How can History affect our perception of reality today?
How can History affect our perception of reality today?
We can only know from the past, we cannot know from the future, as the future has not yet come into existence. Therefore all knowledge is based upon past experience. This is where history comes into being. All perceptions of reality today, are combined from evidence from the past. History shapes reality.
One of the major historical evidence today is the map. It signifies how our world looks like. However, one must realize that there are infinite number of possible maps of the world, each one having a different story of history. What does this mean? Was it not the international agreement in 1884 which fixed the prime meridian in Greenwich England. Was it not history which decided which way was the north and south pole. Mother nature didn't provide us with directions, it's us, the humans which come to decide our world. If history from the past has decided that North was South and South was North, then we would now live in what we would think as an upside down world.
"The map is not the territory", Alfred Korzybski said. This is true. Humans like to split and complicate things up. Was it not the war which decided how big countries were. Was it not the "claim" that a country has invaded another country. We never know. History is not always true. What is claimed may not be reality. As the invasion of Hong Kong, China never really agreed that Hong Kong was part of Britain. So was Hong Kong part of Britain or China before 1997? If History has nodded its head and said Hong Kong was part ...
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"The map is not the territory", Alfred Korzybski said. This is true. Humans like to split and complicate things up. Was it not the war which decided how big countries were. Was it not the "claim" that a country has invaded another country. We never know. History is not always true. What is claimed may not be reality. As the invasion of Hong Kong, China never really agreed that Hong Kong was part of Britain. So was Hong Kong part of Britain or China before 1997? If History has nodded its head and said Hong Kong was part of China, then would reality be distorted? Would Hong Kong be the territory of China? History is so important that once changed, may collapse our well shaped system of reality.
The world is absurd, it is up to how you interpret it. The map does not let us see anything, it only allows us too see what history and other people have seen or found. We never know whether Neil Armstrong has been to the moon or not. We never know what he has truly seen of earth. It is just his claim that the Earth is round, the moon is made of small craters with no cheese and Moontians. If he is lying, there are cheese and aliens on the moon, the world is actually a elliptic shape, then all perceptions of reality today is wrong. You can see how dangerous historical knowledge is.
All maps are biased. No matter the Mercators, Peters or Down under map. It is just an historical evidence that some person in the past has some view of how the world is. Strangely, most people believe that the map is the world, they never recognize that it is just a by product of History.
Nowadays, most people take the world for granted. They build their knowledge of the world from previous events of explorations. They don't study history, but believe what history feeds them. They mention "North East Asia" and don't recognize that there is no north or south, it all depends what country you take as the middle point. They live according to time, day and month and never recognizes that these are just interpretations from previous people. Their view of humanity, wars, holocaust, all depend on past deceitful people. They depend on history, reality to them is history. History that is never their form of recognition.
To perceive what is real reality, we must start by not believing the past. We must work out by ourselves what reality really is. We must recognize that we are floating in empty space and the need to clarify our existence and world around us. Don't blind yourselves by the virtual world history and past people has provided for you, act yourself, struggle to embark on this perilous expedition to the outermost reaches of language and existence. The end result is not important, you may find out that by the end, everything is as what history states. However you have tried, you have accomplished your human mission, to find your true identity, to find "your" reality. Even though this might not be the truth, you can still act as a stone under a stream, you have the power to effect the way the water will flow in the future, until one day the water will final flow to the ocean, where all the truths lie upon.
