Mudita Journal

Michael Crichton on Verifying One’s Own Perceptions

September 2, 2006 · Filed under: Intellectual, Reviews
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I’m mid-way through reading Michael Crichton’s excellent novel State of Fear. Intrigued by the science in the book, I flipped to the end to check out its rather extensive annotated bibliography.

There I found this statement, part of his criticism of Andy Fisher’s Radial Ecopsychology: Psychology in the Service of Life. It stood out to me as a particularly profound observation on Crichton’s part:

In my opinion, the greatest problem for all observers of the world is to determine whether their perceptions are genuine and verifiable or whether they are merely the projections of inner feelings.

I think Crichton’s right; this may be one of the biggest challenges facing humanity.

We all have the ability to think rationally — and to integrate our knowledge and experiences into an astonishingly large and valuable framework of conceptual understandings.

But all it takes is a few misguided perceptions — swaps of projected feelings for empirical truth — and the framework can come crashing down around our ears. (In State of Fear, Crichton makes a compelling case that a series of such mistakes underlies the current frenzy over global warming.)

From where I stand, this is not an argument for utter subjectivism or entrenched skepticism, but rather for the need for true emotional intelligence and honesty about our own mental processes.

In my experience, sometimes the most “rational” (by their reckoning) among us are rather weak in the area of emotional intelligence, leaving them vulnerable to just this kind of error.

The less we know about your own emotions, the less we know whether we are making the kind of error that Crichton describes above. …And, the less skilled we are at untangling the (virtually inevitable) emotional projections we make as we go about our day.

In my own life, I find that meditation helps considerably with this task. Even with a regular meditation practice, however, I find it a full-time project, discerning between projections and reality. Sometimes I cannot imagine how anyone does it without meditation.

UPDATE: For more on related topics, see my July post on Crichton’s criticisms of environmentalism as a religion. He begins: “I have been asked to talk about what I consider the most important challenge facing mankind, and I have a fundamental answer. The greatest challenge facing mankind is the challenge of distinguishing reality from fantasy, truth from propaganda. Perceiving the truth has always been a challenge to mankind, but in the information age (or as I think of it, the disinformation age) it takes on a special urgency and importance….” Keep reading.

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