Territory

Again thanks to Steve-

"Sound suspiciously like you are saying not only is the map not the territory, the territory is not the territory, either ..."

Not at all, but this is huge.  If we needed examples we could draw them from tracking or martial arts or social contacts or anything, but this is really simple and doesn't need that.  No one sees everything.  The world is too big and each instant of time is almost infinitely complex. Even if you could process the whole range of colors, sounds and smells simultaneously, you still couldn't see behind your head or hear the noises beyond human range.

In the same place, different people look at different things.  Two very good observers can see the same event and point out entirely different suites of critical information. How they observe, their styles, are often habits and can be trained. This is good.

The territory is the territory. An obstacle is an obstacle, but whether your first inclination is to look for a way over, around, under or through is largely a matter of how you look at the territory.  

There is value in learning different ways to look because some problems are easier to solve from a different perspective than your regular one. I was a very visual learner.  That is still there, it is still a tool, but there are situations, particularly close-quarters fights where kinesthetic thinking -touch- is superior. Faster, more sure. I can tell you how to move someone to the weak side of their base and draw diagrams and demonstrate, but once you feel it as sort of a 'gravity hole' it is obvious and everywhere. 

There is a side effect/bad thing that gets thrown in here and it is something that I write about a lot.  In this post I am talking about accurate observers and tools for them.  Be very aware that some people (I think most, in certain circumstances) are not observing when they think they are. They are treating their plans and preconceptions and templates as data. They believe so strongly that X is the way things happen that they will respond as if X were happening when Y is.  This isn't limited to "you guys" or amateurs or martial artists.  Everyone brings something to the table- sometimes it is experience and some times it is knowledge separate from experience and sometimes it is folklore masquerading as knowledge.  The only defense against this is to let it go as soon as you realize you are wrong.

E.G. If you knew X was going to happen and it didn't, let go of that belief and find a way to survive. You can reconcile shit later.

Otherwise, though, experience and knowledge add to the process.  They are how you choose what needs to be looked at and how you interpret what you see. Some people work hard on being exposed to enough different things to help with interpretation.  That's great.  I've seen far fewer who practice different ways to see.  There are huge gains to be made when you learn to see things that are invisible to you now.