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coberst Offline OP
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Do we perceive it because it is meaningful? Yes!

How does the man with agnosia (loss of ability to perceive the familiar due to brain damage) manage on the street? Quoting such an individual “On the sidewalk all things are slim—those are people; in the middle of the street, everything is very noisy, bulky, tall—that can be buses, cars.”

Rudolf Arnheim says, regarding agnosia, that “Many people use their unimpaired sense of sight to no better advantage during much of the day.” How can this be true? I suspect it is true because many of us have such a very narrow range of familiar objects that have any meaning to us. Our narrow intellectual interests leave us with a very narrow world of reality because we perceive only what is meaningful.

Our emotions are one source of meaning. Occasionally, while walking in the woods, some movement in the underbrush will cause my blood to “run cold”. Was that a source of danger? I suspect that to most animals without the ability to create abstract concepts all perceptions are those induced by emotions (we also call them instincts). I can be alerted by a mouse darting across the floor well on the peripheral fringes of my vision while I am busy concentrating on something else because animals survive based upon their response to movement.

Humans, however, can create an abstract concept, which means that we can create a virtual world on top of the world directly created by Mother Nature. Mother Nature has prepared us through emotion to be very aware of movement pattern but Mother Nature has not prepared us for dealing with the world of abstract concepts.

We have placed into the hands of ordinary people the extraordinary power of technology; it is this virtual world, where technology is dominating and grave danger lurks, for which Mother Nature has not prepared us.

Quotes from Art and Visual Perception: A psychology of the Creative Eye Rudolf Arnheim

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We have words such as "boring", "uniteresting", "nochalant" and even "unmeaningful" to describe things which are unimportant to us. That these words themselves do not appear in Mr Arnheim's book is probably more judgement than luck. To write such things in a book with the word "art" in the title is verging on oxymoronic.


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Originally Posted By: coberst
Do we perceive it because it is meaningful? Yes!
Nope, we can observe things even if they have no meaning for us (fortunatelly), i.e. like animals. By Aether Wave Theory we are living in gradient driven reality described by wave equation in many dimensions - i.e. we perceive things, just if/because they're changing (in space and/or time).



What we can see from fluid or dense gas are just density gradients in it, not the gas itself - the rest is transparent and virtually invisible for us. The observable bodies are formed by surface gradients of Aether density.

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Coberst is merely waffling on the theme that "perception" is active not passive. This is a one line issue in Psychology 101.

On this question, here's coberst's supercilious reply to one witty complainant about his obsessive quotations on multiple forums.

Quote:
Learning is best done by studying the thoughts of the best thinkers. Exchanging vacuous opinions with chums is entertaining but unenlightening. Opinions are a dime a dozen, almost everyone has an opinion about almost everything. I do not waste my time with opinions. I make judgments after studying the works of the best minds. To do so one must learn how to be a critical reader and a Critical Thinker.


The irony is that coberst never responds to criticism of his "best minds" and appears to be unaware of their original sources. His claim to be a "critical reader" is transparently false. His amateur "SGCS" mindset (in which he significantly fails to criticise the last "S" for "science") sucks in any material which can be actively fed on as "relevant", and this reinforces his self ascribed "authority" to give "dire warnings" about our diversions away from "mother nature". He has not realized that this angle is a possible parody of the rationality his own relinquishment of a career in technology.

Last edited by eccles; 08/31/09 09:21 AM.
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coberst Offline OP
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I started studying SGCS (Second Generation Cognitive Science) several years ago. This revolutionary theory hypothesizes that comprehension begins and ends with “meaning”. This theory bases a great deal of our comprehension of the world begins with basic-level categorization.

Basic-level categories are constructed by our bodily interaction with our world. SGCS theorizes that there is no mind/body dichotomy, that we are a gestalt, i.e. we are a body-mind. This theory challenges all a priori objectivist philosophy.

That which is meaningful to the body-mind only is perceived and all truth for humans is constructed upon those basic facts.

Recently I have begun studying the science of art and everything that I am learning here verifies the theories of SGCS.

Last edited by Amaranth Rose II; 09/01/09 02:59 AM.
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Okay,

I challenge you to (1) state "a theory of SGCS" and (2)explain how "the science of art" confirms the theory.

I have italicised "confirm" because according to Popper's criterion for "science", theories must be refutable in principle. This would have implications for the status of your statement (1).

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coberst Offline OP
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Art and Visual Perception by Rudolf Arnheim and Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things by George Lakoff both clearly state that we humans reach out to perceive that which is meaningful to us rather than perceive passively what ever percept happens. I suspect that many empirical tests have shown the evidence that supports that claim. If you want me to dig up such data then forget about it, I will not bother to do so.

Last edited by Amaranth Rose II; 09/01/09 03:02 AM.
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"Active perception" is no more a theory of "SGCS" than "dreams" are a theory of "Psychoanalysis". The phenomenon of active perception has been obvious to philosophers since Kant, and to all psychologists barring those who took a dogmatic "behaviorist posture" in order to mimic the hard sciences. Your claim of "radical theoretical shifts" is ludicrous.

In order to demonstrate the particular claims of "SGCS" you would need to demonstrate that the disolution of mind-body duality advocated by SGCS specifically predicted the details of "active perception". It does NOT, any more than a particular psychoanalytic framework (e.g Freud) specifically predicted the details of dreams. (Freudian patients dreamed Freudian dreams, Jungian patients dreamed Jungian dreams etc, etc.) And the fact that "SGCS" is a whole constellation of speculations loosely based around the biological origins of "cognition" puts its "scientific status" on a par with the whole of "psychoanalysis" rather than a single theoretical stance.

(BTW It is significant that Popper used Psychoanalysis as a specific example of "pseudoscience".)

For your information, there IS a strand of mind-body monism which does promote the political theme of "technological caution" which you erroneously seem to ascribe to Bohm's "critical thinking".That strand is well described in Capra's "Web of Life" as a Khunian paradigm shift towards "deep ecology". In order to bring Bohm into the picture at all you need to understand his mystical leanings towards "holistic consciousness" and his speculations on "implicate order". Such leanings were partially a result of the "togetherness thinking" promoted by his spiritual associate J. Krishnamurti (see "The Ending of Time").




Last edited by Amaranth Rose II; 09/01/09 03:03 AM.
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coberst,

An alternative "revolutionary paradigm" to the "deep ecocolgy" cited by Capra, has evolved from the surprising phenomenon of non-locality" in quantum physics.

http://www.fdavidpeat.com/bibliography/essays/nat-cog.htm

This paper by the physicist David Peat cites Bohm's scientific activities rather than his philosophy. It also makes reference to visual art.

Note that also that competing paradigms can be perhaps better be compared in terms of their mathematical modelling rather than their humanistic implications. (Capra stresses non-linear systems and catastrophe theory, whereas Peat stresses field theory).

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Originally Posted By: eccles
coberst,

An alternative "revolutionary paradigm" to the "deep ecocolgy" cited by Capra, has evolved from the surprising phenomenon of non-locality" in quantum physics.

http://www.fdavidpeat.com/bibliography/essays/nat-cog.htm

This paper by the physicist David Peat cites Bohm's scientific activities rather than his philosophy. It also makes reference to visual art.

Note that also that competing paradigms can be perhaps better be compared in terms of their mathematical modelling rather than their humanistic implications. (Capra stresses non-linear systems and catastrophe theory, whereas Peat stresses field theory).


Math is useful and necessary in QM but has little use in humanistic matters. There is little pattern evident in humanistic matters and thus math, the science of pattern, has little use here.

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I suggest you read it before commenting.

You seem to be unaware of the metalogical level required to discuss the observation of observation, which is what all investigations of "perception" set out to do. The alternative is end up down the blind alleys which Wittgenstein called "language on holiday". A metalogical position can be sought in the coherence of non-intuitive mathematical models which transcend traditional set theory. Note that Piaget, the originator of the concept of "schemata" (preceding Lakoff by 40 years) pointed out that traditional (set theoretic) logic was a product of "cognition" and could not be used to "explain" cognition.

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Originally Posted By: eccles
I suggest you read it before commenting.


Then maybe copy-paste the entire text in the OP?


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smile


Last edited by eccles; 09/01/09 11:03 PM.

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