Perception

Perspectives from The Artist's Road

Bauerngarten Gustav Klimt

We are currently reading two fascinating books about human development and the evolution of art: The Social Conquest of Earth by E. O. Wilson and The Age of Insight: The Quest to Understand the Unconscious in Art, Mind, and Brain, from Vienna 1900 to the Present by Eric R. Kandel. While each author offers different but mutually supportive discussions on the rise of perception, self image and cultural myth-making, they are both sharing with us different aspects of the latest scientific discoveries in the fields of human development and cognition.

Mystics have told us for centuries that what most of us experience as life is an illusion. They assert that we do not see life as it is, rather, we impose our biased interpretations on everything that touches us and that our particular, personal vision guides our actions and reactions.

Recent research by cognitive scientists has also determined that our brains are wired to dedu…