236. Our Shared Reality

When I see a beautiful sunset, I can point it out to you and know you will also enjoy it. Not only does the sunset exist for both of us, we’re also likely to judge its beauty in a similar way. But we don’t always make the same judgments. I might enjoy eating spicy food, while you do not. Here, I judge the taste of a spicy dish to be pleasant, while you judge it otherwise.

It might not matter so much whether we like the same food, but our ability to agree is important when we need to make decisions about our shared future. I might judge that the most significant facts lead to one conclusion, whereas you might feel other facts are more salient and support a different conclusion. Usually this is not a problem, as we can simply discuss the merits of the facts until we reach a conclusion that we can both accept.

But if we cannot even agree on what is a fact or what is true, then we might not be able to make any progress. Here, it can feel like we’re living in two different realities. It can feel like I cannot bring you to see the world as I do and you cannot bring me to see it as you do.

In truth, this is always the case. We are always living in our own subjective realities. It’s just that the similarities of our reported experiences have led us to mistakenly believe we’ve transcended our subjectivity and arrived at the objective world. But true objectivity is always out of reach. We are always only seeing the world from our own point of view.

We judge the world differently because our values differ. What’s good for me might not be good for you. Still, there are always places where our values overlap, and this is also where our realities overlap. It is here that we must work on finding common ground.

As there is so much of our human experience that is shared, it’s almost impossible for us to agree on nothing. We must always start from where we agree, and work towards further agreement. A shared reality is not guaranteed, but rather something we must continuously create with others.