For the Mind, Reality Is Whole
83
If a creature did not perceive the external world in Gestalts, it would not be
able to discern motion. Indeed, in order to see an object moving it is necessary
to observe it at different positions along its path, and see it at different times.
This does not mean that objects in the external world, outside the scope of any
observer, don’t really move. When a material object moves, its physical state of
motion is an instantaneous reading just as its position is.
There is a dedicated module in the brains of all animals whose function is to
detect motion. We experience the motion of a moving object as a kind of drift,
or flow, and it is the sensation of this flow that we recognize as movement.
Moreover, we have no experience of instantaneous motion. Rather, what we
experience is always the event of motion over a brief interval of time, perhaps
a half-second or so. With the aid of very short-term memory, we experience
the gradual displacement of the moving object as a unique kind of sensation.
For a living perceiver, motion is always experienced as something that occurs
over a brief interval of time, and is like a moving window. It is nothing at all
like actual physical motion, which is defined at each instant.
Despite this fact, we are obliged to conceive of motion in the terms in which
we experience it. It is this version of motion that is built into our world-model,
and it would be totally impossible for us to perceive motion any differently. Like
so many other aspects of the surrounding world, we are constrained to perceive
motion in the specific form that the brain has conditioned us to apprehend it.
From the time, long ago, when people first began thinking abstractly, they
noticed the division of reality into matter and form. This dichotomy was pivotal
in the philosophies of both Plato and Aristotle, though it led them in different
directions. Aristotle viewed form as a natural aspect of all material substance,
but Plato considered forms to be real entities unto themselves, dwelling in a
separate realm of existence.
Intuitively, it seems indisputable to us that every material thing has two
orthogonal aspects: It has matter and form—and these two things jointly
determine what an object is. This belief, however, is another example of naïve
realism—for in actual fact form cannot exist except in the view of a Gestalt
observer. Form does not inhere in brute matter but emerges in Gestalt observation.
Form is another aspect of the observed universe that comes into existence with
Gestalt perception.
This is quite an amazing insight, and it demonstrates how far our native
intuition can diverge from reality. We are convinced beyond a shadow of a
doubt that every material object has substance and form: That is, an object’s
form inheres in the object itself, and is an aspect of the matter of which the
object is made. Once again, we are misled by common sense. Actually, an
83
If a creature did not perceive the external world in Gestalts, it would not be
able to discern motion. Indeed, in order to see an object moving it is necessary
to observe it at different positions along its path, and see it at different times.
This does not mean that objects in the external world, outside the scope of any
observer, don’t really move. When a material object moves, its physical state of
motion is an instantaneous reading just as its position is.
There is a dedicated module in the brains of all animals whose function is to
detect motion. We experience the motion of a moving object as a kind of drift,
or flow, and it is the sensation of this flow that we recognize as movement.
Moreover, we have no experience of instantaneous motion. Rather, what we
experience is always the event of motion over a brief interval of time, perhaps
a half-second or so. With the aid of very short-term memory, we experience
the gradual displacement of the moving object as a unique kind of sensation.
For a living perceiver, motion is always experienced as something that occurs
over a brief interval of time, and is like a moving window. It is nothing at all
like actual physical motion, which is defined at each instant.
Despite this fact, we are obliged to conceive of motion in the terms in which
we experience it. It is this version of motion that is built into our world-model,
and it would be totally impossible for us to perceive motion any differently. Like
so many other aspects of the surrounding world, we are constrained to perceive
motion in the specific form that the brain has conditioned us to apprehend it.
From the time, long ago, when people first began thinking abstractly, they
noticed the division of reality into matter and form. This dichotomy was pivotal
in the philosophies of both Plato and Aristotle, though it led them in different
directions. Aristotle viewed form as a natural aspect of all material substance,
but Plato considered forms to be real entities unto themselves, dwelling in a
separate realm of existence.
Intuitively, it seems indisputable to us that every material thing has two
orthogonal aspects: It has matter and form—and these two things jointly
determine what an object is. This belief, however, is another example of naïve
realism—for in actual fact form cannot exist except in the view of a Gestalt
observer. Form does not inhere in brute matter but emerges in Gestalt observation.
Form is another aspect of the observed universe that comes into existence with
Gestalt perception.
This is quite an amazing insight, and it demonstrates how far our native
intuition can diverge from reality. We are convinced beyond a shadow of a
doubt that every material object has substance and form: That is, an object’s
form inheres in the object itself, and is an aspect of the matter of which the
object is made. Once again, we are misled by common sense. Actually, an