Perception vs Reality

Many times in life, I have been challenged.  Not because I do not see the same things others see, but because I see those things differently.  Typically in any situation, you could ask 10 people to witness a scene and they will all remember something different.  Why is that?  I believe the answer lies in a person's past experience and what is important to them.  If a person sees a particular event, the things that are relateable to that individual are going to make the most of an impression to them and therefore make that the most memorable part to them.  That is not to say that their perspective is skewed or even incorrect.  Many times I have commented on perspective and reality...each person's perception is their reality, more specifically.  If ten people see a robbery, not one pair will have seen the same thing...Let's say Person A is an English teacher and the robber uses poor grammar...that teacher might have seen what he was wearing, but the fact that he had horrible grammar was most relateable to Person A and therefore Person A might only remember the grammar.  Person B might work in retail somewhere and see mismatched clothing and think "how could they leave the house like that?"  The same principal can pertain to how people react to situations rather than events.  Humans tend to look to their past for cues on how to react to situations and events.  We take learned biases, personal experience, shared experiences, and relayed reactions all into consideration before reacting.  We cannot form a frame of reference for something we have not experienced either directly or indirectly.  I personally have never been to the moon, but from relayed experiences I can assume that it is cold, airless, and very low gravity.  I have been to the desert and know that it gets really cold at night despite the extreme hot temperatures during the day.  These are all examples of my perspective.  They are real to me because I give them weight.  I believe that alien cultures could exist.  Does that mean that ET exists?  Not at all.  It merely means that according to my learned behaviors, relayed experiences, personal experiences, and maybe educational learning, that it would be unlikely that we would be the only beings in the universe.  Therefore, my reality says that existence of humanity in the universe cannot possibly be singular and that similarly intelligence is not unique to us.

I know I delved into a bit of rhetorical thinking, but it does prove the point.  As you are reading this, you are comparing my viewpoint with your learned behaviors, relayed experiences, personal experiences, and maybe educational learning to see whether we feel the same way about the material. 

I am a critical thinker.  You can tell me something all day long and truly believe it, but until I can validate the conjecture for myself through study, relayed experiences or personal experiences, I will treat the material as suspect.  That does not mean that the material is any less valid to you...just that in order for me to believe it, I need a bit of research and examination to draw a conclusion.

This is my perception of reality.