So we think of ourselves as dynamic, autonomous creatures
that have agency and free will, right?
We move about the world, and things don't influence us
We have the capacity to decide at every moment who we are
Except when you look deeper, you actually
find that mind, that consciousness,
is in fact not necessarily autonomous from the world
In other words, consciousness is a co-production.
Consciousness is a collaboration between subject and object.
Professor David Lenson writes about this in his book.
It basically means there's not just one type of consciousness,
There is this notion that it's person multiplied
by place multiplied by time that reveals a garden of forking
paths of possible consciousnesses,
of possible entities, and that your consciousness is
mediated-- again, if you think about what I'm saying--
In other words, the designs that we create design us
It means that the people you hang out with
It means that the language you speak
sculpts your perception of the world.
It means that the culture in which you live
It means that the people that you meet meet you in return,
The clothing that we wear, uniforms,
can structure our beliefs about the world.
I mean, even typography can change how you think
This notion that the wallpaper of the mind
can influence reality so much, can influence consciousness,
can influence perception, to the degree that who and what we are
is determined by where we are and where we dwell.
We're like the dragon eating its own tail.
The hand is drawing the hand that's
And again, what is the takeaway of this idea?
That we can create our own reality--
that our creative and linguistics choices govern