Fish and fishermen occupy different realities
Trigger warning - what you are about to read might cause confusion or weird sensations. You might experience fear as your perception of reality is being challenged. You will have the impulse declare me a ranting lunatic. If you can not handle these sensations, please stop reading know. The saying, Don’t ask a fish how to catch fish, ask a fisherman is common in male seduction forums. The advice is valid because the fish and fisherman occupy different realities. Science has proven that our perception of reality is an illusion. What is reality?
The map is not the territory
The librarian thought I enjoyed knowledge, she was correct but I was after knowledge of a different type. National Geographic used to be called the prairie boy’s playboy, encyclopedias, and medical books were also a good source of topless women. When I was growing up, in some parts of America it was illegal for the complete cover of a Playboy Magazine to be displayed in a store. The lower 90% of the magazine had to be covered and only the title would peak out Playboy. Today a family-oriented site like Amazon sells Playboy: The Complete Centerfolds. Today a lot of the mystery is gone from sex. This isn’t a bad thing, just showing how culture has evolved in the last 35 years. Depending on your perspective, some parts of culture have evolved for the better, some for the worse. While leafing through Scientific Journals looking for naughty pictures, I found an entry on how horses eyes operate. This was my first glimpse into how reality differs from creature to creature.
The article explained that a horse’s vision is similar to wearing a set of bifocal glasses. When the horse is looking down, it has a wide field of vision, when it looks up, it has narrow but binocular vision. While the horse is grazing, it is vulnerable to predators like wolves, its wider field of vision means it can detect a predator quickly. Then the horse looks up, using its binocular vision it can detect what type of predator it is. When training a horse, it is important to notice how the head is angled. The horse might not be able to see what the trainer sees. The article then stated that the eyes of predators are closer together to provide them with a narrow field of vision. A predator’s eyes are set closer together, the predator can not see details as well but is able to judge range better. The article has described how a predator and a horse have two sets of realities which have developed due to evolution. Of course, at the time, I didn’t understand this, since we live under the illusion there is only one reality.
It wasn’t till I stumbled upon Richard Bandler that I understood that different realities existed. He is the co-inventor of NLP. Just because I read some of his books, does not mean I am endorsing the NLP, most of it is fluff. The detractors of Richard Bandler will point out he is a fat, overweight,conman and possibly a murderer. Despite this, he was able to achieve popularity since he is able to manipulate mental maps. He popularized the statement
A map is not the territory it represents, but, if correct, it has a similar structure to the territory, which accounts for its usefulness.
Alfred Korzybski
The horse and wolf have developed through evolution two different ways of looking at the world. This is because both animals have different objectives. The horse eats grass, the wolf likes to eat horses. The horse wants to avoid getting eaten by the wolf. In the case of the fisherman and fish analogy, the fisherman wants to catch fish.
Useful skills for a fisherman are:
- knowing how to make fishing lures.
- how to use fishing rods and fishing nets.
- knowing what types of places fish live.
Useful skills for a fish are:
- how to avoid fishermen.
- different techniques on how to swim.
- knowing where to find fish food.
As you can tell, I know very little about fishing. But as you can see, the fisherman and fish’s maps or perception of reality only overlap in one area. The fisherman needs to know knowing what types of places fish live the fish needs to know knowing where to find fish food. If the fisherman could talk to a fish, the only useful information he would obtain is learning how fish avoid fish lures and what they like to eat. Since a brain can only store and process a limited amount of information, the fisherman and fish are not going to store information which they can not benefit from. This means they have a different sense of reality.
Different realities sometimes means win/win situations are not possible
Win/Win outcomes are not always possible. For the perspective of the fisherman and fish, a win/win outcome isn’t possible. If the fisherman catches a fish, the fish dies. If we change the frame or reality to an entire ecosystem, the fisherman and fish are each part of a different reality.
What people are in denial about, is we all shape our realities towards what we believe are best self-interests. We then attempt to rationalize it. Bruce Bueno de Mesquita shows in his book The Predictioneer’s Game: Using the Logic of Brazen Self-Interest to See and Shape the Future that leaders base their decisions on what are their best self-interests. It is a more theoretical version of his other book which I discussed in this post The Dictators Handbook - a modern Machiavelli’s version of “The Prince”.
We all attempt to bend other people’s reality to fit our own. If fish could make laws, they would outlaw fishermen. If fishermen could make laws, they would pass a law that a certain amount of fish should jump into their net or bite their lures every day. If fishermen passed a law like that, fish would be protesting how unfair it is, how can the fishermen be so stupid.
The dictator of North Korea, Kim Jong-un, is portrayed by western media as mentally insane. Bruce Bueno de Mesquita using computer models showed that all of his decisions were rational, they were designed to maximize his income and keep himself in power. This is an example of a Win/Lose situation, Kim Jong-un wins while the majority of citizens of North Korea lose. The dictator of North Korea is either a psychopath or rationalizes his decisions. Regardless his decisions from his perspective are logical.
Different genders means different realities
The analogy of the fish and the fisherman started with the saying Don’t ask a fish how to catch fish, ask a fisherman. When it comes to gender issues, it can be simplified into three perspectives: men, women, and leaders of society. What is best for men, is not best for women. The reverse holds true also, what is best for women, is not the best for men. What is best for the leaders of a society is they maintain power. Esther Vilar book The Manipulated Man shows that third wave feminism isn’t in the best interests of the majority of men. Women want to enjoy the benefits enjoyed in the past while getting rid of the negative parts. Since women are in a majority and we live in a democracy, it is in the leader’s best interests to cater to women. This means continuing to support laws which contain references to women when it is beneficial to women. Examples of this are violence against women and rape laws. In many jurisdictions, the definition of rape means a person has to be penetrated. Since a woman does not have a penis, by legal definition, she can not rape another person since the act itself requires penetration.
The book the The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature looks at things from a genetic evolutionary perspective and Satoshi Kanazawa a modern Galileo. Scientist persecuted by the politically correct looks at things from a social evolutionary perspective. Social evolution means how genes and cultural beliefs change to benefit a species or group. What is best for the female often isn’t best for the male the reverse is true also. The male bird who is getting cucked in the examples given in the Red Queen is losing out, he is helping propagate another male bird’s genes. The female bird is benefiting because she gets a baby bird with better genes but gets a provider.
Social evolution means examining the beliefs of a culture and how it benefits that group. This is highly dependent on the environment. Islam and Mormons were able to expand quickly because their culture endorsed polygamy. Simply put, that means the group as a whole will benefit from having offspring which have better genetic material. The downside of this is that there will be more violence because the majority of the men can not satisfy their sexual urges. After a culture finishes expanding it will then adopt monogamy to create a more stable society. Judaism evolved into Christianity and Mormons no longer practice polygamy. Both show the culture evolved. Jesus, when he came along, didn’t have a computer simulator like Bruce Bueno de Mesquita in The Predictioneer’s Game: Using the Logic of Brazen Self-Interest to See and Shape the Future. Jesus didn’t run a simulation where he set up the variables of the current environment he lived in, then he plugged in polygamy versus monogamy. A few hours of computing time, Jesus then runs out and tells his followers, abandon polygamy, adopt monogamy, to obtain a more peaceful stable society. Instead, there were competing belief systems, people who adopted Jesus’s belief systems did better than other groups. Through a social evolutionary process, his teachings were adopted.
I have stated there are different realities. To understand this we come back to.
A map is not the territory it represents, but, if correct, it has a similar structure to the territory, which accounts for its usefulness.
Alfred Korzybski
Female and male birds have relatively small brains. The brains of each bird will only contain a map or model which contains the information for their best interests. That means each bird from their perspective creates their own reality. From the female bird’s perspective, the male bird’s reality doesn’t matter. To what degree the map is created by social construct versus genetic evolution from the big picture is irrelevant.
Using the example of the polygamy versus monogamy debate, people will rationalize what each person believes is their best interests. As my post Lying to the person in the mirror shows this is called rationalization.
Accepting there are other realities.
You can examine two extremes of the spectrum. A third wave feminist group and a group like MGTOW (Men going their own way). Both have their own reality, both are attempting to find a solution to how technology is changing traditional gender roles. I showed in my previous post Electricity,Steam and cotton are responsible for female rights, not feminists, feminism came about from women’s changing roles in society. Within both groups, there is a lot of hate and confusion which is caused by lack of acceptance.
God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. Reinhold Niebuhr
Acceptance doesn’t mean being a defeatist. It means being able to determine what an individual can change and what they can’t change. One can change their own outlook. One can present points using the other person’s frame.
Further directions
When listening to someone else, try and listen to their frame or reality. This doesn’t mean agreeing with their reality. Some realities due to your cultural beliefs might be repugnant. Examples are traditional Inuits leaving their elders on an ice flow to die, the traditional practice in Papua New Guinea of cannibalism. Then take it one step forward. Why did the Inuit and people in Papua New Guinea adopt these practices? Is there a way to re-frame the problem so instead of having win-lose solutions, there are win-win solutions.
I’ve always thought that John Rosen’s approach to psychosis was the most useful: enter the psychotic’s reality and then spoil it for him. There are a lot of ways you can do this, and some of them aren’t obvious. For instance, I had one guy who heard a voice coming out of electrical outlets, and the voice forced him to do things. I figured if I made his hallucinations real, he wouldn’t be schizophrenic anymore. So I hid a speaker in an outlet in my waiting room. When he came into the room, the outlet said “Hello.”. The guy turned around and looked at it and said,
“You don’t sound the same.”
“I’m a new voice. Did you think there was only one?”
Where did you come from?”
“Mind your own business.”
That got him going, Since he had to obey the voice, I used that new voice to give him the instructions he needed to chance what he was doing. Most people get a handle on reality and respond to it. When I get a handle on reality, I twist it! Using Your Brain–For a Change
Richard Bandler obviously made up the story. The lesson is when you enter the other person’s reality you can discover interesting things. The story is exaggerated and comical to emphasize a point and so you remember the story. I have no idea if the solution would work but I find the idea amusing.
If you like my posts, follow me on twitter at @sir_wankalote. The correct reality you should assume of course is my reality. I need money for Bourbon or Southern Comfort. Send me money via bitcoin at 3NgksauCyuLcVRqLHVLbAnhP2UqmqspJVQ since you have adopted my better reality, you will immediately send me bitcoin. It will make your life better, trust me.