THE MEANING OF UNIVERSAL AWARENESS

4. The Importance of Acceptance

On the importance of accepting that the world that a person creates in their mind is unique to them and not quite the same as the world we create in our mind.

As per my last blog, being mindful that each one of us only ever experiences the world as it is uniquely represented by our brain (our mental maps) and not as it really is 'out there' might help us understand and accept one other better. I believe it's a good habit to cultivate. (Here I acknowledge that this is based on my representation of the world! I mustn't expect that your representation of the world will necessarily lead you to agree with me.) Let me explain.

Our mental maps of the world are hugely informed by the communications we receive from others. Now, there are many ways of summing up the nature of the period of history we are living through, and one is 'This is the age of communication' (some say 'the information age'). Although a case can be made that we don't communicate face-to-face as much as we used to because we tend to be more physically isolated from one another, lots of other ways are now available to us. In any week, we read and hear all sorts of information in the newspapers (offline and online), in social media, on television, and in books, as well as in our everyday interactions with others. I am thinking especially about opinions and beliefs about the state of the world, what's right and what's wrong, the way things should and shouldn't be, what needs to be done, and so on.

When we are recipients of such communications, say someone's belief and ideas concerning a matter of significance to us, we may simply register the information without any change to our existing mental representations. But often these will be adjusted to accommodate the information received, especially when we perceive the other person as speaking from experience or authority. This is a good thing and happens all the time but always remember the key principle: whoever it is can only base what they are saying on their unique mental map of reality, not directly reality itself.

Now, there are plenty of occasions when we may regret having been influenced by what we have been told. On the other hand, you may disagree with what the person is saying. No problem here, but if you are interacting with the person, sometimes disagreeing can have unproductive or even undesirable consequences-frustration, anger, loss of mutual respect, and so on, as we each engage in futile arguments trying to show that the other person is wrong or misguided. (This happens a lot with quarreling couples.) This can be avoided if we keep in mind the key principle above. And in this respect-unless, of course, they are deliberately lying-they are being truthful. And the same goes for you.

So, you have the choice to accept that the other person has come to represent the world differently from you and not to feel that you must always challenge their beliefs and opinions if these are different to yours. This will help you avoid much futile argument and unpleasantness in your interactions with others. And when you present your point of view to others, you can emphasise that this is how the world appears to you; you can use expressions like, 'For me ….', 'The way I see things/ feel about is ….' or, if there is a disagreement maybe something like, 'Well, we think of these things in a different way'.

It is my belief (and there is objective evidence for this) that a healthy and stable society is one that can tolerate a wide range of ideas and beliefs amongst its population. Freedom of belief and expression is best! However, (as intimated above) there is such a thing as objective reality and our mental maps (just as with physical maps) can differ in how accurately they represent reality. So, it may be that you disagree with someone's opinion because you believe it to be based on an inaccurate representation of the real world. For example, I disagree with Nigel Farage's belief that children in same-sex marriages fare less well than those in heterosexual marriages. I do so because the evidence shows that this is factually incorrect. On such occasions, you will probably want to say to the other person that as far as you are aware, objective evidence contradicts what they are saying. Or you may ask, 'Where is your evidence for this?' This is important these days when there seems to be so much misinformation about

One more thing. We mainly communicate with others (and to a significant degree ourselves) using language. Human language is a wonderful thing, but it is imperfect and imprecise as a means of describing our world, and the same words and expressions can mean different things to different people. Disagreements of belief and opinion often arise because of this. For example, I say that I am not religious; I'm a humanist. Others say to me, 'Ah! But humanism is a religion!' Rather than having a prolonged argument I just say, 'It depends on what you mean by religion and humanism, and according to the way I think of them, humanism is not a religion.' No more arguing! (Admittedly this depends on whether agreed objective definitions exist for the words we use. For example, I wouldn't get away with saying, 'A dog is not a mammal.' But there's no need for us to pursue this!)