imagine if the future people in WALL-E had spent so many generations looking at screens that they lost the ability to tune into their depth perception and had to relearn it
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the first few people who got their depth perception back would have their minds completely blown the moment it happened - it would not be gradual, it would happen all at once - and would be completely unable to explain their experience to everyone else
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"it's like... i can *see* how *far away* different things are! holy shit! i can't explain it but everything looks completely different now! the world is so much bigger than i thought!"
"sounds fake wtf are you talking about, how could that possibly work"
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what changes about your experience when you get your depth perception back is not that you know some factual statement that you didn't know before; it's that your perception, at a precognitive preconscious level, has literally acquired a new dimension
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you are literally seeing an aspect of reality you couldn't see before. this isn't something you can really explain to someone who doesn't see it. the best you can do is try to give them instructions for doing weird stuff that might restore their depth perception natively
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you also don't have to understand anything about the physics or neuroscience of depth perception to have it. you don't have to know what parallax is or have the idea that the brain is capable of inferring depth from comparing the views from your left vs. right eye
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the foundational thing is to have it at all. there are things you can do with depth perception that others will struggle with, like accurately hitting animals with projectiles from a distance, and you can demonstrate this skill to others, at least
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some of the first few accidental pioneers might become wild-eyed prophets, spreading the Gospel of Depth wherever they can, with varying levels of success
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eventually one hopes the WALL-E humans successfully spread the Gospel of Depth everywhere, whereupon it might gradually, over generations, fade back into the background of human experience
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if your depth perception is functioning perfectly you don't need to pay attention to it; if everyone's depth perception is functioning perfectly nobody needs to talk about it. sometimes attention is for things that need repair
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nevertheless this was an important and pivotal moment in their history; one hopes they'll keep records of how they learned that they lost something and learned how to get it back, to help future generations keep it
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This is a really cool thread, I'm obsessed with different ways of seeing. For eg have you heard of the Moken? "Moken children are able to make their pupils smaller and change their lens shape. Seals and dolphins have a similar adaptation?"
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I love thinking about other potentialities that are hidden within us, ones that aren't found in any culture yet.
Also, you might find this stuff interesting
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One of the scholars brought over was John Wilson of the University of London. He and his team were showing a five minute film to a group of ~30 rural Kenyans about how to avoid mosquitoes, and hence malaria. The film was very simple, just showing a guy going about his business,
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