Invisible factors only become perceptible through an exercise of profound slowness*

Looking, in the 21st century, must be understood as “anticipating”. For this it is necessary to learn the methodology of looking slowly, which consists of the possibility of understanding, through “a single swipe of the eye”, the whole reality: its visible fabric and its underlying network. Invisible factors of the reality David Bohm speaks of only become perceptible to the human eye through an exercise of profound slowness. Stopping to look facilitates understanding of the nature of reality because we can see its implicit characteristics.

The chaos science approach suggests that reality is composed of visible and invisible factors and that seeing reality consists of adequately relating the multiple components of its dual fabric.

Classical science teaches us to split reality into parts in order to know it better. We were told to first look at one thing and then at another. Modernity thus persisted in this conception to the point of developing a complete philosophy of airtight compartments: logical positivism.

The new science teaches us the usefulness of uniting in our brain “the whole reality” in order to see it, know it and understand it as a dynamic circular totality. The function of seeing, in the world of modernity, simply consisted of looking at separated frames of a film which is distant from us. But in today’s world, dominated by dynamics of uncertainty and chance, this action of looking incorporates a new concept derived from the most recent discoveries of neurophysiology: anticipating.

The Colombian neurophysiologist Rodolfo Llinás has recently suggested that the true function of the brain is not that of generating behaviours, as traditional psychology believed, but that of anticipating what is going to happen. The brain of living beings, according to Llinás, anticipates as a mechanism of self-protection.

In this essay, I sustain that looking, in the 21st century, must be understood as “anticipating”. For this it is necessary to learn the methodology of looking slowly, which consists of the possibility of understanding, through “a single swipe of the eye” the whole reality: its visible fabric and its underlying network.

Looking slowly is done quickly but profoundly

I will provide two examples: Gustav Janouch asks Franz Kafka about the reason for his known aversion to cinema, and Kafka responds that although he considers himself self a deeply observant man, he has come to the conclusion that the technical aim of cinema perturbs the way he looks.

The movements are very fast and the rapid change between one image and another compels the viewer to go after the new one leaving aside details of the previous which, although it might have seemed interesting, can no longer be seen.

In the cinema it is not looking that takes possession of the images but the contrary: it is the cinematograph that appropriates the eyes of the viewers to oblige them to see what it wants them to see.

Looking slowly entails exercising the maximum freedom possible to people: that of looking, by means of time, the intensity and the angle of perspective they consider appropriate, at the chosen aspect of the reality that interests them.

This writer recalls that on one occasion it was necessary to break off a personal relationship because his partner repeatedly asked the question: “What do you think?” And could never understand the answer: “I don’t think, I look; and looking —inwardly, outwardly, towards the intersection of inwards/outwards— is the exercising of my inalienable freedom.”

It was, of course, about looking slowly: either about stopping at the analysis or the contemplation of the complexity of the details or making an aerial pan through the circular dynamic complexity that capriciously surrounds reality.

If you pass from one frame to another without having understood in depth what was in the discarded frame, you will probably understand a partial and, therefore, imprecise reality. The invisible factors of reality that David Bohm speaks of only become perceptible to the human eye through an exercise of profound slowness. Take your time, Wittgenstein advised the philosophers.

Rose without reason

The rose is without reason, said Angelus Silesius, but the rose cannot be understood through an act of superficial viewing: it is necessary to go deep within its heart, linger in its fragrance and unravel the hidden beauty of its invisible pistils. The rose, flower of a day, is not understood in one day. It is essential to repeat and repeat. Move away and move closer again, forget about it and then remember. Consider, as my friend used to say, looking at it merely with the simple evocation of its perfect memory.

The discoveries of the new physics, which took place in the first half of the 20th century, indicate that thought derived from classical Newtonian mechanics is today succeeded by another way of seeing the world, because reality, according to the new view of physics, is not a regular and controllable entity, but rather dangerous, irregular and uncertain, like the rose.

We do not see with our eyes but through them, as the poet William Blake said. Our culture largely depends on what we see, and what we see does not exclusively depend on our eyes but on what we are culturally conditioned to see. The cognitive process in general and the phenomenon of perception in particular have been notably influenced by the predominant scientific trend. Seeing, knowing and perceiving are today very distinct things from what these words implied for the ancients.

Modernity spread the notion that we perceived things that were in the world “as they were,” but once quantum mechanics was discovered a new way of seeing reality imposed itself as a consequence of its transcendental discoveries: since the 1960s, when the first applications of chaos science began to be known in fields of science as varied as neurophysiology, cognitive biology, epistemology and language sciences, the door was open to the conception that the perceptive apparatus of man was somewhat more complex and extended than his sensorial organs.

Mediatized perception

Thought was given to the speed of looking and a scientific consensus was reached that the phenomenon of perception is mediatized by culture, the use of language, semiotics, emotions and the predominant mental models.

Everything seems to indicate that we do not only see through our eyes, or simply with our eyes, but that we also see with our other senses, with our hands and with our legs, with powerful intuition and, above all, with our brain (the beautiful and powerful knowledge machine).

One of the pioneers of cognitive biology, Francisco Varela, said in 1984 that “what the organism detects as its world depends on its behaviour, given that the two things are inseparable.”

Heinz Von Foerster said in 1991 that sensations in themselves are insufficient for the perceptive phenomenon, alluding undoubtedly to the fact that other factors, of diverse origins, form part of perception with evident strength.

An English shift suggests to us what this new way of seeing, which I propose in this essay, would be: looking slowly, the enlightened self-interest shift, which can be understood as the “distinguished perception of those interests that are our own” or, put another way, “the intuitive perception of the reality that we really need to see,” which will be vital for our lives and will connect us, effectively, with the elusive possibility of being happy.

It is about taking the trouble to stop ourselves to look at what, in the words of the Colombian poet Eduardo Carranza, is worthwhile in life.

Manuel Guzmán Hennessey is a chemical engineer, researcher and consultant specialised in Chaos Theory applications. He currently runs the Centro de Pensamiento y Aplicaciones de la Teoría del Caos in Bogotá. He has written essays and articles for scientific and cultural media in Argentina and Colombia. He is a columnist on the two most important daily newspapers in Colombia: El Tiempo and El Colombiano.
This text has been published in Spanish in the electronic journal Tendencias 21Revista electrónica de ciencia, tecnología, sociedad y cultura (www.tendencias21.net)