Reality via THEE
Domains Select Reality
Taxonomic analysis has revealed that each of the primal needs driving functioning within each of the 5 lower Domains has its own perspective on reality. That perspective then leads to differences on how knowledge about that reality is obtained.
These findings are now briefly summarized here together with the Domain's primal needs and psychosocial pressures.
The needs achievement in the world as it is, which demands maximum certainty and is driven by a performance pressure. So knowing reality becomes a practical matter.
- Knowing is epitomized by describing actual events .
- Predictions are common but worth little.
- Actors here are naturally pragmatic.
The is the only domain that specifically revolves around the need for knowledge. While being driven by a certainty pressure, it regards knowing reality as an aspiration. All knowledge is provisional, and reality is intrinsically unknowable.
- Knowing is presented as generalizations based on systematic research.
- Predictions are used to test knowledge.
- Inquirers here are naturally sceptical.
The needs depictions of situations—past, present, future—which is a form of knowing. But such representations of reality are driven by an acceptability pressure. So knowledge varies according to the differing perspectives of those involved—whom we call “players” because they seek to spin reality and win.
- Knowing is captured in plausible narratives.
- Predictions are used to further the desired change.
- Players here are naturally self-interested.
The views reality as a private matter, with knowing driven by well-being pressures and the need for individuality. Knowledge therefore emerges as idiosyncratic for each person.
- Knowing is revealed in spontaneous confessions.
- Predictions are based in self-awareness.
- Persons here operate naturally subjectively.
The meets the primal need for association and a pressure for understanding so that everyone in the relevant group can share a reality i.e. reality is embedded in the Domain's constitution. We will explore this further in the next section. For now the key point is that knowing a particular reality can determine membership of a group.
- Knowing is a matter for group members.
- Predictions are based in simple extrapolation from the present.
- Members here are naturally conformist.
The is driven by survival pressure and it draws on the to select the required approach to knowledge of reality by using the two highest domains, and These demand a strategic selection of realities and attitudes to knowing from the domains listed above with the aim of producing outcomes that are: either personally/socially desired and so under a pressure for autonomy, or impersonally requisite and under a selflessness pressure.
Communication Creates Reality
Work Forces Us to Engage with Reality
As noted above, reality has a particular link to because the primal need in this Domain is association and the primal means for associating is sharing reality. To share experiences of reality entails communicating.
Associating necessarily requires work if the resultant association is to be maintained. Work provides us with the key insight because it is about changing reality despite our inability to know reality genuinely and fully. Work, especially if it involves others, naturally requires constructing a good-enough account of reality that can be shared and talked about prior to and during action. That account of reality is taken to be “the reality”.
Language creates reality that can be shared and the differing, as diagrammed and reviewed below, generate different realities.
Communication Methods in Brief
While differences in using language may not matter too much in everyday interactions, they are critical for being accountable for the performance of work and for the arrangements used to control work in groups.
Review «Handling Reality» for a detailed account of how each of the creates its own distinct flavour of reality; and see below for an ultra-brief summary.
. Reality is as you can directly demonstrate it by immediate actions. Words align with tangible things and operations on those things, and ambiguity is not allowed. Comprehension requires concentration and involves knowing exactly what to do, or using signals to instruct action.
. Reality is taken to be obvious and more or less as we assume and expect it to be. Words, meanings and actuality blend, and the resulting ambiguity is mostly ignored. Comprehension requires participation in the situation and involves knowing your own circle of acquaintances embedded in that situation.
. Reality is captured in a social consensus on schemas that are based on studies seeking to remove subjectivity and sources of error. Comprehension requires training and involves knowing the jargon. Ambiguity is removed by defining terms.
. Reality is what everyone takes for granted it is and so everyone feels they understand what is said without checking or analysing further. Comprehension flows from socialization. Ambiguity is either used rhetorically or screened out.
. Reality exists as it is imaginatively and emotionally experienced and its comprehension is a function of inner sensitivity, life experiences and broad education. Knowing takes on the quality of awareness reaching potentially to penetrating wisdom. Ambiguity is intrinsic and natural.
. Reality must be observed, formulated and ordered, and this depends on naming based on direct reference to an essence, often using formulae. Knowing involves correct discriminations. Ambiguity is either resolved or seen to be inherent in the phenomenon and needing due formulation.
. Reality as perceived in everyday life is an illusion that can be penetrated or transcended to reach an Absolute Reality. Image, often fantastical or dream-like, predominates and words act as incantations. Knowing involves letting go. Ambiguity is inherent and often useful in reaching deeper truths.
When this is subject to a Q-expansion, its methods reveal arenas for associating. Any association (i.e. group) in these arenas requires work (i.e. alteration of reality) to sustain the association.
- Review different realities in the .
Originally posted: 15-Jul-2022. Last updated: 20-Mar-2023.