The Architecture of Reality: How Our Minds Create What We Think We See
We like to believe our eyes are cameras and our brains are recording devices, faithfully capturing the world around us.
This comforting idea suggests that what we perceive is simply what’s there — objective, unfiltered reality delivered straight to our consciousness.
Yet this assumption about human perception is not just wrong — it’s misleading.
The truth is far more fascinating.
Perception…
(or basically, how my brain jumps into another topic only loosely related to the original ask)
Thank you @itsmaferart For the wonderful ask again. :)
Warning: Long post ahead
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Perception bias also serves another more...sinister purpose for Saitama. Psychological conditioning. There is potential evidence for deprivation of basic needs, conditioning for violence for protection and subliminal messages for suggestion, among other things.
Being deprived of all these needs is akin to mental torture. But so is facing all of the underlying issues at once via hypnotherapy and cognitive behavioural therapy if the patient is sufficiently dysfunctional in a societal setting like Saitama happens to be. Especially if the therapies are performed...poorly.
CBT has shown to be the most effective intervention for people exposed to adverse childhood experiences in the form of abuse or neglect
Criticism of CBT sometimes focuses on implementations (such as the UK which may result initially in low quality therapy being offered by poorly trained practitioners. However, evidence supports the effectiveness of CBT for anxiety and depression.
Evidence suggests that the addition of hypnotherapy as an adjunct to CBT improves treatment efficacy for a variety of clinical issues.
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and its symptoms have been shown to improve due to implementation of hypnotherapy, in both long and short term. As research continues, hypnotherapy is being more openly considered as an effective intervention for those with PTSD.
In short, in order to heal mentally, Saitama may need to face mental torture because he has such strong willpower and such strong mental barriers shielding his vulnerabilities on a basic primal need. There only needs to be a sufficient trigger.
ONE sent Saitama home to restore his energy levels...because he's going to sorely need them for the upcoming confrontation.
Empty Void's ability to genjutsu people casually and cause parallel shifts in the reality and using these to abuse emotional dependencies is like a loaded Chekov's gun on Saitama's forehead. Because Saitama has been roleplaying to re-learn his emphatic skillset after he had suffered too much mental trauma.
That's why early Saitama did not even bat an eye when Beefcake killed his own brother but now he's empathizing with Hamukichi. That's what I call character progression.
Even a compulsive planner like Saitama cannot predict what will happen because he's not familiar with Blast's maladaptive coping methods deep down. Blast is great at masking because they are coping methods so he can bear with his guilt and other issues and just wants to do things on his own, without assistance.
This causes Saitama's perception bias about Blast who seems capable and emphatic, when he is in actuality unscrupulous and amorally indifferent if you really, REALLY study him hard enough.
My bro casually invited Saitama, who is sensitive to aggression, hostility and violence, to watch literal torture of human turned monsters, with an actual smile on his face. And justifying it with his end justify the means philosophy. That's awfully too close to being sadistic and cruel when you consider the ramifications.
They say "love is blind" and Saitama is wearing some rose tinted glasses on because Blast is straight up shady, but he does not see it because he's probably identifying with Blast so hard. Middle-aged, number 1# hero, powerful, confident, outwardly caring, intuitive, ruggedly handsome, positively masculine, secretly gay...you name it. Everything Saitama more than likely fantasies about being because he's so emotionally dependant on Genos and he wants to better himself for Genos due to all his insecurities.
Oh yeah time for some saigenos. *rubs hands*
The very first Genos tells him is to tell Saitama to hide in order to protect him. Saitama has a lot of dependency issues since he has been a small child because he was so emotionally lonely and never got the safety he needed to cope well in life. There are definitely some underlying anxieties or disorders laying about.
Second thing Genos does is show just how smart, capable, cool and devilishly attractive he can be when he gets passionate and engages in combat. Genos can get an awed reaction even from Saitama who's emotions were being blunted during their first spar.
Third is showing he's not gonna judge Saitama for completely embarassing himself, even if he was to get naked around him and lower his inhibitions and showing him it would be ok to trust him on the level of intimacy he craves so dearly. (Season 2 Blu-ray & Dvd: Saitama and the mysterious heroine)
Fourth is showing that Genos is also extremely resilient even when getting hurt...because Saitama hates to see others hurting and he doesn't want it to happen because of him.
And finally the fifth...is because Genos is just as emotionally lonely as he is, but he's unable to let go of his emotional dependencies because he trauma bonds so deeply. He would rather double KO for a Game Over screen than let the monsters win over him and his loved ones on pure principle and take those he trauma bonds with him, because emotional abandonment and guilt would kill him deep inside, so he would rather end it himself for a shred of agency before he withers away.
All these draw in Saitama like moth to a flame and he easily lets Genos into his life. Because he identifies with the lonely teenage boy Genos with traumas who is so familiar to him like coming home.
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Despite everything that has happened to Saitama, he tries to remain optimistic. He's not naturally prone to cynicism unless under great amount of duress. The worst thing to do against him would be Genos emotionally betraying him, betray everything that he perceived in him since the first day they met.
But Saitama has perception bias towards Genos too...such as that Genos is no longer the small teenage boy who needs to be sheltered and cared for, but a battle-hardened soldier. Neither is he a lost naive little sibling in need of guidance or chaperone but an adult wanting mentorship where he can be truly open about his own issues. Would be such a shame if these wrong illusions about Genos were to be shattered...painfully. If Genos were to ever violate that implicit trust Saitama gives to him.
My brother in christ Saitama, he's not actually related to you and he's not your family member even if you'd love him enough to adopt him or something. Not letting go of this notion will spell trouble, like wonky image of relationships and intimacy.
(Yea Saitama please he's not actually related to you, even if it's kind of endearing that Saitama considers Genos to be as close like a family member)
It'll just get worse if Saitama confuses emotional intimacy with sexuality because of his bad upbringing when he's never had any friends and missing his parents too and all his role models have been aggressive and toxic people.
Funny how Saitama's first conclusion about Dr. Genus being interested in his body was sexual in nature and he immediately got defensive. He essentially revealed himself as someone who doesn't even know for sure which way he swings. Which would be quite classic for infj demi but I'll get to that if it becomes more relevant.
Genos naturally knows best though, poor guy looks so disappointed haha. Doesn't stop Genos from attempting every trick in the book besides outright throwing roses at Saitama and arranging dates to get into his good side and woo him, he dressed up so nicely for a spar haha. Dressing to impress, yup. And then he got himself new shiny body and practically walked weeks without a shirt on just so Saitama would see it. (Chapter 185: Updates) My guy has it down bad for Saitama, but Saitama seems oblivious to Genos indirect advances and Genos gave up and finally found a shirt to put on.
(I would pay to see Genos actually chuck roses at Saitama though.)
Even Saitama has to acknowledge that Genos is objectively a hottie though, because in the webcomic he says something along the lines of "he's not even pretty" about Amai-mask and it really makes you think the standards of who Saitama considers pretty when even ikemen like Amai-mask won't do.
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Genos unfortunately is growing up some pretty large perception bias about Saitama after the time travel fiasco. His idolization of Saitama is becoming obsessive and objectifying, like Saitama can do no wrong and that Saitama is some kind of messiah.
Genos also does not take no for an answer. It would be incredibly damaging to both Saitama and Genos when this perception bias is broken when Saitama gets too much on his plate to handle. Like for example...Empty void's specialty, messing with emotional bonds and inducing traumatic events like the illusion of death to break any emotional bond, just like he did to Flashy flash and Sonic.
I do greatly anticipate how Empty Void's fight is going to proceed, we might be in for very big perceptional bias shifts all around, like Flash was forced to acknowledge that he's emotionally dependant on Sonic. (Chapter 201: You pass) And Saitama's idolization of Blast will come crashing down when he finds out what Blast is really up to.
Submitted by Geoff Anandappa, from Blackpool in Britain to laughlab.co.uk
Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson were going camping. They pitched their tent under the stars and went to sleep. Sometime in the middle of the night Holmes woke Watson up and said: “Watson, look up at the stars, and tell me what you see.”
Watson replied: “I see millions and millions of stars.”
Holmes said: “and what do you deduce from that?”
Watson replied: “Well, if there are millions of stars, and if even a few of those have planets, it’s quite likely there are some planets like earth out there. And if there are a few planets like earth out there, there might also be life.”
And Holmes said: “Watson, you idiot, it means that somebody stole our tent.”
THAT'S how perception bias screws up our ability to see what's going on.
My experience, being on secular forums and religious forums, is that I've seen many kind and concerned people from both camps. I have been treated with respect from people in both camps. I have seen people in both camps who are reactionary and vengeful.
The angry voices are heard more loudly. Remember that. This is a kind perception bias and it’s built into our wiring. We are designed to notice the more salient, the louder, the stronger, the more threatening things and give them more weight. This does not mean that this is the way the world is.
Someone please make a recording of the phrase: “Really? That’s what you take away from this?” in an incredulous and disapproving voice and send it to my phone. I need to hear this approximately after each and every encounter with new (and old) things in my life.
When a bad deed makes headlines, the first thing we want to know is whether the perpetrator did it “on purpose.” Intention matters in our moral judgments, as we intuitively realize and many studies confirm. Now studies suggest that this focus on the cause of an event can distort our understanding of the damage done—and knowing harm has been inflicted can even change the way we view the victims, ascribing them pain and consciousness when none might exist.
In a study published in July in Psychological Science, Princeton University psychologists Daniel Ames and Susan Fiske asked 80 study participants to read a vignette about a company CEO who had either accidentally or intentionally made a poor investment that resulted in lower pay for his employees. Those who thought the CEO had intentionally made the mistake estimated the harm done to his employees on a scale of 0 to 100 to be 39 percent larger than those who thought it was accidental.
In a follow-up experiment, 55 subjects read about a man who had either accidentally or intentionally diverted the flow of a river, causing a water shortage. Participants were then briefly shown an itemized list of the damages and were asked to estimate the total. Those who believed the diversion to be accidental estimated the damages accurately (on average, $2,753, as compared with the true total of $2,862), whereas those who thought the diversion had been done on purpose vastly overestimated the damages at $5,120. This psychological bias could have political implications: if governments systematically overestimate the damages done by intentional harms like terrorism, they might “leave fewer resources to combat other kinds of harms,” such as global warming, Ames says.
A different group of researchers at Harvard University and the University of Pennsylvania explored how intentional and unintentional acts affect our perception of those injured. In their study, published in June in Psychological Science, subjects read stories about a hospital nurse who unplugged the food supply of a patient in a persistent vegetative state named Ann in order to make money. Others read a similar story about a nurse who took good care of Ann. When subsequently asked about Ann's mental capacities, the subjects who had read about her as a victim said she was much more able to feel pain and was more consciously aware than did subjects who read the other story. When participants read a similar pair of stories in which the nurse had either intentionally or unintentionally cut off Ann's food supply, those who thought the act was intentional ascribed more mental faculties to Ann than did the others. In another series of experiments, Ann was described not as a human patient in a persistent vegetative state but as either a robot or a corpse. Again, subjects thought the entities were more mentally aware if they were victimized.
The findings have implications for our understanding of complex moral issues such as abortion. People may consider fetuses to be mentally aware because they think abortion is immoral—not the other way around. “People often have knee-jerk moral intuitions and only come up with explanations for these intuitions after the fact,” says co-author Adrian Ward, a psychologist now at the University of Colorado at Boulder. “Many times apparent causal reasoning is simply post hoc justification.”
How To Fight Racial Bias When It's Silent And Subtle
Researchers say it may be possible to temporarily reduce racial biases.
In the popular imagination and in conventional discourse — especially in the context of highly charged news events such as the shooting of — prejudice is all about hatred and animosity.
Scientists agree there's little doubt that hate-filled racism is real, but a of social science research suggests that racial disparities and other biased outcomes in the criminal justice system, in medicine and in professional settings can be explained by and stereotypes.
Subtle biases are to police cadets being more likely to shoot unarmed black men than they are unarmed white men. (Some academics have also linked the to the Trayvon Martin case.)
Calvin Lai and Brian Nosek at the University of Virginia recently challenged scientists to come up with ways to ameliorate such biases. The idea, said Harvard University psychologist Mahzarin Banaji, one of the researchers, was to evaluate whether there were rapid-fire ways to disable stereotypes. Groups of scientists "raced" one another to see if their favorite techniques worked. All the scientists focused on reducing unconscious racial bias against blacks.
"Within five minutes, you have to do something to somebody's mind so that at the end of those five minutes you will now show a lower association of black with bad. And so this was run really like a competition to see which ones of them might work to reduce race bias and which ones don't," Banaji said.
The results were as surprising for what they didn't find as for what they did. Teaching people about the injustice of discrimination or asking them to be empathetic toward others was ineffective. What worked, at least temporarily, Banaji said, was providing volunteers with "counterstereotypical" messages.
"People were shown images or words or phrases that in some way bucked the trend of what we end up seeing in our culture," she said. "So if black and bad have been repeatedly associated in our society, then in this intervention, the opposite association was made."
Banaji, who has been a in studying unconscious biases, said she has taken such results to heart and tried to find ways to expose herself to counterstereotypical messages, as a way to limit her own unconscious biases.
One image in particular, she said, has had an especially powerful effect: "My favorite example is a picture of a woman who is clearly a construction worker wearing a hard hat, but she is breast-feeding her baby at lunchtime, and that image pulls my expectations in so many different directions that it was my feeling that seeing something like that would also allow me in other contexts to perhaps have an open mind about new ideas that might come from people who are not traditionally the ones I hear from."
Source:
http://www.npr.org/blogs/codeswitch/2013/07/19/203306999/How-To-Fight-Racial-Bias-When-Its-Silent-And-Subtle
