Recognition of one’s own sensory ignorance is a condition of learning to observe

Evidence

My dog, by the way, thinks I have much to learn about partridges, and, being a professional naturalist, I agree. He persists in tutoring me, with the calm patience of a professor of logic, in the art of drawing deductions from an educated nose. I delight in seeing him deduce a conclusion, in the form of a point, from data that are obvious to him, but speculative to my unaided eye. Perhaps he hopes his dull pupil will one day learn to smell. — Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac, 229

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Attentive, low-to-the-ground search reveals small creatures the casual eye misses — Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac: With Other…, 109; Formal education can erode rather than sharpen perception of the natural world — Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac: With Other…, 83; Knowledge requires mental reflection on existence rather than passive sensory impressions — Bertrand Russell, History of Western Philosophy, 693 (+6 more)

Broader Connections

• Attention can make the act of perceiving itself palpable to the perceiver #expands (0.82) — Jenny Odell, How to Do Nothing, 383
• Attention’s task is learning to perceive its own background #expands (0.80) — Yves Citton, The Ecology of Attention, 547
• The power to not-see is constitutive of seeing itself #expands (0.80)
• Knowledge requires mental reflection on existence rather than passive sensory impressions #complicates (0.78) — Bertrand Russell, History of Western Philosophy, 693
• Unreflective consciousness holds implicit self-awareness without knowledge #complicates (0.75)
• Epistemic ignorance is actively produced by a refusal to notice #complicates (0.72) — Ann Laura Stoler, Along the Archival Grain_ Epistemic…, 1529
• Willful ignorance is achieved by avoiding actions that would reveal unwanted knowledge #complicates (0.72)