Attack the Week (ATW)
Upside Down Vision
Monday Thoughts
At birth, each of us begins life with a remarkable contradiction: we see the world upside down. Not metaphorically—but literally.
The human eye is a masterful optical instrument. Light enters through the cornea, passes through the lens, and is focused onto the retina at the back of the eye. But physics has a stubborn way of doing things. Just as a simple camera lens inverts the image it captures, so too does the eye’s lens flip the world upside down as it projects it onto the retina.
So why don’t we walk around thinking the ceiling is the floor?
Because your brain is constantly performing a quiet miracle: it flips the image back. But that miracle isn’t innate. It’s learned.
At birth, the infant brain is not yet good at distinguishing up from down, left from right. The newborn retina delivers an upside-down image, and early in life, the brain must figure out how to interpret that confusing input. Through experience — grabbing at toys, learning to crawl, balancing to walk — the brain gradually “learns” that what the eyes are seeing doesn’t match physical interaction unless it is mentally inverted. Over time, this becomes second nature. We stop noticing the illusion because the correction is built into our perception.
In fact, neuroscientists have tested this plasticity. In a classic experiment from the 1890s (and repeated since), subjects wore prism goggles that inverted their vision. At first, everything appeared upside down. But after a few days, the brain began to adapt, and participants reported seeing the world “normally” again — even though the goggles were still distorting reality. Take the goggles off, and their normal vision now seemed inverted. The brain had re-learned the correction—again, without conscious effort.
This reality should force us to reconsider one of the most common assumptions: that we “see” the world objectively, as it is. But the eye is not a camera, and perception is not a photograph. The image hitting your retina is raw data—flipped, partial, and filtered. The brain doesn’t simply observe; it interprets.
Our vision, then, is not a passive window but an active construction — built by millions of neural firings, drawing from memory, pattern recognition, and physical interaction. What we call “reality” is, in a sense, a simulation—one that matches our needs, expectations, and learned experiences.
We are not born seeing the world “as it is.” We are taught to see it the way it makes sense for us to survive, to move, to interact. This is similar to macro trading, as each individual sees the world through different lenses, so a precise reality is hard to measure. That’s why I am frequently in contact with former colleagues and people who I know view the world through a different vantage point. This way, I can scan macro through the lens of an EM specialist, a corporate hybrid trader, a rates and FX options vol guru, and many more. Connecting the dots that way gives me a better picture. It also filters my view down, as it’s easy to get stuck in a world view that might be flawed.
Paper Alfa gives you a lens into the macro world where we track and unpack current narratives, look out for what’s likely to unfold and build a framework and roadmap for what’s ahead.
In addition, we have well-sharpened tools through our models, informing us of upcoming trend breaks and reversals. In contrast, our asset allocation tool gives us a well-tested framework to time equity and bond investments.
In addition, newcomers have a library of educational works at their disposal to start their investment journey. Testament to our success is not only our growing number of readers but also performance, as our simple buy-and-hold portfolio for this year has already posted a respectable +14% return.
The world is constantly changing, and we are potentially witnessing a mix of social, political and economic policies which will shape the investment landscape for years to come. New themes are emerging, as nominal vs real returns move closer into focus. Debasement themes and trust assets are questioned, which will send tremors around the macro universe, regardless of where you sit. We will tackle these themes head-on and draw investment conclusions.
Let’s now read some additional thoughts from Macro D on the current state of affairs around tariffs and potential geopolitical scenarios, before we scan the weekly macro calendar, check a few interesting chart setups and update the weekly asset allocation model for its latest change and performance.
Wishing you all a successful week ahead!