{"id":757,"date":"2018-01-29T20:11:58","date_gmt":"2018-01-29T20:11:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aurelis.org\/blog\/?p=757"},"modified":"2019-07-27T19:19:58","modified_gmt":"2019-07-27T19:19:58","slug":"70-a-vision-on-mind","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aurelis.org\/blog\/sticky-thoughts\/70-a-vision-on-mind","title":{"rendered":"70. A vision on mind"},"content":{"rendered":"

I think \u2018vision\u2019 has been interesting to me since I opened my eyes. Human vision of course. But later on \u2018artificial vision\u2019 too: how can a computer learn to really see the world? What does this mean<\/em> : to see the world? Can one say that a camera sees<\/em> the world? No, of course not. A camera only registers light waves, which it transforms into information of a different kind. This can be made useful to us, humans, in many ways. For instance, through the use of a camera we can \u2018see\u2019 the world even at another place, even in a different time. Interesting question: do we then \u2018see\u2019 this other place or time? Can the camera, like the lens of our own eye, be looked upon as playing a substantial role in the seeing process itself?<\/p>\n

\u25ca\u25ca\u25ca<\/p>\n

Many people think of their eyes as a kind of camera and nothing more. The truth is far from that. The adventure of vision begins right in the eyes and ends in what we call \u2018consciously seeing the world\u2019. It\u2019s an enormously complex adventure, full of the weirdest tricks nature could invent. For instance, as you may know, our visual system primarily sees the world upside-down. It\u2019s only at the last stages of visual processing that, oups!, the world is turned up right. You may believe me: there are lots of such examples. Our brain has definitely not been devised by a very skillful technician with an abundance of clear and rigid thinking. Instead it\u2019s the product of a growth process over a very long time. A lot of common sense has been used in this process, but much of it was very ad hoc, with as primary purpose at each and every stage the need to survive this very day. Whatever made us hasn\u2019t kept the end product very much in mind, so we\u2019re stuck with this.<\/p>\n

\u25ca\u25ca\u25ca<\/p>\n

But I want to say to the guy up there that it\u2019s OK, you know! I\u2019d rather keep it!<\/p>\n

\u25ca\u25ca\u25ca<\/p>\n

The real miracle of human vision is that with all the error-proneness and just plainly weird and counter-productive elements, we still see anything at all. It\u2019s the pinnacle of ad-hoc engineering. It deserves the price of \u2018brightest mind of the universe\u2019. Still, a technical evaluator pulls his hair out.<\/p>\n

\u25ca\u25ca\u25ca<\/p>\n

And then again, maybe this evaluation is too harsh. There is efficiency in the inefficiency all right. This has engendered a great deal of complexity which is unneeded in a direct way but which can be used indirectly: to see what can only<\/em> be seen indirectly. In other words: to see the \u2018big picture\u2019 for which a number of little pictures have to be overlooked. It\u2019s the errors that make art, not the perfection.<\/p>\n

\u25ca\u25ca\u25ca<\/p>\n

Such is our whole brain: extremely inefficient, but even in its inefficiency, the best thing to help us through the day\u2026and maybe, hopefully, to guide us to tomorrow. We may still badly need it.<\/p>\n

\u25ca\u25ca\u25ca<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/a>
<\/a>

Please login to bookmark<\/h3>\n\t\t
\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t

\n\t\t\t\t

\n\t\t\t\t

\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t\n\t\t<\/form><\/div><\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I think \u2018vision\u2019 has been interesting to me since I opened my eyes. Human vision of course. But later on \u2018artificial vision\u2019 too: how can a computer learn to really see the world? What does this mean : to see the world? Can one say that a camera sees the world? No, of course not. Read the full article…<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/a>
<\/a>

Please login to bookmark<\/h3>\n\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t

\n\t\t\t\t

\n\t\t\t\t

\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t\n\t\t<\/form><\/div><\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":758,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":""},"categories":[30,13],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/aurelis.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/Sticky70.jpg?fit=964%2C561&ssl=1","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9Fdiq-cd","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/aurelis.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/757"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/aurelis.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/aurelis.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aurelis.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aurelis.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=757"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/aurelis.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/757\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":759,"href":"https:\/\/aurelis.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/757\/revisions\/759"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aurelis.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/758"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/aurelis.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=757"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aurelis.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=757"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aurelis.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=757"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}