NOTE: As of September 2020, I found out Chris Argyris and Peter Senge already made this entire layer-based theory. I was 3 years old, and they used a different name: the Ladder of Inference. This confirms there’s really nothing new under the sun. However, for posterity, I believe I’ve made my information more open-access, so that’s why I leave it here.
We can divide everything into sections. This idea, though, makes each categorized section into a distinct “layer”. A computer’s networking model imitates the emergent order of the layers of human networks. Our perceptions, though, have far more intuition, way less verification, and are exponentially slower.
Computers send signals with layers. The sender bundles its payload inside the top “application” layer, then adds more layers down to the bottom “physical” layer. Then, the receiving computer unwraps the signal in reverse to know what to do with it.
Like computers, we work with and exchange information so rapidly we don’t notice it. Our brains encode information, then later send back a remixed and spliced adaptation, often oblivious to revisions.
Like computer errors, we only notice when things fail. Smaller network make larger networks fail, but we typically misattribute the problem to a higher network of thought. The misdiagnosis of where something fits into our understanding may well be the cause of every human interaction issue.
Layer 1 — Observation
As humans, we don’t get many reliable facts. We can each know for certain we exist and think, but it’s always possible everything else could be an illusion.
Therefore, we have very little to work with. Every single perception we have is the equivalent of a Rorschach inkblot test. It’s why babies do nothing most of their formative years except observe things. We’re gathering metaphysical facts, but aren’t consciously aware of what we’re really looking at.
Beyond our animal/spiritual essence, human universals, and whatever science can prove, the facts layer sits in a semi-known limbo.
Layer 2 — Imagination
Our experiences and impressions are reliable enough to construct reality. We’re merely copying what we can (with our limited hardware) into our brains.
This information isn’t much to go on, so we add more information to make sense of what we perceive.
Since our minds can’t process the endless stream of details, we focus on useful information.
Most of those derived “facts” are sensible, but they come from prior experience drawn from memory. This system is reliable, but allows us to believe the illusion that some things exist outside our minds that don’t. We develop a framework of trust that something exists how we’ve perceived it, enhanced by everyone else sharing that illusion. Most personalities find conflicts inherently unpleasant, so it’s difficult to get reliable information from most people.
The imagination layer is so complex that it needs division.
A. Primal
No matter how smart we are, our animal instincts run deeper than anything else in our experience. Anything that hits the brain stem can easily shut down everything above it. It’s difficult to discuss philosophy when you need to pee. History is challenging to process when you haven’t slept in 36 hours.
Primal urges are moment-by-moment reactions to anything associated with feelings. Most notably, primal thoughts are reactions that serve survival, past trauma, and safety. They also directly affect our ability to trust and how we determine qualities such as art.
Absolutely anything tied to a strong feeling comes from the primal layer. We can only confront our animal urges with awareness, and we can only fight them with self-discipline. Like the higher layers, the primal mechanism is a set of stories. Our minds deeply embody these stories, so our willpower typically can’t win against them.
Primal thinking frames the incessant inherent bias we all participate in. Most people benefit from less primal thinking, but a few (like intellectuals) could stand to have more of it.
It takes tremendous awareness to understand our primal urges, and typically have to perform shadow work as well.
B. Sensing
Alongside base instinct, we sift our information thoroughly, far more than any other animal brain. We keep gathering and concluding enough information to construct a believable-enough story.
Stories stick in the memory better than meaningless trivia because they hit the primal layer. While they’re reductionist, they’re easier to remember. 3.14159265 isn’t as memorable as, “On March 14th, 15 men fought 9, 2 sides battled for 65 gallons of whiskey”.
Stories come to life in our minds, overriding any facts we’ve perceived. When details don’t quite fit the story, we dismiss them as irrelevant because they don’t make sense in context.
While the above image illustrates the concept, our minds are nowhere near as clean or straightforward. In this case, the mind would construct the letters out-of-order, and most minds would move the information slowly into focus.
The Sensing sub-layer is where we connect symbolism, develop certainty and purpose, and feel elaborate constructs like humor.
Without training and focus on maintaining it, we usually don’t let vague information persist alongside our “certain” ideas.
It takes self-reflection to understand our senses, and we don’t automatically detect it.
C. Habit
Habits are a bit difficult to explain without traveling further up the layers. It may make more sense to understand it in light of the Agency layer.
While every other action adds onto other information, habits are the only way we move information down the layers. It’s the source of some of the most powerful human drives, including how we form addictions and become moral.
We can typically become conscious of habits when we stop mid-task and re-examine ourselves. This quality is unique to humans alone.
All discussions about routine, subconscious behavior, compounding interest, and automation are variations on the theme of habits. This means social systems all stem from the primitives of habit. Habits are the pattern system that create all long-term changes.
D. Perception
The Perception sub-layer moves us into the first realm of what we can call the “conscious” mind. Everything assembles and composes into a structure we now call “reality”.
Human perception is, by its essence, a prejudice. We use values we’ve structured to paint images of what we observe, and those images blur into stories. Two of the most relevant contributors of perception bias come from biological gender and our maturity at the time.
We haven’t really “touched” this information yet. This is just the start of when you think you “see” something.
E. Processing
Without training, we don’t simply let information persist as raw perception. We pile on more calculations and structures by using our imagination to construct more information. Language and its advanced forms of logic and math are how we shape that source material further. However, we often lose which parts were “real” in the process.
Naturally, these calculations come with even more bias. We’ll consider various types of power and how to use them to accomplish our purposes.
By the end of this, we will come to a type of understanding. Applied to ourselves, it’s how we form our identity.
Layer 3 — Agency
Up to this point, the experience has been passive. But now, we must choose things.
Our decisions run through a weighted, logical system where we might change something. Usually, we’re trying to predict or estimate the future. If we ever find uncertainty that affects a decision, we experience an inner conflict over it. Intelligence or anxiety can frequently prevent a clear decision from arising.
Philosophy’s use is in building pre-existing beliefs which permit us to devote effort to more nuanced aspects of decision-making. It can also help us to be more creative, understand what we love, and how to avoid evil.
The Agency layer is also where all human morality exists. Without decisions that we actively make, there is no morality, and only thoughts or consequences.
Our choices aren’t necessarily physical. We often conclude we don’t understand and revisit the Processing sub-layer (to reconsider) or the Perception layer (if we’re self-aware).
When our decisions do affect our environment, we’ve just moved to the next layer. Depending how we categorize it, this can include changing our minds on a belief.
Layer 4 — Actions
The Action layer (and all other higher ones) are how our decisions impose back onto the Observations layer. These results will compound across people and groups. This includes moving living tissue and entensions via tools. It also includes our ability to say or do anything.
Everything up to now has only existed in the mind. Nobody has any direct evidence from anyone else of the lower layers. It only expresses once people take action, which can include simply speaking.
Except for habits and impulse, we build things in our environment to create results. We orient these results to attain the good life we envision, for ourselves or others. These actions even include simple pleasures and seemingly innocuous experiences.
It’s worth noting the Action layer is strictly physical reality as we understand it now. Everything in the past is in the Imagination layer. Everything in the future is in the Agency or Imagination layer until it happens.
Layer 5 — Reality
Our interpretation of reality is where everything begins, and where everything ends. We feel tremendous certainty about it, and our basis of logic and decisions depends on it staying consistent.
More abstract elements such as politics, group dynamics, culture, trends, and any other human network fit in this layer.
Most of this entire system’s complexities come through how most people will distort reality’s image (at least a little). They may intend to deceive or fail to communicate, but it makes more wrinkles.
Know your layers
Understanding the Layers makes life very convenient. By understanding what perceptual basis something sits in, you will solve loads of problems.
Usually, people just tend to forget one of the layers:
- Someone unconcerned with the Observations layer is essentially insane.
- Someone who doesn’t consider the Imagination layer won’t care much about image, implication, or the future.
- People who ignore the Agency layer never feel responsible for themselves.
- People who ignore the Actions layer believe only good intentions matter.
- To ignore the consequences of Reality is to lose touch with it.
It’s not easy, though. Human perception and actions represent a very complex arrangement:
- We experience reality through observations…
- …which filter through our feelings (driven by beliefs)…
- …which we mix with our memories to craft what we imagine and understand…
- …for the sake of accomplishing a purpose…
- …which we then decide on…
- …to then influence our beliefs, memory, and actions…
- …for the final purpose of acting, then observing our results.
When we know where information fits into the scope of our perception, we can reliably catch failures. This permits us to sensibly fix them.
Further, most of our decisions, actions, and beliefs create long-term habits. These habits reinforce us to do more of the same in the future.