Is seeing believing or believing seeing?

I had been passing across some random papers, links and magazines about multiple subjects that I got hung onto this topic. With a collection of some thoughts and also after looking out for some “self thought” topics, I came up with this as a speech topic in my third CC project in my Toastmasters journey. Though the actual speech didn’t go exactly as I wrote this up, the core matter still remained the same. And here is how i scripted it.

Our earth is a fixed flat plate around which the sun rises and sets. – How difficult it would have been for this idea to change to what is more prevalent and apt now? What was the problem there? The people of those ages believed what they could see.

After the next 5 to 7 minutes, you will be able to understand the complexities of what it takes to associate seeing to believing. Let me try and eliminate the problem of the visible and invisible through 3 statements –

Statement # 1 – “Seeing is believing”
This statement in whole is a mentality lying underneath all of us. And yes, it’s very valid too. Well for most part of it. However, there are two very basic facts that we do not consider when we pass across that statement.
Fact A – “it’s not there but it’s there” – this is very elemental – Carbon atoms are the basic compound of every living organism. But! Can you see a single Carbon atom? Diving a bit deeper into the atom, there are protons, neutron, electrons. Well, these in their individuality are as good as existing in invisibility. To the naked eye, it’s not there, but it’s there! Can you see electricity? Can you see gravity? Theoretical existence and proof makes them as good as true and we perceive it as it is.
Fact B – “it’s there but it’s not there” – This is very much informational. Here my reference is a more complex and in theoretical form – databases! They are invisible and conceptual. You cannot see it, you cannot feel it. And yet, the knowledge bases we build will continue to treat them as purely theoretical forms of explanations.

So no matter what you get to see and what you do not, don’t just rely on seeing to believe something which is not necessarily true.

Statement # 2 – “You’ll see it when you believe it”
That’s an optimistic way of motivating people. It can show that after reading a best seller by that name on personal development, you decide that you are going to change. You believe that you are going to change. Let’s take the case of a clinic that helps people reduce weight. “The slim you in 3 weeks”, “wear that spaghetti strap your boyfriend gifted you”, “Obesity is a disease and its curable, Call us now!”. And the innocent flab bellied people would place themselves in hypothetical situation. They are forced to make believe!

Of late I have been forced by the environment around me to get distracted towards those similar ads, “Cure baldness before its too late” Ouch! That sends a shocker in me. And to think of the fact that I used to keep a mane of hair back in my school days, it saddening to see the hypothetical me with a bald head. I definitely do not want it to be in a situation where its “TOO LATE”. They are forcing us consumers to believing what we want to see.

So no matter how much you wait to See to Believe, if it’s a make believe concept, you will get to see it.

Third and final statement – “I’ll believe it when I see it”
Relying on believing by waiting to see it, there arises a great degree of uncertainty though. According to Heisenberg’s principle of Uncertainty in quantum mechanics, the observer influences the circumstances being observed. It’s also a personalization of the first statement about how I am treating the bits and pieces of information that I have been fed since my education started. I am made to believe in invisible things which are difficult to digest. Why? Simply because in our limited “Alice in wonderland” territory, most of the things I know had been proven by some person, and I have taken it for granted. Have I tried to prove myself that the earth is round? NO! I had learned that there were nine planets in the solar system. But its been a couple of years now that they say that Pluto is not a planet but then they added a couple of others to the list. How do I even know if they are not bluffing? If they add or remove planets from my conceptual understanding, I cannot see beyond the morning star and the evening star and that’s all my naked eyes can believe in.

In Japan, green and blue are considered as the same color and referred to as ‘aoi’. A native Japanese would point to the sky to indicate ‘blue’ to show the color ‘aoi’. He will then point to the ‘green leaf’ and say it’s the same color ‘aoi’. For them what colors they see is purely on perception, but when I see it, I will definitely call a green ‘green’ and a blue ‘blue’. Why? Because I see it as two different colors based on how and what I was taught.

So, even if something is not there but there or something is there but not there, even when you believe what you want to see, what I will believe is not necessarily purely on what I see but what is embedded with the unconscious knowledge of what I have learnt and am educated with. The fact that something is not readily visible doesn’t mean that it is true or if it is false. That being said, its best to conclude that it’s up to yours and my mind, as to what we would want to believe, we see it or not! It’s all upto us to see and believe or believe and see.