Re: Reading the same text and getting a different impression

[johndageek]

Fun musing fraktalisman

How we assimilate data has been of interest for a long time. First realize that all we experience is an abstraction, since the brain has no direct contact with the world. Sight is the result of a chemical reaction in response to light that is fed into optic nerves which the brain translates at several levels Visual Cognition Lab Touch, smell and taste are all abstract interpretations of the world around us.

One interesting thing about growing older is that it is easier to see how various experiences affect my perception of things. (as a kid I cheered on Peter Rabbit, as a gardener I cheered Mr. McGreggor).

This is just the abstraction and interpretation on the receiving end. Now let’s look at the output or originating end. Words and visual art are both inexact ways of expressing feelings, ideas and thoughts through a static media. Wow! It is amazing that we can communicate at all.

Now here is a question: how can you express an emotion to someone who has not experienced the emotion to the depth you have experienced it. For example, how far would you go to protect your child(ren)? This is a situation a person without children believe they can understand as I did before my wife and I had kids. Now that statement evokes a set of feelings with a depth I never knew existed before.

So let’s look at a book ( a static presentation of ideas and thoughts by an author at a particular point in their life). We read the book having had an entirely different set of life experiences, can we possibly truly understand what the author intended? Now, several years later, re-read the book and we will have a different understanding of portions of the book, becaus of our additional experiences.

Switching over to the code review question. How could we not view code differently after a time? We will have gained experience which will change our view of the code, better ways of accomplishing a task will have occurred to us and so on. Good luck and thanks for a fun post!