10 May 2011 Leave a comment
I recently suffered a very sudden and very significant loss of vision. Happily, the condition was fully correctible. Nonetheless, during the period of impairment I learned some very interesting things about how the brain works and we perceive the world.
I discovered that when I was in familiar surroundings, my brain could reach back to stored memories of how things were supposed to look. In the familiar confines of my office or home, I hardly noticed the lack of clarity in my vision. My brain was able to easily recognize the settings and the people I encountered and adjusted things to make it feel like I could see better than I actually did.
When I went on a period of extended travel, however, and found myself in unfamiliar surroundings, the visual impairment felt like it became more severe. Everything was a total blur. I felt disoriented and at a loss.
Scientists talk about the concept of paradigms: the frame of reference that causes the human brain to routinely “fill in the blanks” and add information to what we are actually, sensually perceiving. When that additional information is accurate, it actually improves our grasp of reality, as was the case when I was navigating my office and home with my fading eyesight.
But sometimes the information that our governing paradigms add to our perceptive abilities can be misleading. We can essentially see what we are expecting to see, not what is actually before us.
And paradigms don’t just have the power to change — and distort — visual perceptions. I have seen paradigms at work within human interactions as well.
When that happens, at a board meeting, or a staff meeting, or a legislative meeting, it can start an argument where there is no disagreement. The conversation never gets to the available, mutually beneficial solution because the parties are too distracted arguing over perceived differences that exist only in their conflicting paradigms.
Or, put another way, if we remain at loggerheads, locked inflexibly into opposing positions even where there is no real impediment to a satisfactory solution, we will never get to a position of strength, from which we can successfully negotiate an acceptable outcome on the issues that truly do matter to us.
Sometimes, you just have to let go of your paradigm.