Living Into the Looking-Glass

By John Tenniel - Through the Looking-Glass, Public Domain

In Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking-Glass, Alice climbs up onto her fireplace mantel, pokes at the wall-hung mirror behind the fireplace and discovers, to her surprise, that she is able to step through it to an alternative world where everything is reversed. That reversal tells her that she is, in fact, in an alternative world. And, she knows that alternative world exists in contrast to the normal one she remembers perfectly well.

We, too, have entered the looking-glass world. The difference is, we don’t remember the “normal” world. We entered the mirrored world so long ago it seems to us perfectly normal.

In order to understand what is meant by a mirrored world, we have to first examine what we mean by “the world.”

I know, that’s a very strange thing to say!

It’s an inquiry that is, to say the least, almost never conducted. We all know what we mean when we refer to the world. It’s what we confront when we open our eyes in the morning. You know, it’s what we took our leave from when we went to sleep last night and what we return to, grinding or humming along (depending on your outlook on it) when we awaken. Right?

We “all know” that the world is permanent while we transients come and go. We are convinced that the physical world is senior to us, in that it exists much as it appears to us, whether or not there is anyone or anything around to perceive it. This relationship between the permanent and the transient is part of the worldview we all subscribe to; it’s almost never questioned.

However, let’s look more closely at the idea that the world is senior to us. Consider the part of perception we call vision. The story we’re told is that light is emitted from some electrical process, that it bounces off some object and this reflected light enters our eyes.

From there, the electrical impulses generated in our retinas by the light impinging on them are transmitted to our brains by the optic nerve. Our brains then create pictures from these impulses, and all of us assume that these pictures represent more-or-less accurately the object which reflected the light.

So far, so good.

In science, a story such as the preceding explanation must be validated by observation in order to be considered a tenable idea. A hypothesis must be tested. But there’s a problem here: there is no apparent method by which we could prove or otherwise demonstrate that there are in fact objects “out there,” independent of our perception, that we are perceiving.

In our western culture, at least, we are accustomed to watching our television shows and knowing, at some level of sophistication, that a camera recorded whatever it was aimed at, the data it recorded is transmitted to the TV set and interpreted by an algorithm, and finally the image created by that algorithm is projected on a screen.

But now we have moved into an era in which CGI, or computer graphics imagery, can create that image from scratch without benefit of any collection of objects at which to point the camera. And those who wish to prove the authenticity of the image must find a way to distinguish between a real photo or video and what’s now called a “deepfake.” According to Wikipedia, while the act of creating fake content is not new, deepfakes leverage powerful techniques from machine learning and artificial intelligence to manipulate or generate visual and audio content that can more easily deceive.

So, are we being deceived when we perceive the world?

Let’s inquire further into the nature of those pictures our brains generate from the raw material of electrical vibrations in the optic nerve. First of all, we know that our brains are capable of generating those images without benefit of any electrical vibrations in the optic nerve… that’s how dreams work.

From OpenClipart-Vectors on Pixabay

Second, we have likely all experienced that there are variations among the images brains create from those vibrations when more than one of us is viewing the same scene. These variations range from “it’s green…” “no, it’s blue” to different accounts of some event described by people who are each convinced they’re “telling the truth.”

It seems clear to me that the pictures we’re talking about amount to interpretations of the incoming data. And, interpretations are generally influenced and conditioned by belief systems, opinions, perceptual bias, and maybe what we had for lunch.

What’s really going on here?

Let’s see what happens if we accept as a premise the idea that all we have is the pictures our brains and that we have no way of verifying that they represent more-or-less accurately an external world that exists “out there” somewhere.

We “all know” that when we act in some way, we are looking out at the external world and attempting to use our actions to change something. We’re looking to rearrange objects or change them in some way, assemble some objects and disassemble others. We’re living out into the world.

But what if that which you’re looking at right now is a picture in your brain? In that case, you are living into that picture; you are attempting to change something in that picture!

Now, add to that the idea that your interpretations, the ones that form the pictures in your brain, are conditioned by your beliefs and your opinions. You’re interpreting electrical impulses according to a very complex algorithm, an algorithm that is shaped by what your parents told you, what you read, what others tell you, and so on. We call that complex process perception.

From a_m_o_u_t_o_n on Pixabay

Your perceptions reflect your opinions and your biases. In fact, once you accept the truth of that statement, you can use your perceptions to identify and, perhaps, even correct your biases.

Now, if our perceptions reflect our beliefs, the world we perceive (remember, it’s just a picture in this argument) serves as a looking glass. So, when we act, we are living “out” into the looking glass, into the reflection we see in the world.

Yes, we are interpreting electrical impulses that in some way are related to the “real world,” whatever that might be, but we have no way of interacting with that world directly. For us as human beings, equipped only with our five senses, our interpretation, our description of the world, always stands in between ourselves and that world.

My promise to you is that if you decide to treat the world as if it reflects your beliefs, you will find yourself recovering the power you gave away when you had to depend on bigger people for your every need when you were young. You’ll find yourself back in the driver’s seat of your life. You’ll discover yourself as a creator of worlds, specifically the one you’re looking at right now.