Perspective

What is possible to see is limited by our perspective and our discernment abilities. Our perspective is what we care about and our position. Our power of discernment is what we are attuned to pick up on among the soup of noisy inputs around us. This is the limit of what we can observe. Specialists will usually acquire deep powers of discernment in a specific field, some of which they will not even recognise having. But they can sometimes be utterly blind to systemic phenomena due to their perspective from inside the context of their speciality.

Let’s start by describing perspective with some examples based on views from different domains. There are many examples of words that mean something different even though they sound and are spelt the same way, such as read, arm, band, current, lie, dice, the list goes on and on, and that’s just the ones I can think of quickly. We’re not talking about homonyms here, but rather things that are the same but are seen differently from a different perspective. Those who know about Domain-Driven Design may think of these as Bounded Context.

  • Book:
    • A librarian may see Dewey Decimal.
    • A borrower sees a copy of a title.
    • A publisher sees a stock and profit SKU.
  • Newspaper:
    • The reader sees journalists/bias or a physical copy.
    • The newsagent sees shelf space, cost, schedule and popularity.
  • Bus:
    • The maintenance team sees the vehicle.
    • A potential passenger sees a number or a route.
  • Plane:
    • The passenger will get on a flight to a destination.
    • The pilots fly a plane on a route.
    • The airline sees an asset with costs and benefits.

It is only because we all have noses, ears, and eyes that we can say that any one person’s nose, ears, or eyes are distinctive. Tattoos are rarely distinctive because, in cultures and societies where they are rare, the presence of a tattoo is distinctive in itself, relegating the detail of the tattoo to second place. In societies where tattoos are not uncommon, each tattoo will be relatively unique. And if they are all unique, then none are. Distinct tattoos only exist where tattoos are common, but they have a typicality, such as size, placement, colour or design; hence, I tend to notice facial or full-body tattoos, but not others.

We are adapted to recognising slight variations from a well-known hierarchy of features rather than the features themselves. Ask someone to draw someone’s face, and they pick out the variations better than the invariants. They pick out prominent features or scars better than the basic ratios. This is why artists have to study forms and physiology. Without explicit study, accurately drawing natural features is more demanding. Only when an artist has those core features down can they introduce the variations to achieve what we consider to be likenesses or caricatures.

Systems only see the signal. They ignore the expected. They have no need for it; it is not information. This is why artists strive to learn how to make things look natural. They need everything their art is not meant to be about to vanish. They need to be accurate because otherwise, the wrong things become that which is seen.