ladelfina said:You can't convince my nephew that the piece of toast with a natural hole in it is "the same" as the next piece. The milk in the red cup is not "the same" as the milk in the blue cup. His food "tastes different" if someone is sitting next to him or not. His perceptions are frustrating, unpredictable, incomprehensible. Imagine a day in which EVERY SINGLE object or person you interact with has to undergo this kind of (apparently arbitrary) scrutiny and verification in fifteen or twenty dimensions rather than just the two or three we normally employ.. and is therefore constantly found lacking/unacceptable to the point where you can't handle it. Much less interpreting people, he even has a hard time interpreting the "static" known world. We take all this for granted!
While we may note that "hairballs" and processing new info based on old beliefs can lead to some faulty conclusions, it is important to recognize that the assimilation of info our brain performs is tremendously complex and works amazingly well virtually all the time. We notice the exceptions to the rule, but if we were all reduced to re-investigating everything without benefit of the prior framework we've constructed, we'd be unable to function. I'll keep my hairballs, thank you very much. Just like any tool, it's good to know a little about it works, what it does well, and when it might let you down.