I have recently read two books that have changed my life. The Brain and Livewired were written, in 2015 and 2020, by David Eagleman, a neuroscientist who teaches brain plasticity at Stanford University. These books helped me formulate the theme of this column, and my future contributions to the Pikes Peak Lawyer – recognizing the subjective nature of reality, and the importance of acknowledging that there is no universal reality in evaluating certain aspects of our judicial system.

In our role as advocates, we are accustomed to being introduced to legal matters through the biased lens of our client’s perspective, and we are typically forced to expand on that perspective in order to convince a judge or jury that our client should prevail. Most of us are very good at explaining to clients that their individual perspectives are subjective, and, sometimes, our clients actually absorb that information. Similarly, as a society, we more readily accept that perspective is subjective, and is a point of view shaped by our unique prior experiences and what we deem relevant to our own lives. It is helpful to recall the writing tips we were taught in English 101, that “[p]erspective is a lens through which we learn to see the world; it shapes what we see and the way we see it. The lens can clarify, magnify, distort or blur what we see.” This tip is not only helpful in writing screenplays, for example, but in facilitating our daily interactions with others.

Despite our increased recognition that perspective is subjective, we often fail to accept that our perception is equally dependent on subjective factors. A common definition of “perception” is “the act of apprehending by means of the senses or of the mind,” and it is easy to think of this interaction with the environment as an objective process. However, our brains exist inside a dark skull, with no ability to peek through a window and “see” anything, and Eagleman reminds us that the environment which exists outside of the skull is not the three-dimensional world we think of as the world around us. Instead, this three-dimensional world is created inside the brain, by its interpretation of the information provided to it.

Our bodies contain a myriad of sensitive data receptors, like eyes, ears, and skin, that interact with our environment and report back to the brain through electrochemical pulses streaming in along our nerve cables. Our brains interpret the information streaming in, by recognizing patterns in the electrochemical signals, and assigning meaning to those patterns. These meanings create the beautifully-detailed mosaic we think of as the outside world. It is easy to forget that the mosaic we create is unique to us, since it is entirely dependent on (1) the specific electrochemical pulses our brain selectively retrieves out of an endless stream rushing by, and (2) the meanings which have been assigned by our brain to those specific signals. To the extent we have any control over these factors, that control is heavily-influenced by our prior experiences and what we deem relevant and important to our own lives. Therefore, similar to our perspectives, each of us creates a “reality” that is unique to us, and, problematically, different from everyone else’s reality.

My understanding of Eagleman’s quick course on neuroscience is that the data in the environment is equally available to everyone, and, while some of us have better data receptors, like younger eyes or more effective ears, our data receptors do not selectively decide what data should be sent to the brain and what should be ignored. Instead, a steady stream of data is uploaded to the brain, and the brain decides through selection and interpretation, which particular elements are incorporated into our mosaic to become our “reality.” Once we consider this process, it is easier to understand that aspects of our legal system are heavily impacted by the fact that our respective realities oftentimes do not significantly overlap. I plan to discuss in more detail, over the next several months, how the brain’s selection and interpretation process, a process which is largely subconscious, perpetuates some of the inequities which exist in our system of justice.