this is not a blog post.

Let's play a game. I'll warn you, this will get complicated, but bear with me.

What do you see here? If you answered "a kitten," what led you to this conclusion? Was it the fur? The whiskers? The ears?

Or maybe you answered that it was a picture of a kitten. How did you decide this?

It's possible you even answered that it was a group of pixels organized to form an image of a kitten. You might have gone a step further and answered that it was a collection of variously sized light waves hitting your retina.

Now, you might think I'm reading too deeply into this and setting you up to answer a seemingly easy question incorrectly. The point I'm trying to make is that all of your potential answers are correct, but that they are all borne from different ideas.

The human existence is one of perception and deduction. Each individual constructs beliefs about his or her environment differently, but inarguably, we are constantly influencing each other. Rather, we rely on previously constructed concepts to make sense of the complexities of the world.

Let's go back to the cat, whose name happens to be Buster. Here, Buster is existing on a number of planes. Perhaps most simply, he serves as an example of the human capacity for abstraction, the use of symbols to represent an object. Buster only works as an abstract because you've seen a cat before and can transfer your understanding of what constitutes a cat onto him. Additionally, you can perceive the photograph as a representation of the actual cat, or rather, that it is only one instance of him.

Believing the photograph to be a representation of an actual cat is actually a show of good faith in another concept. Although it was probably unconscious, because you understand the basic mechanics of photography, you were able to discern that Buster is real because a camera can only capture that which can be placed in the viewfinder. He's photographed, therefore he is, right?

But, what if you interpreted that image as the lightwaves activating the rods and cones in your retina? This is the wall that I've been trying to scale for the past few weeks. What I've come to believe is that while we inarguably live a sensory existence, we have an enormous capacity for perception. Simply put, we function within a number of symbol systems, largely by making automatic connections to previously accumulated experiences.

Think of it this way. Even if you'd like to argue that the image is its light waves, I'd challenge you on the basis that you still immediately knew it was a cat. You most likely did not even have to think about what you saw, rather, it happened automatically and unconsciously. As your retinas absorbed those light rays, your brain immediately processed their configuration and brought up "cat" from your memory. If you choose to look at it again, years later, you will still see cat.

Although this sort of process seems restrictive to a truly unique experience of the world, it is more or less what keeps the world in order. The gift of being human may be our ability to think, but if we didn't function with the automaticity we do, the sheer number of stimuli in any given moment would be overwhelming.

I'm going out on a limb here, but just come along for the ride. Of our six symbol systems, only the genetic code and spoken language are attributed to biological evolution (these traits are exhibited by many other species). So how do we account for the other four: written language, arabic numerals, musical notation, and locatation, referring to all forms of movement?

The fact that the human capacity for sensation is enormous is apparent. We exist in an umvelt chock full of stimuli, but so do other species. The difference, I'm arguing, is in the evolution of our brains. I'd go as far as to say that our additional symbol systems are proof of a general human tendency; in my opinion, humans are terrified of the unknown. A more optimistic view is that we are scientists by nature, constantly seeking logic and meaning in all our movement.

Because making sense of all we encounter could be quite a challenge, we've made it into a group project. From that sense, each of us represents everyone before us. Not only has the gene pool continued to evolve, but so have our means of experiencing the world. Each interaction, whether between two individuals or an individual and the environment, has an effect on our understanding.

We owe a lot to our forefathers and mothers, as well as to everyone and everything we've ever encountered. So if we're constantly moving through life using knowledge that we've borrowed and adapted for our own purposes, what is an individual? What can we deem original or real or true or pure?

To briefly explain how I got to this philosophical dilemma is to use the means I've been trying to shake. The futility lies in the fact that I need to use abstraction and references and hypotheticals in order to communicate the issue I'm having with them. Bear with me.

A few weeks ago, I decided that I was going to create a new way of organizing sounds. Optimistically, I sat down with a large drawing pad and my car keys in front of me. The jangle of the keys seemed to be a good first sound to dissect in order to create some kind of rubric for each sound. Dutifully, I began compiling a list of the sound's characteristics, including mental associations with it. As the list grew longer and longer and I tried to compare it to another sound, I realized that I had a fundamental problem: I couldn't shake the ties I had to every sound.

Rather, I knew that I was incapable of constructing an empirical rubric because my associations were automatic. I couldn't hear a sound as a sound, just as you couldn't see that picture as just a picture. The sound had become a symptom or a signal for some larger concept, a referent resistant to distillation; sensation was altered by perception. Thus began my journey to try and understand this phenomenon.

My question is nowhere near being answered, but I'm finding some interesting possibilities, and have a plan for an experiment that I'd like everyone to take part in. We'll see how well the symbol systems will serve me in explaining what I find.