I really like this "claim" :) But I wonder what other people's opinion are to its implication...

The Anais Nin quote is: We don’t see things as they are, we see things as we are.

I don’t think it implies as much as states fact. Folks perceive things according to what they know, what they believe, and what they’ve seen before.

People thought the world was flat because it was “common sense”, something derived from past experiences and their own knowledge, basically, what makes up the person. Also, check out the observer effect. It’s pretty intriguing.

Oh, well it was given to me more as a claim and in that exact wording but thanks for the correction :)

It’s not a claim, it’s a fact.

It’s why we’re often encouraged to try to “see through the other man’s eyes”.

It’s something that can affect the quality of your day for the better if you understand it and put it to good use, especially if you are someone who works with the public.

It goes along with another saying I grew up with.
Jack Handey quotes “Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes

We see things as we are and things like our culture, environment, experiences, etc. all affect the way we perceive things. But I wonder how we understand the world subjectively and how we understand it objectively?

also i think that science really sees the world in it’s own image
despite it’s rather arrogant claims to objectivity, discovery and so forth.

Wait a minute… Theory of knowledge homework…?

it’s not hw… I already did my essay and its on a different question :) But like the title says I just love this quote!

Ah.. So you’re doing the IB aren’t you…?

The attribution to Nin is disputed, but it fits in nicely with this passage from her diaries: “The artist is the only one who knows that the world is a subjective creation, that there is a choice to be made, a selection of elements. It is a materialization, an incarnation of his inner world.”

I think this is true, as far as it goes. What is there, if we filter out what our own brain brings to “reality”? Being generous, there’s a collection of quantum probabilities. It’s only our consciousness that makes a world of things out of this soup of possibilities.

But if it’s inaccurate to say that the world is an objective reality, neither can we go to the opposite extreme and say that there’s only subjectivity. Neither objectivity nor subjectivity has any meaning without the other. The greater truth lies beyond the duality of subject and object.

Quantum mechanics is at play here where “we” as in you and I are affecting the world as “we” see and know by the mere act of observation. Just as I am typing these words and you are reading them yours and my world is changing in real time. Anything you see, hear, taste, touch and feel is forever changing your world and mine as those experiences will influence what you say and do in the future which again potentially will influence others around you. It’s a cosmic what you see is what “we” get!! ;)

As far as how humans see things, Anais Nin hits the x-ring dead center. Everything that we see, read and experience passes through a filter constructed of our basic personality and the sum total of our experiences to that point. With some of us (especially autism spectrum) the basic hardwiring of our brains adds a prism-like quality to that filter; depression and schizophrenia probably do that also.

“We see and understand things not as they are, but as we are”

It means, it is always about us, the individual. The narcissist in all of us.

I don’t think it’s always right.. but it’s a fairly accurate generalization. Sometimes… occasionally… we see things as they are because that’s how they are.

A series of equations or a text on Latin grammar can be viewed with total objectivity, but anything requiring an emotional/social interpretation to understand must go through the filter of our mind structure and experiences. Even in the former, someone dyslexlic or dycalculic has a mind-structure filter issue.

another concise commentary on the subjectivity of interpretation.

Our vision results in our own interpretation. A rolling green lawn may look beautiful to the person who enjoys the comfort of sitting/relaxing in the environment opposed to the gardener who sees work.

@stranger_in_a_strange_land
“Everything that we see, read and experience passes through a filter constructed of our basic personality and the sum total of our experiences to that point.”

Does that include past life experiences? ;-)

It’s called Projection…

Perceptions affect reality. Everyone’s reality, everyone’s version, is different. Everything is subjective, there’s rarely a “way it really is.”

@Holden_Caulfield Nope.

It seems like both a silly and an obvious statement to me. The notion that there is such a thing as “things as they are” is pretty dubious. No one has access to an objective view of anything. We can only perceive things via our own senses, and thus we can only understand things as we are—as our peculiar perception/meaning-making apparatus comes up with.

The myth of “things as they are” — well, as Wallace Stevens wrote, “Things as they are Are changed upon the blue guitar.” We all have a blue guitar. It’s what we call our selves.

@avvooooooo I respectfully agree and yet also disgaree with you. Perceptions are based upon our own experiences from childhood until now, and our own individuality and uniqueness… and we see things that we relate to. Therefore we project those ideas or “perceptions”, if you will, based upon the make up of who we are today from all of those experiences. In my humble opinion, our perceptions, when expressed, ARE a projection of how we see and understand things based upon who we are and what we have experienced and speaks directly to the comment above… even if we are only projecting it within our ownmind. “We see and understand things not as they are, but as we are” It most certainly applies.

I agree that in many cases we “see” and “understand” things as we are rather than as they are because we have no other way of perceiving them but through our individual perspective. But in science and mathematics for example it is easier to say that it is more objective and that we see things are they are. When we learn about quantum physics for example we simply learn about the behavior of energy and matter that predominates at the atomic scale, so how would the claim that we see and understand things as WE are apply in this case? we are simply understanding it by how it is…