I Missed The Gorilla... Did You See It?
"Vision is the art of seeing what is invisible to others." ― Jonathan Swift
Science Says We See With Our Mind
You don't see with your eyes. You see with your mind. What if somebody told you that, verbatim?
The eyes merely receive light. The light hits the retina, sending impulses to the visual cortex that you have in the back of the brain.
The light strikes the retina and sends impulses through the optic nerve to the visual cortex. Then the visual cortex interprets these signals. So you don't see with your eyes; but, rather, you see with your mind. Using your mind, you can make a blind spot or complete blindness while keeping your eyes open.
The "Invisible Gorilla" Experiment
The Invisible Gorilla Experiment of Daniel Simons and Christopher Chabris had the volunteers watch a video, watching the video of players ― some dressed in white, some in black ― throwing basketballs around. The volunteers were asked to count the number of passes made by the players dressed in white, while ignoring the passes of those in black.
"How many passes did you count?"
"15 passes."
"That's correct... But did you see a gorilla?"
"What gorilla?"
"Watch the video again."
Because of the counting of the number of passes, many volunteers failed to see a man in gorilla suit. Nearly half of the volunteers failed to notice someone, who's dressed in a black gorilla suit, even though this gorilla person walks in and out of the scene thumping his chest and whatnot.
(This 1999, Invisible Gorilla Experiment became an internet sensation some years ago... For more info, you read the book, The Invisible Gorilla: And Other Ways Our Intuitions Deceive Us)
That's the cautionary tale on how we can easily make a blind spot and failure in awareness. But how about creating a complete blindness, using the mind to switch off our optic nerve?
Eyes Wide Opened And Still Not Seeing
You can keep your eyes open while sitting like a Buddhist monk, meditating in an intense meditation. You have to put your brain to work on something else, rather than letting your brain process or interpret the incoming messages from the retina. What's more, you can cut off your senses of hearing, smelling, touching, etc, and not just the seeing component.
As stated above, you don't see with your eyes. As stated above, you see with your mind. As stated above, you and I can completely miss the invisible gorilla without knowing that we missed it.
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