During my explorations here at ODB, I shifted focus from the act of deciding to perception. I believe that most decisions are made without involvement of deliberative, conscious level thought. Mental models that shape the perception of the state of the world or desired goals are more important than methods to make better choices. I now call this mistaken focus on conscious thought the Cartesian Fallacy, in recognition of the power we give to the subjective “I” that seems somehow separate from the body. The brain is a complex processing and behavioral system that has an executive level supervision with limited access to the brain mechanisms that shape what we perceive, what we feel and what we do.
Unfortunately, it makes the work of deciding better much more difficult. The work of shifting mental models from within is challenging, a task the world’s wisdom literature has taken on for thousands of years.
Let photography symbolize the quest to perceive what is not always readily apparent at least in the visual world and its mental constructs.
