SUMMARY

 SUMMARY

 What Do We Need to Learn?

In order to understand how the other person thinks, feels, and reacts, we have to gather information from different areas, as well as exploring how the brain works. Here is some of the information we should gather:

• What information the senses present to the brain.
• On what database the brain relies to build the reality images. This database includes patterns (stereotypes) engraved in the brain, the person's life experiences, and what he learned in the past.
• How he processes his picture of reality to reach decisions. How he reacts after reaching a decision. The reaction is influenced by his character, and the extent of his involvement in his cultural group. All this should be investigated.
• To which cultural group he is most committed, and how this culture influences the picture of reality in his brain.

These are very challenging tasks. The best we can hope for is to learn all we can, and apply our estimations to what is going on in the other person's mind.

We have to keep in mind that there are always contradictory trends influencing a person's brain. The trick is to estimate which trends are dominant in the mind of the person we are analyzing.

These include freedom versus willingness to accept authority, fear versus courage, and so on.

All this information can help us, for example, to estimate the other person's reaction to specific events.

Below are several categories that must be explored if we are to understand the other person:

• How the other person perceives reality. In earlier sections we reviewed the complexity involved in structuring a picture of reality.
• The rules of the other person's cultural group.
• The other person’s relevant personal knowledge. This may not necessarily be true knowledge but, rather, what the other knows concerning the relevant issue.
• The threshold’s level of reaction. If it exceeds his high level, then a person will react. A person will ignore anything that does not reach his individual lower threshold.
• The intensity of the reaction to any given situation provided that it is greater than the threshold.
• It is also important to examine the other person's sensitivity to a specific situation, and not only the power of reaction that exceeds his threshold, the latter being defined as a change in the force of reaction relative to the change in the force of the situation.

If we accept the thesis that a person is actually an organic machine, controlled by a kind of a computer we call the brain, the other person can be understood. All we have to do is gather enough relevant data and knowledge. This is in contrast to the approach that sees the human behavior controlled by a mysterious soul, or some equally mysterious mental consciousness. In that other approach, it is an unsolved enigma.

A significant part of the meaning of "understanding the other" is to assess how the other person would react to the event.

In this book, I introduced another thesis called the 'human fractal'. It states that we are part of a greater being, which means that we cannot fully understand a man by analyzing him as an individual. We have to analyze his behavior as part of a larger cultural community within which he operates.

Here are several formulas to demonstrate scientifically how we can estimate the other person’s reaction to an event.

Of course, this is no easy task. It is difficult to estimate the parameters in these formulas, and the formulas do not include all elements that affect people’s decisions. These formulas are, therefore, incomplete and inaccurate.

I assume that when, in the future, there is progress in finding more accurate assessment tools, we will have a more accurate assessment of understanding how other people will react, or at least a better understanding of how most people belonging to a particular cultural group are likely to respond.

Let us define:

• Events = E
• senses = s

Es is the part of an event received through the senses. It is not exactly the whole real event because of:

1. Our sensory limitations (limitations = l).

2. We see only the parts of reality to which our brain is directing the senses in order to get as much important information as we can in a short time. - Direction = d.

Individual = I indicates a personal part of the brain. I can have a value between 0 and 1, depending on the human tendency to rely on ourselves.

Community = c indicates the part of the community in the brain. c can have a value between 0 and 1 depending on the human tendency to rely on community culture.

The values of both should amount to one. i + c = 1

Feelings = F, Indicates the emotional filter and should have a value between 0 and 1.

The individual image a person has of an event is:

Ei = Fi * Es

The perceived community aspect part of the event is:

Ec = Fc * Es

And the total event perceived in a person's mind is:

E = i * Ei + c *Ec

In the next step, the event is compared to an existing pattern template in the human brain, to determine which reaction can be issued in time.

Patterns = p

If a partial match is found, the decision of that pattern is issued - E = Ep.

This process does not stop, and continually matching is performed while an incoming stream of information flows from the senses. If a better match is found with another pattern, the decision is exchanged for a new one.

The brain pulls the template engraved matching Ep event from his memory, as long as there is no information that contradicts it.

If the brain cannot find a suitable template, it is forced to fit the information to bits of different templates available. In this case, the decision time is longer.

In the next stage, the brain must decide on the proper response that follows the decision.

Let us define:

• Event intensity = Er
• Low response threshold = rl
• High response threshold = rh

To decide on the proper response, the brain compares the intensity of the event to the thresholds. These thresholds are determined by the cultural values of the person's community, the personal nature of this person, and his mood at that time.

If the intensity of the event is lower than the low threshold - Er <Erl, then there will be no response as the person is indifferent to the event.

If the intensity of the event is higher than the high threshold - Er> Erh, then the brain sends the relevant commands to act.

If the intensity of the event lies between these two thresholds - Er2> Er> Er1, the person will react emotionally, but will not act upon it.

Then, according to the nature of the event and the required speed of response, the responses are directed to various areas of the brain for further treatment.

These different areas activate muscles by nerves and appropriate commands or stimulate one’s hormonal glands to regulate body function and display emotions.

In the case of immediate danger, there are some reflexive responses made by the nerves even before the brain receives the information, circumventing the described process, but in most cases, decisions are made by the brain.

We are aware of some of the decisions, but not aware of others.

When the brain finds a perfect match between the event and a well-defined pattern as in the case of driving home, or the act of walking, the brain activates the appropriate muscles automatically without alerting our consciousness. In other cases, especially when long-term planning is required, as in evaluating the next move in a chess game, the brain uses logic and imagination mechanisms and uses the help of graphics to compare possible operating routes to existing patterns for a quick decision. In these cases we are consciously alert. This is when we feel emotion, and become aware of the display of our senses.

In all cases, the brain builds these new pattern templates or modifies existing pattern templates, as a consequence of the decision that it made.

Can We Really Understand the Other?

The thesis of this book is that humans are just sophisticated machines with an organic computer we call a brain. There is no soul, or any other such incomprehensible mental entity whose actions cannot be anticipated. Therefore we can estimate the thoughts, feelings, and reactions, if we can collect sufficient data. Machines are not mysterious beings and can be understood.

It was also discussed in previous sections (see the 'human fractals'), how communities are entities with similar features; therefore they also function according to rules which can be understood.

If these theses are accepted, then all we have to know is what data are fed into these entities, and how they process these data in order to achieve a response.

In conclusion; if the other person is a machine then the answer to the above question is yes, we can understand the other person, but it is not easy.

It is not easy because we see the real physical world through distorting filters:

• We judge the world through rosy glasses that spare us unpleasantness but, at the same time, distort reality.
• We are all wrapped in our cultural garments that are woven of traditions, customs, conservative approaches, and routine. The purpose of these garments is to reinforce similarities; and they blur the differences among all members of the group, thus uniting our cultural position. These garments around us and around other persons, create a smooth shield, enabling us to reduce friction with others in our cultural group but, at the same time, prevent us from seeing the true nature of other persons.
• Our group is surrounded by a cultural wall that helps to consolidate our group, and blocks the influence of other cultures. But, at the same time, it prevents us from seeing the real nature of persons residing within the walls of a different culture.
• The foreign person within the walls of another culture is also wrapped in garments of his own that hide him from our view.

This is why many of us cannot understand the other person. We are convinced that the other person reflects our own image, and will react as we do, believing in our values. This leaves us sometimes standing, scratching our heads in disbelief, when the other person reacts differently from the way in which we would react to the same situation.

Because of all these obstacles, we have to remove our cultural garments, and look beyond the walls of the culture surrounding us. Then we have to look for the other person hiding beyond the wall of his own culture, wrapped in his own protective garments.

Only an independent person can remove all these veils, and understand the other. Regretfully, free thinkers are rare. They are often shunned in their community because the group demands solidarity and uniformity.

In this book, I have tried to open a window, through which we can peep into the other person’s soul, and see how he feels and thinks, enabling you, dear reader, to estimate his reaction to a given event.

But can you really remove all these walls and masks, to see clearly the other person’s behavior?

We need to keep in mind that our feelings of distaste toward “other persons that are not us”, are no more than chemical reactions that our brain implants in order to enhance the solidarity of our group and to separate our group from that of the other person.

Let us ignore them for a moment, and remember that the other has similar feelings toward us as well.

If you can do this, perhaps you will understand the other person to some degree. But even if you cannot do it, I hope that the insights you have gained from this book will help you understand yourself better, at the very least.

And that, too, is a worthwhile achievement.

The End