The way we attend to something changes whatever that thing is to usđ§
Attention is not just another âfunctionâ alongside other cognitive functions. Its ontological status is of something prior to functions and even to things. The kind of attention we bring to bear on the world changes the nature of the world we attend to, the very nature of the world in which those âfunctionsâ would be carried out, and in which those âthingsâ would exist. Attention changes what kind of a thing that comes into being for us.
Anything that we come into contact with well seem different to us depending on the reality tunnel we apply to it, and yet nothing has changed objectively. The etic reality remains the same. Take an example from Robert Anton Wilson:
âStanley Laurel throws a pie which hits Oliver Hardy in the face. In the physicistâs model or reality-tunnel (the two overlap in this case) the best description of what has happened is Newtonâs F equals ma (Force equals mass times acceleration). In the anthropological reality-tunnel, what has happened is a continuation of the Feast of Fools or Saturnalia or the tradition of the royal fool who is immune from the tabu against rebellion in comic form. To some Freudians, the best reality-tunnel is that the Sonâs rage against the Father is being expressed symbolically. To some Marxists, it is the workerâs rage against the boss.â
There is no ârealâ interpretation which can be distinguished from another, no one way of thinking which reveals the true energy-event. No one reality tunnel could be said to be adequate for the description of all human experience, although some reality tunnels are better in some contexts than others are.
Science, however, purports to be uncovering the ârealâ event. Its apparently âobjectiveâ and value-free descriptions are assumed to deliver the truth about the energy-event, onto which our feelings and desires are later painted. Yet this highly objective stance is itself value-laden. It is just one particular way of looking at things, a way which privileges detachment and a lack of emotional commitment of the viewer to the object viewed. For some purposes this can be undeniably useful. But its use in such cases does not make it truer or more âreal,â or closer to the true nature of things.
Attention is inescapably bound up with valueâunlike what we conceive as âcognitive functionsâ, which are neutral in this respect. Values enter through the way in which those functions are exercised: they can be used in different ways for different purposes to different ends. Attention is intrinsically is a way in which, not a thing: it is intrinsically a relationship, not a brute fact. It is a âhownessâ, a something between, an aspect of consciousness itself, not a âwhatnessâ, a thing in itself, an object of consciousness. It brings into being a world and, with it, depending on its nature, a set of values.
If what it is that exists comes into being for each one of us through its interaction with our brains and minds, then the idea that we could have an objective knowledge of it that was not also an expression of ourselves, and dependent on what we brought to the relationship, is untenable. Different aspects of the world come into being through the interaction of our brains with our object, and precisely which aspects come into being depends on the nature of our attention.
References
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Mcgilchrist, Iain. (2010). The Master and His Emissary Chapter 1 Asymmetry and the Brain (p. 61). London, UK: Yale University Press.
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Wilson, A., Robert (1986). The New Inquisition Chapter 1 Models, Metaphors, and Idols (p. 28). Grand Junction, Colorado: Hilaritas Press.
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Type:đ´ Tags: Philosophy / Psychology Status:âď¸