Where to begin? Where to begin? This problem we humans have with appearance and reality is ironically, a real problem. Well, if not real, then persistent and by persistence becomes real. How do we distinguish between the two especially when we usually observe only partially, and even on the so-called rigorous level of science, we see in degrees of refinement or resolution.
Maybe what I just noted, the level of resolution, is at the heart of our problems with appearance and reality. Think pixels as an example. Those QLED TVs have resolution that when first viewed elicits a “Wow, that looks real” response. Note our desire to make our simulacra indistinguishable from whatever we wish to simulate. Black-and-white grainy images of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the moon in 1969 can’t compare with the full color 2021 images of that little helicopter on Mars. We’re now so accustomed to seeing in high definition that we expect to see it; we are disappointed by a grainy view.
Some appearances are not the realities we initially believe them to be though we accept them as such. Mirages, for example. They are, of course, “real” appearances insofar as they are observable by multiple people, even people looking from slightly different perspectives. Rainbows prove their ephemeral nature, but appear real by lingering. I think of a spring evening’s drive along the National Road eastward toward Chestnut Ridge in the distance. I was following rain that was approaching the mountain; the low Sun had broken through the dissipating clouds behind me, and a rainbow, a bright one, arced before me. As I drove for miles, I could see the rainbow, always, of course, receding from me. As you know from your own experience, I was incapable of reaching it, of driving under it or through it as though I were passing beneath the Gateway Arch in St. Louis. I knew the rainbow’s nature, but I also knew that it was a reality that drivers in my lane could share. I assumed that those drivers, like me, knew that the refraction of light off millions or billions of discrete raindrops separated by gaps differed from the more tightly packed atoms in the Gateway Arch. It’s a matter of resolution, the solidity of a “real” object like that arch merely the result of our inability to see gaps between atomic nuclei 100,000 times smaller than their electron clouds, the former like a pea in the middle of a football field with nothing between it and the cloud in the end zone.
With regard to those old grainy films like the moon movies of Armstrong-Aldrin, I might note that the brain fills in gaps, a point you well know and experience daily. That blind spot in each of your eyes means that you must, even if just over a tiny part of your field of vision, fill in the missing pieces. What you see, that is, the appearance you accept, you have a role in making. But after a half-billion years of evolution, your brain is capable of closing gaps and turning appearances into realities, or at least, into views you can accept as realities. That we can be fooled by optical illusions is an argument against the infallibility of seeing, of flawlessly distinguishing between appearance and reality. Think, also, of black-and-white movies with damsels and dancers dressed in dazzling colors you cannot see but can imagine. Before the age of Technicolor, Hollywood did not make elaborate sets and costumes in black and white; set and costume designers used colors only they could see but the audience could only imagine.
In an age of ubiquitous videographers, we have much to see in both high definition and full color. Or should I say, we see much in HD and color from a distance, such as videos taken from a space station or from rovers on the moon or on Mars. We also see more than our predecessors ever saw, from places on Earth where we never stood and at times when we were otherwise occupied. We have access to videos of events that took place in our absence.
All those videos give rise to questions about what appears to be reality, especially as we see controversial videos. Do we have the best resolution? Do we share a view as the drivers in my lane that spring evening shared the appearance of the constantly receding rainbow? It’s a modern problem, isn’t it? Not only do we have to ask whether or not we trust our eyes, but also whether or not the video captures a “reality.”
Our ancestors who lived prior to the 1832 invention of the phenakistoscope didn’t have to fill in the gaps of simulacra though they had the mechanism known as the persistence of vision. The brain’s holding onto a past image allows us to see a continuum of action that appears when a series of still images runs in sequence before our eyes just as it allows us to fill in a scene with blind-spot gaps. Today, we’re all about persistence of vision, about holding onto appearances to make them “real.”
And even when we don’t fill in a gap during an initial viewing, we can rely on replays, now enhanced with computer graphics that enable us to have multiple perspectives, godlike perspectives that cross both time and space. And short of having access to enhanced computer compilations of events from different angles, we always have multiple videos from different eye-witness videographers. We get to choose the perspective we want. We get to choose the appearance we want. Seems we can drive beneath the rainbow. We can even have a deceased actress or actor appear in a film thanks to artificial intelligence and ironically to our ability to dissociate our minds from reality.
Nowhere along the human spectrum does the problem of distinguishing between appearance and reality become more significant than in social interactions. Uncounted billions of humans have over the life of the species found themselves subjected to judgments based more on appearance than on reality. Filling in the gaps to make the world around us isn’t just a visual mechanism. We also fill in the gaps associated with emotions and behavior. Regardless of our blind spots, we see a continuum, not a grainy view interrupted by gaps.
It’s in smoothing out the images of the outside world through not only the persistence of vision but also the persistence of belief and emotion that frequently drives us to accept appearances as reality. What we see in others is often just a vision in our mind’s eye. As social beings, however, we have the ability to share such appearances and thus to make them, like that rainbow seen by all the drivers headed in the same direction I was headed, a shared reality.
Whatever road you drive, you will have others in your lane, others who see what you see. You, in turn, see what they see. Just hope that as you can recognize the difference between mirage and reality, between appearance and reality, and between a rainbow and a Gateway Arch, that the others in your lane can also make the distinction.
Maybe what I just noted, the level of resolution, is at the heart of our problems with appearance and reality. Think pixels as an example. Those QLED TVs have resolution that when first viewed elicits a “Wow, that looks real” response. Note our desire to make our simulacra indistinguishable from whatever we wish to simulate. Black-and-white grainy images of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the moon in 1969 can’t compare with the full color 2021 images of that little helicopter on Mars. We’re now so accustomed to seeing in high definition that we expect to see it; we are disappointed by a grainy view.
Some appearances are not the realities we initially believe them to be though we accept them as such. Mirages, for example. They are, of course, “real” appearances insofar as they are observable by multiple people, even people looking from slightly different perspectives. Rainbows prove their ephemeral nature, but appear real by lingering. I think of a spring evening’s drive along the National Road eastward toward Chestnut Ridge in the distance. I was following rain that was approaching the mountain; the low Sun had broken through the dissipating clouds behind me, and a rainbow, a bright one, arced before me. As I drove for miles, I could see the rainbow, always, of course, receding from me. As you know from your own experience, I was incapable of reaching it, of driving under it or through it as though I were passing beneath the Gateway Arch in St. Louis. I knew the rainbow’s nature, but I also knew that it was a reality that drivers in my lane could share. I assumed that those drivers, like me, knew that the refraction of light off millions or billions of discrete raindrops separated by gaps differed from the more tightly packed atoms in the Gateway Arch. It’s a matter of resolution, the solidity of a “real” object like that arch merely the result of our inability to see gaps between atomic nuclei 100,000 times smaller than their electron clouds, the former like a pea in the middle of a football field with nothing between it and the cloud in the end zone.
With regard to those old grainy films like the moon movies of Armstrong-Aldrin, I might note that the brain fills in gaps, a point you well know and experience daily. That blind spot in each of your eyes means that you must, even if just over a tiny part of your field of vision, fill in the missing pieces. What you see, that is, the appearance you accept, you have a role in making. But after a half-billion years of evolution, your brain is capable of closing gaps and turning appearances into realities, or at least, into views you can accept as realities. That we can be fooled by optical illusions is an argument against the infallibility of seeing, of flawlessly distinguishing between appearance and reality. Think, also, of black-and-white movies with damsels and dancers dressed in dazzling colors you cannot see but can imagine. Before the age of Technicolor, Hollywood did not make elaborate sets and costumes in black and white; set and costume designers used colors only they could see but the audience could only imagine.
In an age of ubiquitous videographers, we have much to see in both high definition and full color. Or should I say, we see much in HD and color from a distance, such as videos taken from a space station or from rovers on the moon or on Mars. We also see more than our predecessors ever saw, from places on Earth where we never stood and at times when we were otherwise occupied. We have access to videos of events that took place in our absence.
All those videos give rise to questions about what appears to be reality, especially as we see controversial videos. Do we have the best resolution? Do we share a view as the drivers in my lane that spring evening shared the appearance of the constantly receding rainbow? It’s a modern problem, isn’t it? Not only do we have to ask whether or not we trust our eyes, but also whether or not the video captures a “reality.”
Our ancestors who lived prior to the 1832 invention of the phenakistoscope didn’t have to fill in the gaps of simulacra though they had the mechanism known as the persistence of vision. The brain’s holding onto a past image allows us to see a continuum of action that appears when a series of still images runs in sequence before our eyes just as it allows us to fill in a scene with blind-spot gaps. Today, we’re all about persistence of vision, about holding onto appearances to make them “real.”
And even when we don’t fill in a gap during an initial viewing, we can rely on replays, now enhanced with computer graphics that enable us to have multiple perspectives, godlike perspectives that cross both time and space. And short of having access to enhanced computer compilations of events from different angles, we always have multiple videos from different eye-witness videographers. We get to choose the perspective we want. We get to choose the appearance we want. Seems we can drive beneath the rainbow. We can even have a deceased actress or actor appear in a film thanks to artificial intelligence and ironically to our ability to dissociate our minds from reality.
Nowhere along the human spectrum does the problem of distinguishing between appearance and reality become more significant than in social interactions. Uncounted billions of humans have over the life of the species found themselves subjected to judgments based more on appearance than on reality. Filling in the gaps to make the world around us isn’t just a visual mechanism. We also fill in the gaps associated with emotions and behavior. Regardless of our blind spots, we see a continuum, not a grainy view interrupted by gaps.
It’s in smoothing out the images of the outside world through not only the persistence of vision but also the persistence of belief and emotion that frequently drives us to accept appearances as reality. What we see in others is often just a vision in our mind’s eye. As social beings, however, we have the ability to share such appearances and thus to make them, like that rainbow seen by all the drivers headed in the same direction I was headed, a shared reality.
Whatever road you drive, you will have others in your lane, others who see what you see. You, in turn, see what they see. Just hope that as you can recognize the difference between mirage and reality, between appearance and reality, and between a rainbow and a Gateway Arch, that the others in your lane can also make the distinction.
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