Plato’s Cave
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I can’t stop thinking about Plato’s cave. I’ve been reflecting on the origins of my immersive research and I found an old diagram that I sketched to try to explain to my PhD supervisor what I was doing in my research which at the time was in the field of Animation.
For the last few days I have been unable to shake the notion of Plato’s Cave from my mind. I researched this at the time (2010) and it clearly explained (for me) the difference between watching an animated film on screen in comparison to the experience of making an animated film in the studio, or as I was making film, in natural uncontrolled environments.
Cyanotype photograms act in a similar way in that the paper captures shadows cast onto the paper from light produced naturally by the sun, similar to those shadows cast onto the wall of Plato’s cave. Shadows cast in the real world, with sunlight and real world objects (all objects that can be sensed by human physiology of course)…
However, today I’m trying to work out how humans learn about the world through the brain and sensory systems/processes, producing mental models of the world that help them to predict events, describe the world in communication and model worlds for navigation that is more than shadows on a screen.. they are models in the mind but that the experience of actual process and production is essential to the acquisition of knowledge in practical fields. I’m not taking about quantum physics here.. I’m talking about Animation and now VR of course.
How does this relate to current enquiry that examines how world models anre constructed from information received by the human sensory system in a way that could be described as the Human Umwelt?
I’m not too sure, only that I’m interested in how the old brain.. with Amygdala and Hypothalamus, informs the human sensory perception of the world round us. I am asking if there are differences between male and female experience of reality given their physiological structure (Early indications seem to posit that this is the case due to reproduction at the very least), but it’s far too soon to say, although I think it relates to aggression in males.
(2nd Reflective pass) 28/11/23
I am interested in humans sensory perception of natural elements and flora, fauna and animals found in the natural environment. In Plato’s cave and my Cyanotype photograms ‘the shadow’ of real objects are a sign that indicates the position of an object as well as the conditions in which it is located I.E Space-Time…
The communicates information to the observer but is not the object itself..
In the next few days I intend to record my walks in the countryside and research further into the unwell of humans and animals.
