Our brain accepts what the eyes see and our eye looks for whatever our brain wants.
Interpretation
Our perceptions are influenced by our desires and expectations.
This quote highlights the interplay between perception and cognition, suggesting that our brains filter information based on what we already want or expect to see. Essentially, it implies that our reality is shaped not just by what is out there, but significantly by what we bring to our interpretations, reinforcing the subjective nature of our experiences.
In practice
This quote can be used in a discussion about perception in psychology classes.
Part of us believes the new car is better because it lasts longer. But, in fact, that's the worst thing about the new car. It will stay around to disappoint you, whereas a trip to Europe is over. It evaporates. It has the good sense to go away, and you are left with nothing but a wonderful memory.
Psychologists call this habituation, economists call it declining marginal utility, and the rest of us call it marriage.
The mistakes we make when we try to imagine our personal futures are also lawful, regular, and systematic. They, too, have a pattern that tells us about the powers and limits of foresight in much the same way that optical illusions tell us about the powers and limits of eyesight.
When we have an experience -- hearing a particular sonata, making love with a particular person, watching the sun set from a particular window of a particular room -- on successive occasions, we quickly begin to adapt to it, and the experience yields less pleasure each time. Psychologists call this habituation, economists call it declining marginal utility, and the rest of us call it marriage
Alas, we think of ourselves as unique entities-minds unlike any others-and thus we often reject the lessons that the emotional experience of others has to teach us.
What’s so curious about human beings is that we can look deeply into the future, foresee disaster, and still do nothing in the present to stop it. The majority of people on this planet, they’re overwhelmed with concerns about their immediate well being.
Revolt is the right of the people
We want to make good time, but for us now this is measured with the emphasis on "good" rather than on "time".
You were the dead; theirs was the future.
Imagination magnifies small objects with fantastic exaggeration until they fill our soul, and with bold insolence cuts down great things to its own size, as when speaking of God.
I was told by my grandfather who was a minister that we all were put here on earth to be of service to one another, and it is quite gratifying to know that if I am able to be of help to one that is not able to help themselves then I am fulfilling my obligation as a human being.
The brain is not a blind, reactive machine, but a complex, sensitive biocomputer that we can program. And if we don't take the responsibility for programming it, then it will be programmed unwittingly by accident or by the social environnement.
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