Attention and perception are heavily influenced by top-down processes based on prior knowledge and value structures, rather than being simple bottom-up reconstructions of reality.

“as the signals as the pattern signals from your retina move back towards your brain they move upwards so to speak through a hierarchy of processing units and even at the first stages of that processing there's still more top down input from other brain centers than there is input from the retinal st”

Attention acts as a way to dispose consciousness toward the world, which fundamentally influences what qualities of the world manifest for the observer.

“attention is how you dispose your consciousness towards the world and uh when i discovered when i was researching the master in his emissary the book that's now 10 years old i came across this fascinating thing that one of the most fundamental differences between the hemispheres is their way of atte”