Greg Proffit Writing

Category: Seeing

  • Selective Attention–You Cannot Trust Your Eyes For All That Is Real

    Selective Attention–You Cannot Trust Your Eyes For All That Is Real

    You cannot trust your eyes for all that is real
    Photo by Alexandru Zdrobău on Unsplash

    # 65 on my, 99 Life Tips–A List is: You cannot trust your eyes for all that is real.

    “So I give you my eyes, and all of their lies

    Please help them to learn as well as to see”

    ~ Grateful Dead: Black-Throated Wind

    One of the best examples of this truth is this video, known as the Monkey Business Illusion.

    How did you do?

    Selective Attention is a thing. 

    We have eyes only on the fronts of our heads. This means in order to see something, we must face it. You can only see in the direction you’re looking. Does this mean that nothing exists in outside your field of vision? Of course not, but it means you must look for and look at something in order to see it.

    Add to this the fact that it is not the eyes that see. It is your brain. Neuroscientists know that the brain create and feeds an image of the world into our conscious perception of reality. It generates a moment-by-moment hallucination. How weird is that? The ramification is that we’re always playing catch up to the present, and that what our brains show us via the openings in front of our heads is the best-case prediction of what the next millisecond ought to look like.

    And even within your field of vision, as the video linked above shows, about 50% of viewers don’t see something even if it happens in the direction they’re looking. I didn’t the first time I watched the video, which my children could have easily predicted. They’ve known for years the easiest way to hide something from me is to hide it in plain sight. We won’t see what we aren’t paying attention to, or if we are distracted by giving attention to something else. For me, that’s often a book (which means I can’t hear, either).

    But I’ve had the belief for as long as I can remember that there is more going on in reality than meets the eyes. Of course, we know that to be true scientifically. The fact that you cannot see in the infrared spectrum doesn’t mean bees cannot. They do in fact. And they see well into the ultraviolet spectrum, well beyond human visual capability.  It’s speculated that venomous snakes see infrared as heat signatures as well, so be careful out there.

    The point of my tip is that our eyes are not the final determinants as to what is real. Without a long harangue about metaphysics and the nature of consciousness and reality in general, suffice it to say that, while you can trust your eyes for the tasks they’re well suited for, you cannot trust your eyes for all that is real. 

  • Don’t Be a Head Hanger–Lift Up Your Eyes

    Don’t Be a Head Hanger–Lift Up Your Eyes

    If you ever get a chance to lift up your eyes to the Grand Tetons I hope you're as blown away as I was
    If you ever get a chance to lift up your eyes to the Grand Tetons I hope you’re as blown away as I was (Unsplash image by Toan Chu)

    # 13 on my, 99 Life Tips – A List is: In keeping with the above, lift your eyes throughout the day to change your focal point, especially when outdoors. Americans, especially, are ”head hangers” habitually looking a yard or two in front of our feet. We even do this indoors, looking at the flooring. Look up. You’ll thank me.

    My uncle taught me this. He pointed it out to me when I was working for him and learning carpentry. Doing a job for a client that wanted us to install 7-pc crown molding in a 20 foot foyer, he remarked that they were wasting their money. When I asked why he said, ”Americans are head hangers.”

    He had been raised in Great Britain, and had traveled extensively overseas, including a stint in Vietnam. I figured he knew was he was talking about though it didn’t keep us from taking the job.

    I began observing people. My observations confirmed my uncle’s assertion. It was especially obvious, when I watched people enter a new space. And this was apparent whether people walked  into a residence, or into a commercial or religious building. Americans gaze downwards more than upwards. 

    Maybe it’s our colonial, puritanical beginnings. There are no real castles or cathedrals marking our national architectural aesthetic. 

    Maybe it’s purely evolutionary. Man has never faced too many predators from above. Who knows?

    Now, that’s fine if you’re hiking, making sure not to twist an ankle, but it could cause you to miss out on a lot of unexpected Beauty that is above eye level. And that would be a shame because unexpected Beauty is one of the greatest sources of Gratitude and the resultant increase in happiness and overall mental health. So, do yourself a favor and make the effort to look up.

    Now, if you prefer your life tips with a moral. Consider Psalm 121:1-2 

    ”I lift my eyes up, to the mountains, where does my help come from? (some translations are affirmative, and render the last clause, ”from whence comes my help.”)

    My help comes from You. Maker of Heaven. Creator of the Earth.”

    Psalm 121:1-2 

    Notice: The Psalmist does not look down in helpless despair. Neither does he look around for help, knowing assistance from peers on his plane won’t suffice. For help, he looks up. He looks to the Mountains, to the Heavens, and to their and his Maker.

  • Other People Affect What You See, Hear, and Say

    “I was blind all the time I was learning to see” ~ Grateful Dead, Help On The Way

    I’m listening to the Audible version of The Overstory during my daily walks. Yesterday, I heard the Bullhorn of Truth in the dialogue of two characters on page 430:

    ”What keeps us from seeing the obvious?”

    Douglas puts his hand to the brass bull’s horn. ”And? What does?”

    ”Mostly other people.”

    [Before proceeding with my remarks. Here is a fun tidbit. I just pulled a bookmark randomly from a pack I received from Amazon a couple days ago. Each has a quote from a famous person. The one I selected (without peeking) to mark the passage I quoted above, says:

    ”Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice.” ~ Steve Jobs]

    These aren’t exactly the same ideas, but are next of kin. Other people influence what we pay attention to, and therefore what we see and hear. Their opinions hold the power to silence and shelve our own opinions.

    I could spend a month searching the psychological literature to find supports for those sentences above. I’m not going to do that. They are self-evident to me. I’m sold. I just wanted to package it up for your consideration. 

    To look below the surface, you have to know there’s more to see

    None of us can see everything. We have to be selective. And we are constructed in a way that we cannot simultaneously see what is in front of, and behind, us. Unlike an owl, which can spin its head around, or a fly, with eyes that allow 360° vision, we can look in only one direction at a time. And often, we don’t really know what we’re looking at. To truly see a thing requires some idea of how much there is to look for, does it not? Who decides where we look? Who tells us how long to look, or much to look for? Who tells us what to pay attention to? Where do these impulses come from, if not other people? 

    (For God’s sake do not get me started about the algorithms Facebook, Twitter, and other social media platforms use to restrict what you see and hear about in order to capture your attention for sale to advertisers. The truth asserted above is the basis of their business models, by virtue of which, they are the richest companies in the history of the world.)

    Who have you permitted to determine what you get to see? And who decides what you get to say about it? There is more going on friend, than the carefully curated world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you to the truth. (with my tip of the cap to Morpheus’ quote in The Matrix.)