Personal blog: Seeing, observing, perceiving, and their difference.

bonzopoe (63)in #blog • 7 years ago

One of the issues I see with my architecture students is the difference between seeing, observing and perceiving. For many they are synonyms, even the Royal Academy of the Spanish Language starts one of its definitions of seeing with the word perceive, but in reality they mean different things, at least for those of us who are dedicated to design and issues related to human behavior, such as it is the case of architecture.

What does it mean to see?

If we do a Google search, the first definition that shows us is:

"To perceive something material through the sense of sight."

But said colloquially, we could say that seeing is capturing our surroundings through the sense of sight. Something we do even unconsciously. When we simply see our surroundings we do not look at anything, but our brain stores and processes the data of this to help us move through it, that is why we can even "walk asleep".

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Most of the time this is how we record the world around us, we just see it, we look at it without paying much attention, and it is something understandable, there is so much information surrounding us that we despise much of it unconsciously even to not distract us, and we focus only on the one that helps us to locate ourselves in space and move through it. This is the way in which most people in their daily lives relate to their surroundings, so many times we do not realize many things that a tourist does, because tourists do not look, they observe.

What does it mean to observe?

This time the first definition that Google shows us is the following:

"Look at something or someone very carefully to acquire some knowledge about their behavior or their characteristics."

When we are in a strange place we usually do not see, we observe. This happens when we are looking for an address, we feel insecure on a site, or as already mentioned, when we are tourists.

When we are tourists we transform and look at everything, we take a picture of everything, we marvel at everything. We are in observation mode. We pay attention to everything, and we enjoy it. We are free from the rush and usual responsibilities, our mind is free from distractions and concentrates on observing.

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However, there are people who are observant all the time, whether they are in their nature, or because their profession or occupation has made them develop this ability. Artists are usually like that, they notice and enjoy more details. A good painter, sculptor, photographer, architect, has to be an observer, is something inherent in who they are and what they do. But this does not apply only to the arts. A police officer, a health or structural safety inspector, for example, must also be very good observers, or else they could not do their job well.

What does it mean to perceive?

Finally, if we look for a definition of perceiving, Google tells us the following:

"Acquire the first knowledge of a thing through the impressions that communicate the senses."

This is a higher level of relationship with our environment, and it goes beyond the observable, it has to do a lot with what it feels like, with what the environment transmits to us. The excitement caused by a sunset goes beyond seeing and observing, it has to do with perceiving. The discomfort that some places make us feel, many times without our understanding because, it also has to do with perceiving.

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The ability to perceive the essence, the character of a place, varies greatly from person to person, but it is also indispensable for those professions or activities linked to art and human behavior. How to make a place feel relaxing, homely, cozy, fun, etc., is part of the challenges faced by architects and interior designers. How to thrill the viewer with a good scene is something that filmmakers, photographers and painters face all the time.

However, perceiving is not limited to spaces, it also has to do with people, and there is no better practical example of this than what a good seller does. Has it happened to you that you enter a store without the intention of buying and suddenly a seller approaches you and you end up buying more than you would have thought? Well, it has happened to all of us at some point, and it is largely because we came across a very perceptive seller, who looked at us, observed us a little, and knew how to "read" us perfectly, perceived that we needed and he/she helped us find it.

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See, observe or perceive?

I always tell my students that anyone sees, that during the first semesters of the career they must learn to observe, but to be architects they have to go beyond and learn to perceive. However, I believe that this also applies to life in general, and that the more we are advanced in this ladder of seeing-observing-perceiving, the more we can enjoy life in general and our relationships with those around us.

It is not bad just to see, but if so, we are limiting our life experience a lot, and we probably have very valuable things in it that we have not noticed. If we go to the next level, observe, and train in it, we will see everything with other eyes, we will be something like tourists all the time, marveling at everything that surrounds us, but if we learn to perceive we can go even further, we can get wet in the rain and enjoy it instead of running for shelter, we can better understand those around us, and be better people, and in general I think we can have a fuller life.

Fuente

We live in an era of irony, in which we are super-communicated, but also super-isolated, a time of immediacy and programmed obsolescence, of superficiality and little commitment, of permanent novelties and banality. We focus our satisfaction on it, and I believe that if we learn to be more observant, if we learn to better perceive what surrounds us and those around us we can be better than that, much better than that ... there is not much to do, just do stop along the way and stop looking like robots, and look more like with our heart, I don't think it's so difficult, do you?