Breaking the ‘Familiarity’ Construct
Doing the act then observing oneself through one's own critical view, then doing the same act and observing oneself from the interpreted perception of selective others.
In support of this I draw on the concept of epistemic trust - “being able to rely on the validity of what we experience and what we see and hear as related to us by those in a position of authority—is at our developmental core how we come to feel secure within ourselves, to trust others, and to feel at home in a world that makes sense.” (Siegel, D. 2019) For instance - “If a child falls down and hurts her knee, a parent who denies that she fell, or that she was hurt, would be violating epistemic trust. Instead of being seen, soothed, and safe, the child is not only physically bruised but remains wary and reactive. Her lived experience does not match how her parent—her attachment figure—is relating to her about the nature of her fall.” (Siegel, D. 2019) Meaning, we are constantly mapping a model of the world from perception of selective others and as if testing it against our own real understanding of ‘self’ within this world.
The above concept in comparison with the constructive notion that knowledge does not begin in the eye or the object, it begins in the interactions. The question I ask is for the ‘self’ - the way we construct our environments externally concluded from our mere need to interact with objects and people, does the same construct apply when interacting with the ‘self’?
If epistemic trust is broken repeatedly within a selective group in a given environment i.e. - The relation between ‘the fall’ and ‘the pain’ is violated enough number of times to create a ‘false narrative’ supported by the collective opinions of those in authority will lead to a decline in reliability towards the authoritarian or attachment figure. Although, for a child the relation between falling and feeling pain is identified through lived experience and rationale. However, the relation between actions and experiences as we grow up blurs and from observation - it becomes increasingly difficult to identify which narrative is true. On one hand - it becomes difficult to question narratives that are supported or held high in our immediate environment. While on the other hand - it is easy to give in to stories which work in our favor for short-term gains and gratification.
With the assumption that both introspection and extrospection are in constant need of alignment to achieve a model of the world that feels familiar. I believe true familiarity for an object, person or environment lies in not only how we map our environment in a given frame of time but also in how the environment maps back onto us. For instance - you map a door as a pathway between two places and consciously decide to move through this space to make your way through to the desired spot; while doing so the environment maps back onto you so that you are aware about the size, shape and mass as a body moving through this space.
The two approaches here must be defined - first, being an observer of ‘self’ and second, being a ‘subject’ to another. I would like to define ‘Familiarity’ here as - known and mapped image of self in a given space during a frame of time. It must be noted that this ‘Familiarity’ is not linear but fluctuates with the presence of observers hence increasing our perceptual load.
