Representation: Revealing Why You Never See Reality

You don’t see reality. You see a representation. Mental representation is the imagery of things that are not actually present to the senses. Which is, in fact, the prevailing way of interpreting the world, explaining, and describing the nature of ideas and concepts. Your brain allows you to imagine things that have never happened, are impossible, do not exist, or are otherwise contrary to any sensory modality. Put differently, you do not directly hear, smell, taste, or sense anything. Rather, it is sifted through a filter — the brain — and what you get is a representation of reality.

View it like a three stop journey. First you experience the thing. Your senses absorb it. You see, feel, hear, taste, smell it. Thereafter, it enters your brain and blends with your preferences, values, and expectations for that thing. A white and black, ball-shaped thing with hexagons sewed into it is probably a football. Finally, the representation of the idea, concept, or other mental content enters your mind where you can observe and understand it.

Raw data is never what you’re taking in. A constructed narrative or model that helps you make sense of the constant onslaught of complex information is closer. This is why there’s no such thing as objective thinking. Since raw data in the form of unprocessed facts, measurements, or observations never even reaches your brain. By the time it hits your mind, it’s a representation. Think weather sensors. They can record temperature and humidity objectively. But your perception of a “hot day” literally changes by the day. Your mood, the wind, what you’re wearing, personal tolerance to temperature, biases, heuristics, and prior experiences with the weather all dictate what a “hot day” is to you. Hence when its “hot” to you, it might be “freezing” to somebody else, and vice versa.

The brain operates on narratives. We organize disparate pieces into coherent stories since this helps us understand our experiences. Take a company’s quarterly report. That’s not just a list of numbers. It presents a story of growth, challenges, and what should be done in the future. Obviously, with this nuance comes the problem of representation: since they simplify reality, they may omit critical nuances present in the raw data. Graphs on that report might show declining sales. But they do not capture the underlying causes. And as new data enters our minds or our perspectives change, our representations evolve. What we believe right now can be revised tomorrow.

Real-world examples of representation:

• Media Reports: a news headline presents a simplified version of a complex issue. Economic downturns. The focus is on dramatic figures and anecdotes. While the raw data — economic indicators, scary percentages, employment rates — tell a story, the representation in the media shapes public perception in a way that overemphasizes certain aspects. Hence most news are fake.

• Business Decisions: a company reviews performance metrics. The conclusion is that a particular product is underperforming. The raw data includes various metrics — sales numbers, customer feedback, profit margins. But the way these are represented in dashboards or reports can result in different actions taken to solve the issue. Overemphasizing one metric (e.g. total sales) can drive hasty decisions (e.g. more marketing) while neglecting the root problem (low quality product that no longer meets customer demands).

• Personal Relationships: two friends remember past events differently. One sees an incident as a minor misunderstanding. The other views it as a major betrayal. Their representations of the same event are skewed by emotions, biases, and context. So they’re mad at each other for precisely no reason.

• Public Policy: policymakers analyze crime statistics. They conclude that safety programs need to be developed. The raw data indicates crime rate fluctuations. But how the data is represented influences public opinion. One problem might be severely overstated and wrongly framed as the cause of crime. Nothing gets solved.

How you might use representation as a mental model: (1) never trust yourself — regularly challenge your own representations by asking whether they are based on objective data or subjective biases; (2) filter truth from story — separate raw data from the interpretations built around it; (3) stay flexible — accept that your representations should change as new information emerges, being prepared to adjust outdated views when new insights break your truth; (4) make it clear — when presenting anything, clarify which parts are raw data and which are your interpretations and conclusions; (5) get multiple perspectives — draw from diverse data sources to get a well-rounded representation of the issue.