Visual Processing and Mapping

Every data stream has its data managers. We talk about areas of the brain as 'visual processors.' But it might be more useful to focus on what visual data supports best. For vision, that's mapping. Our vision-related thinking apparatus complements vision's strength: helping us nail down where we are in space and how we relate to other objects and people in space. Obvious, right? Well… it works. But it isn't the only way to think about the world. It isn't only that using the eyes introduces a bias, but that the objective of vision is a bias: finding oneself in space. Mapping – spatial continuity-seeking for a coherent spatial framework where objects have a fixed relationship – is a bias. It's a useful bias. It's as good of a bias as any other. But eyes are not the only way to 'drink in' the world, and finding where you are in space is not the only way to make sense of yourself in the world.