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Representation in Everyday Experience

The distinction proposed in the essay can be observed in very ordinary situations. For example, someone says something and I consider that they are belittling me; what I hear, my interpretation of their words, previous experiences, and the image I have of that person may present themselves as a single experience, so that “they have belittled me” takes on the character of something self-evident. What matters here is not to determine whether belittlement actually occurred, but to observe how an interpretation can cease to be experienced as such. Something similar happens when we consider that someone “is my adversary,” “is selfish,” or “cannot be trusted,” since the representation can become so transparent that we cease to notice our own participation in the way we experience what happens.

A simple example allows us to observe this process. A child gradually learns, and with some effort, to distinguish, count, and name what they see when looking at their hand, until they learn that they “have five fingers.” Over time, the process that made this learning possible ceases to be perceptible, so that the representation “five fingers” becomes so transparent that it seems to be directly present in the fact itself. We no longer experience that we are conceptually organizing what we see, but simply that we have five fingers.

Something similar happens with much more complex categories. We also learn what constitutes an insult, what it means to succeed or fail, what we consider normal, our own, or someone else’s, and this learning may come to intervene in our experience without our noticing its participation. Alongside representations, acquired conditioning and habitual patterns also operate, and they may intervene in the way we react without requiring any conscious representational elaboration. Although these are different processes, their participation may remain equally unnoticed and contribute to reinforcing the self-evident character with which we experience a particular interpretation.

Our interest in this essay lies precisely in the moment when representation ceases to be completely transparent and we begin to notice the difference between what happens and what we are constructing about it. A thought, an interpretation, or a judgment also happens, but we can now recognize them as representations and cease to confuse them with that to which they refer, making perceptible a difference that had remained hidden behind the immediate character of self-evidence acquired by our interpretation.

Becoming aware of this distinction can have very concrete significance in everyday life. Imagine that someone says, “Your trousers are ugly.” From those words, thoughts such as the following may arise almost immediately:

• “What business is it of theirs?”
• “They said it to annoy me.”
• “They’re provoking me.”
• “They’re always trying to provoke me.”
• “They have it in for me.”
• “They’re an idiot.”

Each of these thoughts introduces elements that were not contained in the words we heard and is, in itself, a representation added to what happened. These representations may arise independently, although they can also become connected and lead to further developments. An intention attributed to the other person — “they said it to annoy me” — may come to be experienced as something they are actually doing — “they’re provoking me”; this can then become associated with memories of other situations, be generalized into “they’re always trying to provoke me,” and eventually become part of the image we construct of that person. If we later explain our reaction by saying, “I answered them that way because they provoked me,” it becomes difficult to notice the process through which an interpretation eventually became incorporated into what we experienced as having happened.

The process can also extend beyond the immediate experience. If someone does not reply to a message, the thought “they’re ignoring me” may arise, followed by “they’re angry with me” or “they always do this.” When we next meet that person, our behaviour may be conditioned by the experience of having been ignored; our behaviour may in turn elicit a particular reaction from them, which may end up confirming our initial interpretation: “I knew they had something against me.” Representation therefore not only participates in the way we experience what happens; through our response, it can also play a part in what happens next. We do not need to know what remains when all the maps are removed in order to notice that we are adding something to the map in front of us. Perhaps the everyday usefulness of becoming aware of the map lies not in discovering what is behind it, but in recognizing what we are adding and how that addition participates in what happens next.

This same way of operating can be observed in our relationship with the past and the future. “They’re always trying to provoke me” may draw on memories of previous situations that affect the way we experience what is happening now, just as an anticipation such as “next time they’ll do it again” may condition our disposition towards an encounter that has not yet taken place. This does not mean that we confuse the past or the future with the present; rather, memories, images, narratives or anticipations occurring now become incorporated into our experience and may do so with such a sense of self-evidence that we cease to notice what we are adding to the present situation.

The preceding examples thus shift the question from knowing that we construct representations to the possibility of noticing them while they are participating in our experience. When I look, listen or act, can I recognize what I am adding to what happens while I am adding it? It is probably here that the statement “the map is not the territory” acquires a different dimension, since knowing that we construct maps is still another map, and conceptually understanding the distinction between map and territory does not necessarily mean noticing it while the representation is operating.