All these elements are interconnected. The mind is about understanding and meaning, in addition to perception, which is another critical activity. Perception and understanding are different, but they interconnect as perception triggers thoughts and understanding, and vice versa. Understanding and meaning also cause perceptions in the form of feelings and impressions of us.
Thinking and Understanding
Thinking and understanding are inherent primary mental activities and products of the mind, as they are its core nature. We think about things, we develop understanding, and we associate meanings. This mental interpretation is how we live; it is as natural to us as water is to fish, so much so that we don’t even recognize it.
Understanding and Perspective
Understanding, as a mental activity, is always perspectival. The mind creates perspectives along with thoughts. Without mind there are no perspectives. If there are two realities close to each other, like a pond and a rock on its shore, then without an intelligent mind, there is no perspective—just pure reality. However, with the presence of the mind, several perspectives can emerge, depending on the position and what the mind perceives. If the rock had a mind, it might think that during windy times, the pond makes it wet. From the pond’s perspective, there is a barrier called the rock. If there were people, they might think the rock is a perfect spot to jump into the pond on hot summer days or that it creates a scene worth photographing, especially with birds coming to drink from the water. All of these are distinct perspectives created by minds.
Different minds and mental positions define different perspectives and meanings. Some may be happy about the pond but not about the rock, while others could be happy about both or neither of them. Without minds, all these meanings and perspectives would be just missing, and pure, perspectiveless reality would remain.
Perspectives Defined by Roles
Perspectives are defined by the mind based on how it perceives reality and its own position. A CEO, an investor, an employee, or a customer looks at the same company differently because they have different mental positions. A customer cannot think about the company primarily as a CEO does, but as a customer. Our reality is defined by our role in a situation. The role defines our mental position. We might be a CEO of a different company, but if we are a customer in a shop, we act as a customer and automatically have the perspective of a customer. Reality, and especially our position and role in it, defines our perspective and primary understanding. This happens automatically; we cannot simply switch it by decision. Our perspective is derived from how we genuinely perceive reality.
Being in a Perspective vs. Understanding One
If I am a CEO at another company, I might easily imagine myself in the shoes of the CEO of the shop where I am a customer, but my inherent primary perspective will remain that of a customer because that is my real role in that situation. There is a difference between being in a perspective and understanding alternative perspectives.
A CEO can be an employer and an employee at the same time, so perspectives can overlap in many ways. However, in a given situation, in relation to a colleague, the CEO is primarily an employer defined by the role. Perspectives are relative in a given situation. Someone can be a CEO, an employee, a friend, a parent, a spouse, a customer, etc., without becoming confused or split in personality. We naturally and instintively switch roles and perspectives dynamically based on the given situation.
Learning by Connections
We learn new things by using and connecting existing knowledge. Knowledge connects to neighboring knowledge. If we cannot connect new information to existing knowledge, we lose it. Sometimes we just can’t understand others with significantly more knowledge in a topic because we lack the knowledge and understanding between us. However, if someone knows more than us, but we are not that far behind in knowledge and understanding, they can teach us effectively because we can follow their teaching and reach a higher knowledge level through connections in understanding.
Mental Metaphors
Metaphors, as mental images, also work on the principle of connection and thus deliver meaning. Metaphor, likeness, and analogy all work similarly as they take something you already know and, by connecting it, create new meaning, understanding, or knowledge. We associate feelings and meaning with the already known phenomenon and with the metaphore we transfer it to the new one, inheriting all the relevant meaning instantly without logically analyzing it.
Earth as a Metaphor
For example, we can look at the Earth as our home, the home of our children, a tiny planet in the vast universe, or, from a personal point of view, an eternal space to explore for which a lifetime isn’t enough. All these perspectives bear inherent meanings. If we look at the Earth as the home of our children, we associate value, scarcity, fragility, responsibility, love and global thinking with it. If we think of it as a vast opportunity to explore new places, it is a personal viewpoint. We associate opportunity, happiness, adventure, excitement, beauty, our active lifetime, financial opportunity, etc., with it.
We look at the same thing—the Earth—but from different mental perspectives using specific metaphores, triggering different kinds of meanings and thoughts. Both perspectiveare reality, and the different mental situations define which role we put ourselves into a responsible global citizen and a parent or someone who wants to live fully and happily. Both perspectives can be valid and do not necessarily rule each other out; they can coexist. We can switch between them and many others as well.
Metaphors and Perspectives
With these perspectives also come mental metaphors like the Earth as the home of our children or the Earth as exotic, beautiful mountains, and seashores. It does not matter whether you can give a concise verbal expression of it or just imagine it in your mind; the mental connection and thus the mental metaphor is created.
So, a metaphor is closely connected to perspectives and meanings; they work together as part of the same mental process. Metaphors and perspectives can be explicitly articulated but also intuitively and implicitly perceived and felt. Either way, they are full of inherent meanings. A single metaphor brings a bunch of inherent presuppositions, opinions, feelings, concerns, and understandings with it, and they take effect even without consciously processing them.
We have mind so we have perspectives and use mental metaphores anyway however we can also consciously use metaphores and perspectives to shape our way of thinking and thus our future.