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To quote an old friend "It's all in your head, but you have no idea just how large your head is."

"Perception is Reality" is an accurate statement, (insofar as such statements go). However, perception is not an easy concept to define, for it shifts and changes like a sea mist.

It is a fact that an individual can perceive phenomena which they are incapable of understanding, and in fact do so on an ongoing basis. Some of these phenomena will be edited out, others may be misinterpreted, while those that relate closely to experience and education will be assimilated.

Any change in experience will change the understanding of perceived phenomena, past and present, which will in turn amend the sum of total perception.
Education tends to be split into two main divisions: dispositional knowledge and experiential knowledge. Most schoolwork falls into the former category, in that texts and illustrations can dispense the relevant information.
Experiential knowledge deals with those areas that can only be addressed by 'hands on' experience in the relevant discipline. Examples would be reading, writing, painting, sculpture, woodwork, cooking and the like. No matter how often you may be told, experience is the only way to learn these skills.

As each phenomenon perceived is assimilated, it is woven into the individual's personal understanding of the universe, and assimilated into the whole. Each item will be filtered through any belief structure that has been adopted, then ranked, organized and placed in the overall structure that comprises that individual's conceptual universe. This will alter the overall structure in myriad ways, not always profoundly but always importantly.

It should be noted that 'editing out' referred to above is not a conscious process; we perceive far more than we need to process, and the brain has a tendency to restrict the input of data to those areas that it deems relevant to the situation. There are techniques that can, it seems, adjust the censor, and the individuals that use them do seem to amend their personal universe (or at least their perception of it) to some degree.

It should be clear that we are the product, to a large degree, of our environment combined with the many experiences that we have undergone in the course of our lives.
It was this creation of our own, unique universe, each person's vision being supreme for that individual, that led the protagonist of Robert Heinlein's "Stranger in a Strange Land " to say "Thou art God".

Learn more about this author, Richard Sprigg.
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