An interesting demonstration

nonoise, you are making it far more complicated than it actually is. Why? Personal bias perhaps.

That was my point. Are we now down to "I'm rubber, you're glue" school of argument?


All the best,
Nonoise

Don't let it slip between your fingers. 

@hilde45,
Thanks for the validation and the Whitehead reference.
That'll make for some interesting reading.

All the best,
Nonoise

@hilde45,
At first I was going to disagree but I remembered that gestalt is a psychological term so "placed" and "put together" make sense in that respect. A different kind of perception from a different, but relevant field.

The OP's question is a complex one if one gives it too much consideration as I find it akin to how a fundamentalist would argue. Forget the whole, the sum of the parts, the everything, and argue some minutiae, some basic part, and elevate that to the whole in order to negate what is real, what is apparent, and deny it's existence, relevance or importance.

All the best,
Nonoise

I guess my point would be that the experience of the combination can be as immediate as the experience of the particular; indeed, the experience of a particular which is embedded in a larger whole involves the mental act where we have to "prescind" or "abstract out" something which only then gets our selective attention. But in the initial moment, we experience (what we'll later call) the complex. But we experience it as a simple.

Gestalt? Right? 

Long before the time we're composing our thoughts here (around 1/1/2 yrs of age) we've mastered the task of seeing the whole and not fixate on the parts. 

So what if we can't (or can we?) really, truly, and exactly differentiate two voices singing at the same time? We bask in the harmony and yet are able to discern individuals all the time even when they seem to compete for our attention.

Take a good listen to Lakme's Duo des Fleurs and tell me you can't distinguish between Sabine Devieilhe (coloratura soprano) and Maienane Crebassa (mezzo-soprano) at the same time. I can.

The mind works so quickly so as to render the argument that it's impossible to hear both rather silly. That's splitting hairs to the point of red herring territory. 

There is a lag in time with everything we do and yet we still catch balls, drive cars and bikes and some can even juggle. It's all done so fast that it's a non issue.

All the best,
Nonoise