Bridget McNulty

So what’s your model?

// January 23rd, 2009 // Inspiration, Life (and the living of it), Philosophy

My man and I started practical philosophy again this week (at the marvelous School of Practical Philosophy in Cape Town – www.philosophyschool.co.za)  and it’s so great to be back! Our class is pretty much the same as last year, so we had a lot of laughs together… yes, it’s possible to have philosophical laughs!

We’re doing a course called ‘Models of the Mind’, which sounds quite complicated, but actually isn’t.

In fact, there was only really one thought that stuck with me and is demanding some attention. You ready for it? Apparently each of us operates from a certain ‘model’ in our minds. We each have a specific way of seeing the world. That makes sense, right? Some people think the world is a harsh place, others think resources are limited and you have to fight for them, others think everything always goes their way.

What’s so fascinating, though, is that whatever model you hold (and often we hold models unconsciously), it will colour what you actually see. Whatever you believe changes not only the way you see things, but the things you actually see. How? Well, your experiences feed into the model and strengthen it, but at the same time they create the experience. Two people looking at the same incident will interpret it completely differently.

Continue this thought further and it means that the glasses you look at the world through create, to a large extent, the experiences you are looking at.

What do you think? Possible? Probable?