What Lies Beyond the Physical World

Bearing the human brain is holding a double-edged sword. Through it, we discover, build, develop, and adapt like no other currently existing animals could; meanwhile, we are constantly challenged by the very surroundings we create. We inevitably face intense competitions for knowledge, wealth, power, and status. Despite our efforts, we often find ourselves strangled, trapped, and crushed by problems on an individual level. As C. Wright Mills once described, “Nowadays people often feel that their private lives are a series of traps." In a psychological perspective, how does this happen, and what can we do about it? If our mind is capable of building a world full of challenges and sufferings, there is no doubt that the key to resolving them reside within the mind itself as well. In simpler words, since the mind it is the source of our behaviors and feelings, how we think is the most reliable target to regulate. Through regulating how we perceive and interpret our surroundings, we could nevertheless maximize our chances of well-being. In this blog, I wish to demonstrate several points:

(1) The two ways that the human brain "sees" the world.

(2) Our tendency of being "blinded", and what this leads to.

(3) What we can do to overcome this problem.

The Two Ways That The Human Brain "Sees"

The first step that we should take is to understand in what ways our surroundings appeal to our brain. In Maps of Meaning , Jordan Peterson describes the world as constituted with two modes of construal: a place of things and a forum of actions. A place of things refers to the realm of mechanisms that can be expressed through science. The laws of demand and supply, and the law of conservation of energy, for example, fall under this realm because they are formulated with validatable information that can be directly applied to the physical world as tools. The forum of actions is the realm of values and meanings, which according to Peterson, is expressed through the arts or humanities, and is "shaped as the consequence of social interaction." Literature and music would fall under this realm because they are primarily predicated on how we, as humans, interpret our surroundings via bestowing meanings upon subjects.

Peterson's two modes of construal indirectly reveal a fact about the human brain that I would like to link to my topic: the human brain is capable of navigating a subject's physical and abstract form. In other words, it doesn't matter if we observe the world as a place of things or a forum of actions, or with science or the arts, there's always a tangible (physical being) and an intangible (abstract meaning) form that our brain can access to. The tangible/physical form directly appeal to our senses. An intangible/abstract form, on the other hand, appears after we integrate our sensual experiences with other memories/experiences, resulting in the formation of new ones. A book, for example, is tangibly a stack of paper with ink-printed symbols, but meanwhile, it's intangibly a collection of information and messages. Our eyes receive and direct the images of the book's physical form to out brain ; our brain processes and extracts the meanings of the words. These meanings evoke a chain reaction as they are compared, linked to our past experiences/memories, and they finally become integrated as an abstract entity.

On a biological level, what enables our brain to explore both the physical and the abstract forms of our surroundings? Is this ability uniquely possessed by humans? Thanks to our large cerebral cortex, where billions of neurons organized into specialized lobes, we are able to recognize, retain (memorize), process, and integrate information on a more complex level. This gives rise to the ability of transcending our "vision" beyond the physical form. In other words, we can objectively examine the possible meanings behind an event, an object, or a thought. Our ability to "see" the world both in physical and abstract form, and to integrate a massive amount of perceptual and cognitive information enables our understanding toward concepts such as time (we can think of the future, which is a rare ability in the animal kingdom), love, and aesthetics. We are nevertheless not sense-specialized as some animals are. However, there is no doubt that the surroundings are much more meaningful to us than to other animals. This is what enables and drives us to carry-out behaviors fundamental to adaptations and improvements.

Take the idea of sound as an example, what does it mean to a dog? You might expect it to associate a sound paired with another stimulus (such as the presence food), as demonstrated by Ivan Pavlov's classical conditioning. We might also find it evident that a dog can response to the dynamics and the general mood of a span of sounds. However, you wouldn't expect it to "understand" the climax of a symphony, the variations in Mozart's sonata, and other how/why questions. To us, however. sound/music possesses a much diverse range of meanings. We transform perceptual elements of sound into complex patterns such as harmony, rhythm, style, genre, tone color, etc. We are also capable of analyzing ,communicating, and performing music. This is one of the many examples demonstrating that, the human brain can not only decodes complex, integrated information on a detailed level, but also can build/produce through abstract thinking/learning. This ability to "see" beyond the physical form largely contributes to how we learn, build, improve, and appreciate. It is how we develop sciences, languages, literature, ethics, and everything else in our civilization. This, is what makes us human. Now let's use another example to demonstrate how the abstract form appeals to our brain. Have you ever felt that a movie, a painting, or a song "feels different" when you return to it again after a while? The physical form of the subject remains a constant: a series of images displayed on the screen, an arrangement of lines and colors, and a span of sounds playing one after another. What has changed, however, is your interpretation of the abstract form behind it. You may have taken a course, discussed with somebody, or taken some time to reflect on it. All these activities function in assembling pieces of "truths" about the subject's abstract forms together, allowing as to "see" on a more comprehensive level. In short, reality is comprised of the physical form and the abstract form. Through sight, hearing, touch, smell, and taste, our senses and perceptions put together an "image" of how the physical world manifests to us; through integrating knowledge with our experiences from the physical world, the abstract form gradually reveals itself.

How Are We Blinded ?

Our psychological sufferings are often the results of two "blind-spots" that prevent us from accurately navigating the physical and the abstract form of the world. The first one is the lack of knowledge, and the second one is the lack of wisdom. In terms of Peterson's model, what I mean by the lack of knowledge is failing to acquire adequate information to understand the world in the perspective of "place of things," whereas the lack of wisdom is failing to attribute our knowledge to meanings, in the perspective of "forum of actions." Learning the principles of economics, music theory, and human physiology are all examples of acquiring knowledge. Constantly expanding your "date-base" of knowledge and applying it to a real-world sense ultimately give birth to a sense of realization. At this moment, those information in your data-base is no longer limited in its parental field of knowledge. You realize patterns that can be generated universally, and what they indicate (mean) about your surroundings as an integrated whole. This process of "bringing knowledge to life" is wisdom. We already know that our surroundings is made-up by both physical and abstract forms. The more truthful our understandings toward those forms are, the less chaotic our mind and behaviors become. One easier way to understand this is to compare pursuing knowledge and wisdom with solving a crime case. The crime scene is nevertheless chaotic, confusing, and misleading, just as our mind when filled with ignorance. However, as we assemble pieces of evidences together, we can gradually approach the true flow of the story behind the scene.

Back to the "blind-spots" that I mentioned, nowadays many of us don't feel necessary to actively acquire new knowledge, and we don't bother to think about what those knowledge mean to us, or we simply rely on others to tell us what they mean. As a result, we become trapped in the surface level of our problems because we have no idea where the roots lie. As for the negative emotions and feelings triggered by the problems, we seek to resolve them by shifting responsibilities to others and numbing ourselves with sense-appealing stimuli: drugs, entertainments, etc. This vicious cycle deteriorates our cognitive abilities and dehumanize us into beasts of our species: robotic, emotionally-driven, easily-manipulative.

Consider the following list of behaviors in terms of their level of difficulty:

(1) Describe what you see on this painting (try to be as direct and straightforward as possible.)

(2) Create a copy of this painting through sketching.

(3) Research about the artist, and the theory/history behind this style/movement of art form.

(4) Come back and describe this painting again, but now make connections between its visual characteristics and the knowledge that you've acquired in step (3).

(5) Try to apply what you've known and use similar theme/techniques to create your own painting.

As you go down the list, you'd probably consider each stage becoming "increasingly difficult", but what do we mean by that? We could say that each stage requires a more extensive use of your cognition toward the painting, or to visual art in general. For instance, in terms of describing the painting, you would probably emphasize it's colors and shapes, or the characteristics of its physical form. However, once you know the theory/history behind that painting, or about Piet Mondriane, the painting is no longer simply "shades of blue, red, and yellow divided by lines." You now know that a sense of visual balance, a characteristic of its abstract form is achieved by these patterns of arranging primary colors. The painting remains possessing certain visual characteristics that we can all agree on (for example, black lines and rectangular shades) but it now emits more meanings to you because you've acquired new knowledge that resonates with the physical form of the painting.

Now let's try to look even beyond what we've already known about this abstract form in terms of "balance." Can this notion of balance be interpreted on a broader scope, and generalized to other subjects? Obviously, balance is not limited to the visual sense. A harmony, or an auditory balance can be achieved when the correct combination of notes are arranged together. A balance of flavor can also be appreciated by your taste buds when they are stimulated by certain combination of ingredients. Therefore, we can arrive at the conclusion that "A sensual balance can be achieved when you position harmonized elements together." What we've now done is generating a more universal sense of meaning from our knowledge, and attributing this meaning to other physical/abstract subjects. Do you see how far we've come since step (1) ? The sum of all these processes is what gives birth to wisdom.

All human brains desire to be triggered by and to produce what I call the world of the beyond – the abstract, unchanging, and universal, formulas of the universe, for those are the patterns that drive us away from ignorance, uncertainties, chaos, and pain. However, many of us unwittingly linger in the deceiving images of the physical world. We excessively direct our vision toward money, fame, power, and other illusions that only bring a certain degree of satisfaction to our brain, then we enter a phase of stagnation.As we achieve certain proficiency in a field of knowledge or a job, there may be times that we accidentally encounter a glimpse of the beyond , that instantaneous feeling of joy when we realize the purest, interconnecting materials that link the dots in different aspects of life together; through media such as music, paintings, films, and literature, we might also experience the revealing of the beyond. However, what we have been socialized to love and to conform prevent us from any further pursue of that world. The socially-constructed purposes have dehumanized us to creatures that worship the physical world. You must earn more money; you must have more followers; you must become intimate with those kinds that are wealthy in those things; these goals become what’s left in our brain. There is nothing wrong with pursuing what lies in the physical world, for we should definitely chase after what enables our survival in the world we live in. However, if we become satisfied and indulged in these illusions, we are exposing ourselves to uncertainties that bring chaos and pain. It is only through perusing the beyond that we can gradually self-actualize and live a substantiated life.