he sense of the word &quot;direct&quot; that implies that we can
be certain of getting a perfect picture of reality in the
first candid snapshot, and so we are forever and always
in the business of comparing and contrasting different
pictures of it.

Of course, everybody knows this, or says they do, at least, in principle,
but there is a natural tendency to identify with a particular picture,
and this leads people to reify that picture into something that is
all but indistinguishable from reality, at least,