Our minds are what most sets us apart from other life forms. Each of our five senses is not as strong as that of other living things; in fact, no one of our senses is superior to that of all other living things. Our minds are.
Our perceptions of reality are formed from a combination of our five senses, the most important of which to us, is sight. But our minds are so strong that we have long realized that our perceived reality is far different than that of falcons or bats or whales. That is, we know that there is not one external reality. There is no truth which can be validated or invalidated by reference to a single external reality.
We are unique in being able to create in our minds individual realities, as many realities as there are persons living on the planet. The external determinant of the validity of an individual person's reality is the collective judgment of other persons who share broadly similar senses and minds. When the Iraqi information minister said that there were no American troops at Baghdad airport we could introduce him to a U.S. soldier. "To change his mind." That is what it amounts to, changing the mind, not the perception, for he had seen the same images from CNN and other networks of the Americans at the airport. In the reality of his mind they were not there. The Iraqi information minister changed his mind to conform to the overwhelming consensus of others' minds and perceptions by not appearing at his next scheduled news conference. Some minds are not able to change no matter the perceptual and intellectual consensus. There are those, Kyrie Irving is one, who questions whether we landed on the moon. There are many who do not think coronavirus is real, that there is therefore no need for vaccines or masks and in any event the vaccines alter DNA so they refuse them. To some the images of people dead from coronavirus are faked, the numbers of dead are fake. There are some who maintain these realities in their minds until their own death from coronavirus. We elected a man as leader of our nation who doubted science for the reality in his mind.
To a great degree leaders are chosen when 50%+1 of voters' mental realities align with that of the candidate. Those realities are just as much the sum of lie, fantasy, and shared sensory perception. Sometimes our minds are too weak to recognize when our leader's reality changes from our individual reality or does not conform with that of the majority. Sometimes, some of us have minds strong enough to recognize the disconnect between leader's reality and the majority, especially overwhelming, consensus of others. Those with such minds then "change their minds". It is distressing to the individual to have one's mind forced, as it were, to change, about a leader upon overwhelming consensus and subjective judgment that the leader's and the individual's realities do not align.
