Believing Is Seeing

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Hawkweed, dandelions and slugs provide a look into the nature of how we understand what is happening around us.

Basically we see what we believe should be the normal state of affairs. We determine normality through a variety of information inputs which we have agreed within ourselves or in concert with others to be the way things should be. That becomes what we expect to see.

Imagine that you live in an area where you might come upon a poisonous snake in the road. In the moonlight you see something stretched across the path. Your immediate thought is of a snake and you react as if it were a snake. Your blood pressure rises, you feel a surge of fear immediately, and your mental state completely changes as your heart rate accelerates and your face warms up. Then you realize it is a rope. I saw a dog turn into a stump in just this way recently.

Even though there was no snake, you reacted as if there were a snake. It was a genuine response because you were convinced by being prepared to see a snake so one appeared and scared the crap out of you. But now you know the snake did not exist anywhere but in your mind. The snake was something you created. It was an illusion just like the dog I saw that turned into a stump.

The people in this area are living under the illusion that Hawkweed is actually Dandelion. I know better than that. I've determined it by examination. I know why they call Hawkweed Dandelion. The plants are vaguely similar in appearance, and the people looking at them do not look close enough. They have agreed together that these plants are Dandelions. However I know for certain they are Hawkweed because I have taken the time to examine them. There's an application of this to democracy as well. And here is is a slug feasting on the bottom parts of a hawk weed plant . This shows you the way he and she became a duck.


I started thinking about the insistence of the locals here on demanding that Hawkweed be called Dandelion. Their authority is that they grouped together on the basis of collective ignorance in order to enforce the idea that Hawkweed is actually Dandelion. But if anyone of them had been required to look closely at the two plants they would recognize the differences fairly soon. But collective opinions are very powerful.

The video below will explain in more detail than I have related regarding the reason we experience the things we experience.