Part 1 – It’s the Design Review Process, Stupid

There is an idea that reality is created by our observations.

I think that is partly true, but only if we are careful about what we mean by “reality.”

There is external reality: whatever actually exists or occurred.

Then there is our experienced reality: what we observe, interpret and believe happened.

Those are not always the same thing.

So perhaps the process looks more like this:

external reality → observation → internal reality → interpretation (design) → response → changed external reality

The problem is that our observation and interpretation are subjective.

We see through memory, emotion, expectation, language, experience and bias.

So how do we become more objective?

Through review. Less subjective or more objective review, that is.

And review often begins with an objection.

That objection might come from another person, a team, evidence, reason, a rule, a measurement, or potentially AI.

The objection says, in effect:

“Your interpretation may be incomplete.”

That creates a new loop:

observation → interpretation (design) → objection → review → revised interpretation → response

The objection itself may also be subjective, of course, which is why it too must remain open to review.

This is where the process becomes interesting.

If I change my internal model of reality, I may change how I act externally.

If enough other people do the same, we can change external reality itself.

The Wright brothers are a good example.

Their internal model was not merely that humans might fly.

They observed, experimented, failed, reviewed, revised and tried again.

Then thousands of other people extended that model.

Engineers, manufacturers, regulators, pilots and entire societies kept reviewing and improving what flight could become.

The result, 120 years later, is something like the Airbus A380.

The Wright brothers could imagine powered flight.

I doubt they could fully imagine the external reality their revised internal model would eventually help create.

So perhaps the deeper point is this:

In my view, we do not become objective by escaping subjectivity. We become more objective by reviewing it.

And once improved internal models are acted upon collectively, they can create external realities that were previously almost unimaginable.

It’s the design review process, stupid.