Useful Ways of Looking

Useful Ways of Looking is a series on concepts I often reference. You could think of them as mental models, or primitives, or keys, or, well, Ways of Looking. You probably landed here because I referenced one and sent you this link for further explanation!

The Useful Ways of Looking are not necessarily true, but they are — as the name suggests — often useful. Finding where to skillfully apply them is part of the job.

In brief

“The most fundamental fact about any experience is that it depends on the way of looking” (Rob Burbea); by leveraging this, we can make any “problem” we’re facing trivially soluble.

More context

Think about a classic Chinese finger trap toy. If your Way of Looking at the problem is “to get an object out of a hole, one must move the object towards the exit of the hole,” you will try mightily to free yourself and never will (or, perhaps, only with great difficulty).

Getting out of the trap requires first shifting your Way of Looking (to: “when an object is trapped by tension, one must first release the tension before exiting”), and then the problem is trivially and effortlessly solved.

I contend that just about every “problem” in life is like this. To solve a problem that isn’t disappearing easily, you must first accept that the problem remains because of your Way of Looking (or the current knowledge you are applying to it).

I wrote at length about one application of this — lessening your experience of suffering — in this post. But really, the idea applies much more broadly.

As Rob Burbea says in Seeing that Frees, “Other than what we can perceive through different ways of looking, there is no ‘objective reality’ existing independently,” and he’s not the only one pointing at the same idea…

John Wheeler, a respected quantum physicist, argues that we live in a “participatory universe” and that the observer is not separate from what is observed — our measurement (or way of looking) defines what seems to happen. Psychologist Jean Piaget put forth the theory that the mind actively constructs its own reality, rather than passively mirroring it. And there are so many more.

The whole Useful Ways of Looking series relies on this underlying concept: that reality doesn’t exist to us absent a Way of Looking. And if that is the case, and if we can choose which Way of Looking to use, why not have an arsenal of Useful ones?

Problems that appear insoluble are only so because of your current Way of Looking. Rather than trying to solve the problem with that Way, you should first seek a Way of Looking that makes the problem easier to solve, and only then do it.

David Deutsch — another quantum physicist — gets at this “problems are soluble” idea from a slightly different angle (emphasis mine):

It is inevitable that we face problems, but no particular problem is inevitable. We survive, and thrive, by solving each problem as it comes up. And, since the human ability to transform nature is limited only by the laws of physics, none of the endless stream of problems will ever constitute an impassable barrier. So a complementary and equally important truth about people and the physical world is that problems are soluble. By ‘soluble’ I mean that the right knowledge would solve them.

— David Deutsch, The Beginning of Infinity

Once you have accepted that a “problem” exists due to your current Way of Looking, you must be willing to change that Way, and seek a different one that will make the problem easy to solve — and only then take action to solve it.

Move the “hard” work to the stage of “framing” the problem (how to remove your fingers from the trap) rather then the stage of “executing” on it (physically moving your fingers), and you will find many more problems are within your capabilities.

I hope this Useful Ways of Looking series equips you with a range of such tools that I have found valuable in my life and work. I often run into a problem — or one is surfaced to me — and think back to this list, seeking the lens that will make the problem easily soluble.

(And, of course — this whole idea itself is a Way of Looking, and is not objectively correct. But, per its inclusion in the UWoL list, it is quite useful!)

Further readings

Rob Burbea’s book Seeing that Frees is exceptional.

Also, my earlier post on Ways of Looking and how they can be used to relieve suffering.

Looking for more to read?

Want to hear about new essays? Subscribe to my roughly-monthly newsletter recapping my recent writing and things I'm enjoying:

And I'd love to hear from you directly: andy@andybromberg.com