There's more to Perception than Meets the Eye

There's more to Perception than Meets the Eye

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6:28 Boiling down what I said above: any perception we have is only understood through concept. This is a very dominant aspect of experience. Seeing an object doesn’t give us much until we recognize it as a chair that we can sit on, or a dog that might bite our leg, or a rotten apple that is best thrown away. Along with every perception is an automatic mental association with many concepts.

6:29 But don’t take my word for it; take some time to look around you.

Gaze at different objects and try to ascertain what each object means to you. What do you believe about it? What feelings come up immediately when you look at it? What is the object called? Do you like it or not, or don’t you really care either way?

6:30 For example when you look at a red sports car, a certain lifestyle association immediately pops up along with commensurate feelings and attitudes. Glancing over at a minivan reveals through contrast the many reflexive associations made with the sports car, since very different meaning is placed on the van. A rock may have a rather lackluster set of mental connections, unless you need one to throw at the dog who wants to bite your legs. A bar of pure gold usually conjures up associations that evoke much more exciting reactions, while an old rocking chair might elicit many fond and comforting memories.

6:31 Once you’ve done a few of these, try another practice.

Just as you did in the exercise in Chapter Four, look at an object and try to see it without knowing what it is. Knowing is automatic and immediate and difficult to stop, so you’ll need to put some real effort into it. Keep your attention on whatever you perceive and try to not-know anything about it—like what it’s used for, what it can or can’t do. Attempt to throw out any and all reactions, associations, and feelings you have about it. Don’t know what it “is” for a moment—not even what it’s called. Focus on the object until everything familiar about it has dropped away from your awareness, until you can see it without all the normal mental applications in attendance.

6:32 What happened when you did this? Among other things, you should have noticed that what you perceive has many concepts attached to it, without which the perception falls into a very different category of awareness. Apply this technique to other objects or people. With this simple exercise, you become more apt to recognize how much concept influences your entire experience.

6:33 This kind of conceptual influence is equally present in the experience of one’s self. Our experience and perception of ourselves are found within and dominated by concepts—thoughts, feelings, beliefs, images, memories, assumptions, and programming. Yet this entire conceptual makeup cannot, as a matter of fact, bring us to, or even represent, an experience of our real being. Why this is so will unfold more clearly as we go.

6:34 Examining the relationship between concept and experience may not seem very important except for one frequently overlooked fact. The very concepts that dominate our experience, attention, and awareness are strongly influenced, if not outright determined by, unconscious personal and cultural beliefs and assumptions. This in itself perhaps wouldn’t be a problem either, except for another overlooked but very important point: many of these are wrong.

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The Book of Not Knowing, Chapter Six

Peter Ralston