Chapter 40 sense of meaning

When we see something close to a circle, we see it as more round, because circles are meaningful things. Dr. Fanz once did an experiment: he let the baby who was just a few days old lie on a special experimental bed, and then projected two patterns on the ceiling, one of which was a sketch of a human face, and the other was a diagram of facial features. Distorted illustration of moving house. Fanz used a camera to track the baby's eye movements, and found that these babies with almost zero experience spent a longer time looking at the neat facial features, and they were more interested in this pattern. The face seems to be a perceptual object with special meaning.

Although it is difficult for us to determine that babies have perceptual preferences for the connotation of facial patterns or their symmetry, human beings do have some innate instincts in perception, such as a circle. The ideal and perfect circle only exists in our hearts , scientists tell us that it is impossible for humans to draw a truly perfect circle, it will always have slight deviations.A characteristic of our perception is that when we see something close to a circle, we will see it as more round; in the same way, we will also complete the deficient parts of the objects of perception, making them more perfect, more like a familiar, something meaningful.

Artists have long known this characteristic of human perception. For example, a line drawing by the famous painter Klee is actually just a series of horizontal lines from top to bottom, plus a few unconnected oblique lines and curves. But we It is natural to see it as a pattern of a person resting his chin on his hands, seemingly meditating. This is because we automatically fill in the incomplete parts of the lines and make it a meaningful thing. Man is a creature that pursues meaning, and the universe may not have any preset purpose or meaning; the world is not benevolent, and all things are regarded as dogs, and nature creates man, and there may be no preset purpose or meaning, but human beings are using their senses When understanding the world and understanding life with his own thoughts, he has to give them some purpose and meaning. This is what makes a human being different from animals.