Sorry to be double posting, but as I said… fascinating...
It occurs to me that this may be part of the reason some of us have so much trouble with eye contact. When we look at someone else’s face, we see their emotions, and when they look at our face, they see our responses. But our knowledge of each other’s intimate feelings is not common knowledge at this point. However, when we look each other in the eyes, said to be windows to the soul, we each know that each of us is seeing each other’s feelings. Our mutual knowledge becomes common knowledge. It is a big step from merely looking at the other’s body or even face, to looking each other in the eye—and that big step is the transition from mutual knowledge to common knowledge. Common knowledge has an element of infinite recursion and infinite depth to it, and so when we make eye contact we are in a sense moving from a finite degree of knowledge, to an infinite degree. In that sense, it is understandable that it feels like such a huge and difficult transition, and that maintaining eye contact is for example a significant marker of intimacy among lovers.
Sorry to be double posting, but as I said… fascinating...
It occurs to me that this may be part of the reason some of us have so much trouble with eye contact. When we look at someone else’s face, we see their emotions, and when they look at our face, they see our responses. But our knowledge of each other’s intimate feelings is not common knowledge at this point. However, when we look each other in the eyes, said to be windows to the soul, we each know that each of us is seeing each other’s feelings. Our mutual knowledge becomes common knowledge. It is a big step from merely looking at the other’s body or even face, to looking each other in the eye—and that big step is the transition from mutual knowledge to common knowledge. Common knowledge has an element of infinite recursion and infinite depth to it, and so when we make eye contact we are in a sense moving from a finite degree of knowledge, to an infinite degree. In that sense, it is understandable that it feels like such a huge and difficult transition, and that maintaining eye contact is for example a significant marker of intimacy among lovers.