How words create reality, and three foundational words to create the reality we all want.

The Process of Creation

Anil Seth is a neuroscientist and a brilliant communicator. He helps us understand that we all contribute to creating the reality we perceive, by imagining it.

“If hallucination is a kind of uncontrolled perception, perception is also a kind of hallucination, but a controlled hallucination, in which the brain’s predictions are being reined in by sensory information coming from the world. In fact, we are all hallucinating all the time, including right now. It’s just that when we agree on our hallucinations, we call that reality.”

Anil Seth, TED talk July 18, 2017

We all want a “better world.” But what does that world look like in our collective mind’s eye? And how can we make sure we all want the same world, so that we obtain it? Well, we must communicate with each other until we reach a shared understanding of this collective vision. And again, a vision must be visual.  

Human communication involves many things including images, sounds, words, numbers, emotions. Our entire bodies and senses are mobilized to communicate. But words are essential. In order to change the world for the better, sustainability professionals have conversations. In COPs (Conferences of the Parties to international conventions, for climate, for biodiversity, etc.), in business meetings, in speeches and TED talks, in protests, in sermons, in the media, in books, in sustainability reports, we all use words. Lots and lots of words.

Yet, what’s the goal when we engage in conversation? How effective and efficient are all these words at reaching the goal? Are they the right words? Are these words understood as they are meant? Do they designate the same reality in all the minds of the individuals who are participating in the conversation?

Well, no, currently they don’t. Far from it.

But we (most of us) think our words are being understood. And we keep talking and talking, like the pink Energizer Bunny, literally wasting our energy.

Different Worlds

Most sustainability professionals lament that others “do not get it.” And most of these lamenting professionals blame all these “others” for not understanding… But how many sustainability professionals communicate clearly? 

Well, very few. Simple, fluid, clear communication, where all parties benefit and grow from conversation, become better people, better organizations, and better countries, in one word “develop,” is a virtually lost art. Worse: conflict and zero-sum games are becoming the rule, amplified by equally polarized media. We are not developing. We are shrinking and regressing. We are creating chaos.

It’s about time we woke up, my friends. “Others” live in a different world from ours, except perhaps that their world probably also has a sun, a moon, earth, people, and a few other universal elements that can form the basis of a level playing field. So we can finish-up collectively building one harmonious world with all the trimmings.

Chunks of Reality Labeled with Words

If I say “dog,” do you see a German shepherd or a chihuahua? One aspect (just one) of better communication is to make sure we use the right words for what we want to convey. And we must also make sure that the words we use label the same reality in the worlds of all parties to the conversation (so that there’s only one world, yes?). Definitions in dictionaries may help, but are not sufficient. Especially for words that can have several meanings.

Most words designate chunks of or events in reality–things or groups of things that we may want to communicate about–because we have an experience of these things or events. In physical space-time, words are not, in and of themselves, the reality they designate. They merely label these “reality bundles.” And in doing so, they only provide an approximation of that piece of reality (or nothing at all, for those of the parties who never had any experience of what that word represents.) If I say “dog” to someone who never saw a dog, not even on an image, they will hear the sound “dog” I made with my voice. They will see nothing but, perhaps, the image of a written word, with a few letters, maybe even misspelled. We must always do our best to use the best possible proxy (word) for what we want to convey, and make sure our audience sees the same what that we see. 

Three Foundational Terms Sustainability Professionals Must Agree On

In all the Socratic conversations that I facilitate, I have participants agree on the definition of the main basic words they want to use for the topic at hand, before they proceed. Or we are set to fail from the get go.

Here are clarifications for three terms that I frequently see or hear used inappropriately in the area of “sustainability.” That is, designating things that are too vague to be really grasped, or designating the wrong things (which have other names).

Environment: unless otherwise clearly specified, this word designates all that surrounds the subject—that is everything that is not the subject. It does not include the subject, but it does include all human beings other than the subject, if we do not provide additional information to specify that humans are excluded in what we are attempting to designate. My own environment contains people, technology, built infrastructure, companies, etc. in addition to trees, flowers, animals, air, sounds, etc. When using the term “environment,” we must also specify who or what is the subject. Is it me as an individual, my company, or all human beings? Saying “the environment” is too vague. We must specify the part of the universe we are talking about. Also, the environment is not “the planet,” or “nature,” or “the wild,” or some other word. 

Nature: unless very clearly specified otherwise, this word designates everything including the subject who is speaking. It includes all of us, humans, and our buildings and our tech, and our words, and our emotions, and our actions, and spiders, and our plastic bottles, and … shall I continue? It includes me. If you mean nature to designate a subset of nature, or are excluding anything from nature, you must be clear and specific about what subset you are talking about or excluding. And if it is a subset, don’t call it nature.

ALL solutions are “nature based.” Nothing is not so. We will need to find other words for what is meant by “nature-based solutions.” Because the mere fact of using this phrase implies that we are excluding humans from nature. Think for a moment: YOU are the one who found that solution. YOU are the one doing something. YOU are part of nature. The rest is… ahem, well, all the rest of nature, doing its thing: performing its ripple effects on everything including YOU. If you understand what Anil Seth explains about hallucinating reality into existence, you will then understand that you are also hallucinating your own presence in this reality. It may seem like a paradox. And it probably is. I propose that we accept the paradox. Better even, make it joyful, embrace the paradox!   

Ecological system, or ecosystem: it’s the word we use to name a specific community of living entities and their non-living components and their functioning together in a unique way (serving each other and the whole system), which is different from other ecosystems. It corresponds to a model we have in our minds of that subset of nature, based on our observation of it. There are larger systems containing sub-systems too. The model we hold in our mind of the entire universe is an ecological system. We use the term ‘ecosystem” when we are attempting to describe and analyze parts of nature, to see these parts as systems with interacting components. A single human being is also itself an ecosystem, where the individual interacts with tens of trillions of microbes (on their skin, in their gut, or other body locations), without which a human cannot survive. 

I see many sustainability professionals speaking of “the economic system,” “the social system,” and “the ecological system” as three entirely separate things. That is wrong. The economic system is a model of (how we see) production, resource allocation, and distribution of goods and services within a society. It is a sub-system of our social system, itself a sub-system of the wider ecological system we are in. 

Whether we like it or not, there is no separation in nature between all these systems. Whatever happens in one place has ripple effects on everything else and boomerangs back. And again.

Conclusion: Crystal-clear Communication 

To create the world we want, we must communicate with unshakable intent to understand others and be understood. We must therefore agree on the definition of some foundational words, as well as on the precise piece of reality each of these words represents, before using them to collectively build more complex thoughts and concepts. We will also need to make sure these more complex terms are collectively understood in the same way. This implies intentional effort by all of us in conversations to form, in our minds, clearer pictures (images) of what words designate. And to make sure we all see the same picture.

Otherwise, we are not constructing, we are destructing. 

For more practical tips, read my short guide Five Keys to Communicate Sustainability for Success.  

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