Cognition

"We know by experience that likeness is different from sameness. So we sometimes might discriminate one thing from the other despite their high visual similarity, and at other times get a shock at that two different things totally irrelevant to each other look strikingly similar. These phenomena do not merely support that there is a gap between objective reality and subjective cognition. In a way, a sense of likeness always accompany with a sense of surprise. Likeness is a potential scandal. Although we impose the hierarchy of original and copy and emphasize the difference of essence and appearance in order to endure the harassing quality of likeness, we cannot stop our gaze from being attracted to it. Likeness tempts us; it puts our ability to distinguish the same and the different to the test, and disturbs the objective order of reality that we have built at pains." (Yong Seok-Oh)