How do people’s perspectives differ, sometimes dramatically, and yet co-exist in a singular shared reality?

A common way of constructing an answer is to first cite scaling. Then, evoke a visual representation that uses fractals, the self-similar, infinitely repeating, often rich and beautiful patterns generated using a computer and general formula with custom parameter values. (Wolfram’s cellular automata are similar, just with boundaries and more variables.) Finally, conclude something like, “it depends on where you’re standing on the fractal (or automata) what part of the pattern you perceive.” True, though not precise in its conception, nor, to the perceiver, in its likeness to reality.

Here, I will answer the question I began with briefly, using a visual very different from fractals. There is a pattern, still not sharing a great deal of likeness to reality itself, but like reality it can be perceived as a profound sort of puzzle. I have yet to meet anyone who is not a bit taken aback by the joining of its simplicity and deeper implications.

From what I’ve seen in sharing this with people in person, it takes the mind a bit of time to process the experience, so expect to hang 10 with the experience of it.

“OKIC Assuming Behavior Core Poietic Puzzle”

Each of the three sections of the triptych above are identical. A section is defined as a solid background color with inset representations (displayed in white, gray, or black). The perception that arises of difference among the three sections is real.

What is also real is that in each section one set of representations is hidden. The representations that are hidden are those that correspond exactly to the background color. The background color represents controlled but varied assumptions (a paradox). **The reduction from three to two sets of representations (shapes of a given color) indicates that representational constraints arise with the application of limits based on controlled but varied assumptions.

Adding a novel color as the background (teal below) symbolizes the recognition of all relevant assumptions, and all sets of representations are revealed to be co-extant parts of a whole.

“OKIC Unassuming Behavior Core Poietic”

Distinction through control of assumptions is useful in parsing out experience in a complex world. It’s also the representational source of separation from other possibilities — personal and cultural experiences of being in ruts. Changing this requires reigniting our own capacity to perceive and eventually experience existence as a dynamic, shared meta-phenomenon with precisely these kinds of abstract yet grounded structural dynamics.

Conventional theoretical physics meets representational reality