Of all the abstract concepts of the world, I'm most presently enamored with "seeming." That is to say, I like things that seem like something until later we find out that they are in fact something else. As I see it, there are at least a few types of "seeming" things: paradoxes, illusions, and the invisible.
I say "invisible" as in "undetectable," and I say "undetectable" as in "difficult for humans to detect if using only their natural sensory organs." The above is a clear example of this. As you know, what we call the visible spectrum of electromagnetic radiation is a remarkably small subset of the spectrum in its entirety.
For most of human history, anything that was outside of the visible spectrum didn't exist. In fact, it didn't even fit that category of knowledge that contains imaginary things we know we don't exist - these things that we can currently detect only though their extreme-scale electromagnetic radiation lived in that category of things we didn't know we didn't know about.
We developed with a particular talent for perceiving light within the 'visible' spectrum. What I like about the above display is that it helps demonstrate that this fact shouldn't necessarily limit us from understanding the existence of other things - and more importantly: their impact on the world.
This applies to physical phenomena, but I'd like to make a parallel jump to the cognitive. The common thread is as follows: the only things we think are meaningful are the things that we perceive. I was in a conversation yesterday about 'understanding' vs 'relating.' The classic example I tend to bring up is the idea of the loud motorcyclist who blasts his engine for passersby at every opportunity. This is something I clearly don't relate to. It's another thing to say that I don't understand. I know that the world is governed by cause and effect, and I know that if I were interested enough I could in some way uncover what the circumstances were that would lead someone to taking pride in something I wouldn't take pride in.
Unfortunately, far too many people genuinely *don't* understand the behaviors of others. Since I spend my time observing the world, I try to keep in mind that there are multiple methods for doing so, and the most natural ones aren't necessarily the most useful. Most of the things that lead to understanding are 'invisible' in the seeming way I've described above, but if you're in a field that requires you to understand other humans (read: most) it's certainly worth doing the work to shift one's perspective to a different spectrum of perception.
