“Maybe one of the reasons is that many of the things that we see are not really shadows. And eventually the eye gave up on trying to make sense of them.”
Some people’s “situational awareness” ability is much better than other folk’s ability. Could their brains pick up these “shadows” (thru their eyes), and process that information differently than those without good situational awareness? Is a human’s “sixth sense” really just an ability to notice these “alerts” where others fail to see them?
Yep, it does say in the first sentence that Torralba noticed the “shadows” with his naked eye, AND figured out they were actually a faint image of the scene outside his room. That’s amazing to me because I’ve noticed them my whole life, too, but never for a second thought it was anything important... Just random patterns in the shadows, or in the clouds, or in the ripples on the surface of a river. Nothing of import. Just ignore it... Wrong! Wrong! Wrong! God gave us a brain for a reason. We should always be using our brains to analyze and re-analyze the world around us.
And yes, I do not believe Torralba could possibly have been the first person in the world to have noticed, been situational aware of, the shadows, and correctly interpreted them. You thought you were hiding behind that rock from that Indian, but your astonished scalp ended up on his belt that night anyway. Never cease analyzing, Grasshopper.
:-)