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Yeah, I think the author is missing the point. The distortions aren't so crude as a beer bottle, but they are there. Human beings see the world mostly in term

Yeah, I think the author is missing the point. The distortions aren't so crude as a beer bottle, but they are there. Human beings see the world mostly in terms of tools, people, and most of all narrative arc. You think of your life as having a beginning, middle, and end, it all forms a cohesive story and events happen to push the story forward. But of course that's a lie we tell ourselves, in fact we're just survival machines. For other animals the central abstractions are different; watch cats closely enough and you'll see that they are blind to tools and narrative but mostly just see food, terrain and other cats. That's why they walk on your laptop- they have no way to encapsulate the concept of a "tool" in their mental world. It's just terrain.

chillacy 11y ago
This is the point I was hoping others would bring up. The base reality is that we're all atoms and energy, and there isn't a clear boundary between the water in your body and the water you're swimming in, and (to quote Dr Manhattan) a recently deceased body has as just many atoms as it had when the body was alive 10 minutes ago. On top of this we've built all these abstractions... like how to socially interact, how to recognize membranes as a face, etc. (also interesting: those with severe autism seem to lack some of these abstractions) When buddhists speak of seeing reality or things as they really are, they speak of discarding these abstractions and seeing raw experience. I started learning how to draw because part of the process is discarding these abstractions (oh that's an eye, I know how eyes look) and instead drawing in terms of shapes and lines: moving down, closer to physical reality. This book has been very interesting for this: http://www.amazon.com/Drawing-Right-Side-Brain-Definitive/dp/1585429201 http://www.amazon.com/Drawing-Right-Side-Brain-Definitive/dp...

chillacy 11y ago

This is the point I was hoping others would bring up. The base reality is that we're all atoms and energy, and there isn't a clear boundary between the water in your body and the water you're swimming in, and (to quote Dr Manhattan) a recently deceased body has as just many atoms as it had when the body was alive 10 minutes ago. On top of this we've built all these abstractions... like how to socially interact, how to recognize membranes as a face, etc. (also interesting: those with severe autism seem to lack some of these abstractions) When buddhists speak of seeing reality or things as they really are, they speak of discarding these abstractions and seeing raw experience. I started learning how to draw because part of the process is discarding these abstractions (oh that's an eye, I know how eyes look) and instead drawing in terms of shapes and lines: moving down, closer to physical reality. This book has been very interesting for this: http://www.amazon.com/Drawing-Right-Side-Brain-Definitive/dp/1585429201 http://www.amazon.com/Drawing-Right-Side-Brain-Definitive/dp...