How We View The World

From birth, or perhaps even within the womb, we are constantly bombarded with information through our senses. There are sounds, images, smells, tastes, and the feelings received when we touch things. All these are coming at us thick and fast, and we have to make some sort of sense of them which we do by mentally constructing a model of what we think the world is. As each new thought, sight, smell, taste comes to us, we add it to the model, improving it. This all works well at first, but as the model grows we begin to filter the information supplied by our senses, rejecting that which doesn't fit with our existing model. As an example, if someone totally believes something, it can be hard to sway their opinion, even if you supply evidence that their thought is incorrect. Because your thought does not fit with their model, it is rejected.

Having our model is useful because it allows us to avoid having to constantly analyse everything. And with the vast amount of information coming from our senses, if we had to cope with it all we wouldn't manage. We know what the world looks like, we know what is good and what is bad, so we don't have to think about it so much. But in many cases the model might be wrong or missing things, and this is where problems can arise. Some people are considered to have closed minds, some open minds, and others are somewhere in between. A closed mind is one where the model the person has created has become carved in stone and nothing will change it, no matter how much evidence is shown to say it needs modifying. An open mind is where a person is very open to change and willing to update their model to fit new evidence. And, of course, the person in the middle is someone who may make changes, but needs to be convinced sometimes to do so.

How does this affect us in our daily lives? Politicians and advertisers talk to us using terms which, as far as they can, fit our models of the world. A classic example was during the heavily biased Brexit referendum when Boris Johnson told everyone that leaving the EU would give us some £350 million pounds per week which could go to the NHS, which was then and is now struggling to survive. This was an out and out lie, but because the British people love the NHS, it fitted into the model most people had of wanting to help the NHS and the lie was accepted as truth, despite all the evidence supplied by reporters and the few honest politicians showing that it was a lie. Right now, politicians like Donald Trump, and other far right examples across the world, are telling people what they want to hear, so they get elected. Lies, but they fit the models in the voters' minds. Advertisers play on our models as well. In the past, alcohol brands and tobacco brands have used the idea that using their products will make you more of a man, or a more sophisticated woman. People's models generally have a need to be a 'better' person, so the product becomes attractive. You don't see perfumes advertised using normal people, no, they use people who the general population have been programmed to want to be like. So use that product and become thin, tall, clever, popular, or whatever the advertisement is using to lure you.

And models also explain why our politicians cannot understand how the rest of the population struggles under their rule. This was particularly obvious in the UK in the years from 2010 to 2024 under the Conservatives. In the main, the cabinet was made up from privileged people, born to money. Their mental models featured a world where people have servants, don't even think twice about calling a taxi (or even a private jet), or replacing the entire furniture in the lounge - money is no issue to them. Whereas the rest of us are struggling to find money for the bills.

Just as their model stops them understanding us, our models stop us understanding them. We are, indeed, on different planets. Sadly, the only way democracy can work is if our rulers come from similar backgrounds to the people they rule over. Then, perhaps they might have an understanding of what is really important to people and direct money to those issues, rather than waste it on 'vanity projects' like HS2 which only the wealthy could benefit from.

And this is why, on my first page I have the subtitle 'Let hypnotherapy remove the veil from your eyes'. It does this by letting you make the changes you need to make to your subconscious mind, and by letting you see the world, the universe and everything (thank you Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy) more clearly than ever before.