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On Interior Views–Looking Someone Else’s Inside, Out

JF Ptak Science Books  Follow Me on Pinterest Post 1996

I cannot think of another illustration by a scientist or philosopher who attempts to explain their own–literal, interior, physical–view of the world and then offer what this looks like to the reader from inside his own head, looking out through his own eye.  That’s exactly what the (unnamed but very Escher-esque?) artist did for Ernst Mach, who is doing precisely that right here on page 15 of his influential book  Die Analyse der Empfindungen. (That’s the  fourth German edition, also known in translation as The Analysis of Sensations and the Relation of the Physical to the Psychical, published in Jena in 1903.) It is a very unusual point of perspective, seeing the world under someone else’s eyebrow and over their moustache.Mach perspective copy
 In a sort-of-similar vein, there is another point of view that is extremely uncommon, another you-are-there perspective, though not interior to the person making the observation, but nearly so.  Here’s an example, just found, and an early one, this imagined from the far side of one of Saturn’s rings, looking back on the planet, and experiencing the distorition in perspective due to the closesness of the observer. 

Astronomy dick view of sat from ring
Another image, this one showing the view directly from “the first or second satellite” of Saturn, looking back and across the planet’s rings:

Astronomy dick view saturnn's rings from satellite
[Source:  Thomas Dick, Celestial Scenery, 1838, available in full at the Internet Archive, here.]

 

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