This could be regarded as a picture of: three sets of parallel intersecting lines,
some kind of irregular polygon, a transparent box,
a wire framed cube, an open box,
a glass paper weight, or an ice cube.
Wittgenstein would say that we see it as the way we have chosen because we have seen organisation in the picture.
6.2 Seeing as
We strongly tend to see through a framework or a grid. This is “seeing as.” Suppose that you are in the countryside and on the shores of a lake. You see what appears to be
some sort of bird flying above the lake. You say, “I see a duck.” By saying this you probably mean, “I see it as a duck.”
The thought “I see it as a duck” carries with it a number of expectations, for example, that 1 when it lands on the lake it will make good contact feet and tail first with a nice splash, like good ducks do,
but which some other birds don’t; 2 it will not rocket vertically upwards like a rocket would have; and 3 it will not suddenly loop the loop like a stunt plane could have.
And, if on further observation, that thing we thought was a duck were to behave in ways that differed from normal duck behaviour, we would want to revise our opinion that we had seen it as a
duck. Specifically, if for instance, we subsequently saw our purported duck loop the loop in flight, we would at least say that it was a very unusual sort of duck We might even conclude that it was no duck at
all
If we see something as an X, this means that that thing can be expected to behave in all the ways that X’s behave, because we tend to interpret new structures in terms of structures that we already know.
See also Langacker 1987:105: “We interpret novel experience with reference to previous experience.”
6.3 Don’t prejudge
People whose minds are not disciplined tend to notice only the things that support their views and to ignore the rest. So beware, especially if you are dealing with new data, and more especially if you are
dealing with cross-cultural data. Culture is full of surprises
6.4 Change your viewpoint
Many important discoveries are made by people looking at the same data but seeing things in them that no one has ever seen . Einstein said he had the same data as everyone else, but he looked at it
differently. Hence, the importance of multiple perspectives.
6.5 Beware of zero realisations
