Light switches wired wrongly

[JohnW2]

Yes agreed, the brain does sort out lots of the errors between the binocular detection.

True, but as I said, it's not just 'errors'. If the brain could not sort it all out, with ordinary vision in everyday life, anything remotely close would be seen as 'double'.

Evolution has not made life particularly easy for the brain, not the least by splitting the two halves of the visual field between the two sides of the brain, and not to mention the fact that the images received by the brain are 'upside down and back-to-front' - so it's quite clever

 

[JohnW2]

Perhaps it wasn't described to them properly

Who knows, but what I do recall is that it nearly always produced the 'expected' answer - with eye dominance being the same as hand etc. dominance, so someone must have done something right!

 

[JohnW2]

I've reread and studied it, but I'm still only seeing single objects, throughout the entire width of my vision, but limited to only those at similar distances. ... The only way I can see two objects, is by focusing my attention on something very close, like my finger 6inch from my nose.

Quite - and, as I said before, at 6 inches or closer one is getting into "crosseyed" territory.

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

Evolution has not made life particularly easy for the brain, not the least by splitting the two halves of the visual field between the two sides of the brain, and not to mention the fact that the images received by the brain are 'upside down and back-to-front' - so it's quite clever

I'm not sure 'clever', is the right word. If it were electronics, we would simply invert the wiring - perhaps the brain is wired somewhat similar.

What is clever, is how the brain is able to interpret what is seen, and make sense of the world around it, so effortlessly, even when often lacking a full set of information.

 

[JohnW2]

I'm not sure 'clever', is the right word. If it were electronics, we would simply invert the wiring - perhaps the brain is wired somewhat similar.

As you say, dealing with the inversion would presumably be pretty trivial, whether for the brain or 'electronics'.

What is a fair bit more clever is the 'stitching back together' of the two halves of the total image, particularly given that, in practice, it's almost inevitable that the dividing line between right- and left-hemifields will not be identical in the two eyes - and, then combining together the two slightly different 'views of the world' provided by the two eyes to produce a single perceived image!

 

[SUNRAY]

I've reread and studied it, but I'm still only seeing single objects, throughout the entire width of my vision, but limited to only those at similar distances. This in my living room, focusing on the handle of a bureau, directly in from of me, I can see around 90 degrees either side, and everything is seen as a single object. The only way I can see two objects, is by focusing my attention on something very close, like my finger 6inch from my nose.

Fair comment, as I posted it is a very small angular error due to the proximity of the eyes and the brain is able to cope with it very well.

 

[SUNRAY]

As you say, dealing with the inversion would presumably be pretty trivial, whether for the brain or 'electronics'.

What is a fair bit more clever is the 'stitching back together' of the two halves of the total image, particularly given that, in practice, it's almost inevitable that the dividing line between right- and left-hemifields will not be identical in the two eyes - and, then combining together the two slightly different 'views of the world' provided by the two eyes to produce a single perceived image!

People would call it AI these days.

 

[SUNRAY]

Who knows, but what I do recall is that it nearly always produced the 'expected' answer - with eye dominance being the same as hand etc. dominance, so someone must have done something right!

Whereas my much smaller sample found exactly the opposite.

 

[morqthana]

My tip: use syrup or honey on the knife to stop them rolling off.

Neither go well with peas. Brown sauce.

 

[JohnW2]

If I continue with this fictional test and alternately close one eye I see the occurance of a single closer object (per eye) in the positions of the pair of occurances I see with both eyes open.

... and, as morqthana (and subsequently myself) has said, if one sees two fingers with both eyes, then if one closes one's non-dominant eye that single 'closer object' will be aligned with the distant object, whereas if you close your dominant eye it will be to one side of the distant object - and that remains true regardless of which of the two fingers you originally saw you lined up with the distant object.

 

[morqthana]

Returning to autostereograms, I remember that when they were popular I had no problems at all in making the 3D images appear and my wife could not do it at all. She has astigmatism, which may be relevant.

But the ease with which I could do it made it hard for me to explain a technique - I just basically put my eyes out of focus, and pretty soon the image would start to form. The only "technique" I could recommend to someone was that when that happens, don't try too force it - leave it to "develop" and then it will suddenly snap into view, and be rock solid. Once that had happened to me I could move my head or the 2D image around, and remain locked onto the 3D.

Also, throughout all my life I have experienced the situation where if I'm "daydreaming", and staring unfocused at something with a strong, small, repeating pattern (I first experienced it as a child, with the upholstery on tube trains), I'll suddenly start seeing it in 3D. No "hidden image", as there isn't one coded, but I see, say, the rectangles in the pattern floating, with a distinct gap between them and the surface behind. What I see is exactly what I would see if the rectangles really were floating in the air between me and the surface. And it takes a conscious effort to shut that effect down and return to seeing the 2D-only surface.

 

[SUNRAY]

... and, as morqthana (and subsequently myself) has said, if one sees two fingers with both eyes, then if one closes one's non-dominant eye that single 'closer object' will be aligned with the distant object, whereas if you close your dominant eye it will be to one side of the distant object - and that remains true regardless of which of the two fingers you originally saw you lined up with the distant object.

Now you are talking rubbish.

if you hold one finger up and see 2 images of it,
then align one, let's randomly chose the left image, with a distant object with the other being off to the right of the object,
Then close one eye.
Regardless which eye is dominant:
closing the left eye will make the right image vanish or closing the right will make the left image in front of the object vanish.
However moving the 2 images to the left so the right image is obscuring the object
closing the left eye will make the right image in front of the object vanish or closing the right will make the left image vanish.

Nothing of that has anything to do with dominant eyes, just simple mechanical and optical physics just as it has been all the way through these exchanges

 

[JohnW2]

People would call it AI these days.

I'm sure they would, those being the people who are coming to describe almost anything achieved by computer processing as "AI", even if 'intelligence'/'intellect are not really involved at all.

I'm pretty sure that the sort of image processing we're talking about could be fairly easily achieved by a computer executing a traditional algorithm-based program ('imperative' programming) written by a human being, such that the computer was doing nothing other than strictly, but totally 'dumbly', obeying a set of explicit instructions, with absolutely no 'machine intelligence' involved at all.

In terms of 'true AI', I imagine that there is probably a lot of debate as to what we actually mean by, and should regard as, "intelligence". I remember many moons ago reading an article that was saying that advances in computer capabilities were turning some traditional thinking on it's head. It pointed out that, traditionally, virtually no-one would disagree that one needed a very high level of 'intelligence' to be a Chess Grand Master, nor would they disagree that, say, recognising a human face was a trivial exercise, which even someone of 'minimal intelligence' could do. However, those traditional views needed to be re-considered when computers became able to beat the Grand Masters at chess, at a time when computer facial recognition was not really good enough to be useful.

For what it's worth, my personal view would be that, as a starting point, 'true AI' has to be able to do things beyond merely executing explicitly programmed instructions (which I imagine is all the chess-playing computers of the time were doing).

 

[SUNRAY]

Returning to autostereograms, I remember that when they were popular I had no problems at all in making the 3D images appear and my wife could not do it at all. She has astigmatism, which may be relevant.

But the ease with which I could do it made it hard for me to explain a technique - I just basically put my eyes out of focus, and pretty soon the image would start to form. The only "technique" I could recommend to someone was that when that happens, don't try too force it - leave it to "develop" and then it will suddenly snap into view, and be rock solid. Once that had happened to me I could move my head or the 2D image around, and remain locked onto the 3D.

Also, throughout all my life I have experienced the situation where if I'm "daydreaming", and staring unfocused at something with a strong, small, repeating pattern (I first experienced it as a child, with the upholstery on tube trains), I'll suddenly start seeing it in 3D. No "hidden image", as there isn't one coded, but I see, say, the rectangles in the pattern floating, with a distinct gap between them and the surface behind. What I see is exactly what I would see if the rectangles really were floating in the air between me and the surface. And it takes a conscious effort to shut that effect down and return to seeing the 2D-only surface.

I've never been able to make those work, possibly as I have a 30° astigmatism in one eye but one day I walked into an office so see a framed picture on the wall of the New York skyline using Coke Cola cans and commented to the receptionist how unusual it was, apparently I was potentially the first to see what it was.

 

[JohnW2]

Now you are talking rubbish. ....

You might be right about that. I need to do some more experiments (which, as I've explained, takes me some time).