Here’s a thought experiment for you.
Think of something you know to be true about yourself.
I am shy.
I am terrible with numbers.
I don’t trust easily.
I’m a good judge of people.
Now imagine that everyone who has ever known you disappears.
So does every photograph, message and record of your past.
Tomorrow, you wake up among people who know absolutely nothing about you.
Is that thing still true?
If yes, how do you know?
If no, who was keeping it true?
Welcome to the Human Reality Atlas.
The Human Reality Atlas is an evolving exploration of the realities we construct, the assumptions we carry into them, and what becomes visible when two things we believe to be true collide.
It uses thought experiments, improvisation, facilitated conversations and carefully designed experiences to create temporary situations in which the familiar becomes slightly unfamiliar.
Not to tell people what to think.
Not necessarily to change their minds.
But to create a crack in the familiar, through which something previously invisible might become visible.
What are we exploring?
The territory changes with every experiment.
Sometimes the question is about something we believe.
Sometimes it is about something we believe about ourselves.
Sometimes it is about another person.
Sometimes it is about the rules of a group, an organisation or a society that have become so familiar that we no longer notice them.
The interesting moment is often the one in which two perfectly reasonable truths refuse to coexist comfortably.
That tension is where the exploration begins.
Where does this happen?
In cafés, between strangers around a table.
In universities, where thought experiments and improvisation interrupt familiar ways of thinking and invite students to observe what happens next.
In teams and organisations, where people can temporarily step outside roles, hierarchies and habitual ways of responding to one another.
Different settings reveal different territory.
The Atlas is still being drawn.
There is no finished map.
Every experiment reveals another piece of territory.
A certainty becomes a question.
An assumption becomes visible.
A familiar situation looks slightly different.
A possibility appears where there wasn’t one before.
Which is probably just as well.
A finished map of human reality would be a very suspicious thing indeed.
If you’re curious about bringing an experiment into a university, organisation or community, I’d be interested in the conversation.
Some of these questions continue to wander through The Slow Ferment Journal.