I have developed the following little multiple-choice test to determine one’s basic outlook on the world. It asks you to indicate your degree of agreement / disagreement with 26 statements regarding your beliefs, attitudes, and feelings. At the end a score is calculated and returned along with an explanation of its meaning. Also included is a percentile ranking indicating where your score falls relative to others who have taken the test. Since I just posted the test last night, I only have three responses so far. I need more data points, so I would like to invite others here to try it out. It won’t be a scientific sample, of course, but it will give me a rough idea of the range of scores. (The responses are submitted anonymously, and I collect them in a database.) Anyway, almost everybody enjoys taking tests like this one. Thanks in advance!
Depending on the pattern of responses, as well as any feedback I get on this thread or from PMs, I may decide to modify or reword some of the questions. Obviously, one of the main goals of the test is to stimulate some thinking or discussion regarding the particular statements that are posed therein.
I also think that this test gives rise to several other interesting questions. For example:
Is it better to have a POE or a POC orientation? What does “better” mean in this context? Would a POE-oriented person tend to understand “better” differently than a POC-oriented person? Can one intentionally change one’s POE/POC orientation over time? Does POE/POC orientation correlate with one’s age? (It has already been suggested to me that responses to some of the questions might be age-dependent.) Is societal change driven more by POE-oriented or POC-oriented people? Should one communicate with a POC-oriented person differently than a POE-oriented person? Which orientation would one expect to see in a successful politician? In a successful statesman? Would you rather have a POE-oriented person or a POC-oriented person as an employee?
As with most of these types of tests, and pretty much all decisions for me, I can come up with several feasible answers for myself depending on how I interpret the question. For example.
“Reality” is just subjective.
For me this depends on how you define “Reality”. Reality as the seen by the universe or reality as seen by the individual. A rock is a rock and will always be a rock. But if a person looks at a rock and sees a horse, then for them their reality is that the rock is a horse.
So in the sense of reality from the point of view of the universe, no it is not subjective. Something along the lines of a “universal truth”. But from the view of the individual then it’s without doubt subjective.
16. Muslims, Christians, and atheists all live in a common reality.
Similar approach here. Yes they all live in a common “universal” reality. A rock is a rock. However their individual realities are very different.
21. Reality is basically just a matter of perception.
Same thing here.
Maybe that is the point of the test is to find out which way you lean, but for me I could easily answer in either extreme which I’m sure would skew the results. I don’t believe I’m “Neutral/unsure” as I’m very sure that it’s either one way or the other.
“For me this depends on how you define ‘Reality.’”
I was aware that some people might have trouble settling on a particular definition, and I deliberately left that ambiguity in, to allow the test-taker to settle on the meaning of the word that he/she found to be most natural. IMO what one thinks the word “reality” means is an excellent indicator of how one actually views the world.
If you’re wondering what the word might mean to me personally, I’m satisfied with Merriam-Webster’s definition: “the totality of real things and events,” where “real” means “not artificial, fraudulent, or illusory … having objective independent existence.” Obviously, that definition would not be satisfactory to a person who didn’t believe that anything has an objective independent existence, or that all our views of things are illusory.
Maybe I have a split personality or something because both positions, Merriam-Webster and that of a person that believes all of our views are illusory applies to me
I believe without doubt there is a “Reality” (The elephant), but also believe that without doubt our personal “Reality” is formed by our view of the elephant. We can only “know” what we we can perceive and our reality is based on that and we can never perceive all things so our view is always somewhat illusory.
What you win is the recognition that you had to be jesting when you posted “yeah but see jack is from texas and it gives him automatic credibility… so coming from him it sounded believable…”
Your statements seem to indicate a mixture of POE and POC elements, but leaning toward the latter, and I expect that will probably be reflected in your test responses and score. I would surmise that your outlook is mostly POC: Insofar as you regard your “personal ‘reality’” as something other than the elephant (i. e., you subscribe to the Kantian phenomena/noumena dichotomy), the elephant itself cannot be the main focus of your awareness. OTOH, you are at least aware that the elephant is out there somewhere, which indicates some remnant of a POE orientation.
I actually ended up the opposite, if I’m understanding the test score correctly. I had an 82 which leans toward POE.
Of course I answered most of the questions with that mentality in mind. Now if I retook the test holding my other “Split personality” in mind I would score lower.
I doubt I would ever score extremely high or low due to the nature of some of the other questions which I found to be “Non absolute”. For instance.
It’s generally better to tell the unvarnished truth, even though it might hurt people’s feelings.
Much of life is created from “Relationships” and presentation is everything. You can get your point across in almost every case without hurting one’s feelings and in many cases were it would hurt ones feelings the truth is not necessarily all that important by comparison. So I neither strongly agree or disagree, I’m grey.
“But if a person looks at a rock and sees a horse, then for them their reality is that the rock is a horse.”
“However their individual realities are very different.”
“Reality is basically just a matter of perception.”
If a person does any of this they are just ‘wishing’ and are just wrong. The word ‘reality’ has a meaning. There may be lots of different ‘perceptions’ of any event - and they may all be wrong - but there is only one reality.
Whenever one engages in these type of discussions one has to be incredibly careful and precise with words.
Is this just not a back door definition of “perception?” The downfall of all of these types of discussions amoung non professionals is the meaning of words.
Is this just not a back door definition of "perception?"
Yes.
The downfall of all of these types of discussions amoung non professionals is the meaning of words.
Not that I disagree, but I often times find it helpful to use multiple approaches to the definition of a word(s) in a text discussion to clarify that we are all on the same page. Being most of us are discussing something here that does not fall into the realm of our profession it only makes sense that we are not likely using that professions professional verbiage. So it only makes sense we take efforts to clarify what we mean by the usage of a certain word(s).
If a person does any of this they are just ‘wishing’ and are just wrong.
How does one “Wish” if they are unaware of the reality. Going back to the elephant and the blind men how does the blind man “Wish” his perception to be different?
but there is only one reality.
I’m not disagreeing with this but for the individual there are two realities. That which is and that which is perceived. One can not live ones life based on that which is without filtering it thru that which is perceived, therefore that individuals reality is what they perceive.
Again agreed their perception of the “True” reality may indeed be incorrect, but how does any of us know that because we are all functioning on perception of that reality?
You can not prove to me that rock is a rock without engaging me with information you received thru your perception, which may also be incorrect.
*"Is this just not a back door definition of ‘perception’? *
** Yes."
I also concur with Azby on that. I would add that people typically use the word “reality” almost as an opposite to “perception”: that is, they draw contrasts between what is “real” and what is only “perceived.” It seems needlessly confusing to use “reality” as a synonym for “perception” when most people would construe it as the opposite.
“I often times find it helpful to use multiple approaches to the definition of a word(s) in a text discussion to clarify that we are all on the same page.”
I agree, but I’d still restrict myself to definitions consistent with widespread use. Furthermore, what other word would one use for “reality”? Philosophers sometimes use the word “existence,” but that usage is likely to sound peculiar to lay ears. (We are used to hearing about “the existence of X,” but unless we are well-read in philosophy we probably aren’t used to thinking of “existence” as meaning “all that exists.”) If reality has any importance–as it will to POE-oriented people–we need some word for it: hence, “reality.” In fact, a fully POE-oriented person will insist on a word for it.
After I collect enough responses, I’ll be able to do some statistical analyses. It will be interesting to see whether or not the responses given to the statements involving “reality” tend to correlate with the other responses.
