1. REALITY CHECK DISCOVERING OUR REALITY 2. WE CRITICALLY THINK ABOUT OUR PERSONAL REALITIES, NOT WHAT IS REALLY THERE. To become better thinkers we need to understand how we create our own realities. Why are our realities different than the realities of the people around us? Why is it we vote one way while our neighbors vote another? 3. PERCEPTION If we understand the perception process and our individual bias's and the influence of stasis, we can learn to be a better critical thinker. Perception is defined as the way you think about or understand someone or something; the ability to understand or notice something easily; the way that you notice or understand something using one of your senses Stasis is defined as a state or condition in which things do not change, move, or progress; a comfort zone 4. OVERVIEW OF PERCEPTION 5. KEY POINTS IN THE PERCEPTION PROCESS Reality and Environment are different. Here are four terms to understand the difference. Cognitions: Are the smallest units of awareness. Also known as "stimulli." These are picked up by our five senses. They are what stimulates our eyes, ears, nose, touch and taste. Environment: What is really around us. The source of cognitions. When you listen to your ipod. The ipod is your environment. Your cognitions come from your ipod. You are touching the volume button, viewing the screen and listening to sounds coming from it. Reality: Your mental interpretation of your environment. Based on cognitions we receive and interpret, we create a picture in our mind of the environment. If your grooving to the music your reality of your ipod is positive. If your having problems it and your having trouble playing what you want to hear, then the reality of your ipod is negative. Perception: Is the process we experience that creates a reality from an environment. Its how we take the cognitions of an environment and develop an interpretation in our head called a reality. Perception isnt the final product, that is the reality. Perception was the process we used to create that reality. 6. THERE ARE NO CLONES HERE No two people have identical realities. We are all unique and process our environment differently than anyone else. So we all have a slightly different interpretation of the environment. Have you ever looked at your friend's car and thought, "That car is ugly?" Both of you are looking at the same environment. But your friend sees that car like its a Ferrari, while you see the car and wonder "What is wrong with my friend?" 7. ILLUSION Reality is not real, it is an illusion. The realities we create are not real, the environment is real. The realities we create are just figments of our imagination based on the cognitions of our environment. Cognitions/stimuli = Environment = Realities = Perception 8. WHAT WE ARGUE We argue realities, not environments. We don't argue what is actually there in our environment, instead we argue the individual pictures we have created in our heads about that environment. We argue what and how we see perceive things. 9. PERCEPTION PROCESS There are three stages to the perception process. Select: We select the and filter the cognitions we use. Sort: We sort the ones weve chosen to build our experience. Interpret: We then interpret the information to use it. 10. JUST FOR FUN WHAT THE ILLUSION?