The Biology of Human Perspective

When we are in the womb, dividing and becoming a human infant, we develop eyes, ears, nose, skin, and neural pathways that interconnect these sense organs to our brain.  We are fine tuned in the womb to come out able to use our senses to know how to survive in the world at each developmental level using our particular and unique senses and brain.

Humans are comprised of billions upon billions to the billionth power of cells, with axons, dendrites, and neurons. Every piece of information we take in through our senses or our thoughts causes billions upon billions of interactions to occur throughout our sensory motor system to allow us to interpret that information and make a prediction about it.

 The organs in our bodies work symbiotically with our brain for the ultimate reason of allowing us to make predictions. Another way to describe the human personality is as a prediction generator. We are organisms of prediction. Predictions are how we exist moment to moment. Predictions we make frequently, like how far to tip a glass into our mouths while drinking, or how to type without looking at the keys, are the kinds of predictions that get filed into our brains and become almost automatic and effortless. 

          It is my belief that the sole purpose of human biology and the biology of all species is to fine tune an organisms ability to make predictions. Reproduction takes care of itself in the same way that digestion, elimination, circulation, and sensing does. The only active role a human organism has, or any organism has, is that of prediction. If you sit and think about what a human does, and distill the activities down to their origin, you will find that they all start with a prediction for what to do next. Once we make the prediction, our nervous system takes care of the rest.

     If we stop predicting, we cease eating, reproducing, moving, etc. Our sole job as human beings is to make predictions moment to moment about what to do next.

The magnitude of how differently each human's billions to the billionth power of cells process sensory information in order to interpret it and make predictions about what to do next is a concept one could ponder forever and never quite understand the ramifications.

Every single human being speaks a completely unique language. We share words in common if we grew up in America, but there isn't a word, object, experience, or concept, that any two people could possibly interpret exactly the same way. We simply cannot come close to replicating how billions upon billions upon billions upon billions of interactions occur in another person..... Each one of us interprets the world and makes predictions utterly and totally uniquely......

This is what perspective is all about. We all have a perspective that is one hundred percent unique to us. When we walk in a room and expect people to interpret what is going on like we do and hold them accountable to do so by becoming irritated or angry when they don't, we are existing as if everyone has the same perspective as we do or should have the same perspective as we do.  

Understanding when two people are in a room, that room can feel like two completely different universes to those two people is essential to relationship and societal harmony.  One person making an assumption about how the other person should think or feel or behave based on how they think or feel is like saying the Pacific Ocean should sync up with the Atlantic Ocean so the water and the waves move exactly at the same speed and direction. 

Ironically, understanding how overwhelmingly complex, unique, and utterly different every human being is allows for complete effortlessness in communicating and interrelating with other humans.  Assuming common ground that doesn't exist makes for communication that is confusing, contentious, and painful.  Assuming there is no common ground, and knowing the person to whom you are communicating with knows this, frees you both up to create an interaction you can both participate in equally. 

Understanding there is no common ground makes everybody equal and equally responsible for creating calm and mutually agreed upon interactions.  Understanding no two people think about time, space, concepts, sensory input, etc. exactly the same causes you to listen to people differently than when you assumed they had lots of common interpretations as you.  Even similar interpretations between two people are vastly different. 

The definition of autism is more or less individuals who can think from their own perspective only. Funny thing is, this is the definition of all humans beings. If we come to understand perspective as 100 percent unique to every human, we will stop diagnosing 1 in 80 children as on the autistic spectrum.  This is one ramification of many that can potentially occur.  Children with autism tend to have only one way to understand any one concept or idea or experience. Often they understand concepts in atypical ways that don't sync up with their parents or teachers or peers.  When we try to persuade them to think differently, they feel threatened and attacked and exhibit "bad" or wild behavior. This behavior is why they get labeled. If we knew how to speak to them in ways that didn't make them feel wrong or defensive, their behavior would be fine. This is true of all people. As soon as we feel wrong or defensive about our predictions, our biology feels threatened and attacked. We have all had to adapt to feeling constantly threatened and attacked.  Some people are better than others at managing their biological reactions to being attacked for their predictions, but nobody should have to manage this sort of biological chaos and breakdown on a daily basis. 

We can change the world by understanding how to stop putting our biologies under siege every moment of every day.