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The Frame-Dependent Mind

softmax.com · 1,777 words · saved by 3 readers

Consider the humble apple. If I hold one up and ask, “What is this?”, you might reasonably say “an apple.” But this seemingly trivial act of identification conceals something profound: a frame has just been imposed on reality. We’ve drawn a boundary in spacetime, declaring “this is an apple, not that” and “the apple ends here.” But is this boundary real or invented? Does the apple-ness inhere in an object out in the world, or does it depend on us interacting the world? A botanist might point out that the “apple” is actually a swollen stem—the fruit’s flesh developed from the flower receptacle, not the ovary. A physicist sees not an apple but a temporary configuration of atoms. A cellular biologist notices that many of the cells in “your” apple aren’t even Malus domestica cells but rather various microbial species. A Buddhist monk might observe that the apple exists only through its relationships—to soil, sun, water, pollinating insects, and the evolutionary history that shaped it. None

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