We often have the need to be descriptive. We want to be able to know and describe what really happens. The closer we get to reality, the better our descriptive model. The better our descriptive model, the better our actions imposed upon reality. And the more accurate our beliefs become. But the glaring problem is this. We cannot see truth as it is. Why is it that we cannot see things as they truly are? Why are we enslaved to bias and illusion?
Your personal experiences make up maybe 0.00000001% of what’s happened in the world but maybe 80% of how you think the world works. People believe what they’ve seen happen exponentially more than what they read about has happened to other people, if they read about other people at all. We’re all biased to our own personal history.
Reality as we know it is infinitely, incomprehensibly complex. How much of what we know is a reflection of what truly is? Will we ever find out? Probably not. Reality puts us in a restrictive predicament. The limitation of our human perception doesn't just radically narrow down our vision of reality to a small speck. It also makes us infer. And immeasurably often, we infer wrong. In other words, we often are not judging and making decisions based on a small, horribly reduced speak of reality. We often base them on entirely false realities, and we are entirely blindsided to that. This is the "map is not the territory" problem.
The perceptual apparatus of man has shortcuts in it. The brain cannot have unlimited circuitry. So someone who knows how to take advantage of those shortcuts and cause the brain to miscalculate in certain ways can cause you to see things that aren't there.
— Charlie Munger
The thing is, our brains didn't evolve to reason, but to rationalise. Our brains didn't evolve to see truth, but to create it. Our vision is consistently distorted by bias and illusion, leading us to manipulate others and deceive ourselves. As popularly said, we see things not as they are, but as we are.
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