Blindsight

Spaceship Theseus

Jack Baruth got me started with his article on Road & Track about how people can really not see things that are right in front of them, like, in his case, a man on a motorcycle. While talking about what you see, what you think you see, and what you miss, he mentions the Science-Fiction novel Blindsight by Peter Watts.

Besides being the title of a novel, Blindsight is also a neurological phenomenon:

Blindsight challenges the common belief that perceptions must enter consciousness to affect our behavior; it shows that our behavior can be guided by sensory information of which we have no conscious awareness. - Wikipedia

I've started reading the book and it's pretty great. You can buy a copy from Amazon, or you can read it online here.

Dan Ghiordanescu has a page of fabulous artwork he did for this book.