// Good source to illustrate how we construct our perceptual realities

constructing our perceptual reality

Oliver Sacks wrote:

I cannot say exactly how nature exerts its calming and organizing effects on our brains, but I have seen in my patients the restorative and healing powers of nature and gardens, even for those who are deeply disabled neurologically. In many cases, gardens and nature are more powerful than any medication.

If gardens and potentially tending gardens is restorative, how might we create user interfaces that are calm and gentle enough to make tending one's digital garden a healthful and restorative process for our psyches?

I enjoy the works of Oliver Sacks because of his genuine interest in people and he never imposes the pretensions of narrow mindedness. This, to me, is the same reason I enjoy the works of Samuel Beckett. He does not use umbrella diagnoses, instead examines individual cases, which I believe is far superior in helping people. He seemed like a person with great benevolence for humanity.

An example of his open mindedness is highlighted here from: ''There is no way by which the events of the world can be directly transmitted or recorded in our brains; they are experienced and constructed in a highly subjective way, which is different in every individual to begin with, and differently reinterpreted or reexperienced whenever they are recollected. Our only truth is narrative truth, the stories we tell each other and ourselves—the stories we continually recategorize and refine. Such subjectivity is built into the very nature of memory and follows from its basis and mechanisms in the brains we have.'' (The River of Consciousness)