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^"permissions":^"read":ӶӺ,"update":ӶӺ,"delete":ӶӺ,"admin":ӶӺ°,"user":^"id":6,"name":"Sarah Oberbichler"°,"id":"Mohpc884oy","ranges":Ӷ^"start":"/divӶ3Ӻ/divӶ4Ӻ/divӶ1Ӻ/pӶ31Ӻ","startOffset":0,"end":"/divӶ3Ӻ/divӶ4Ӻ/divӶ1Ӻ/pӶ39Ӻ","endOffset":441°Ӻ,"quote":"Because mental operations necessarily take place in someone’s head, they cannot be depicted. But I can reproduce a picture here, that will show that it is you yourselves who produce your specific perception.\n\n\n\nTo most viewers, this picture will seem meaningless at first. But the moment it is turned round, you recognize something familiar. You will probably say: “It’s a dog!”\nIn fact, it is nothing but a collection of irregular black splotches. Thus the question is: Where is the dog?\nIn case someone still thinks that the dog must be somehow on the sheet of paper, I will show you another example.\nI suppose you are familiar with the constellation that is called Cassiopeia. It’s a big, capital double-U or, if you turn it round, an M. You can see it near the Polar Star, opposite the Big Bear. The Greeks called it the Crown of Cassiopeia, and it has survived the three thousand years since then without noticeable change. It’s as permanent and durable as one might wish. Yet, again, I would like to ask you: Where is it? – “It’s in the sky, of course”, you might say.\nLike President Clinton, speaking about his unsavory amorous exploits, I want to question the meaning of “is”.\nThe constellation consists of five stars that astronomers designate by Greek letters.\n\n\nAlpha and Delta are about 40 light years from the Earth. Gamma is twice as far, Beta, three times as far – and the distance to Epsilon is 520 light years, which means it is more than ten times as far from Earth as the first two stars.\nImagine now that you are traveling in a space ship in the direction towards Epsilon. What happens? After a few light years, the double-U that you saw from Earth has spread so much that you have difficulty in connecting the five stars. After a tenth of the journey, Alpha and Delta lie behind you. The constellation, whose existence you confidently relied on when you sailed your boat at night, has disintegrated.\nSeeing the double-U depends on two things:\n1) a specific point of observation;\n2) carrying out specific perceptual operations.\nPiaget always maintained that perception was a form of action. Silvio Ceccato suggested that it is the movements of attention that generate the form and shapes we perceive (Ceccato, 1974, p.231). Attention, he said, is not like a spotlight that illuminates objects, but it is a pulse that focuses on sensory differences; and by moving from one point to another it produces outlines. Thus, once you have picked stars out of the darkness of the sky, your focus of attention connects them by moving from one to the other.\nWith the five stars of the Cassiopeia, there are several possibilities. Here are two:\n\n\n\nThese patterns are not produced, because of the general tendency to look for something familiar, which is to say, the tendency to assimilate. As in the case of the dog, you ternd to see what you have seen before. And in today’s Western world the capital double-U is surely the most familiar pattern for five such points. The Greeks had no double-U, but regularly crowned heros, kings, and queens; so they perceived the five stars as a crown.","highlights":Ӷ^"jQuery321024770746037967352":^°°,^"jQuery321024770746037967352":^°°,^"jQuery321024770746037967352":^°°,^"jQuery321024770746037967352":^°°,^"jQuery321024770746037967352":^°°,^"jQuery321024770746037967352":^°°,^"jQuery321024770746037967352":^°°,^"jQuery321024770746037967352":^°°,^"jQuery321024770746037967352":^°°Ӻ,"text":"","order":"mw-content-text","category":"Argumentation2","data_creacio":1594902987303°
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