Perception is Reality... Sort Of
The old saying has sticking power. It resonates. It feels true. It's hard to argue with.
I make a habit -read obsession- of finding the common themes and intersections of different readings. I was in a leadership class for two days at work this week. The discussion was excellent. Someone used the phrase "perception is reality." I immediately began reconciling this with my main conclusion of the ebook Getting Real - that running code is real, everything else is not. I had a problem. If only running code was real, what about perception? Is the old saying wrong?
A better question: does the word "real" in my conclusion mean the same thing as "reality" in the old saying? Sort of.
Perception is reality.
Perception is not shared reality.
Shared reality is what counts.
Getting Real attempts to reduce the variance of unshared realities by preferring running code over metadata about running code.
I make a habit -read obsession- of finding the common themes and intersections of different readings. I was in a leadership class for two days at work this week. The discussion was excellent. Someone used the phrase "perception is reality." I immediately began reconciling this with my main conclusion of the ebook Getting Real - that running code is real, everything else is not. I had a problem. If only running code was real, what about perception? Is the old saying wrong?
A better question: does the word "real" in my conclusion mean the same thing as "reality" in the old saying? Sort of.
Perception is reality.
Perception is not shared reality.
Shared reality is what counts.
Getting Real attempts to reduce the variance of unshared realities by preferring running code over metadata about running code.
posted by mattflo at
2:44 PM
2 Comments:
I am mystified by how you chose to connect shared reality to metadata. Please elaborate for me.
In this case I am using metadata to refer to any documentation, requirements or otherwise, describing the plan and/or design of a software system. Such metadata is generally much more ambiguous than the final running system (or even just a subset thereof). That is, different people interpret and envision the final system differently. Ambiguity yields unshared reality. My usage of the word "metadata" may itself be ambiguous. I chose it because Yegge's post about metadata touched on similar themes.
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