When approaching a problem, one would or tends to, collect together what is and what is not, what can be done and what can’t, and what would happen given or not the data gathered that represents the problem at hand. The truth is that anything can happen and that plans may fail however far the thought process went, to what length and breadth it had originally spread out to.
But this poses a problem of functionality, as one needs to act and not be frozen in indecision. If one stops from acting in the hope that thinking enough for an action then one risks to not advance. One could get stuck in an ever-looming sense of inflated scope of thought, and in this way, one closes themselves in thought and away from the facts of the world that would have otherwise assisted them to physical action.
This stalemate is broken through the introduction of assumptions and probabilities, where one needs to choose to rely on some indeterminate aspects as being determinate and thus reach a solution. This solution is relative to this set of facts and understandings, a system which one could say is closed, that is, one which no longer needs further revisions or new assumptions such that an action is done while being faithful to these ideas that form the conclusion.
These closed systems are given different names in different circumstances. An English comprehension is an example of a closed system where the world is given by the text excerpt, where the text is in itself a small reality, a play of words that describes a scenario. On a wider scale, a topic of science is another example where the system of ideas is the subject being used to interpret the subject being studied by the science. A cinema film or a story is also another example, where we understand and form the world by what we watch and see. Together they are presented to ourselves as perspectives, where an individual sees the world as it is, their mind providing a set of ideas to interpret their reality so that they can act on it.
Thus the closed system can be seen as having a foundation in the facts and measurements, which would then be coupled by our mental understanding, emotional reactions, physical sensations. These would merge and weave on one another as the system races to form an object out of the unknown, making the unknown knowable, based on what we understood to be so given the history of ourselves with the world. It is similar to having a comprehension being given for examination purposes, whereby one would add further to it one’s own papers with sentences and texts, extending the original text with one’s own information. When asked about this comprehension as is so done in the exams, the answers could well be swayed in complexity or difference when the answer is compared to that of another.
One can therefore realise how there is more than one answer to the given problem due to these proverbial papers being different when different people approach the examination of life. What would overall help is seeing the world as it is, and how it is for different people, and how in the end react or feel devalued or are stunned with fear, because they have deciphered reality as being one thing and not the other deciphered by someone else. This means of seeing how others and their reactions would help one to sympathise with someone else’s reaction, to deeply understand how in their world they are acting at the best of the circumstances. This sense of opportunity for a human being to achieve a deeper understanding of the world also comes with being compassionate to the limitations of another who would do the best they could have done given the circumstances, their understanding and will to act accordingly, and the necessity to do, to act, in one way or another, as the world calls one to perform in this way.
What one would call from us is an act of humility, an acceptance of the facts for oneself that one can indeed have made the wrong assumptions, but also one needs to be steadfast and not be gusted away by ulterior opinions which may have no say in one’s understanding. If such a step of understanding is not possible by someone, if the understanding of a topic is not possible or it is causing some form of reaction that would not allow the conversation to continue reasonably, then the observer proposing the perspective is to stop imposing the conversation on the other. One could indeed be causing a rift in the other which, in a tangible sense, can well be a figurative hell of ideas, and one ought not put another under such form of event akin to a mental torture.
One’s world can be considered as a closed system, a perception, a lifelong history of lessons, one’s best bet in the race of survival and it is not an interpretation that is faithful to the absolute facts and the firmest of reality. One could save oneself the time in dialogue with others if one has never learnt to question and challenge one’s own understanding of reality with the guidance of a trusted and knowledgeable other. At times it is best to understand how we are all victims of our own limitations but also champions in waiting for one another, because in this world we are in it together, and there is no benefit to society at large in doing things harder to one another. Only where reason reigns can one make way for empathy to ensue, for only when we are open for understanding can we see our differences and not see them as what separates us but rather as what joins us together in this mystery we call life.
