Perception is not always reality
I find the whole "perception vs. reality" a fascinating subject. I'm reading several books right now that have different aspects of this.
Flatterland is a "sequel" to Flatland (one of the worlds greatest books). Basically, the author wanted to add new ideas that hadn't been around when Flatland was written. As with the original, much of the book deals with trying to get you to realize that the world as you know it might be viewed in a completely different way. The "Flatland" residents live on a plane, and so don't have a "third dimension". Their perception is obviously different from someone who normally resides in 3D space.
Lies my teacher told me deals with errors in High School American History books. Although I knew some of this before, there's lots more that I didn't. I'm not quite through the civil war section yet in the book. It was interesting to me the way that Native Americans were described in glowing terms in letters and so forth during the 1500s, but later they were described as savages (probably to justify taking their land). I'm not just talking about "history is written by the winners", but more about how people's "reality" is influenced by the way that the information in the books is presented -- and the sad fact that the history books don't even portray that the material has been presented with different slants over the years.
I guess the thing I find the most important is for people to realize that "reality" really is a difficult thing to grasp -- that everything is colored by your perceptions. It always scares me when people can't even conceive of the possibility that their idea of reality might be wrong.
Flatterland is a "sequel" to Flatland (one of the worlds greatest books). Basically, the author wanted to add new ideas that hadn't been around when Flatland was written. As with the original, much of the book deals with trying to get you to realize that the world as you know it might be viewed in a completely different way. The "Flatland" residents live on a plane, and so don't have a "third dimension". Their perception is obviously different from someone who normally resides in 3D space.
Lies my teacher told me deals with errors in High School American History books. Although I knew some of this before, there's lots more that I didn't. I'm not quite through the civil war section yet in the book. It was interesting to me the way that Native Americans were described in glowing terms in letters and so forth during the 1500s, but later they were described as savages (probably to justify taking their land). I'm not just talking about "history is written by the winners", but more about how people's "reality" is influenced by the way that the information in the books is presented -- and the sad fact that the history books don't even portray that the material has been presented with different slants over the years.
I guess the thing I find the most important is for people to realize that "reality" really is a difficult thing to grasp -- that everything is colored by your perceptions. It always scares me when people can't even conceive of the possibility that their idea of reality might be wrong.