“We can never be quite clear whether we are referring to the world as it is or to the world as we see it.”
Source: Communication: The Social Matrix of Psychiatry, 1951, p. 238 cited in: William Rasch, Cary Wolfe (2000) Observing Complexity: Systems Theory and Postmodernity. p. 36
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Gregory Bateson 49
English anthropologist, social scientist, linguist, visual … 1904–1980Related quotes
[NewsBank, Nye: We must all save the Earth, The Madison Courier, Madison, Indiana, February 21, 2009, Pat Whitney]
“We see the world, not as it is, but as we are──or, as we are conditioned to see it.”
Source: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change
Source: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change
"Understanding and Imagination in the Light of Nature"
Variant: The world which we perceive is a tiny fraction of the world which we can perceive, which is a tiny fraction of the perceivable world...
Context: Because the fact is, what blinds us to the presence of alien intelligence is linguistic and cultural bias operating on ourselves. The world which we perceive is a tiny fraction of the world which we can perceive, which is a tiny fraction of the perceivable world, you see. We operate on a very narrow slice based on cultural conventions. So the important thing, if synergizing progress is the notion to be maximized (and I think it's the notion to be maximized), is to try and locate the blind spot in the culture — the place where the culture isn't looking, because it dare not — because if it were to look there, its previous values would dissolve, you see. For Western Civilization that place is the psychedelic experience as it emerges out of nature.
“We see the world not as it is, but as we are.”
Dag Redwing hickory Bluefield
Passage (Vol. III in Tetralogy) (2008), p. 163
The Sharing Knife, Passage (Vol. III in Tetralogy) (2008)
Source: The Shock of the New (1981), p. 17
Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1935/mar/11/defence in the House of Commons (11 March 1935). Attlee's concluding observation was met by Conservative cries of "Hear, hear", with one MP shouting "Tell that to Hitler" according to The Times of 12 March 1935.
1930s
Source: A Woman's Thoughts About Women (1858), Ch. 10
Context: I fear, the inevitable conclusion we must all come to is, that in the world happiness is quite indefinable. We can no more grasp it than we can grasp the sun in the sky or the moon in the water. We can feel it interpenetrating our whole being with warmth and strength; we can see it in a pale reflection shining elsewhere; or in its total absence, we, walking in darkness, learn to appreciate what it is by what it is not.