Originally Posted by kbarch

Some thoughts on this:

People can chose to dress carefully or carelessly. Typically, they dress carefully for the things and activities they care about, and they dress carelessly for things they think are unimportant, dirty (in a good way), or unworthy of attention.

Everything we do sends a signal; our actions are inevitably perceived and interpreted. We rely on such signs and signals, and we don't get to chose which signals people perceive or interpret, or which ones they ignore.

So a person sees a cyclist in cheap, worn out, dirty clothes and thinks one thing, then goes for a couple of rides with that cyclist and begins to think something else of him or her. That change in opinion only occurs because there was more to perceive, not less, and it was not due to ignoring anything that was ever perceived.

What do we know of reality that we do not perceive, or that is not based on prior perceptions? Nothing.