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[-] Tuuktuuk@sopuli.xyz 6 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

I can see a kind of a framework. If I imagine a wooden cottage in a mountain scenery, what I see is just metadata. I "see" the following:

  • The concept of a mountain scenery
  • The concept of wooden cottage exists within the said mountain scenery (its location is not defined, though).

Then I can take a look at the mountain scenery. I "see":

  • The concept of there being a valley
  • The concept of a river flowing in the valley

Next, let's take a look at the valley. I "see" for example:

  • There is a concept of another mountain beyond the valley.
  • There is a forest growing on the slopes of the valley

If I "look" at the forest, I "see", among others:

  • Many individual coniferous trees

Etc.

But, when I'm "looking" at the trees, I never see the actual tree, only a knowledge of "here's a tree". And while "looking" at the forest, I do not see the rest of the scenery, only the tree. I can of course go back to seeing the whole scenery with the cottage in it, but now I only "see" the information "there is a mountain scenery with a valley, and a cottage exists within the scenery". Okay, the valley has appeared in a more stable fashion now that I've taken a look at the image.

So, shortly put, I do get very precise instructions for how to draw the image, but I do not see the image. The only way I can actually see it is to take physical pencils or an image editing program and actually draw a picture according to the instructions. This is also how my memories work. Everything is just metadata. A very thorough metadata that can be used for drawing a very precise replica of what I have seen, but no real visual information.

I can even "paint" the abovementioned scenery more precisely:

  • Mountain scenery
    • Valley with river
      • River: Water is streaming relatively fast
        • White "foam" visible on top of waves
        • Basically this is something between a river rapid and a wide mountain creek
      • River: Slightly bending here and there
      • River: Has waves
      • River: Going from near the lower right corner, meeting the horizon maybe 30 % from the left side of the image.
      • River: Direction of flow not clearly defined
      • Valley: A slope exists on the other side of the valley
        • Forest on the slope
          • Consists of coniferous trees
            • Spruces, maybe 70 % of trees
              • About as tall as a four-floor building
              • The shape is uniform, beautiful
                • Branches have needles on them
                  • Branches have subbranches
                    • The branches' structure seems to be recursive
                  • Needles are dark green
                  • Individual needles are visible
              • For some reason, there is one squirrel among the spruces.
                • The squirrel is brown.
                • Its tail is fluffy
                  • Reaches a bit over the top of its head
            • Undefined coniferous trees, remaining 30-ish %.
              • Cannot be further observed
    • Sky
      • Covers a bit over a quarter of the upper part of the image
      • The sun is setting or rising
        • Yellowish or orangeish colour
        • Seagulls or similar
          • Far away, not visible very clearly
          • Gliding, not flapping their wings
  • Cottage
    • Wooden
      • Made of horizontal planks, possibly logs
        • The logs/planks have lines visible in them, as wood does.
          • Lines are somewhat winding, calmly
    • Has a door
      • Wooden
      • No window
      • Planks on door are vertical
      • I am apparently unable to see a handle in the door
    • Has a window
      • Made of four panes
        • Pane is transparent
        • A sofa visible through the pane.
        • A flower vase is standing behind the window
          • It is on a windowsill
          • The flowers are roses
            • Red
            • Petals
              • Petals are more tall than wide
              • Overlapping each other
            • Leaves
              • Two
    • Chimney
      • Smoke rising from the chimney
    • A person is sitting inside the cottage (okay, apparently I can "see" through the walls; hadn't really noticed this earlier that this makes very little sense)
    • Male
    • Old
    • In a rocking chair

(Et cetera. I could "zoom" into different things in this "image" forever, and yet I cannot see it or anything it. Every time I zoom, I just get more information on what's visible – more "instructions for what to draw" if I ever wanted to make the image visible by bringing it physically to existence. I could also probably make the river flow to some specific direction or have the "undefined coniferous trees" defined more precisely, but those are not "visible" in the original image I got when I chose "a wooden cottage in a mountain scenery" as the image I'll be observing, so it means I'm kind of "painting over" the original image if I define them.)

this post was submitted on 01 Sep 2025
131 points (100.0% liked)

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