What does "reality construction" (Wirklichkeitskonstruktion) mean in systems thinking?

That we don't passively read off a ready-made world — our perception actively builds the reality we experience, so there's no observer-free "absolute truth," only relative ones.

This is the constructivist core of the systemic worldview. The claim is not that nothing exists, but that what we perceive is shaped by us — our history, expectations and concepts — so there is "no world, findable and detached from me, in the sense of absolute truth," only relative truths. Why it matters:

• If you can't step outside your own viewpoint, then your perspective is always part of what you see — the observer is in the picture.
• Because everything is connected, "the way we go into the world has meaning": every act, thought and stance shapes the reality that comes back.
• It dissolves the comfortable split between a neutral "objective world" and our reports of it.

This is why ambiguous images matter so much here: the same lines can be a duck or a rabbit, two faces or a vase. Nothing on the page changed — your construction did. That's reality construction in miniature.

Tip: "What I see is not the world, but my mirror" — perception reflects the perceiver as much as the object.