What You Perceive Is Your Reality— Perception: The Disciplines of Stoicism (1/3)
When you look at the philosophy of Stoicism, you can see a philosophy that requires a person to look at things a different way, allowing them to find opportunities to grow and live meaningfully. But how is this the case?
Stoicism’s foundation are through three disciplines — concepts of understanding world that provide a base that its adherents can operate through their lives: perception; action; and will. This article will discuss the first of the three.
Perception Defined
So what is perception anyway? The term is defined as how someone experiences and interprets reality through the senses of the mind. Essentially, it’s final product of our mind’s analysis of events happening around you. To properly explain this concept however, you first have to understand the Stoic theory of cognition.
Stoic Cognition
The Stoic worldview holds that the world is organized in a rational and coherent way by an all-pervading force known as the Logos. On the cosmic scale, the Logos governs the organization of the universe; on the individual scale, it’s the mind’s faculty of reason.
That being said, the Logos infuses and is wielded by what the ancient Stoics called the Hegimonikon — the intellectual part of your consciousness. It’s the part of you that uses reason and logic to make sense of the world. One of the primary roles of this part of the mind is to process and assess the data you receive from your senses. And it’s through this that perception is created.
Perception in Action
In every instance you’re awake, we’re bombarded with objects and events that give impressions. From this point, the mind generates a phantasia — a mental impression. Imagine this being like light from the world being imprinted on a photographic negative.
From this mental impression, the mind generates an hypolepsis — perception — like a print being made from a photographic negative (see the above photo). We then interpret the world (make a photograph) from this perception (photographic negative) and make decisions based off of it.
Ideally, you’d like to think that your perception mirrors the likeness of the world — that your photograph mirrors reality — but like a print, it may not be; it could include things that distort or obscure the original (for a photograph, things like dirt, film quality, light exposure, etc.). Things like emotions, past life experiences, the values and morals you hold; it all influences each perception you hold. An example of such distortions are inappropriate value judgments, the designation of things to be “good” or “bad” when those things hold neither value. Gregory Hays in his introduction to Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations writes the following on this concept.
My impression that my house has just burned down is simply that — an impression or report conveyed to me by my senses about an event in the outside world. By contrast, my perception that my house has burned down and I have thereby suffered a tragedy includes not only an impression, but also an interpretation imposed upon that initial impression by my powers of hypolepsis.
Events that happen in this world are simply that — events. What value you decide to attribute to them is determined by what you interpret these events to be. All events that happen in life are determined by the Logos and said events follow in an unbreakable chain of cause and effect. Certain events may feel random, but they were the result of causes that are most often unknown to you.
Improving our Perception
Perception is a wonderful tool, allowing you to move through world, build up our livelihood, and survive for as long as possible. But in using your perception, you can sometimes make your life harder than it needs to be. This, then, raises the question: how I can use my perception to help me make my life less harder than it needs to be? To answer this, you first have to improve our perception. I’ve found three ways I think you can do this: (1) reasoning to understand; (2) choosing wise impressions; and (3) shifting our focus.
Method 1 — Reason to Understand
Have you ever gotten into an argument with someone and then later realize you were arguing the same point, just in a different way? Maybe you and your partner are fighting over something but just can’t seem to come to an understanding. Take the time to logically look at the other person’s views and what they’re saying, and why they’re saying it. Your brains can create perceptions that lead you to believe that your worldview is the right one, and may not like the contrasting viewpoint the other person holds. This can cause blindness to potentially eye-opening concepts and lead to conflicts like the ones aforementioned.
When you’re able to listen and understand why someone has the views they have, even if you disagree with them, you train your brain to look and analyze a situation not based on emotion and how things first seem, but on the facts that present themselves during these events we go through.
Method 2 — Choose Wise Impressions
Everyday, you are bombarded with information about everything. From the news to a simple website, the chances of misinformation abound in the world, chances that stand to alter our perception in a negative way. When learning and absorbing new information, make sure it’s from a reputable, honest source. Remember, information you receive makes an impression from which you create your perceptions.
The more accurate the information, the more clear your perceptions will be.
Additionally, be aware of cognitive biases that may cloud your perception and subsequent judgment. Biases like confirmation bias can lead you to forget a perspective crucial in gaining a proper view of the whole, so being aware of cognitive biases and actively working to prevent them from clouding one’s perception will help maintain a clearer view.
Method 3 — Shift Your Focus
Life is by no means an comfortable ride. There are ups and downs, bumps and pitfalls, and many hardships that you have to overcome. If something bad happens, don’t just focus on how the event made you feel. Focus on the things you can take from the event. If you get sick, instead of wallowing in the suffering, focus on getting better and what you think led to you getting sick and figure out what you can do to protect yourself in the future. Use the pain to become a better person. If you and your lover don’t work out, see the sadness as the result of loving the person, and that you’re on the path to recovery; see it as a time to find yourself again and become a better version of the person that went into the relationship.
When you learn to shift your focus, we learn to see things multi-dimensionally.
Now of course, this is all easier said than done. The human mind, once fully formed, tends to be resistant to change. However, when you begin the journey of going inside yourself and actively changing the way you perceive the world around you, you can slowly build up the clarity needed to accurately see the world for what it is. Hays later writes in his introduction that
[o]ur duty therefore is to exercise stringent control over the faculty of perception, with the aim of protecting our mind from error.
As you go about your life, take some time to think and ask yourself some questions: in what ways do my views and interactions affect the way I perceive my life? Am I choosing wise impressions? How can I reason to understand someone else’s point of view? In what ways can I shift my focus and protect my perceptions?
When you begin to monitor your perceptions and the things that influence them, you gain a method of control over your life you may have never thought possible.
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