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8 The Universe Observed and Unobserved
2. The two would be looking at the same screen, and each spectator might have
no knowledge that a completely different drama was unfolding in the eyes of
the other.
This metaphor may help us understand the relationship between the underlying physical reality and the extended reality of Gestalt perception. If there
were a way of viewing elementary physical phenomena, they might be seen
through “green” glasses which pick up the basic physical interactions and nothing else. But Gestalt perceivers are blind to the basic relations between elementary particles. They wear “red” glasses and what they perceive, while looking at
the same ‘screen’, are extended scenes spread out in space. They see trees and
hills, animals and people, mountains and valleys. Their reality is a universe
of diversity and Gestalts, and there is no limit, potentially, to the hierarchical
breadth and extent of Gestalt wholes in such a universe.
Which is the “true” reality: The one revealed by wearing the green glasses
or the one displayed when wearing the red? An easy answer might be that
the material world of physics is the foundation which is the platform for all
reality: Complex objects are constructed out of the material “stuff ” that exists in
physical reality. In this perspective, matter and energy provide the foundation:
Everything composite, manifold or structured is fashioned out of matter and
energy. This is the commonsense solution. It’s not wrong, but it’s simplistic.
Like the philosophy of materialism, it disregards Gestalts, which provide a
whole new opening to reality.
There is indeed a basic physical reality of the material universe, governed by
laws of physics which act on objects by addition of simples. But there are also
living observers, and somehow these creatures are endowed with the uncanny,
almost otherworldly power to hold a version of reality in their minds, in what we
call conscious awareness, and perceive the world in extended, comprehensive
displays which are grasped as single units of knowledge. You might say that the
minds of living beings have “re-packaged” ongoing reality so that for a living
subject, the units of reality which it grasps and responds to are entire objects
and whole events playing out over intervals of time.
As already mentioned several times, we cannot help but project this vision
onto our surroundings, and therefore we perceive the external world to consist
of entire objects and meaningful events unfolding. But it is the living mind
that has re-worked the ongoing activity of nature and created a world model
whose basic units are comprehensive Gestalts. It is through that model that all
creatures perceive the world. Consequently, the world we know is a constructed
reality. It is not the individual mind that has constructed the Gestalt world,
but the action of biological evolution, that is, the force of life acting over eons
of time.
8 The Universe Observed and Unobserved
2. The two would be looking at the same screen, and each spectator might have
no knowledge that a completely different drama was unfolding in the eyes of
the other.
This metaphor may help us understand the relationship between the underlying physical reality and the extended reality of Gestalt perception. If there
were a way of viewing elementary physical phenomena, they might be seen
through “green” glasses which pick up the basic physical interactions and nothing else. But Gestalt perceivers are blind to the basic relations between elementary particles. They wear “red” glasses and what they perceive, while looking at
the same ‘screen’, are extended scenes spread out in space. They see trees and
hills, animals and people, mountains and valleys. Their reality is a universe
of diversity and Gestalts, and there is no limit, potentially, to the hierarchical
breadth and extent of Gestalt wholes in such a universe.
Which is the “true” reality: The one revealed by wearing the green glasses
or the one displayed when wearing the red? An easy answer might be that
the material world of physics is the foundation which is the platform for all
reality: Complex objects are constructed out of the material “stuff ” that exists in
physical reality. In this perspective, matter and energy provide the foundation:
Everything composite, manifold or structured is fashioned out of matter and
energy. This is the commonsense solution. It’s not wrong, but it’s simplistic.
Like the philosophy of materialism, it disregards Gestalts, which provide a
whole new opening to reality.
There is indeed a basic physical reality of the material universe, governed by
laws of physics which act on objects by addition of simples. But there are also
living observers, and somehow these creatures are endowed with the uncanny,
almost otherworldly power to hold a version of reality in their minds, in what we
call conscious awareness, and perceive the world in extended, comprehensive
displays which are grasped as single units of knowledge. You might say that the
minds of living beings have “re-packaged” ongoing reality so that for a living
subject, the units of reality which it grasps and responds to are entire objects
and whole events playing out over intervals of time.
As already mentioned several times, we cannot help but project this vision
onto our surroundings, and therefore we perceive the external world to consist
of entire objects and meaningful events unfolding. But it is the living mind
that has re-worked the ongoing activity of nature and created a world model
whose basic units are comprehensive Gestalts. It is through that model that all
creatures perceive the world. Consequently, the world we know is a constructed
reality. It is not the individual mind that has constructed the Gestalt world,
but the action of biological evolution, that is, the force of life acting over eons
of time.