Part 4 of a longer reflection on self-reliance, inner state, and how we relate to reality.
What I actually live in
If the brain constantly predicts what will happen, it has to rely on something. It cannot guess blindly. It needs a reference. And this reference is what I would call: models of the world.
I don’t live in reality directly
My brain has no direct access to reality. It only receives signals — from the eyes, ears, body, and internal systems.
Based on those signals, it builds internal representations.
Simplified versions of the world, other people, and myself. So in a way, I don’t live in reality itself. I live in a model of it.
A simple example
I have a model of my room. I know where things are. Where the door is. Where the light comes from. I don’t analyze every step. I just move.
But the moment something changes — something is not where it should be — I notice immediately. Because the model no longer matches reality.
Models of people
The same happens with other people. I have a model of someone I know: how they speak,
how they react, what matters to them.
Thanks to that, I can predict conversations. Avoid misunderstandings. Sometimes even guess what they feel.But when they behave in a completely different way, something breaks. There is surprise.
Tension. A need to update the model.
The model of myself
I also have a model of myself. It includes: my body, my emotions, my thoughts, my limits, my beliefs. It also includes my inner state.
This is how I know when I’m tired, irritated, focused, or calm.
For me, body and mind are not separate systems.They work as one.
Most of this is automatic
The important part is this: most of these models work outside my awareness. They are automatic.
Learned through experience. Repeated. Stabilized over time. Only what requires attention reaches consciousness. Everything else runs in the background.
And that is not a flaw. It’s necessary. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be able to function.
When models become rigid
The problem starts when models stop updating. When I treat them as reality itself, instead of approximations.
Then I stop checking them. And I start living inside them.
Reality vs interpretation
So I need to make a distinction: between reality and my interpretation of it.
I always experience the world indirectly. Through perception, memory, and past experience. But that doesn’t mean reality is just my experience. Reality exists independently of me.
I only have access to a working version of it.
When the model replaces reality
This difference becomes very clear in extreme situations. I’ve seen it while working with people affected by dementia.
They don’t lose the world itself. They lose access to it.
Their experience becomes more internal. More disconnected from what is actually happening. And the result is something very real: a loss of independence.
A simple situation
I once gave breakfast to a resident. He asked for salt. I told him it was on the table, just behind his plate. He understood me. He started looking. But he couldn’t recognize it.
He saw objects. But not what they were.
When I handed him the salt, he knew what to do. But something was missing.
The object existed. But access to its meaning was gone.
Another moment
Another resident was talking to someone in her room. Angry. Insisting someone should leave. But no one was there.
When I entered, she stopped. Calm again. Present. For her, that person was real. But not in the shared world.
What this shows me
These situations are real. They happened. But their meaning depends on interpretation.
I can say: “everyone lives in their own world” or: “we all interpret the same world differently”
For me, the second one makes more sense.
Staying in contact with reality
Because this changes something important. It means:
I am in the world. Not the world in me.
I have to adapt to reality. Not the other way around.
Responsibility
So responsibility is not only about action. It is also about interpretation.
Self-reliance means: not only making decisions, but being ready to adjust them. To check my models against reality. And against other people.
What comes next
This leads to a more difficult question: what happens when the error is not physical — but psychological?
Not a step on the ground, but a belief about myself, about others, about the world.
Because if a simple stumble can wake me up, what happens when I keep repeating the same patterns in thinking?
Part 5 coming soon.
Pawel Kosinski
AI-assisted translation
You can find all English texts here:
If you want to explore this in your own experience, you can find a simple space for that here:
Propasja 