Philosophically, this...THIS IS AMAZING!

[Bill Wiltrack]

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[blackbox]

What an impressive visual. Hell, if you look at the centre long enough, the outer spots disappear completely and all you end up seeing is the green "non-spots" moving round.

I wonder why our visual system evolved to act like this?

What do you find amazing about it in a philisophical sense?

[Bill Wiltrack]

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Thank you for responding.


I really appreciate your interest and focus.


You experienced this exercise perfectly.


I hope you enjoyed, in amazement, the way that I did when the violet circles turned green and then, as you stated, completely disappeared as you naturally focus upon the centered black + mark.


There is an old phrase that I have used here before and I feel close to, Philosophy is seeing something common in an uncommon way.



Witnessing this transformation and then the expression, in literal form is extremely exciting to me, in a philosophical way for we witness a complete expression of what we see and we are, at the same time, forced to find a literal string of words to translate the entire experience.


It's beautiful.

I could not be more happy and quite surprised that the very first response is perfect and complete in it's expression and intent of and by this thread.






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[Arising_uk]

... forced to find a literal string of words to translate the entire experience.

Fire away then.

Philosophy is seeing something common in an uncommon way.

Tell me what is common about this illusion?

[Bill Wiltrack]

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Each persons perception of what they are actually able to see and their immediate description of what just happened to them and how they choose to put that experience into words.


That is philosophy.

That is the individual philosophical experience of life that is unique to each one of us.



THAT is beauty.


THIS was a perfect thread.



I am awestruck by our common experience of this incredible experience that is consciousness...




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[Arising_uk]

.Each persons perception of what they are actually able to see and their immediate description of what just happened to them and how they choose to put that experience into words. That is philosophy. That is the individual philosophical experience of life that is unique to each one of us. THAT is beauty. THIS was a perfect thread. I am awestruck by our common experience of this incredible experience that is consciousness...

Not quite so common nor perfect I think as you pretty much never put your experience in words? Does this mean you are not doing philosophy by your own lights? I think you mean self-consciousness as animals have consciousness but never do the above.

[Bill Wiltrack]

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You may have to check me out on this but, I believe humans ARE animals...



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[chaz wyman]

What an impressive visual. Hell, if you look at the centre long enough, the outer spots disappear completely and all you end up seeing is the green "non-spots" moving round.

I wonder why our visual system evolved to act like this?

What do you find amazing about it in a philisophical sense?

No evolved trait evolved to act like anything.
There is no aim in evolution.
Evolution is an effect , not a cause.
Simple.

There is a good physical reason HOW this happens. But there is no reason WHY.

The area of the retina and visual interpretive system is evolved from the need to spot moving ojbects not static ones.
Creatures that have a more refined interest in moving objects are better at noticing predators and prey.
Thus animals that have this system have an advantage over those that do not.

[keithprosser2]

There is a good physical reason HOW this happens. But there is no reason WHY.

I remember a debate about 'how' and 'why'...

It's a nice illusion, but I don't see it as quite as amazing as all that. What we have evolved is the quite amazing ability to construct an internal model of the external world based - largely - on the photons that happen to hit us. If those photons happen to reflect off a red football, you don't see photons, you see a football. There must be a very complicated system in our heads to derive the fact of a red football just from the photons it reflects. That our visual system can occasionally get things wrong and misinterpret things is less amazing that it more than occasionally gets things right!

I think optical illusions are great for avoiding arrogance - they demonstrate that seeing is not necessarilty believing, and what is obvious is what you have to be most suspicious of. What seems to happen is that what we 'see' is less to do with the actual photons that hit our retinae than what our brains do with the information it gets. What we see is not a raw transcription of the actual photons hitting our eye but an interpretation based on a lot of extrapolation, guess work and sheer imagination. Why is there a phi illusion? Probably because if you see an object that appear in one place and then a moment later somewhere else it probably did move between those places, even if you don't actually see it do so (perhaps because you blinked). We don't just slavishly take the photons we take in as the end story - we try to make more sense out of the data than it really merits... probably because it is is better to see things that aren't there (such as a sabre toothed tiger in the bushes) than to not see things that are (such as a sabre tooth tiger in the bushes). Making the former error just makes you paranoid. The latter error just makes you lunch.

[chaz wyman]

There is a good physical reason HOW this happens. But there is no reason WHY.

I remember a debate about 'how' and 'why'...

It's a nice illusion, but I don't see it as quite as amazing as all that. What we have evolved is the quite amazing ability to construct an internal model of the external world based - largely - on the photons that happen to hit us. If those photons happen to reflect off a red football, you don't see photons, you see a football. There must be a very complicated system in our heads to derive the fact of a red football just from the photons it reflects. That our visual system can occasionally get things wrong and misinterpret things is less amazing that it more than occasionally gets things right!

I think optical illusions are great for avoiding arrogance - they demonstrate that seeing is not necessarilty believing, and what is obvious is what you have to be most suspicious of. What seems to happen is that what we 'see' is less to do with the actual photons that hit our retinae than what our brains do with the information it gets. What we see is not a raw transcription of the actual photons hitting our eye but an interpretation based on a lot of extrapolation, guess work and sheer imagination. Why is there a phi illusion? Probably because if you see an object that appear in one place and then a moment later somewhere else it probably did move between those places, even if you don't actually see it do so (perhaps because you blinked). We don't just slavishly take the photons we take in as the end story - we try to make more sense out of the data than it really merits... probably because it is is better to see things that aren't there (such as a sabre toothed tiger in the bushes) than to not see things that are (such as a sabre tooth tiger in the bushes). Making the former error just makes you paranoid. The latter error just makes you lunch.

Indeed. and the same can be said if your own potential lunch is in the bush too.

[blackbox]

What an impressive visual. Hell, if you look at the centre long enough, the outer spots disappear completely and all you end up seeing is the green "non-spots" moving round.

I wonder why our visual system evolved to act like this?

What do you find amazing about it in a philisophical sense?

No evolved trait evolved to act like anything.
There is no aim in evolution.
Evolution is an effect , not a cause.
Simple.

There is a good physical reason HOW this happens. But there is no reason WHY.

The area of the retina and visual interpretive system is evolved from the need to spot moving ojbects not static ones.
Creatures that have a more refined interest in moving objects are better at noticing predators and prey.
Thus animals that have this system have an advantage over those that do not.

Yes, obviously a process does not have intention, or goals or motivations. And none of those were my intended meaning. Hmmm, how could I have worded it?

"I wonder what features of our visual evolution explain this?" Nah, it avoids the intentionality, but is clunky as hell. I can barely understand it and I wrote the thing.

"I wonder what evolutionary mechanisms resulted in this phenomenon?" More precise, but took a while to construct.

When I'm making general comments, I don't always take the time to carefully construct a sentence so as to avoid every possible misunderstanding people might gain. Haha, so shoot me. If it's important, clarification is easy enough.

Yes, spotting movement sounds advantageous. Or, as in this case, apparent movement, since the purple spot doesn't exist.

[blackbox]

Chaz, I recently read Jeremy Coyne's book Why Evolution is True. I noticed multiple occasions where he also used language that could be read as assuming intentionality. The English language seems to veer towards agency/intentionality.

[chaz wyman]

Chaz, I recently read Jeremy Coyne's book Why Evolution is True. I noticed multiple occasions where he also used language that could be read as assuming intentionality. The English language seems to veer towards agency/intentionality.

I agree - but I don't think it takes to much imagination to be able to re-phrase statements to avoid it.
Darwin is also full of it, but then he also believed in Lamarckian evolution by acquired characteristics too.

I recently read "What Darwin Got Wrong.", which sums up the problem very succinctly - don't worry it is pro-evolution, and starts with a title disclaimer.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/What-Darwin-Wro ... 1846682193

Here's what they say.


There has been a long-standing, subtle confusion, elegantly expressed by Fodor & Piattelli-Palmarini between
“(1) The claim that evolution is a process in which creatures with adaptive traits are selected and
(2) the claim that evolution is a process in which creatures are selected for their adaptive traits.”
This subtle difference is at the heart of the diverse uses and abuses of Darwinism. The connection between Darwin’s and Fodor’s statements here is that the overemphasis on the study of positive traits has led to that assumption and the working assumption that claim (2) is more likely to be applied than statement (1), where more interest on neutral and negative traits would suit an approach with greater fidelity to the simplicity of Darwin’s original argument and more clearly demonstrate a natural world of infinite variety. But with the will of humans to uncover explanatory stories, rather than simple observations, the issue of positive stories of evolutionary change have a greater head-lining quality; additionally to political and social pressure to offer an alternative to the explanatory power of theology may be responsible for the overstatement of natural selection here.

[blackbox]

Hmm, this might be too subtle for me. Are you saying 2) is incorrect, because of (false) connotations of purpose in "... are selected for their adaptive traits.”?

I don't immediately read agency or purpose, even in 2), that is, I understand by it "because of", oh, damn, that also could carry connotations of agency or intelligence, rather than "because of" evolutionary cause and effect. But then, I'm reading these sentences with a (hopefully correct) view that doesn't entail agency or purpose, which I agree is much better expressed in 1) than 2). Ah, good. That's clear lol.

[Arising_uk]

.You may have to check me out on this but, I believe humans ARE animals....

Fair point. Do you differentiate at all between what we do and what the other animals do? That is, do you think the other animals would be as amazed as you by your post?