We don’t really come in contact with the world. Activities like seeing and touching are proxies rather than something that could strictly be called actual. As well, the information that enters our heads is incomplete and hardly pure. It is sorted, gathered, and shaped by a survival-biased pattern recognition mechanism (utilizing shorthand object substitution systems).

Since neither seeing a “duck” nor saying “duck” nor thinking of a “duck” is the same thing — none is fully reality. The same is true when we see, say or think “3:30 PM” or “frog” or “nighttime.” Ultimately, information for humans consists of versions, not a single experience. Things are further complicated in that these differing types of seeing, saying and thinking vary from individual to individual — our pattern recognizers are unique.

Working together then, is not a matter of sharing a reality but attempting to share a reality. This can be done in two ways: mutually hiding out in a willful fantasy (which is super common) or struggling for intimate overlap of individual experience (much riskier, thus less common). The former is easy and dominates our world (it is simple to see in political affiliations, news preferences, company credos, all manner of beliefs, etc.). The latter, intimate comparison of errors and versions, is dangerous, though it is likely the only decent way.

The measure of collaboration is vulnerability.