Hi all,
I've got a question for the philosophers among us...
When we hear music we perceive rhythm in terms of meter, and infer
meter from the rhythm. When we hear a sound we perceive it in terms
of the instrument that made it, and infer the instrument from the
sound. When we see a figure in a picture we perceive it in terms of
the ground behind it, and infer the ground from the figure. We
understand a linguistic statement in terms of a metaphorical
structure, which we infer from the statement. When we have a
conversation we build perceive words in terms of the person who says
it, and build a picture of the person in terms of the words they say.
This seems to be a general structure of experience -- perceiving
something in terms of underlying structure which inferred by the
something you're perceiving. I think this must be something that
philosophers have thought about, psychologists too. Does it have a
name? What should I read to understand it better?
Cheers
alex
--
http://yaxu.org/
Received on Fri Sep 25 2009 - 10:30:28 BST