Cause and effect thinking tends to tunnel our thought processes.

Cause and effect thinking tends to tunnel our thought processes over time. That is, we believe one thing happens because of another – then we tunnel that cause-effect relationship into an “only” relationship. One thing happens only because of another.

Reality Tunnels have the form or structure of:

X causes Y

Therefore – (Reality Tunneling)

Y must be caused (only) by X

What if Y is caused by Z? Or X+Z or X-Z? Or something else entirely? According to many quantum physicists, causes and effects are so entwined together it’s impossible to separate one from the other. Basically, there is never one cause for one effect or one effect for one cause. Perhaps reality is a big mess when it comes to cause and effect. To imagine that there is only one cause for any given effect tends to deny reality.

Certainly it seems cause and effect works differently than we think it does. We think we know the cause and/or the effect, when, in fact, the best we can do is deduce one from the other.

When we use reality tunnels, we save some thought energy but tend to neglect or overlook viable and equally compelling alternatives.

I’ve noticed that it’s common practice to use reality tunnels to keep beliefs in place. For example, in the movie Joan of Arc, Joan saw everything that happened as a sign from God to join the revolution. She used her reality tunnels to hold her faith in place. Every effect she observed simply led her to one and only one conclusion.

In other words, it is possible to “bend” reality to suit our beliefs. All we have to do is assign a cause to an effect – we do it every day. When our presupposition, our “come from”, is a certain way or thing, we will tend to tunnel our “becauses” to justify and support it, just as Joan did. We use “only” to help us – “It could only be caused (because) by God…” for example. This is just another way we work to keep ourselves safe in our rightness, rightness that Joan of Arc called “righteousness.”

I’ve heard people complain, “You’re making me angry.”  This presupposes that I’m the only reason and there is no other reason they’re feeling angry. Acting upon this reality tunnel can cause quite a bit of relationship damage.

What if, for example, another reason they are feeling angry is because their hormones are out of balance due to ingestion of some food that disagreed with them?

What if, for example, yet another reason they are feeling angry is because they had a hard day at work?

What if…

What if…

What if…

Settling on just one and only one reason tunnels out all the other and possibly reasonable alternatives. What if the entire situation were due to something entirely different than you had supposed. What if your deduction is incorrect? What then?

You’re never angry for the reason you think. – A Course in Miracles

“Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.” – Hanlon’s Razor

“You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist.” – Friedrich Nietzsche