If you are serious about our situation…

If you are serious about our situation, you must consider the need for and possibility of a perceptual paradigm shift.

We have many ways to discuss this scientifically and rationally: hemispheric neglect syndrome, dysmetria of thought, dysconnection hypothesis, evolutionary mismatch, kinesthetic dystonia, postural collapse syndrome, exteroceptive bias…

We are all seeing things a little off center and that adds up to big problems collectively.

We can imagine we are suffering from a form of collective hallucination. We are not hallucinating in the sense that we are seeing things that are not there, such as 6 foot tall rabbits. We are hallucinating in the sense that what we believe to be logical and true about culture, society, politics, the media, and even our own bodies as well as science itself, is mistaken and the cumulative effects over time are dangerous and harmful.

This is entirely possible if we consider the power of culture and language and admit that Some of our foundational beliefs, including some foundational assumptions of science, are mistaken. The result is as powerful and dangerous as the technologies and institutions we create with those mistaken beliefs and assumptions.

My work has been to describe these illusions at the level of our own body and self image, with anatomical specificity. It is a great way to uncover the truth behind the hallucinations we hold when it happens inside one’s own physical self. There is clear and tangible self evidence. It literally makes sense.

One of the ways that I explained this is the shoulder. Shoulder pain is one of the most common muscular skeletal complaints. There is usually no clear cause other than bad body mechanics, sedentarism, and the slouch. It is considered a “lifestyle disease.”

We can analyze the effects of the chronic malpositioning and misuse of this joint as an impingement syndrome but have a hard time explaining how to change those behaviors. The problem is a belief in the shoulder itself. What we call the shoulder is a part of the body that only exists in terms of surface anatomy. It is itself not a viable structure that we can move. The shoulder joint is also a very superficial structure and is better understood as a part of the much larger scapula and it’s relationship with the back of the ribs, forming the armpit. It is much easier to believe in the shoulder rather than to find presence and awareness in the armpit, however this is the only real solution to the problem. We confuse the body’s motor control programming When we confuse the shoulder as the focus of our attention.

Mistaken beliefs about our own body and self image profoundly shape our behavior and relationship with the world around us. If there is a fundamental perceptual bias that is affecting us collectively then we would expect it to extend not only two are police about science but our beliefs about our own body and how it functions.

By re-orienting at this deep inner level of bodily self image we can make fundamental changes in the way we perceive and engage with the world around us.