9
Mind, Life, and the Universe
Tools of the Mind
There are two contrasting ways of exploring our world visually: We may look
widely at a spread-out perspective, or we may focus narrowly and take in an
area of minute detail. These activities are very different from one another and
involve distinct parts of the brain. The first involves the acquisition of Gestalt
knowledge, whereas what is obtained in the second is detailed information
which is precise and explicit.
When we spread attention widely so as to have a panoramic view, we have
the subjective impression that we are taking in a great amount of information.
In fact, this is an illusion: For example, when we look at a tree, we might
glance at a leaf, and since all leaves on a tree look pretty much the same, we feel
that we are seeing them all. When viewing Andy Warhol’s painting of twentyfive identical Marilyns, we generally focus briefly on one, and then mentally
experience seeing the whole canvas in detail. In psychology, this is called the
filling-in phenomenon.
The French philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty has written at length on
this phenomenon in his book Phenomenology of Perception. For him, in vision
the indeterminate is very real, and is a fundamental aspect of seeing. For example, a perceived polygon must have a definite number of sides, but perception
admits ambiguity, so we neither count the sides nor do we notice the absence
of a definite count. He says that perception is only possible if you admit this
kind of ambiguity. 1
Merleau-Ponty says it is commonsense belief that when we’re looking at a
scene, we experience every detail of what’s there. What leads us to that impression, he says, is that the scene remains before us while we’re looking, and the
© The Author(s) 2021
C. Pinter, Mind and the Cosmic Order,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-50083-2_9
143
Mind, Life, and the Universe
Tools of the Mind
There are two contrasting ways of exploring our world visually: We may look
widely at a spread-out perspective, or we may focus narrowly and take in an
area of minute detail. These activities are very different from one another and
involve distinct parts of the brain. The first involves the acquisition of Gestalt
knowledge, whereas what is obtained in the second is detailed information
which is precise and explicit.
When we spread attention widely so as to have a panoramic view, we have
the subjective impression that we are taking in a great amount of information.
In fact, this is an illusion: For example, when we look at a tree, we might
glance at a leaf, and since all leaves on a tree look pretty much the same, we feel
that we are seeing them all. When viewing Andy Warhol’s painting of twentyfive identical Marilyns, we generally focus briefly on one, and then mentally
experience seeing the whole canvas in detail. In psychology, this is called the
filling-in phenomenon.
The French philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty has written at length on
this phenomenon in his book Phenomenology of Perception. For him, in vision
the indeterminate is very real, and is a fundamental aspect of seeing. For example, a perceived polygon must have a definite number of sides, but perception
admits ambiguity, so we neither count the sides nor do we notice the absence
of a definite count. He says that perception is only possible if you admit this
kind of ambiguity. 1
Merleau-Ponty says it is commonsense belief that when we’re looking at a
scene, we experience every detail of what’s there. What leads us to that impression, he says, is that the scene remains before us while we’re looking, and the
© The Author(s) 2021
C. Pinter, Mind and the Cosmic Order,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-50083-2_9
143