The Geometry of the Visual Field

Hannes Ole Matthiessen, a philosopher from Fribourg, Switzerland http://unifri.academia.edu/HannesOleMatthiessen recently organized a conference where Reid scholars, phenomenologists, and psychologists discussed questions concerning the geometry of visual space http://philosophie.ch/events/single.php?action=date&eventid=1114&month=10&year=2013

 

He is currently planning to publish the papers held on the conference in some kind of joint publication, preferably a reasonably good journal special issue, and there is still room for a couple of more authors. Since the interdisciplinary character of the conference shall be preserved in the publication, both philosophical and empirical papers are welcome. Please contact Hannes at Hannes.Matthiessen@unifr.ch

The Localization of the Mind

Confusing two systems of spatial relationships, one physical, the other perceptual, has long contributed to insoluble paradoxes and puzzles in the philosophy of mind and perception. In this monograph I start with Eddington’s famous example of the “two writing tables” and explain how we must distinguish between “two heads,” the one we know from perceiving our own and those around us, the other the physical head as studied by neuroscience. Their properties are quite different. The perceptual head is composed of sensations (qualia) whereas the physical head is composed of biological matter only. http://www.academia.edu/4042688/The_Localization_of_the_Mind

The Māya Theory of (Visual) Perception

A visit recently to the Center for Brain and Cognition at UCSD by an Indian medical student has prompted me to advance a rather skeptical theory at which I have only hinted previously. It is surprising how sometimes in the course of informal conversation even a profound idea can take shape, and that was the case the other evening when Rama and some of us in the lab were actually joking about the absurd predicament that I described below under my posting "Summation," viz. that the causal theory of perception leads to empirical evidence that does not support it, but actually contradicts it.

As I have intimated previously it is not necessarily the case that classical "action-by-contact" ("billiard ball") causality is wrong, but that the causal theory of perception is wrong by invoking it, the locus classicus being The Analysis of Matter by Lord Russell. This state of affairs may/may not be related to putative non-local causality ("non-locality") in Quantum Mechanics, which it has been claimed by theoretical physics implies "action at a distance" at the quantum level, and though a number of theorists have speculated that consciousness may have a quantum mechanical basis. I say "may/may not" because the rejection of the causal theory of perception is not because it is contradicted by anything stemming from Q.M., but by the disparity between brain structure/events and the structure of visual objects, a topic of much previous discussion here already, but something that was noted by John Smythies already over half a century ago in his Analysis of Perception.

Just as Fred Hoyle thought the universe was a "put up job," much the same might be said for the (visual) world--and perhaps for a similar reason: Highly unlikely relationships between physical constants in the case of the universe, and so-called perceptual constancies in the case of the visual world. The geometrical structure of objects in visual space is usually explained in terms of a perspective projection resulting from the geometrical optics of the eyes. It is often depicted as being something like an artist using perspective to simulate depth and distance on a flat surface. But whereas the artist can compare what he sees of the world with his perspective drawing or painting, we as perceivers cannot do that with the whole of our visual world with the physical world, so the analogy does not really hold.

Perhaps it is the case that as much as departing from "veridical" perception, visual illusions and the study of them may may actually lead to understanding perception and the visual world as māya, a Sanscrit word usually translated as "illusion" but also as "projection." How apt in the case of visual perception! Could it be that it is the nature of perception to foster a belief in an objective external world, but that such a world always remains for each of us only a belief? When one doubts the existence of an external world beyond the senses, one is a skeptic or phenomenalist, but when one doubts the existence of God, one is only an atheist. Yet both involve belief or disbelief in something beyond the senses. On the one hand, "seeing is believing," yet on the other, one "doubts their senses."

The "put up job" in the case of perception may just be predictability and repeatability in the perceptual world--as it happens, the hallmarks of scientific empiricism. But how can one know a priori that this guarantees knowledge of reality, if reality is only a belief? The argument is circular. This may be the "naive faith" which Whitehead wrote science never questions.

Agentship of the Soul (per the Brahma Sutra)

Rama, who daily receives voluminous correspondence from all of the world, recently brought to my attention something sent to him by an independent scholar in India concerning the nature of the soul as explained in the Brahma Sutra, which has been the subject of considerable exegesis in India as well, such as that by Adi Shankara (788-820 A.D.), who has been called the "St. Thomas Aquinas of Indian thought."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adi_Shankara

I was particularly struck by the analogy used therein likening the soul to a carpenter and agentship to that carpenter using his tools, as it brought to mind some of the argumentation on the nature of the soul from Augustine and Aquinas that David McGraw reviewed relative to Descartes last November (see his posting "Mind and Body, Medieval and Modern: Augustine and Thomas Aquinas Versus Descartes") that we discussed some months ago. I would be interested in discussing how this might be applied to the position of the (central) ego Smythies describes vis-a-vis the "observer" of visual space. This is a link to some of the summary/commentary:
http://www.swami-krishnananda.org/bs_2/bs_2-3-15.html
More exegesis/argumentation has been published in this volume:
http://books.google.com/books?id=0wvuAAAAIAAJ&q=%22just+as+this+soul,+independent+though+it+is+as+regards%22&dq=%22just+as+this+soul,+independent+though+it+is+as+regards%22&cd=1
I have a Xerox of the relevant pages that I could supply.

Summation

It is ironic that the last comment on the blog was one I made three months ago now (6/12/11) in response to the first posting on the blog a year ago by Bob French, "Apparent Distortions in Photography and the Geometry of Visual Space." Bob did not respond to my comment but did visit UCSD and gave a fine presentation to the members of the Center for Brain and Cognition on the geometry of visual space July 27th (which, alas, was under attended).

We seem to be left with three theoretical contretemps:

(1) a geometry of visual space that either changes or is under determined by empirical data

(2) a theory of perception (the "causal theory") that cannot be reconciled with the topological and metric attributes of visual space as related to any part of the visual system, whether peripherally in the eyes, or centrally in the brain

(3) dualism provides no solution to the requirements of geometrical congruence as I stated in my 1985 paper "Visual Space as Physical Geometry"
http://ucsd.academia.edu/WilliamRosar/Papers/794894/Visual_Space_as_Physical_Geometry


Though this forum has provided an unusually rich exchange of both traditional and novel ideas, like many blogs it seems to have run its course, perhaps not so much because the contributors have nothing more to offer, but because I don't think most were willing to really question fundamental assumptions, instead holding to theories based on metaphysical or abstract ideas, even when challenged or contradicted by logic, observation, and experimental findings. Ultimately that results in an impasse, and discussion ceases--and philosophy and science are the worse for it.

Hopefully one of you or someone new will throw down the gauntlet and restart the dialog...

-Bill Rosar

Wittgenstein on "Mental Processes"

306. Why should I deny that there is a mental process? But "There has just taken place in me the mental process of remembering . . . ." means nothing more than: "I have just remembered . . . . " To deny the mental process would mean to deny the remembering; to deny that anyone ever remembers anything.

307. "Are you not really a behaviourist in disguise? Aren't you at bottom really saying that everything except human behaviour is a fiction?"—If I do speak of a fiction, then it is of a grammatical fiction.

308. How does the philosophical problem about mental processes and states and about behaviourism arise?——The first step is the one that altogether escapes notice. We talk of processes and states and leave their nature undecided. Sometime perhaps we shall know more about them—we think. But that is just what commits us to a particular way of looking at the matter. For we have a definite concept of what it means to learn to know a process better. (The decisive movement in the conjuring trick has been made, and it was the very one that we thought quite innocent.)—And now the analogy which was to make us understand our thoughts falls to pieces. So we have to deny the yet uncomprehended process in the yet unexplored medium. And now it looks as if we had denied mental processes. And naturally we don't want to deny them.

(Philosophical Investigations, I)

Monads Look Inward

Image via Wikipedia

Philosophers during the modern era wrestled with various philosophical problems. Some of these were cast as new problems, although many had been vexing philosophers since the start of the profession. One of these is the problem of the external world: how do I know that my perceptions match what is real? Another is the mind-body problem: how does the mind interact causally with the body? Leibniz attempted to address these problems (and more) with his monads.

For Leibniz, monads are the fundamental entities that make up the world. They are immaterial and, although they have qualities, they have no parts. There are supposed to be an infinite number of these entities and, apparently, they all perceive. On most interpretations, each monad is a mind. However, the monads do vary in their degree of mental capabilities and they range from the most minimally perceiving monad to the supreme monad (not to be confused with the supreme Dalek or a nacho supreme) which is, of course, God. The higher sorts of monads are conscious and aware while the lower sorts presumably are not. As such, while your soap perceives (think about that the next time you lather up) it is not conscious (which is probably best for both of you).

While all these myriad monads perceive, this perception is not (as Leibniz sees it) a perception caused by external objects. As Leibniz famously claimed, the monads do not have windows and (in addition to making it hard to enjoy warm spring days) nothing enters or departs from them. However, each monad is supposed to mirror all of reality. While I usually use the analogy of a bowl full of polished ball bearings as an analogy to illustrate that bit, the analogy rather obviously fails badly. But, I do think it is a nice image.

While this windowlessness might seem rather odd, it does enable Leibniz to solve two problems with one nad, monad, that is. First, the mind body problem is elegantly solved: reality is fundamentally mental (which I am sure you have long suspected) and hence there are not two distinct metaphysical types to have relationship problems. There is but one type and, perhaps even better, there are no causal relations between these monads (well, aside from God's act of creation, but God is always mucking up things). Thus, these problems are solved. Well, sort of anyway. Second, the problem of the external world is also solved. Monads do not perceive what is outside of them, for there are no windows via which they interact with an external world. The split between experience and reality that allows the problem of the external world to gain traction simply is not there, hence its wheels spin futilely. Or would, if problems had wheels.

Assuming that you buy this, there are still some obvious problems remaining. One is the matter of addressing the intuitively plausible view that we are perceiving the same reality and that we seem to interact. For example, as I type the blog my husky (a husky monad) is watching. I believe that she is perceiving me doing this and I believe that I am perceiving her perceiving me and that she is no doubt wishing that I was handing her some treats rather than typing. So, how does this work with monads?

For Leibniz the answer is very straightforward. In the beginning, God created all the monads and placed "in" each one all its experiences (sort of like downloading a whole movie before starting to play it). Being really amazing, God makes sure that all the monads are in sync (no, not in the boy band). So, back to the husky example, when I have the experience of seeing my husky and she has the experience of seeing me, we are not "really" seeing each other. Rather Isis (my husky) is having an experience in her mind as if she were seeing me and likewise for me. While I do suspect that husky hair could actually get into a monad, there is no actual causal interaction between us. However, the experiences are in a state of pre-established harmony and hence it all works out. Really.

Not surprisingly, this has caused some people to wonder why this does not just collapse into solipsism. After all, if all my experiences are pre-loaded, then I should have them whether there are any other monads or not. By Occam's Razor, one might argue, it would seem simplest to hold that I and I alone exist. Or, at best it is just me and the creator-which sticks us (or rather just me) into the problem raised by Descartes. Perhaps even worse, if the God monad perceives everything perfectly, then it would seem to entail that everything is just a quality of God's mind. This is, of course, pantheism and something the sane generally endeavor to avoid whenever possible. As such, let us quietly close that door and sneak away.

Now that all those problems have been successfully ignored, there is the obvious problem of space. If we are just immaterial monads, then the space we perceive would thus clearly not be space in the usual sense of a box in which God keeps his stuff. Also, what we take to be extended (three dimensional) objects cannot actually be three dimensional in the usual sense.

Leibniz solves the first problem by taking space to be a system of relationships between what a monad experiences. To use a contemporary example, think about "moving" around in 3D video game like Halo or World of Warcraft. It seems like you are moving through space because of the relationship between the elements of your experience, yet there really are not three dimensions in the usual sense. Space is merely a matter of perception and relative to the experiences.

In regards to objects appearing to be extended, this is also a matter of perception. While Leibniz uses the analogy of a rainbow, the video game analogy works even better. In video games we experience what seem to be extended objects, even though they are not actually extended. Rather, the extension is something of an illusion. Likewise for the monad's experience of extension-it is all in their minds. The monads look inwards and see all that can be seen.