Sniffnoy comments on Drawing Less Wrong: Observing Reality - Less Wrong

35 Post author: Raemon 21 November 2011 05:10AM

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Comment author: Sniffnoy 22 November 2011 08:31:13AM 8 points [-]

When you look at a person, what you perceive is not a series of shapes and colors that correspond to what's there, but rather a bunch of hastily constructed symbols that convey the information that the brain thinks is important. If you haven't rewired your brain for drawing, then "important" questions do not include "Is that elbow angled at 90 degrees or 75?" or "Where are the eyes in relation to the top of the head?" Instead, what you usually care about are things like "is this person happy, or angry?" and the information that gets recorded is a little tag that says "Smiling" with a vague curving-upwards-line symbol accompanying it.

I suppose you could say that ordinarily when people attempt to draw things they instead do something more like diagramming them?

Comment author: Alicorn 22 November 2011 03:58:21PM 2 points [-]

I like this way of saying it. If I ever try to teach a person to draw I will steal it.

Comment author: Raemon 22 November 2011 03:21:50PM 1 point [-]

Essentially, yeah.