[chrisoverzero]

見える only means “look” in the “to seem” or “to appear” sense.

Often in English, we have multiple words for sensory experiences to indicate how much focus is put into the action. “Seeing” a picture is less focused than “looking at” a picture. “Hearing” a song is less focused than “listening to” a song.

[emmelaich]

I wonder if that inspired the lyric in "Come Together"

Got to be good-lookin', 'cause he's so hard to see

According to Wikipedia, "The lyrics were inspired by his relationship with Ono,"

[Izkata]

> “Seeing” a picture is less focused than “looking at” a picture.

Isn't that backwards? Like in the phrase "they look but do not see", which was what I had in mind in my first comment. Isn't that something like "見るけど見えない" ?

[jprival]

To look is to train one’s eyes on, or to scan for, something. To see is to perceive it.

So one can look without seeing, and one can also see something without intentionally looking.

[thaumasiotes]

But as you've implicitly noted, you cannot see something without looking. That would be physically impossible.

You can also use "look" to emphasize that focus does not exist; one of the sentences I've collected for interesting use is "He stared at the page, not seeing it."

In that case, there is no possibility of a page being overlooked or otherwise missed. What the sentence is telling us is that although "he" is directing his eyes at the page, his mind is on something else, so "seeing" never occurs.

The difference between "see" and "look" has nothing to do with focus. It is what I noted in the discussion of Mandarin - success. Seeing is the goal of looking.

Note that this phenomenon where native speakers have no trouble obeying a distinction that their language requires, but come out with total nonsense when asked why they choose one form or another, is completely characteristic of grammatical rules, and not characteristic of vocabulary selection.