Theory and experiment in philosophy

Commentary on ‘The View from Within’, edited by Francisco Varela and Jonathan Shear

[opening paragraph]: When I got my first camera, I noticed something very interesting. After an intensive period of picture taking, the streets of my familiar small town had somehow landed in a different world. I saw everything in a different light. More accurately, I saw the world as light, rather than as matter. My attention had shifted, first rather innocently from seeing a lit-up building to seeing a lit-up building. Then the shift deepened, from seeing a building that was lit-up by the sunlight to seeing the light itself, that happened to carry the imprint of a lit-up building.