ORDERS THAT ARISE through selection and exclusion produce their own
boundaries. This is true of field structures that obey variable relevancy
criteria and generally leave much in the background and push other
things to the margin or set them aside as atypical; it applies equally to
norms that disqualify irregular, abnormal, improper, and finally, wrong
behavior. The boundaries that thus arise cannot be overcome on the
plane of experience, speech, and action.

A theme, a form (Gestalt), a structure indeed allow themselves to be
narrowed or broadened; one can choose between fine structure and
coarse structure. But just as there is a close view and a far view, so there
are maximal and minimal boundaries; if they are crossed, the theme
blurs into emptiness or superfluity and finally disappears completely.
Themes and forms persist only as long as they stand out within a sur-
rounding field; their contours are simultaneously determinative and de-
limiting. The boundaries of experience can indeed be crossed by artificial
means, but they are not thereby expanded in the strict sense. The
macro-worlds displayed in the telescope and the micro-worlds seen in
the microscope do not join continuously with the natural field of vision,
but form therein artificial islands that obey their own field laws. Some-
thing similar applies to the use of computer programs; there is a leap
between reading a book and utilizing computer materials because data
are organized differently than a book page. To take a last example, the
railroad train does not simply continue my walking stride as if I were
on foot, but merely faster and farther than otherwise; rather, on the
train journey I enter a travel setting with its own laws of orientation and
movement. An all-comprehensive field would be like a form without
contours and background or like a structure without anything struc-
tured; it would no longer be a field of experience in which the expe-
riencing person occupies and changes standpoints.

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