Living in a World of Ideas

by Jeff Bloom • August 1, 2025

I warned some pages back that we would encounter emptiness, and indeed it is so. Mind is empty; it is no-thing. It exists only in its ideas, and these again are no-things. Only the ideas are immanent, embodied in their examples. And the examples are, again, no-things. The claw, as an example, is not the Ding an sich. it is precisely not the “thing in itself." Rather, it is what mind makes of it , namely, an example of something or other.
~ From page 10 in Bateson, G. (1979/2002)

The title of this essay may trigger a variety of reactions, including some variation on “oh, this sounds so la-di-da” or “such hogwash.” But, just to keep myself honest, it quite well may be hogwash. However, I actually think this notion of living in a world of ideas is critical to our survival. Fundamentally, it comes down to seeing all of the contexts in which we live and interact as made of our own and others’ ideas. In other words, our world is personally and socially constructed. Of course, language, one of our constructions, is a bitch. When I said, “socially constructed,” the idea of “construction” is not necessarily a physical construction, although obviously we construct homes, highways, factories, cars, and so forth, but we also have made or constructed ideas about how a society functions. “Nations” are not self-existing entities. We, us humans, constructed the ideas of nations. My cup of coffee is made of ideas. Somewhere during human history, some very astute individuals found out that these little beans growing on plants were not only edible, but could but made into drinks that gave one a boost of energy. The “cup” is an idea that may have arisen by watching some other animals drink water out of an indentation in a leaf or even from cupping one’s own hands to drink water out of a stream. Then, some inventive early humans took this idea and made some sort of “cup” from wood or other material, and then eventually from clay. And, now, I sit on my idea of a chair, with the idea of a desk in front of me. On this desk, is an idea of a coffee cup with a rapidly dwindling idea of coffee in the cup. Next to this, is a complicated set of ideas we refer to as a MacBook Air. In front of that is a set of ideas the comprise my Logitech wireless keyboard and a set of ideas that make up my Bluetooth mouse, which is sitting on top of the ideas of a mouse pad. I have a set of ideas that is my external monitor, the ideas of my speakers, a number of ideas that make up pens, pencils, markers, paper clips, etc. And, I mostly engage in the idea of “work” at ideas of coffee shops or the ideas that comprise my home.  And, I am part of a set of ideas of “family” with my two sons living not too far away (more ideas about distance, etc.). We used to have one of the most wonderful set of ideas that was Mugetsu, a 90-pound female Doberman pinscher, who was the supreme peace-keeper and Queen of the dog parks. But, the physicality of that set of ideas ended just over 5 years ago. A year ago, we also lost a great set of ideas that was Niko, our male black cat, whose manifested ideas were those of “Mr. Cool.” Now, we have two sets of cat ideas: Squeaky, a rescued skinny little black cat, who squeaks rather than meows, and Sammi, a rescued big, female, black and white cat, who loves being pet and absolutely loves to eat, but has an unfortunate neurological problem (a set of ideas) that will occasionally cause her to bite aggressively. Fortunately, her ideas of the condition that comes from seemingly out of nowhere, have softened. After the first bite, several months into her joining the “idea” of our family, when my hand swelled to twice its size, the subsequent bites have been much less severe. Now, I can see the neurological spike coming and watch Sammi quickly assessing the situation, then lightly pressing her teeth against my hand or arm. Her ideas of whatever she experiences during her neurological episodes have changed over time. She was probably dumped by her previous family because of her biting. But, with some patience and some time for my healing, she seems to have adjusted her ideas of what is happening during her problematic episodes. She probably thought someone (i.e., me) caused the issue, but has now realized it probably isn’t me who’s causing the problem.

We are not the only beings with ideas. All living things have ideas of one form or another. A tree’s “ideas” are quite different from our ideas. We have no idea what  they “look” like, but we’re gaining much more insight into the existence of their ideas. They have “ideas” of their offspring, which help them identify which trees are related to them. At the same time, they have ideas about those for whom they compete for water or sunlight, but they also have ideas of how to compromise and provide space for their competitors to access sunlight, or even to help move water and nutrients over to a struggling competitor. 

At this point in time, we are living in an incredibly complex set of matrices of ideas about a mind-boggling array of topics. Each of us has our own matrix of ideas that is the result of learning from at least the time we were born until now. A small portion of each matrix of ideas has come from our own individual experiences without any direct or indirect involvement from other people. On the other hand, such individual experiences always interactions with or within other contexts, which may include a stream, a forest, dogs, birds, the ocean, and so forth. Learning never occurs devoid of contexts of one sort or another. 

For me, I’ve had a few experiences of almost drowning, but in most of those cases I was snorkeling, but the only part that was entirely my own isolated experience was the actual struggle not to drown, but even that involved not paying attention to what I had been taught by a Scuba diving instructor. Even though I wasn’t using Scuba equipment, I had my snorkeling gear: mask, snorkel, fins, a wetsuit, and a weight belt. One of the fundamental instructions was that whenever you use a new weight belt, you must test it out in shallow water before you start snorkeling or Scuba diving. I didn’t do that, and ultimately learned a lesson I had supposedly learned previously. But, the actual experience of struggling for survival was purely my own. It could have happened with or without snorkeling gear. But, almost all of our learning is social. We learn from our parents, teachers, everyday interactions with people, and everyday interactions with the constructs of other people. These “constructs’ can be articles, books, blogs, videos, cars, computers, steps in a building, supermarkets, schools, and our social, political, and economic contexts. In North America, most of Europe, parts of Asia, parts of Africa, parts of South America, and Australia and New Zealand, we share similar physical and non-physical sociopolitical constructs. With some cultural and social variations between nations, we share some version of democratic ideas of how to organize and run a society. Along with these ideas of democracy and its politics, are all sorts of assumptions, beliefs, and automated scripts or routines that underlie our ideas of democracy, society, and all of our everyday activities and actions. In the United States, right now in 2025, most people, including many politicians, are upset, frightened, confused, and angry about the seemingly sudden turn in the way government and society function. Just off the top of my head, I’m sure that well over 99% of the people who are upset are still “living” in the ideas of our democracy as it was a year or two ago, or decades ago. Very few people see the demarcation between our previous ideational constructs of our societies and those that have taken their place. I don’t know what else to call MAGA. It certainly isn’t right wing or conservative. It is anti-democracy, authoritarian, fascist, and racist (in the broadest sense of exclusionary of anyone “different” from the pseudo-Christian, angry, militant, segments of our societies). 

What happens when things change? If we ponder this question a bit, we might notice that changes to our “worlds” occur throughout our lives. Most changes go completely unnoticed. Things are changing in our bodies all of the time. If they didn’t, we’d be dead, but even then further changes, such as decay, would begin. And, if we were to notice every one of these changes that not only would be completely overwhelming, but also would overload our sensory—neurological systems. Then, there are a lot of changes we may notice, but we certainly don’t pay much attention to them. The wind shifts slightly, the Moon goes behind a thin cloud, and all sorts of other things occur that are changes in our perceptual sphere. I even put my phone’s “text alerts” into my mental category of “ignore whenever possible.” There are times when incoming texts are overwhelming, so I tune them out. The result is that some people (particularly my wife and sons) are irritated that I don’t respond immediately, but part of my “world” is still in pre-cell-phone times, when I could disappear for a period of time and put off contact with others until I returned home. But, we also “tune out” information of change automatically. We may walk into a building and notice a strong odor, but within a few minutes, we no longer notice the odor, even if we consciously try to focus on smell, we still can’t smell it, unless we go outside for a while, then re-enter. Our nervous system does this automatically without our conscious effort. Then, there are lots and lots of changes throughout our everyday lives, but most of these changes are within our expectations of what might happen at any point in our day. We bump into someone we know and talk for a bit. We may not have expected it, but the sudden change is within our scope of what may or may not happen at any given time.  

However, there are certain types of changes that shake our worlds and crush our expectations. A friend or family member dies suddenly. Our dog dies unexpectedly. We walk into work one day and get fired. Or, maybe we have left our small town in rural Kansas for the first time in our lives and spend a week in Manhattan (New York City). Or, we travel from the U.S. for the first time and go to Mumbai, India, or to a small village in Rwanda, Africa. All of these events are or are very similar to what we might call “culture shock.” In each of these cases, there’s a certain degree of familiarity to the new context in which we find ourselves, but there also are things that totally unfamiliar. The rules and scripts for how to negotiate our way in the new context shift. Visitors to the New York City spend much of their time casually walking around and looking up at the skyscrapers or being on edge while walking through the crowds. The locals hardly ever look up. They tend to walk fast, but may just stop to window shop or just sit on a bench or low wall around a building. 

Mary Catherine Bateson referred to a whole set of changes that occur in our matrices of ideas as epistemological shock.[[1]] “Epistemology” in this sense refers to our personal knowledge contexts or our matrices of ideas. Epistemological shocks occur whenever our context of ideas is challenged by contradictory ideas of one sort or another. She gave an example of inviting some Muslim students to come and talk to her students in one of her university classes. The following class session she asked about their reactions to what the Muslims students had discussed. One student responded with, “I didn’t realize that they actually believe in their religion.” 

When epistemological shocks occur, we tend to react in one or more of three ways. We’re confronted with some contradictory information in the form of language (written or oral) or with an experience that contradicts our current set of ideas, and we consciously ignore it. It just doesn’t register. Or, if it does register, we just dismiss it out of hand. Or, we may react, by consciously putting up our defenses and justifying in one way or another why our current status of ideas is true in spite of contradictory evidence. The third way we might respond is to begin adjusting our ideas to fit with or address the new evidence or new information. Much of this latter response may occur below our conscious intention to ponder the contradictory ideas. The ideas may gurgle along below the surface, but occasionally rising to our conscious awareness. When I was in grade 10, I was engulfed in learning about sharks. My dad and my high school chemistry teacher who lived one street over from me, drove to Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute to pick up a live shark they had offered to give me. Of course, we knew very little about keeping it alive, even though we had build a makeshift aquarium in the basement of our house. After a day, the shark, a female dogfish shark, started to behave strangely. I called all around, including a local aquarium showplace. But, I could find no help. On the morning of the third day, my chemistry teacher came by to pick me up to go to school. This wasn’t a regular event, but I think he wanted to talk more about the shark and what to do. I told him I couldn’t find any help from anyone. Then, I said, “I guess all we can do is pray.” His immediate, off-the-cuff response was, “won’t help.” He didn’t say it with any emphasis. It was more like a side comment. But, unbeknownst to me at the time, those two words gurgled around in my subconscious. Looking back, it was probably the most notable epistemological shock of my life up to that point. It changed everything, like a snowball slowly rolling down a long hill.

At this point, most politicians and news media are stuck in the first two ways of responding to an epistemological change. They have not been willing or able to see that the world of ideas about our society and government has changed. The MAGA world has jumped in and started operating on a completely different set of ideas, assumptions, rules, scripts, and actions. But, Democrats and the media still see everything that is happening as part of the “normal” sets of events that are possible in the old world of ideas about the United States. It’s an illusion or delusion that is framing their thinking and actions. It’s sort of like trying to put out a huge forest fire with a home fire extinguisher or, in some cases, with a tank of gasoline. 

In most of our experiences of epistemological shock, it’s rather inconsequential as to how we respond. If you think that the Moon moves from east to west around the Earth, and I show you evidence that it actually moves from west to east around the Earth, and you refuse to change your ideas. It really doesn’t make much difference, unless you’re plotting a trajectory of a rocket to the Moon. But, in cases where our well-being and even survival as a society is being threatened, we’d open our eyes and see how these two contradictory worlds of ideas are involved in a conflict like no others in the history of this country.  

And your fake and cynical solutions
It's as if you're trying to make things worse
(and you know the reason)

‘Cause you never want to see that
Writing on the wall (don’t want to see) 
Writing on the wall (turn your back to the wall)
Writing on the wall (hide your eyes now)
Writing on the wall (there it is)
Writing on the wall (plain as day)
Writing on the wall (don’t look away)
Writing on the wall (gotta face the truth)
Writing on the wall (wake up!)

You'd have to be blind, blind, blind, blind, blind, 
Eyes that will not see, eyes that will not see
You'd have to be blind, blind, blind, blind, 
Eyes that will not see, eyes that will not see it
Writing's on the wall
Blind, blind, blind, eyes that will not see [[2]]

[[1]] The notion of epistemology as a term for personal knowledge, rather than as purely a philosophical term for the study of human knowledge, as put forth by Gregory Bateson. He discusses this idea at length in Bateson (1972/2000, 1979/2002, and 1991) and with his daughter Mary Catherine in Bateson & Bateson, 2005. The notion of “epistemological shock” was discussed in a presentation given by Mary Catherine Bateson at a conference in 2004.

[[2]] From lyrics of song by Todd Rundgren (2015). 

Bateson, G. (1972/2000). Steps to an ecology of mind. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

Bateson, G. (1979/2002). Mind and Nature: A Necessary Unity. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press.

Bateson, G. (1991). Sacred unity: Further steps to an ecology of mind (R. E. Donaldson, Ed.). New York: A Cornelia & Michael Bessie Book/Harper Collins.

Bateson, G., & Bateson, M. C. (2005). Angels fear: Towards an epistemology of the sacred. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press.

Bateson, M. C. (2004). Bateson at 100: What it Means – Two Perspectives. Presentation at the Multiple Versions of the World — Bateson@100 Conference, Berkeley, CA.

Rundgren, T. (2015). Blind (Track #5). Produced by Todd Rundgren on the album Global. 

© 2025 by Jeffrey W Bloom

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