Bias Is Beautiful

History is not a record of the past, it is a record of perceptions of the past. The true past, as it really was, is gone, ...forever ...never to be recovered. Why? Because just as with the evening news, nothing recorded as history can be free of bias. But not all is lost. What is left is possibly even more valuable. What every historical account gives us is a glimpse inside the mind of one who has perceived. When we read (listen or watch) history, we see a biased view, not only in how something observed is described, but in what is described. Assuming everything could be observed, not everything observed can be recorded, since it usually takes longer to record than to observe. But not everything is observed. There are a lot of things that happen that we simply miss, just because we aren't looking for them, or are distracted by something else we find more interesting. So when we read history we are actually reading about something that someone else decided was important. We are reading someone's bias, even before they have interpreted what they saw. But are most historical accounts primary sources? That is, are they accounts of actual observations? Not usually. We usually aren't reading a person's perception of what they saw. We are reading a historian's interpretation of what a person said they saw, and the truth is tainted yet again by another bias. Not only that, but we the reader, can't escape the effect of our own biases. So reading history is rather like the 2010's blockbuster movie "Inception" where Leonardo DiCaprio's character finds himself in a dream within a dream within a dream. We are quite far removed from the actual past, but we are face to face with bias. Living as a Christian guest in arguably the most conservative Muslim nation in the Middle East, has made me much more aware of my own bias, just by observing the bias of others. What has been remarkable to me, is not how different these biases are from my own, but in fact in their familiarity. My Muslim neighbor and I grew up with a monotheistic world-view. The primary cause in an infinite chain of cause and effect has been attributed to a personal being we both call "God" (Allah comes from two Arabic words: "al," which means "the," and "lah," which means "god."). Both of us have been told over and over again that this God jealously guards his "one-ness" as he does his demand for moral purity. We have also been told that he is merciful, and willing to forgive the one is truely repentant. So we have spent our lives trying hard to be good, while perpetually seeking forgiveness when we are not. Our perceptions have allowed us to allow for the supernatural to occur, whether it be Muhammad's miraculous overnight trip from Mecca to Jerusalem on a winged steed, or Elijah's flight to heaven on a chariot of fire. All of these beliefs affect how we perceive everything we experience. Our differences are few, really, compared to the ardent naturalist, but even though we are similar, each one of us has a unique but fallible view of the world. All of us, including the naturalist have one thing in common. We all long to know what is true.