We need to know what we can’t know.

 

Have you ever attempted to push your cognitive process to the point of exhaustion? It is a weary process but it wields an opportunity to dislodge reality from information. I might sound fatuous but I can conveniently exemplify my proposition. Do you ‘think’ that you ‘know’ your reality? An immediate confirmation pronounces that you have a sufficient repository of information to distinguish aptly what constitutes ‘real’ world from the welter information surrounding your sense organs. You have a name, parents, nationality, caste, class, and other tags which help you delineate the idea of ‘you’. Afterall, without having a strong idea that you exist, you are just a loose mass of bones and muscles. These identities buttress our attempt to navigate the world adding meaning and purpose to our lives. They are the very rubrics of our existence, hence; we can’t hurl them out them from our lives. But still, is our reality limited to this constant interplay between identities and the drama occurring outside (of our brain)?
Let’s explore this train of thought.

Who are you? Pause for a moment and try to answer the question. You most probably would call out your name or any other word. However, I asked who are you and not your identity. Then you might pull over other things such as “I’m an Indian”, “a Hindu”, etc. Again, these are just identities you have derived from the people around you. They are in your head. They are not real because they don’t have a physical existence. These identities are valorized only by constant validation from our immediate surroundings. It is only due to our intellectual capability that we have developed a sense of ‘understanding’ things. You don’t decipher things basically, you just scour for arguments/information which would legitimize your case and if things align perfectly, you think that you have figured it out. Well then things should turn out the way we desire them to but it seldom happens. Ruminate over how many times you desired something and how many times the exact happened? The answer should flummox anyone. As humans, we barely have the capability to generate results as we envisage. And here we arrive at the role of visuals.

A tree. The term should have produced an image of a tree in your mind. It is because we can’t comprehend physical objects until we form an idea by seeing them. This is why we rely on our eyes lopsidedly than any other sense organ. I would assume that graphical representation of the information around us is the most reliable for human beings and they constitute more than half of what we assume to be reality. Try to think of anything. You can only carry out ‘thinking’ by pulling off suitable imagery in your mind. Let’s assume you want to score full marks in your exams. You perfectly know how a full marks marksheet would ‘look’ like and not sound like, taste, smell, feel (by touch) like. The goals you create in hope of achieving are also a visual representation of the reality you would like to be in after a certain period. This overwhelming dependence over visuals is inherited from the biological construction of our brain. Hence, there is a biological determination over our capacity to build reality. For example, let’s assume there is an incessant pool of information out there. It is a sea of sounds, light, smell, radiation, anti-matter, etc. and they all are influencing each other. Our sense organs filter parts of those information and deliver to our brain. Then, our brain again filters the sea of information to make relevant things fit into the larger meaning of our lives. For example, an ant running its errands might not intrigue you much or call for deep cogitation and integrate into your larger life. But, certain information as how is the health of your parents, whether you need to pick a certain product, choose a career etc. are what we call ‘important’. To, we don’t necessarily collate a ton of information before making judgement. We just fit information to align with the larger sense of reality i.e. purpose or meaning of our lives and in that process, we rely on visuals the most. We just can’t make a sense of the vast information floating around us and maybe that’s a positive trait of human life’s experience.