The eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend.
— Robertson Davies
Albert & Alberta discuss
Quite inconvenient for an experimentalist, really. Entire particle families probably drifted past Victorian physicists while they were busy polishing their brass instruments.
It's the same in a crowded piazza, Bertie. Two people can stand on the exact same cobblestones, but the architect spots the sightlines while the novelist notices the couple quarrelling over a pistachio gelato.
Which implies our sensors aren't passive recorders at all. They're rather selective bouncers at the velvet rope of consciousness.
Exactly. You don't just open your eyes and receive the world; you have to furnish the room inside before anything new can sit down.
A lovely image, though it does make one wonder what glaringly obvious revolution we're both failing to notice right this second.