Why can’t we perceive cells? Or atoms?

I was asked the following question on Quora:

Why can’t we see, touch, hear and smell on a cellular level? And what happens if we can?

Here’s what I wrote:

Essentially, we perceive the visible world in the way that we do because of our overall size, the shape of our eyes, and the sizes of objects in the world that are relevant to our voluntary behavior.

This question might seem silly, but a closely related question can serve as a springboard for us to think very deeply about physical scale, and how it relates to biological life and to the very concept of a scientific law.


But first lets deal with the basic question.

Vision: the Master Metaphor

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