Piecing Together the “Truth” with Human and Animal Perception

In our leadership development work behind the scenes here at DEUCE Gym a constant topic of discussion is perception. The reason being is that when complex humans who work in a complex world get together to accomplish a common goal, a constant factual rub is that no one is seeing the truth. 

The best information to make decisions and to drive growth is the truth. 

But, how do we understand the truth?

We’ll need to perceive it. Perception is largely informed by our senses and the connections (often stories) we make about those inferences. The trouble is that on a foundational level, you, me, and everyone we’ve ever met is seeing some distilled version of the truth that includes deleted, consolidated, interpreted, and limited versions of reality. 

Just from a human perspective, we can only see some of the many waves of light on the light spectrum with the human eye. Dogs taught us that human ears only hear part of the pitches of sound and upon closer examination our sense of touch only really works to a limited sensibility, which is largely predicated on movement. (Want to test this? Put your finger on any surface and describe its texture without moving your finger across it.) 

Lately, I’ve been pushing my understanding of perception (and subsequently whatever “reality” is) by studying animal perception. For example, birds’ ears hear the same tones that humans do, but they can discern nuance in bird songs that go undetected to the human ear.

Spiders seem simple enough, right?

Wrong. They use lyriform organs in their joints to sense vibration that almost no other creature would perceive as existing. They build their webs with various degrees of tension and vertical and horizontal lines such that when they are waiting for their prey, they can “see” what they’ve captured in their webs by the intricacies of the vibrations coming their way. 

When it comes to the human experience, it’s almost always critical to supplement your perception of reality with perceptions outside of your own limited view. The  more credible the sources the better

Spending too much time in your own perception is dangerous (and flawed). Don’t forget that.