Divided by Zero

we fall back on what we already know to infer solutions to new problems.

Reality doesn’t really work that way.

Imagine that you live in a projection of reality, and in it, there is something that looks like a circle.

That circle can represent many things: a sphere, a flat disk, a cylinder, a weird and twisted shape whose projection falls on a circle, a random set of points, unrelated to each other, whose only connection is that when they cast their shadow on your world, their projections fall on the circle too.

You can’t make any assumption about what that shape is just from what your senses tell you. A partly hidden shape can have the entire hidden portion missing and the way something looks, so similar to what you already know, may be of no use to you at all.

You open a box and see what looks like a scrumptious cake, but when you try to cut a slice from it it falls apart and flows through your fingers like mist.

You are conflicted, because you need things to follow the rules, but that doesn’t mean there is something wrong with the cake look alike. You made the assumption it was a cake, and that’s what was wrong. Not an easy thing to live with, for sure.

Why is that?

Because if the thing that looks like cake was something entirely different, it makes you question everything you are sure about, and reality becomes a very scary place. People are much happier with false knowledge they are certain of than with the realization that everything they thought about reality is now in question.

Above and beyond many things happen. Ships pass on the surface of the ocean, schools of fish move around the bend, rip currents run mere feet away, but it isn’t important to the sea anemone, as long as none of these things touch it.

It can live its whole life without the experience of, let’s say, a cosmetic palette, accidentally dropped into the water at just the right moment, falling into its lap.

How would a sea anemone relate to the reality of the palette, if that happened?

It would assume it was a strange mollusk, an information as misleading as it is useless, but which would allow it to continue living in a familiar world, where every piece has a dedicated sorting box, and where the weird shell is incidental, anyway.

Am I suggesting we are better off with false information about the things that don’t affect our lives?

Unfortunately for us we’re not sea anemones.