We See Things as We Are

"We see and understand things not as they are but as we are."

To answer this question, two main aspects must be looked at - what or how "we are", and what or how "things are". The concept of "things as they are" implies the universe independent of us. This is related to physics, which involves some patterns or constants, which always existed, long before us. Humans discovered and described them, but they were still there before this. For example, gravity existed long before Newton discovered and name in 1685.

The background of a person will make her look at something, and automatically judge it from her own perspective. Even though two people may look at the same thing, one may well have different thoughts, feelings or responses towards it than another. This is due to different cultures, religions, social class, gender, education, experiences... Basically anything that they have been through, be it sociological, psychological or even biological, will become a factor in the judgment. "Even in the simplest perceptions there are some hidden assumptions" . All people look at the world with their own view.

One of the things that most affect the way we see and understand things is the society. Social influence is when an individual's thoughts or actions are influenced by other people. It takes many forms, and there are three main broad varieties of it, which are Compliance (when people appear to agree with others, but internally disagree), Identification (when people are influenced by someone they like and admire) and Internalization (when people accept a belief or behaviour internally and publicly). In other words, this includes culture, knowledge communities, past experiences, in between others.

One of the things that most affect the way we see and understand things is culture. Having a family which is half Brazilian and half Arabian, I can see a big difference in views. In Brazil, if there are a boy and a girl together in the street, it is considered normal, because in our society that is a common, natural and even healthy thing to see. However, if the same couple is seen in, for example, Saudi Arabia, it would be considered something alarming and unethical; worthy of punishment. This difference in views is also due to religion, another important factor. These are two completely different views on what is, ultimately, the same thing. If the title of the essay was not true, there would be no explanation to different reactions to the same situation. The Arabian culture has certain values and beliefs which are much more conservative than the Brazilian one, and so the people there learn that and believe that certain act is wrong. But if people have different opinions on the same thing, than the difference is in them and the way they see it, not in the thing itself. Different cultures can also pose different views on beliefs. An example of this is cannibalism. In some Indian cultures it is considered a positive action to eat your defeated enemies to gain their strength. However in most cities this is considered an unethical act and is forbidden. A difference in how people perceive the world can be seen even in the differences between the East and West philosophy. The West seems to be more rational, with scientifically based beliefs, whilst the East seems to have a belief in cycles of nature, more communal, mystical and spiritual.

Although culture is a big influence, it is definitely not the only one; even in same cultures there are major differences in perception from person to person. People with different learning communities will see things differently. Starting from the person herself, onto her family, closest friends, classmates, year group, school and so on. All these have great effects in the way we see and understand things.

Often, small children look up to their parents, and so accept a lot of what they say as true, or correct. They grow up with these customs and beliefs and these eventually become part of their own. One example of this is that teenagers commonly have the same political view as their parents, not because of research and understanding of political issues, but simply because their parents impose, in a way, that belief. Even smaller opinions are coloured by the way we are brought up or the people we live with, as a dislike for a certain actress or music. This is due to emotion- our emotional access to knowledge. By being emotionally dependent on parents and, because of this feeling a well-being close to them, most children tend to accept what they say as truth. Emotions accompany people at all times so deeply that it is very hard to consider sense perceptions without them. Language also plays a part in this, since children are subject to what they hear around them. Any perception involves reasoning, and reasoning is done in terms of the language they were given. Language is culturally relative - because of this not all people reason in the same way. Some may consider illogical what others think natural. A simple example of this is that, in Rio de Janeiro, it is acceptable to go through a red light at night. That is because almost all people say that it is not dangerous since there are few cars around, that they take a calculated risk. However, in other places such as USA, that is unacceptable.

Even what we do affects the way we perceive life. One example of this can be seen in Keats' poems. Usually, people with a bias towards in mathematics tend not to appreciate his poems as much, since it is unusually inconclusive. After studying his poems, I could see that frequently the 'lesson' expected in the last stanza, the conclusion, never came. It is to be appreciated for its beauty, not particularly to extract too much from it. On the other hand, people with a