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bowzart · 07-18-2008, 02:59 PM

I am gradually learning to get around on this wonderful site; as you can see from my ID, I've been here maybe two months, now.

A few years back, I taught an online course that was supposed to be about digital imaging (I'll never teach online again!) but I quickly learned that my students couldn't see. What is the point in a course dealing with imaging if the students aren't prepared? I've had considerable training in seeing, and have thought a lot about it. I decided to really go for it, to explore the idea of "seeing" in a great deal of depth. So here are some references:

1. Plato's Republic, book 7 the Allegory of the Cave

This text is basic to a lot of western philosophy, but not that far from the eastern, either. Here's where I have a problem with "social brainwashing" - not in its presence, but in its place in the picture. While our inability to see results from such brainwashing, that brainwashing itself derives from the human condition (as I see it). It can't be avoided.

2. My Ape Cave story.

This story reports a very memorable experience that I was fortunate to have while observing groups of people traveling through a pitch-dark lava tube. It has to do with how we perceive "reality", and how that perception determines what and how we see.

3. Edwin Abbott's Flatland.

I think a lot of people may have read this. If not, it is an easy read, and lots of fun. Women readers: Abbott's characters are 2 dimensional geometric shapes that correspond with their class, but women are simply straight lines. Lots of women get quite incensed at this. What I know about this is that Abbott was an early feminist. He was using this to chide Victorian society about its hypocrisy. Just how this would have that result, I don't know. I think it must be hard for us in our time to understand the Victorian mind.

4. Feral Children

This, of course, is very controversial, but I thought it would challenge the mind (certainly did mine!) concerning just what it is to be human, and how our perceptions are conditioned by the circumstances of our origin. There were some arguments! One man argued against the existence of feral children even as he described his experience with a girl who had been confined in a cage with dogs for the first few years of her life. Emotions get pretty hot on this topic.

5. Background, not part of the material, but an acquaintance with Jean-Jacques Rousseau's The Social Contract would be helpful.

07-18-2008, 02:59 PM	#30 (permalink)
bowzart Join Date: May 2008 Posts: 479	References to writings on seeing. I am gradually learning to get around on this wonderful site; as you can see from my ID, I've been here maybe two months, now. A few years back, I taught an online course that was supposed to be about digital imaging (I'll never teach online again!) but I quickly learned that my students couldn't see. What is the point in a course dealing with imaging if the students aren't prepared? I've had considerable training in seeing, and have thought a lot about it. I decided to really go for it, to explore the idea of "seeing" in a great deal of depth. So here are some references: 1. Plato's Republic, book 7 the Allegory of the Cave This text is basic to a lot of western philosophy, but not that far from the eastern, either. Here's where I have a problem with "social brainwashing" - not in its presence, but in its place in the picture. While our inability to see results from such brainwashing, that brainwashing itself derives from the human condition (as I see it). It can't be avoided. 2. My Ape Cave story. This story reports a very memorable experience that I was fortunate to have while observing groups of people traveling through a pitch-dark lava tube. It has to do with how we perceive "reality", and how that perception determines what and how we see. 3. Edwin Abbott's Flatland. I think a lot of people may have read this. If not, it is an easy read, and lots of fun. Women readers: Abbott's characters are 2 dimensional geometric shapes that correspond with their class, but women are simply straight lines. Lots of women get quite incensed at this. What I know about this is that Abbott was an early feminist. He was using this to chide Victorian society about its hypocrisy. Just how this would have that result, I don't know. I think it must be hard for us in our time to understand the Victorian mind. 4. Feral Children This, of course, is very controversial, but I thought it would challenge the mind (certainly did mine!) concerning just what it is to be human, and how our perceptions are conditioned by the circumstances of our origin. There were some arguments! One man argued against the existence of feral children even as he described his experience with a girl who had been confined in a cage with dogs for the first few years of her life. Emotions get pretty hot on this topic. 5. Background, not part of the material, but an acquaintance with Jean-Jacques Rousseau's The Social Contract would be helpful.