This week’s topic is the social layer of the reality. I like to think that there are different “layers” in the reality we perceive. For instance, there’s the physical reality that exists out there regardless of us humans, there will be atoms, molecules and so on. Another layer is what our perception adds to the physical: we perceive colors, we hear music and so on, although all this is just light or sound waves in the physical layer. The reason why I’m writing about the social layer is because understanding its existence and how it works really changed fundamentally the way I see the world.😊 This discovery also convinced me to study more social psychology which has been a journey of growing as a person. I strongly recommend it!👍

To open up my idea of different layers, let me give an example: Color red. First of all, colors don’t exist in the physical world, different physical objects only reflect light differently and these differences are interpreted by our eyes 👁 and brains as colors. So the concept of red only starts to exist once we hit the layer of perception of the reality. Then again, red can have different cultural meanings. It might be linked to love 💗, Christmas 🎅🏻 or stopping 🚦 in case that we see it in traffic lights – these all depend on the culture and conventions. It wouldn’t be too hard to imagine a culture in which the light making cars stop would be a blue one. I.e. what red means to us is already part of the social layer of the reality. Hopefully this example illustrates well the point I’m making. (more…)