Seems to me, the world has all these layers. So, different people see, and live on this layer or that layer. Empathy is the ability to move to the layer where someone else is and see the world they see. Now there’s enough in common between all the layers that we can all agree that when we see a phone that it’s a phone. But I think that’s about where the commonality ends.
And that’s all fine with physical, tangible things. But then there’s the idea of understanding something. Understanding something is very difficult because there are so many variables that make up that understanding. In truth, everything you’ve ever experienced and every thought you’ve ever had; basically, everything that’s you from the physical to the spiritual, is applied to this thing you are trying to understand. Then all the things that apply, or may be useful in helping you understand are weighted. By this I mean that if you’re skeptic and Christian, you may give more credibility to the version of understanding that Christianity suggests and your skepticism is diminished accordingly.
Now back to the phone for a minute. If you can look at a phone, or any object and appreciate that it traverses these layers and that it has potentially different qualities at every level then you have a very good understanding of a phone. But it’s a phone. That’s all. It’s finite with potential. Easy right? Let’s imagine we did our phone understanding exercise in 1970. You’ve got a bulky, rotary phone with a thickish wire plugged into the back that connects it to the wall. It’s heavy and if you pick it up and shake it you could manually make the bell inside ring very softly. When you spoke to someone they sounded like they were in a can somewhere – they sounded far away.
So there are different styles of phone. Different colors and such. Older models still around. Pay phones. The point is, this isn’t what I’m talking about when I talk about imagining a phone on all these layers of potential experience. The best way I can think of to explain what I’m talking about is to suggest that one or more of those layers contain a time shift. So to really understand what a phone is in 1970 means you have to at least consider the web enabled, text messaging, cellular phone I carry around with me every day right now.
Every single thing you see, hear and experience every day of your whole life has that same level of complexity. We generally see them as the finite versions in the layer we’ve chosen to live in and never give much thought that there’s anything more. And for a phone this seems perfectly reasonable because, well, because it’s a fucking phone and it doesn’t matter.
So why did I just waste your time and mine by writing this? Because we make the same mistakes in the way we view each other. We imagine our friends, lovers, parents, siblings as these finite things and never give much thought that there’s anything more. And though people change and we account for that over years as they, and we, get older, it’s a very slow process that allows us to still see them with our single layer way. We’re selling them short and we’re robbing ourselves of the opportunity to really connect with someone. We rob ourselves of the ability to experience the world through someone else’s eyes.
Seems to me, the world has all these layers. So, different people see, and live on this layer or that layer. Empathy is the ability to move to the layer where someone else is and see the world they see. Now there’s enough in common between all the layers that we can all agree that when we see a phone that it’s a phone. But I think that’s about where the commonality ends.
And that’s all fine with physical, tangible things. But then there’s the idea of understanding something. Understanding something is very difficult because there are so many variables that make up that understanding. In truth, everything you’ve ever experienced and every thought you’ve ever had; basically, everything that’s you from the physical to the spiritual, is applied to this thing you are trying to understand. Then all the things that apply, or may be useful in helping you understand are weighted. By this I mean that if you’re skeptic and Christian, you may give more credibility to the version of understanding that Christianity suggests and your skepticism is diminished accordingly.
Now back to the phone for a minute. If you can look at a phone, or any object and appreciate that it traverses these layers and that it has potentially different qualities at every level then you have a very good understanding of a phone. But it’s a phone. That’s all. It’s finite with potential. Easy right? Let’s imagine we did our phone understanding exercise in 1970. You’ve got a bulky, rotary phone with a thickish wire plugged into the back that connects it to the wall. It’s heavy and if you pick it up and shake it you could manually make the bell inside ring very softly. When you spoke to someone they sounded like they were in a can somewhere – they sounded far away.
So there are different styles of phone. Different colors and such. Older models still around. Pay phones. The point is, this isn’t what I’m talking about when I talk about imagining a phone on all these layers of potential experience. The best way I can think of to explain what I’m talking about is to suggest that one or more of those layers contain a time shift. So to really understand what a phone is in 1970 means you have to at least consider the web enabled, text messaging, cellular phone I carry around with me every day right now.
Every single thing you see, hear and experience every day of your whole life has that same level of complexity. We generally see them as the finite versions in the layer we’ve chosen to live in and never give much thought that there’s anything more. And for a phone this seems perfectly reasonable because, well, because it’s a fucking phone and it doesn’t matter.
So why did I just waste your time and mine by writing this? Because we make the same mistakes in the way we view each other. We imagine our friends, lovers, parents, siblings as these finite things and never give much thought that there’s anything more. And though people change and we account for that over years as they, and we, get older, it’s a very slow process that allows us to still see them with our single layer way. We’re selling them short and we’re robbing ourselves of the opportunity to really connect with someone. We rob ourselves of the ability to experience the world through someone else’s eyes.
