, any dislike, any
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  sympathy or antipathy, any attachment, any repulsion.
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  One must have a total integral vision of things in which
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  everything is in its place and one has the same attitude
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  towards all things, the attitude of true vision.
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  This program is obviously very difficult for a human being to
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  realize. Unless he has decided to
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  divinize himself. It seems almost impossible that
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  he could be free from all these contraries within him.
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  And yet, so long as one carries them in himself, 1 cannot be
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  perfectly sincere. Automatically the mental, the
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  vital, and even the physical working is falsified.
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  I am emphasizing the physical, for even the working of the
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  senses is warped. 1 does not see, hear, taste, feel things as
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  they are in reality. As long as one has a preference,
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  so long as there are things which please you and others
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  which don't, so long as you are attracted by certain things and
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  repulsed by others, you cannot see things in their reality.
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  You see them through your reaction, your preference or
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  your repulsion. The senses are instruments which
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  get out of order in the same as sensations, feelings and
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  thoughts. Therefore, to be sure of what
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  you see, what you feel, what you experience and think, you must
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  have a complete detachment, and this is obviously not an easy
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  task. But until then, your perception
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  cannot be wholly true, and so it is not sincere.
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  End Quote reference. Srioro Binduan, The Mother,
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  Looking from Within, Chapter 5. Attitudes on the Path, pages 149
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  to 150.