We do not see things as they are.

We see them as we are’

Authors are in the business of creating convincing fictional realities.

They themselves are interwoven into the reality that they critique.

They perceive, interpret, comprehend and finally communicate their

messages within the same illusionary confines that they investigate

in their fictional worlds. Furthermore, their readers interpret these

constructed realities differently. This is the heart of the “Who’s

Reality?” context as implied by the question posed to students. This

discussion is particularly relevant to Robert Drewe’s memoir The

Shark Net. The indiscriminate tragedies that take place in the authors

childhood community form the basis of his writing. Drewe’s book

suggests that we do not see things as they are, but rather that we

them as we are.

The faculties of perception are restricted by biological limits.

Assuming that there is an external objective reality, we only can

‘sense’ this partially because our eyes, ears, nose, tongue and skin

can only tell what’s there to the best of their ability. If a person has
been blind their whole life they will not be able to comprehend that

there might be a world more than their own four senses perceive in

their immediate time and space. In contrast, a person with full eye

sight will be able to tell that there is a much fuller world to be

perceived. Similarly, there are an infinite number of elements of

perception which are inaccessible to humans. Reality is certainly far

more complicated than we can even perceive, let alone make sense

of. We do not see things as they are, we see things as we are. We see

things as much as we are able to perceive them.

At another level, what we do perceive may very well be raw illusion.

We are not simply confined in perception by incomplete sensory

information, but also by the potential for that sensory information

may be illusionary. While it may be considered that intangible

concepts such as an false belief about something is a ‘something’

and thus constitutes reality, it is more useful to consider that this is

merely an illusion – an impression of reality which very well may

implicate that illusion into as a sort of part reality. The parable of the
"blind men and an elephant" may help to explain this. In this story,

each blind man felt a different part of an elephant (trunk, leg, ear,

etc.). All the men claimed to understand and explain the true

appearance of the elephant, but could only partly succeed, due to

their limited perspectives. In this way, they perceive may both be

considered reality or illusionary. For the purposes of this essay such

a will be considered an illusionary fragment of reality. We may also

consider the allegory of Plato’s cave, an analogy used in the

Republic to discuss the validity of the reality we perceive. The Greek

philosopher imagines a group of people who have lived chained in a

cave all of their lives, facing a blank wall. The people watch

shadows projected on the wall by things passing in front of a fire

behind them, and begin to ascribe forms to these shadows.

According to Plato, the shadows are as close as the prisoners get to

seeing reality. He then explains how the philosopher is like a

prisoner who is freed from the cave and comes to understand that the

shadows on the wall are not constitutive of reality at all, as he can

perceive the true form of reality rather than the mere shadows seen
by the prisoners. Similarly, we may see something and believe it to

be what is, when really, it is just a shadow of its true self. We do not

see things as they are, we see things as we are. We see things as well

as we are able perceive them.

The way we make sense of our perception is governed by our

prejudices and the meaning we illicit from this raw data. Assuming

that a being’s perception of reality is perfect, they must still contend

with the limits of mortal insight. The weaknesses in the rational of

mortal humans is often brought to light and highlighted when the

powers of an individual’s objective rational and logical deduction are

compared. In the fictional adventures of Sir Arthur Connell Doyle’s

famous detective Sherlock Holmes, the brilliance of the protagonist

reflects is unequal to those he shares his ‘perceptional’ data with

prior to forming a conclusion. Whilst he may be able to conclude a

case based on the evidence presented to him, another person cannot.

Since the abilities of the mind are perfectly relative and multi-

faceted and as long as there is conflict of any sort (assuming again an

objective, singularly perspected and deterministic reality) it may not

be said that humanity has reached the truth on any afore ascribed

issue. We do not see things as they are, we see things as we are. We

see things as well as we are able to draw insight them

Ungovernable feelings, emotions and memories predicate how we

interpret sensor information. Although this subjectivity may skew

the accuracy of our interpretations, it is vitally important our

humanity. We can use such subjectivity to make assumptions and to

predict and extrapolate trends for which we have incomplete detail.

This distinguishes us from machines. We are more adaptable at the

cost of inaccuracy. If you were to be told that a former murderous

criminal was to service your car at a repair shop, you might feel a

negative bias towards him. By implicating his criminal nature into

your judgment, you might believe that he will do a poor job in fixing

your car; Although mechanical skill and criminality have no direct

bearing on one another, a chain of assumptions means that you may

make a subjective decision. This self determined illusion is

inseparable from our human nature. We do not see things as they are,

we see things as we are. We see things as accurately we are able to

negate out subjectivity in relation to them.

Shared realities that are both perceived and understood in the same

way may yet be communicated differently. This may be overlooked

as it may be assumed to be a limit detached by the assumption of

perfect perception and insight. However, differences in

communication are established due to physical rather than mental

impairments and personal idiosyncrasies. Another related problem

also lies in the dependency of the recipient of the information to

follow through the process of perfect perception and insight

themselves. Imagine the eloquent Barrack Obama making the very

same speech as Jesse Jackson . Even if they apply the very same

perception and insight into the same task as one another and follow

through with a speech of the same content, a powerful distinction

will emerge. Jesse Jackson’s has the physical impairment of a cleft

lip and palate which affects the clarity of his speech. He may not be

able to communicate reality as well as Obama. These limitations in

communications are relevant at higher levels of understanding as

well. The capacity for an entity to comprehend reality as it is, is

restricted due to the tie between communication and perception. If a

sentient plant is aware of physics behind quantum mechanics,

whatever knowledge that plant has is presumable inaccessible to all

other forms of life who cannot harvest that knowledge. If reality by

its components, then it is beyond even ideal perception as the

information is not being transmitted to be received.. We do not see

things as they are, we see things as we are. We see things as fully as

we are receptive of it.

The Shark Net illustrates the nature of human reality after the family

has moved away from Melbourne. When Dorothy Drewe has

arrived safely in Perth with her children and ‘perked up’ she is able

to recount the incident involving the one-legged drunken man (p.28)

with some humor. She waves round an imaginary crutch and makes

the story amusing so that her husband and friends laugh (p.31). The

impression she gives of the incident now is quite different from the
way she experienced it at the time when ‘[her] mouth tightened and

she looked like she was going to cry again’ (p.28). Now, Dorothy

presents herself as a woman who is composed and happy and who

was equal to the situation she faced in Kalgoorlie.

The members of her family would have perceived the event in

alternative ways. Each of them had independently interpreted the

event and finally, she communicated a subjective recollection of the

encounter. The reality of the event became a highly subjective

experience as she progressed through the stages of perception,

insight and communication and attempted to make sense of her

reality. She did not see things as they are, she saw things as she is.

We do not see things as they are. We see them as we are.

Written Explanation

The Shark Net helped me develop my arguments and idea relevant to

the Who’s Reality contexts. The idea that reality is subjective as

implied by the context will be the focus of my piece in response to

prompt that “We do not see things as they are. We see them as we

are”. My position, as inferred by my essay is on the affirmative and

that that this is the product of the limits of our perception, insight

and communication/communicability. I have incorporated outside

material into my response including drawing on idea from

philosophy, psychology and literature.

The language and English choices of the Shark Net were not taken

into account when forming my expository piece. The casual

narrative style though was not appropriate to an expository piece

written.

I made informed decisions on language and context-related thematic

choices removed from the texts. This included emulating the writing

patterns of 18th century German Emmanuel Kant whose writing style

I find more accessible than alternatives. The content of my essay met

my purpose which was to further develop my own understanding of

reality and to have it reviewed and critiqued by an established

professional.