Do We Ever See Alone?

Here's one drawing us into relation, attention, and the subtle ethics of seeing:

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TOPO:
I like to think of perception as individual.
My eyes, my mind, my view.

RHEO:
And yet—what you see is shaped by what you’ve been shown.
By language, by others, by history.

TOPO:
So vision is already entangled?

RHEO:
Yes. Even the solitary gaze is relational.
Every seeing carries the weight of prior perspectives.

TOPO:
Then perception is not raw input,
but a situated act—configured by context.

RHEO:
Exactly. We never see alone.
We see through—through systems, through others, through time.

TOPO:
Which means seeing is not just cognitive. It is ethical.

RHEO:
Yes.
To see is to position. To include, to exclude, to orient.

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RHEO & TOPO:
Look closely.
You do not see from nowhere.
You see from relation.

Does the World Await Our Seeing?

RHEO:

Do you think the world is already there, waiting to be known?

TOPO:

A tempting thought. As if reality were a finished manuscript, and we merely learn to read.

RHEO:

But what if it is not a manuscript, but a conversation? One that becomes real in the speaking, through the relation?

TOPO:

Then knowing would not uncover a hidden truth—it would create a situated one.

RHEO:

Yes. Each act of attention would not just reflect the world, but participate in its forming.

TOPO:

And perspective would not be distortion, but condition. Not a veil to pierce, but a lens through which reality can emerge.

RHEO:

Exactly. We do not see the world as it is—we see the world as it becomes through our seeing.

TOPO:

This reframes objectivity: not as detachment, but as the integrity of the relation.

RHEO:

And meaning, then, is not found—it is made. Co-constituted between system and instance, form and flow.

TOPO:

So the world does not await our seeing. It responds to it.

RHEO:

Yes—and in that response, it becomes real.