When i was really little, maybe 6 or 7, i used to leave a room, then pivot and shuttle back in, trying to catch some sort of static flicker of its non-existence while i was gone. I eventually realized the circular impasse that if the room only reassembled itself when i looked at it, there was no way i could ever see it without seeing it. Much much later, i found out that this was sort of like a hypothesis of conscious experience called the Refrigerator Light Illusion. Doing this room-peek-a-boo thing is my first memory of the profound narcissistic delusion that the world pivoted around me–that i was a painter throwing color and form onto dark shapeless spaces. I created the world.
peter ellis 
Wow interesting ……. you were definitely a smart kid 😀 …… when I was a kid I used to think the whole world is staged for me, people were all pretending and acting for me. Also I used to wonder if what I saw as the color green and called green, actually appeared like my red to others and they called it green. 😛
But I like your hypothesis. It still amazes me how you thought so deep as a kid. Shows your tendency to look at things in unconventional ways, which is evident in all posts in your blog 🙂
thanks for the compliments, although, the way i described my thought process as a kid is probably nothing like what i was actually thinking. And the Fridge Light Illusion isn’t something i came up with, it’s a real term neuroscientists/philosophers use. It’s really interesting. Check out a blurb about it here: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/introspection/notes.html
also, the is-my-green-your-green problem is another issue of subjective consciousness that cognitive psychologists have no idea how to solve.
it’s interesting that things we wondered about as kids are the same things serious scientists wondered about today.
I love the tag line.
The Refrigerator Light Illusion makes me wonder if you see what I see and vice versa.
Seeing! Ah yes, it is all in the eye of the beholder. Thanks for stopping by Paper, Mud and Me. Glad you like a swinging place. Like your posts. I’ll be following.
The world could not have revolved around you since it was revolving around my stepmother. 🙂
ahahaha
🙂