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8 The Universe Observed and Unobserved
Although the shapes of orbits are fully determined by the underlying physics
(that is, by addition of simples), orbits exist only in the scheme of reality
of Gestalt observers. The reality which a Gestalt observer perceives is quite
different from that of the underlying physical world. In the Gestalt whole, the
observer sees patterns—and these patterns do not exist in the ground reality
because patterns emerge only in spread-out wholes and exist only in Gestalt
perception.
This idea may be clarified with a parable. You often see displays in store
windows in which little lights turn on and off, synchronized to produce a
message in lights which is seen as a series of words moving across the display.
As a Gestalt observer what you see is the written message, for instance “Best
Price Guarantee”, drifting slowly from right to left. However, what is actually
happening materially is that light bulbs are turning on and off separately from
one another. Two very different things are going on at two levels of reality. On
one level, single lights are turning on and off. At a different level, a written
message is being displayed.
What physically reaches your eyes are the separate lights. However, because
you view them not as individual lights but as a composite whole, what you
see is a message, hence a different reality altogether. The separately flashing
lights are the ground reality rooted in the physical world, but you’re a Gestalt
observer and your experience is of a unified display—a reality which is entirely
different.
When a subject sees a whole, spread-out scene in one glance, what lies
before her or him is nothing over and above the elementary components which
are physically present—the many individual pixels. The subject is not seeing
anything that is not physically there. Yet what’s brought to awareness are not
the elementary components but the entirety of the display as a unified, single
Gestalt. Seen all together as a single entity, a display evokes meaning that was
absent in the components separately. There is nothing physically new in the
unified glance, but by seeing it as one, what is perceived is something new.
As another example, think of a machine, such as a steam engine used to
power a locomotive. A human observer is capable of holding all the different
parts together in mind and visualizing how each part interacts with others
to make the engine work. The human understands why the engine does what
it does, and knows that its purpose is to supply power to the wheels of the
locomotive. In the physical world, however, all that is happening is that each
part separately pushes or pulls the parts that it’s attached to.
There is a physical side of reality which unfolds heedlessly, dumbly,
mechanically—and there is a separate aspect of reality which has unity, wholeness and exists only in the purview of a perceiver of Gestalts. Perhaps Descartes
8 The Universe Observed and Unobserved
Although the shapes of orbits are fully determined by the underlying physics
(that is, by addition of simples), orbits exist only in the scheme of reality
of Gestalt observers. The reality which a Gestalt observer perceives is quite
different from that of the underlying physical world. In the Gestalt whole, the
observer sees patterns—and these patterns do not exist in the ground reality
because patterns emerge only in spread-out wholes and exist only in Gestalt
perception.
This idea may be clarified with a parable. You often see displays in store
windows in which little lights turn on and off, synchronized to produce a
message in lights which is seen as a series of words moving across the display.
As a Gestalt observer what you see is the written message, for instance “Best
Price Guarantee”, drifting slowly from right to left. However, what is actually
happening materially is that light bulbs are turning on and off separately from
one another. Two very different things are going on at two levels of reality. On
one level, single lights are turning on and off. At a different level, a written
message is being displayed.
What physically reaches your eyes are the separate lights. However, because
you view them not as individual lights but as a composite whole, what you
see is a message, hence a different reality altogether. The separately flashing
lights are the ground reality rooted in the physical world, but you’re a Gestalt
observer and your experience is of a unified display—a reality which is entirely
different.
When a subject sees a whole, spread-out scene in one glance, what lies
before her or him is nothing over and above the elementary components which
are physically present—the many individual pixels. The subject is not seeing
anything that is not physically there. Yet what’s brought to awareness are not
the elementary components but the entirety of the display as a unified, single
Gestalt. Seen all together as a single entity, a display evokes meaning that was
absent in the components separately. There is nothing physically new in the
unified glance, but by seeing it as one, what is perceived is something new.
As another example, think of a machine, such as a steam engine used to
power a locomotive. A human observer is capable of holding all the different
parts together in mind and visualizing how each part interacts with others
to make the engine work. The human understands why the engine does what
it does, and knows that its purpose is to supply power to the wheels of the
locomotive. In the physical world, however, all that is happening is that each
part separately pushes or pulls the parts that it’s attached to.
There is a physical side of reality which unfolds heedlessly, dumbly,
mechanically—and there is a separate aspect of reality which has unity, wholeness and exists only in the purview of a perceiver of Gestalts. Perhaps Descartes