"The abstract analysis of the world by mathematics and physics rests on the concepts of space and time"
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Gibson is quietly needling the scientific habit of mistaking its measuring tools for reality itself. By saying abstract analysis in math and physics "rests on" space and time, he’s pointing to the load-bearing assumptions that make the whole enterprise possible: before you can calculate, you have to carve the world into dimensions that can be counted, compared, and mapped. Space and time are not just neutral containers in this framing; they’re the conceptual grid that turns messy experience into manipulable variables.
The intent is less to diminish physics than to locate its power - and its blind spots. Gibson, a psychologist famous for arguing that perception is direct and ecological, is writing from a tradition suspicious of overly internal, symbolic models. Subtext: you can do astonishing things once you adopt space-time coordinates, but you also risk forgetting that organisms don’t encounter "space" and "time" as purified abstractions. They encounter surfaces, edges, movements, dangers, affordances: actionable meanings that show up at the scale of bodies, not equations.
Context matters. Mid-20th century psychology was dominated by information-processing metaphors and laboratory simplifications, while physics enjoyed cultural prestige as the gold standard of explanation. Gibson’s line reads like a reminder to his own field not to borrow that prestige uncritically. If you treat perception as an internal reconstruction of a pre-given physical world, you inherit physics’ ontology by default. Gibson wants the opposite: start from lived contact with the environment, then ask what concepts are actually required. Space and time are powerful abstractions - but they’re still abstractions, and Gibson is insisting we notice the cost of building the world on them.
The intent is less to diminish physics than to locate its power - and its blind spots. Gibson, a psychologist famous for arguing that perception is direct and ecological, is writing from a tradition suspicious of overly internal, symbolic models. Subtext: you can do astonishing things once you adopt space-time coordinates, but you also risk forgetting that organisms don’t encounter "space" and "time" as purified abstractions. They encounter surfaces, edges, movements, dangers, affordances: actionable meanings that show up at the scale of bodies, not equations.
Context matters. Mid-20th century psychology was dominated by information-processing metaphors and laboratory simplifications, while physics enjoyed cultural prestige as the gold standard of explanation. Gibson’s line reads like a reminder to his own field not to borrow that prestige uncritically. If you treat perception as an internal reconstruction of a pre-given physical world, you inherit physics’ ontology by default. Gibson wants the opposite: start from lived contact with the environment, then ask what concepts are actually required. Space and time are powerful abstractions - but they’re still abstractions, and Gibson is insisting we notice the cost of building the world on them.
Quote Details
| Topic | Science |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
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