The idea of people being able to see without being aware that they are able to see was something that I found very interesting in this reading. I was born with a cataract in my right eye and had it removed when I was four years old. My sight never fully recovered in that eye, and I went on to become near sighted (or far sighted? crap! The one where you can't see far away) in both eyes. Apparently this had nothing to do with my cataract, because I'm pretty blind in my left eye too, but glasses/contacts can correct my left eye to 20/20. Unfortunately, my right eye can never get up to a perfect 20/20.
Anyway! Throughout my life I have felt anxiety about my sight, for my own seeing purposes, but also because of other peoples' reactions and the visual tricks I could not see. When I was in elementary school I hated when we had to have eye tests in the nurse's office, because the nurse was always shocked by how poorly I saw out of my right eye. I could never really see 3-D with those stupid red and blue glasses, could never get one of those invisible eye posters... and then in class the other day, that yellow dot did NOT go in the box or whatever it was supposed to have done. But when I read about people who are blind being able to see without being aware, I wonder what is going on with me. Is it possible that I could have discouraged my brain from seeing these things? I'm not blind in my right eye, it's just never totally clear... and I know some people with fine vision can't see the ship or the pony in invisible eye posters either.
My question is-- just as people can see something without being aware they see it... can a person train herself to not see? Maybe I could see the yellow dot, but I had felt so discouraged all these years about my sight, that my brain didn't compute it? Or does Carter tell us that I would have seen these things, even if I wasn't aware of seeing them and therefore... I really didn't see it? I am tying myself in knots here a little bit, but I think this is interesting. Can we make our senses purposefully unaware, just as they can be aware without us knowing?
Comments (3)
You say something very interesting here about a person convincing themselves not to see. I find that personally very compelling. The human mind being so mutable in one respect that it could be subject to a forced blindness.
What about the opposite? I just mentioned Start Trek The Next Generation in another blog, and I swear I'm not a super-trekkie (or trekker, they get pissed about that sort of thing) but there is an episode where Captain Picard is abducted by the Cardasians, an alien race known for its violence, corruption and fascism. Anyway, he is tortured, not allowed to eat or sleep comfortably and every day his torturer makes Picard stare into (i forget how many but anyway) four blinding lights and asks him how many lights there are. Picard says four, although his captor inflicts pain and says there are five. The captain never breaks, however, I can't help thinking about how many people could be persuaded to see something that WAS NOT there under coercion.
The episode is clearly hitting along the lines of the frightening power of Nazism. Not only to see something that is not really there, but to believe something to be true that is not. It illustrates that the power of our consciousness is equally limited by the weakness it is subject to by the same process, the same mutability, which allows for progression or degeneration.
It leaves us with the question - which fiction is reality, which reality fiction? It is thus important to always "think for yourself" and to "question authority."
Posted by Dominik | September 19, 2007 2:10 PM
Posted on September 19, 2007 14:10
The idea of "forced blindness" seems unlikely, but there are lots of reports of unlikely mind-body phenomena. It would certainly be outside the norm if it happened!
But forced blindness could be a great premise for a piece of fiction (or a thought experiment)!
Also, it might be interesting for you to write some of your consciousness reports focusing on how your vision affects your experience of the world, your "feeling of what happens." What do you think?
Posted by Jason Tougaw | September 22, 2007 4:07 PM
Posted on September 22, 2007 16:07
The feeling of what happens isn't always just based on what we see in the physical sense though (as clearly demonstrated in The Turn of The Screw). If your staring at something trying to see the optical illusion- you need to allow yourself to make the trick work- so yea maybe you never really gave the illusions/tricks a real shot because mentally you already figured, why bother. This means that sight is influence by more than just the sensation received in our visual field but by the mental place we're in. Our mental space of mind also shades what we will focus on in our visual field (since we only focus on 4 or 5 things) changing the perceptions we may have or make at any given moment.
ok- Did that make sense?
Posted by Valerie | September 23, 2007 9:50 PM
Posted on September 23, 2007 21:50