What is Perception Made of?
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Perception runs deeper than you know.
A lot of people think of perception in terms of the six senses. Taste, touch, smell, sight, sound, and extra-sensory perceptions (ESP, empathy, etc). But each of those is a singular point of perception. They are the impression makers that build your overall perception.
Perception itself is the processing of those inputs. It’s how the brain analyzes and combines all that data. This is how you know food is tasty or not, sex feels good, broken bones hurt, and so on.
But even deeper than that, perception is how you view the whole of reality. Your perception is unique to you, and you alone, which is why reality is rather fluid.
As Albert Einstein said,
“Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.”
To me, that means that reality, being based on individual perception, is unique to each person. You and I do not perceive the world in the same way.
While the senses make up perception, they are only a part of that. It goes further. Other factors are also a part of perception.
The impact of background and experiences
Where you come from has a rather large effect on your perception of the world. All you have to do to understand this is to look at cultural differences.
The people of southeast Asia come from a culture different from the people of western Europe, which is also different from the people of central Africa, which is wildly different from the peoples of North America.
Hell, even the cultures across the United States can be wildly different. I grew up in the suburbs of Minneapolis, Minnesota. My experiences in that particular culture created a view of reality different from the people I have come to know in the twenty-plus years of living in New Jersey or New York. Those experiences are quite different from people I have met who are from the South or the Southwest parts of the country.
The point is, your background is part of what creates your perception of reality. It is not just based on where you come from, it will also be affected by the class your family comes out of, wealth, social status, neighborhood, family…
