When Algorithms Decide What We See: Who Is Really Forming Your Opinions?

Here's something that unsettles me every time I sit with it: most people believe their opinions are their own.

They're not. Not entirely.

This isn't a conspiracy theory. It's not even particularly controversial among researchers. It's just something we haven't collectively reckoned with yet, because the mechanism is invisible, constant, and extraordinarily good at feeling natural.

Let me explain what I mean.

Constant engagement

The Feed and the Algorithms Are Not Neutral

Every time you open a social media platform, a news app, or even a search engine, you're not seeing the world. You're seeing a version of the world that has been assembled specifically for you by an algorithm whose one job is to keep you engaged.

Not informed. Not challenged. Not growing.

Engaged.

And here's the thing about engagement: we engage most readily with content that confirms what we already believe, that stirs our existing emotions, that flatters our sense of identity. Outrage holds attention. Complexity doesn't. Nuance scrolls past. Certainty stops the thumb.

The algorithm learns this about you faster than you learn it about yourself. And then, without malice but with extraordinary precision, it builds you a world.

A world where you are mostly right. Where your fears are mostly justified. Where people who think differently are mostly foolish, or dangerous, or both.

That's not information. That's a hall of mirrors.

This Is an Ancient Problem

What strikes me, working at the intersection of philosophy and shamanic practice, is how ancient this problem actually is.

In the Andean tradition, one of the most foundational concepts is ayni, which is reciprocity, right relationship, balance. This is the idea that we are not isolated beings forming independent views, but nodes in a vast living web, constantly in relationship with everything around us. The question is never just "what do I think?" but "what am I in relationship with, and is that relationship healthy?"

When an algorithm decides what you see, it is placing itself between you and the web. It is mediating your relationships - with ideas, with other people, with reality itself - not in the spirit of ayni, but in the spirit of profit.

That's not a healthy relationship. That's a parasitic one.

The Norse tradition I work with speaks of the Wyrd, which is the great web of fate and interconnection, the threads that bind all things. Every choice we make sends ripples through those threads. But to make genuine choices, we need genuine perception. We need to actually see.

What do we see when the algorithm has curated our perception? We see shadows of the web. We see the threads it wants us to see. We think we're navigating reality, but we're navigating a simulation of reality designed to keep us coming back.

The Philosophical Problem at the Heart of It

I think about this a lot in my role as Chair of The Philosophical Society: Oxford. At its core, this is a question about epistemic autonomy, which is your right and capacity to form beliefs that are genuinely yours.

For a belief to be authentically your own, the philosophical tradition tells us, your mind needs to have been genuinely free: free to encounter competing ideas, to sit with uncertainty, to change. That process - the difficult, friction-laden, sometimes uncomfortable process of actually thinking - is not a luxury. It's the foundation of intellectual selfhood.

The algorithm removes the friction. It makes the path smooth. And in doing so, it removes something essential.

Here's a way I've come to think about it: in shamanic practice, we talk about the difference between the ego's preferred story and deeper truth. The ego wants comfort. It wants confirmation. It wants to be told it's right. Deep soul work involves learning to sit with the discomfort of not-knowing, of complexity, of genuine encounter with what challenges you.

The algorithm is the ego's perfect servant. It feeds you exactly what your ego wants to hear.

And your soul, your deeper intelligence, your capacity for genuine discernment, quietly starves.

What Gets Lost

I want to be honest about what's actually at stake here, because I think we often talk about this in abstract terms when it's deeply personal.

Your relationships with people who think differently deteriorate. Not because you've genuinely engaged with their ideas and found them wanting. But because you've stopped seeing their ideas at all. You see caricatures instead in their most extreme, inflammatory version of a position, served up to generate your outrage.

Your capacity for genuine inquiry shrinks. When was the last time something you read online actually changed your mind? Not just confirmed what you already thought, but genuinely shifted your perspective? If you have to think hard to remember, that's worth paying attention to.

Your emotional body becomes dysregulated. This is something the shamanic traditions understand well: we are not just thinking beings. We are feeling, energetic, relational beings. A constant diet of algorithmically amplified outrage, fear, and tribal signalling doesn't just affect your opinions. It affects your nervous system. Your energy body. Your capacity to be present.

We talk in shamanic practice about hucha, the heavy, dense energy that accumulates and clouds perception. The algorithm is a hucha machine. Every scroll through an outrage feed is depositing something in your energy field that makes it harder to see clearly.

The Question of Sovereignty

Here is the question I keep returning to: who has sovereignty over your inner life?

In the Andean tradition, this is not a small question. Soul sovereignty, the integrity of your own perception, your own energy, your own capacity to be in genuine relationship with reality, is something to be actively tended and protected. It doesn't just happen. It requires practice, discernment, and the willingness to examine not just what you think, but how you came to think it.

As a researcher at Cambridge, I'm deeply invested in rigorous inquiry. And as a shamanic practitioner, I'm deeply invested in clear perception. What I see in algorithmic curation is a threat to both. It is epistemically corrupting, as it degrades the quality of our reasoning. And it is spiritually corrupting, as it clouds the inner clarity we need to be in right relationship with ourselves and with each other.

The consent question also troubles me deeply. Most of us handed over the curation of our intellectual lives by clicking "I agree" on a document we didn't read, granting permissions we didn't understand, to a process we didn't foresee. That's not informed consent. It's barely consent at all.

What We Can Do

I'm not suggesting we abandon technology. I'm suggesting we wake up to what it's doing, and make conscious choices rather than unconscious ones.

Slow down. The algorithm thrives on fast reaction. Before you share something, before you feel your blood boil, pause. The Andean practice of saminchakuy, conscious cleansing, begins with just this: a moment of stillness before response.

Seek the friction. Actively look for ideas that challenge you. Read people you disagree with. Not to be overwhelmed, but to remember that reality is more complex than your feed suggests. This is genuine intellectual practice. It's also a form of spiritual hygiene.

Tend your energy field. Notice how you feel after time on social media. Is your energy clearer or denser? Lighter or heavier? Your body knows things your mind is still catching up with.

Ask who benefits. Every time you notice yourself gripped by outrage or certainty, it's worth asking: who benefits from me feeling this? The answer is often: not you.

Come back to direct experience. Sit outside. Talk to people face to face. Walk in the landscape. Here in the English countryside, surrounded by ancient burial mounds and stone circles, I'm constantly reminded that reality is available to direct perception. We don't need an algorithm to mediate our relationship with what is real.

A Closing Thought

The Socratic tradition, which, as a philosopher, I have enormous respect for, holds that the unexamined life is not worth living. Socrates meant: turn your attention inward. Question your assumptions. Don't take received wisdom at face value.

In our moment, that ancient injunction requires something new: we must examine not just our beliefs, but the mechanisms by which our beliefs have been shaped. We must ask not only what we think, but who has been whispering in our ear. And whether that whisperer has our genuine flourishing at heart.

My answer, when I look at the algorithm honestly? It doesn't.

Your soul does. The spirits you're in relationship with do. The ancient wisdom traditions that have been navigating questions of right perception for thousands of years do.

That's where I'd put my trust.

I'm Kathy Postelle Rixon, researcher at Cambridge, Chair of The Philosophical Society: Oxford, and shamanic practitioner. My work sits at the intersection of ancient wisdom traditions and cutting-edge science, and the question of how we perceive clearly is at the heart of all of it. If this resonates with you, I'd genuinely love to hear your thoughts. Please reach out at kathy@magicinharmony.com or visit www.magicinharmony.com.

How aware are you of how your feed shapes your thinking? Have you ever caught yourself holding a belief and realised you couldn't trace where it came from? I'd love to hear your experience.