Limited Vision Self-Management Helps Us Learn To Broaden Our View Of The World

Let’s say you’re a Democrat and your neighbor is a Republican. How likely is it that you’ll ever see eye-to-eye? The quick answer: Don’t hold your breath.

For the purpose of managing human affairs, an objective world doesn’t exist, says Dr. Robert B. Livingston, one of America’s leading brain researchers. Sure, there is a “real” world out there, one that still would be around even if people weren’t. But that’s politically, economically and personally irrelevant. The world we live in - the stage upon which we act out life’s drama - is largely subjective.

How subjective? Livingston has crunched the numbers. Start with 46 chromosomes for each cell. Then figure in the permutations of 23 chromosomes (the number you receive from each parent) times 23 chromosomes. Now apply this calculation to each of the 100 billion cells in the human body. Next, factor in the normal mutation rate of one per every 10,000 cell divisions.This gives you a rough idea of how physically unique you are.

Now consider some basic brain biology.

First, the apparatus we call the mind really is not confined to the space between the ears. It’s a neural network connecting every cell in the universe of your body; it’s also a vast archive in which experience and knowledge are stored. That’s why sometimes we think with our hearts, “know” in our guts, have memory triggered by a fragrance or melody.

Second, experience itself actually shapes the brain. It makes us laugh and cry, fear and hope, and literally forges tissue in the body’s electrical fire and chemical bath.

So the simple answer to our question, says Livingston, is that there is less than one chance in 72 trillion that any two people have ever seen the world in exactly the same way. It’s physically impossible - we all begin with different cells, then have them shaped according to our unique experiences.

What it comes down to is that there’s never been another you. Never will be, either.

Livingston’s key point is that genetics and the very act of living conspire to “biologically wire” us with one way of seeing the world. Too bad. Livingston and his colleagues have done experiments showing there are more worlds in your world than you might dream.

He explains, “The central nervous system sends out impulses on outgoing fibers from the brain stem and spinal cord to every sense organ - to the retina, to the cochlea, to the olfactory bulb, to the taste epithelium, to the sense receptors in the skin and muscles and visceral organs and everything. And these outgoing messages - we tested them on the middle ear muscles in man and did a lot of work on animals - vary according to the individual’s past experiences. And they are modified even in a given individual in accordance with the individual’s purposes and expectations.”

Such findings reveal that not only does everyone see the world somewhat differently, we ourselves see it differently from one day to the next depending on how expectations and purposes modify our sensory impulses.

“We live in a world that is modified according to our perceptions,” says Livingston. “It is real to us, but it is variant among different perceivers.”

This conclusion is consistent with evolving scientific thought. Quantum theory, for instance, holds that perception is an integral part of reality - you can’t separate one from the other. And according to this thinking, even the seemingly most objective object - like this paper - isn’t what it appears to be.

It turns out there really isn’t any such thing as a thing, as the late physicist/philosopher David Bohm put it. This is because all objects are ever-changing. (So you had better finish reading this before the paper it’s printed on turns to dust.)

One implication of this new understanding is that our world isn’t made up of nouns, those cherished landmarks we are taught to believe in - mountains and rivers, countries and doctrines - but only slow verbs, things going from somewhere to someplace else.

The trouble is, our failure to recognize just how subjective our impressions are can yield rigid belief systems that make the world much more unpleasant than it needs to be, warns Livingston. It afflicts us with illusions that lead to poor choices and unsustainable living patterns, and that spark conflicts ranging from lovers’ quarrels to futile political debates, ugly religious feuds, even war.

This, believes Livingston, is an aspect of human nature - the actual mechanism of the mind, what really makes us tick - that we must learn to better accommodate if we are successfully to negotiate many of the challenges we now face personally and as a species.

MEMO: Michael O’Brien, Ed.D., is president of O’Brien Learning Systems and coauthor, with Larry Shook, of “Profit From Experience: How to make the most of your learning and your life” (Bard & Stephen, Austin, Texas).

This sidebar appeared with the story: SELF-MANAGEMENT 101: THE ART OF FORGIVING Effective self-management is useful in every aspect of life - on the job, at home, managing the trials and tribulations of daily life. It involves using exercises to change thought patterns. This can result in the physical, neurological alterations that are the basis of real change. If Dr. Robert B. Livingston is right - that it’s physically impossible for any two people to see the world the same way - then it’s no wonder that even friends and lovers sometimes fight. Of course some disagreements are trivial and some aren’t. Some merely annoy us. Others leave us emotionally “scarred,” which may be less of a metaphorical condition than previously thought. Unresolved conflict shapes the world we live in. All experience creates memory, and memory to some extent becomes part of the filter through which we see the world. This is one reason that cleaning up misunderstandings is vital to spouses, friends and colleagues. But it’s also why forgiveness, whatever its “spiritual” benefits, appears to have biological value as well - it changes neural pathways and may be one of the best medicines anyone can take. So consider maintaining two kinds of forgiveness lists. On one, list people you need to forgive. On the other, note those from whom you need to seek forgiveness. Decide whether actual conversations are in order, or if private reflection on your part will do the trick. Be honest about this part, however, because the dividends of the exercise may be proportional. Working both sides of the forgiveness issue also facilitates self-management in another way. It helps clarify our own role in the conflicts that upset us. Making the appropriate corrections in our own behavior helps liberate us from the negative conditioning of the past, a burden from which few of us are free.

From “Profit From Experience: How to make the most of your learning and your life” (Bard & Stephen Publishers), by Michael O’Brien, Ed.D., and Larry Shook.