Ask MetaFilter posts tagged with seeing

RoadTrip TipS!

madmamasmith — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 22:26:27 -0800

I'm going to Yellowstone in May , traveling from Austin TX via New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming then back through Kansas and Oklhoma. I would really appreciate recomendations for any cool places to stop along the way. Cool museums, cheap flea markets, places to buy cool jewelry, cool parks, places to camp, vegetarian resteraunts etc. And also the best places to stay in Yellowstone as thAT's where we'll be spending most of our time.

I spy with my little eye

wittgenstein — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 12:15:44 -0800

What do you look at/notice, as you wander through the world, that I probably ignore? The origin of this question was my teaching students how to recognize the seven border patterns (sometimes called "frieze patterns"). After I taught this the first time, I suddenly realized that there are border patterns all over the place; I just never noticed them.

This made me wonder what people who are different from me pay attention to as they wander around. If you are a designer, what do you see that I ignore? If you are a plumber, what do you see that I ignore?

I think this isn't chatfilter, but delete if you think it is.

What would a blind world 'look' like?

goodnewsfortheinsane — Fri, 27 May 2005 10:28:20 -0800

What if most people were born blind, and seeing was rare? Literary mag The Believer has an Idea Share section, which is a collection of (apparently anonymously submitted) hypothetic book premises and themes, shared online in the hopes that someone will make a book out of it. I was particularly intrigued by this entry:

The field of alternative history has been created out of “what if” questions—(“What if the South had won the Civil War?” etc.) This practice should expand to other fields. Alternative Biology: “What if two intelligent species had developed at the same time?” Alternative Sociology: “What if the majority of people were born blind, and seeing was rare?” Sort of an academic sanctioning of science fiction.

I think there's a gold mine of hypothetical scenarios here, and the two examples given are sublime. Let's focus on the blindess one for now - if this goes well, I'll let someone else ask the (paleonto-)biology one (indeed the seed for a book of its own), or feel free to come up with your own alternative science premise.

So, what would a world where most people have no vision faculty be like?