# Comparing the Accounts of Mindfulness and Its Effects on Mental States ![rw-book-cover](https://readwise-assets.s3.amazonaws.com/media/uploaded_book_covers/profile_1188016/claude_ogimage_2DY3k3v.png) ## Metadata - Author: [[claude.ai]] - Full Title: Comparing the Accounts of Mindfulness and Its Effects on Mental States - Category: #articles - Summary: insert summary - My notes: - Summary: The text discusses the importance of distinguishing between a picture's design and what it depicts. It also explores how our perception of a scene in a picture can relate to our awareness of the picture's design properties. Understanding these relationships helps us appreciate art and may have parallels in how we experience conscious mental states. - URL: https://claude.ai/chat/a737ba54-9738-4a37-b159-533d1638cac4 ## LLM Chats ## NotebookLM ## LLM Audio ## Highlights > The Centrality of Design Seeing for Aesthetic Appreciation > • Aesthetic appreciation of pictures involves awareness of both the depicted scene and the design properties that make that depiction possible > • The exact nature of this awareness can vary > • Design seeing and scene seeing may alternate > • They may be fused in a single twofold experience > • The degree of twofoldness may depend on the type of picture and the skill of the viewer > • But in all cases, aesthetic appreciation requires some awareness of the picture as a depicting surface, not just as a transparent window onto a scene ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hv3xd3pp1rt7qhkcb2pfgzrr)) > Why Design Seeing Matters > • Seeing the design allows us to appreciate the artistry involved in the picture's creation > • It enables pictures to express meaning in ways that go beyond simply showing a scene > • Design seeing is central to understanding pictures as aesthetic objects, crafted to enable certain kinds of experiences ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hv3xdppvxj6h69vhhkwewx04)) > How Breaking Down Perceptual Gestalts Could Lead to Lopes-Style Appreciation of Mental StatesLopes on Twofold Awareness in Pictorial Appreciation > • Aesthetic appreciation of pictures involves twofold awareness > • Awareness of both depicted scene and design properties enabling depiction > • Exact nature of twofold awareness varies > • Design seeing and scene seeing may alternate, fuse, etc. > • Degree of twofoldness depends on picture and viewer's skill > • But some awareness of picture as depicting surface, not just transparent window, is key > Vervaeke on Gestalt-Breakdown in Mindfulness > • Mindfulness can lead to breakdown of perceptual gestalts > • Normally we perceive in terms of meaningful wholes, not isolated features > • Mindfulness enables decomposition of gestalts into component features > • Part of frame-breaking and transparency-to-opacity shift that reduces representational content and promotes insight > Applying Lopes to Vervaeke: Twofold Awareness of Mental States > • Gestalt-breakdown could enable Lopes-style twofold awareness of mental states > • Normally, perceptual experiences are transparent - we look through them to world > • Breaking down perceptual gestalts makes us aware of component features of experience itself, not just what it represents > • Analogous to awareness of design properties of picture, not just depicted scene > • Enables twofold awareness of both content (what experience represents) and vehicle properties (intrinsic features of experience) > • Aesthetic appreciation of mental states may require breakdown of usual gestalt coherence > • Just as appreciation of pictures requires seeing them as designed surfaces, not just transparent windows > • Appreciation of experiences may require seeing them as constructed mental states, not just transparent representations > • Vervaeke's account of gestalt-breakdown could be mechanism for enabling this appreciative twofold awareness ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hv6jhhpx9eekfgntts3xp1a5))