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8 The Universe Observed and Unobserved
It goes against the grain to acknowledge the fact that shape and structure
emerge from the minds of living observers, and don’t exist in the physical
universe apart from living beings. Moreover, we are “forbidden” by our biology
from tearing apart the illusion of appearance. This does not imply that the way
creatures see the world is contrary to the material facts. The very opposite is
true: Over eons of biological evolution, the world-models of animals have been
fine-tuned and fitted ever more precisely to the material environment.
Yet there is one radically important—in fact, elemental difference between
the physical world and the world perceived by creatures: The world known to
living beings is made of compound whole objects and complete events that
unfold over time. Living creatures perceive their environments in spread-out
wholes. They experience whole events which take place over a region of space
and over a stretch of time. The fundamental units in awareness are complete
objects and events. They are Gestalts.
This should not surprise us, because common sense dictates imperiously
that nature—the physical world we inhabit—is the very same way. For us the
world consists of whole objects and undivided events unfolding in time. As
you know by now, our nature as biological creatures compels us to attribute to
our environment everything that we perceive. In particular, we attribute to the
external world the Gestalt unity created by our minds.
For example, in the physical world there are mechanical interactions occurring in series: One example is a falling row of dominoes (where one event
sets off a chain of similar events). As another example, there are the successive
notes of a musical tune. A Gestalt subject is able to hold the entire series of
events in mind as a single mental snapshot, and perceive it together as one
compound event. For instance, we are bound to experience a familiar tune as
a single drawn-out entity.
Common sense assumes it is the same in the physical world—that a sequence
of simple events is objectively united into one comprehensive event. But the
very idea of a “compound event”—meaningful as a combined whole—is a
Gestalt concept. The series of events is united into one combined event in the
mind of a Gestalt subject. There is no force in the universe at large that would
act to combine events into broader, more inclusive events. This is a typical
example of our mind projecting our experience outward and attributing it to
the external world.
It is no different with the seven stars forming the Big Dipper: Outside
the purview of a mind which perceives the Big Dipper as a specific pattern,
there is no physical effect or force which holds the seven stars together as an
objectively compound entity. They’re a combined entity for an observer, but
not objectively in the universe at large. The creative activity which consists of
8 The Universe Observed and Unobserved
It goes against the grain to acknowledge the fact that shape and structure
emerge from the minds of living observers, and don’t exist in the physical
universe apart from living beings. Moreover, we are “forbidden” by our biology
from tearing apart the illusion of appearance. This does not imply that the way
creatures see the world is contrary to the material facts. The very opposite is
true: Over eons of biological evolution, the world-models of animals have been
fine-tuned and fitted ever more precisely to the material environment.
Yet there is one radically important—in fact, elemental difference between
the physical world and the world perceived by creatures: The world known to
living beings is made of compound whole objects and complete events that
unfold over time. Living creatures perceive their environments in spread-out
wholes. They experience whole events which take place over a region of space
and over a stretch of time. The fundamental units in awareness are complete
objects and events. They are Gestalts.
This should not surprise us, because common sense dictates imperiously
that nature—the physical world we inhabit—is the very same way. For us the
world consists of whole objects and undivided events unfolding in time. As
you know by now, our nature as biological creatures compels us to attribute to
our environment everything that we perceive. In particular, we attribute to the
external world the Gestalt unity created by our minds.
For example, in the physical world there are mechanical interactions occurring in series: One example is a falling row of dominoes (where one event
sets off a chain of similar events). As another example, there are the successive
notes of a musical tune. A Gestalt subject is able to hold the entire series of
events in mind as a single mental snapshot, and perceive it together as one
compound event. For instance, we are bound to experience a familiar tune as
a single drawn-out entity.
Common sense assumes it is the same in the physical world—that a sequence
of simple events is objectively united into one comprehensive event. But the
very idea of a “compound event”—meaningful as a combined whole—is a
Gestalt concept. The series of events is united into one combined event in the
mind of a Gestalt subject. There is no force in the universe at large that would
act to combine events into broader, more inclusive events. This is a typical
example of our mind projecting our experience outward and attributing it to
the external world.
It is no different with the seven stars forming the Big Dipper: Outside
the purview of a mind which perceives the Big Dipper as a specific pattern,
there is no physical effect or force which holds the seven stars together as an
objectively compound entity. They’re a combined entity for an observer, but
not objectively in the universe at large. The creative activity which consists of