Search Results

Invisible

Aviad Kleinberg

in The Sensual God: How the Senses Make the Almighty Senseless

Where outraged iconoclasts and horrified philosophers are told that seeing is believing.

Effects of visual deprivation

Ian P. Howard and Brian J. Rogers

in Seeing in Depth: Volume 1: Basic Mechanics/ Volume 2: Depth Perception 2-Volume Set

This chapter reviews the effects of early deprivation of sight in one or both eyes. The discussions cover the effects of dark rearing; monocular deprivation; the critical period; amblyopia; and ... More

This chapter reviews the effects of early deprivation of sight in one or both eyes. The discussions cover the effects of dark rearing; monocular deprivation; the critical period; amblyopia; and amblyopia and stereopsis.Less

The performance of music

John A. Sloboda

in The Musical Mind: The Cognitive Psychology of Music

This chapter focuses on non-improvisatory performance of a score. It reviews cognitive processes in sight-reading, including eye movements, errors in reading, and expressive sight-reading. These all ... More

This chapter focuses on non-improvisatory performance of a score. It reviews cognitive processes in sight-reading, including eye movements, errors in reading, and expressive sight-reading. These all demonstrate the involvement of well-developed mental representations in expert sight-reading. In treating expert prepared performance, it covers memorization, fingering, and synchronization. The relative lack of research into performance, as compared to perception, is noted.Less

The Great Renunciation

Todd Lewis and Subarna Tuladhar

in Sugata Saurabha: An Epic Poem from Nepal on the Life of the Buddha by Chittadhar Hridaya

The poet describes how Siddhārtha chose to leave the palace in order to become a religious mendicant. Although King Shuddhodana tried to entangle the prince in royal life, this is all undone after ... More

The poet describes how Siddhārtha chose to leave the palace in order to become a religious mendicant. Although King Shuddhodana tried to entangle the prince in royal life, this is all undone after the prince sees the “four passing sights”: an old person, the sick, the dead, a mendicant, three visions of suffering and one pointing the way beyond it. In depicting the departure from the palace, the poet follows classical sources in having this occur right after Siddhārtha's son's birth, followed by a long standoff with his father in which Siddhārtha seeks his permission. In the departure scene, the poet has lightning and thunder explain what in the ancient biographies are supernormal forces. The flight on horseback, with his horseman Chandaka, conveys the rich verdant scenery of the monsoon season. The chapter ends as Siddhārtha cuts his hair off, then sends his horse and Chandaka back to Kapilavastu.Less

Phenomenal and Cognitive Factors in Spatial Perception

Gary Hatfield

in Visual Experience: Sensation, Cognition, and Constancy

This chapter provides an overview of the phenomenology of size perception and the use of instructions to tease apart phenomenal and cognitive aspects. It develops his own recent proposals concerning ... More

This chapter provides an overview of the phenomenology of size perception and the use of instructions to tease apart phenomenal and cognitive aspects. It develops his own recent proposals concerning the geometry of visual space. The chapter proposes that visual space is contracted along the lines of sight. This contraction would explain the apparent convergence of railway tracks, but without invoking a “proximal mode” experience. Parallel railway tracks receding into the distance project converging lines onto the retinas. A true proximal mode representation would show these lines converging as if in a vertical plane. But we experience them as converging while also receding in depth along the ground. The chapter suggests that this calls for a third geometry of visual space, intermediate between a linear perspective projection and full phenomenal constancy (that is, phenomenal experience of the tracks as not converging). The chapter attributes reports of full constancy to cognitive factors.Less

“Like the Snow on the Alps”: After Nature

Carol Jacobs

in Sebald'S Vision

This is a reading of Sebald's “After Nature” with regard to the interrelation of sight and blindness, ethics, naming and identity, and signification through acts of repetition.

Scientific Creativity as Blind Variation: Explicit and Implicit Procedures, Mechanisms, and Processes

Dean Keith Simonton

in Psychology of Science: Implicit and Explicit Processes

Donald Campbell proposed that scientific creativity and discovery could be best understood as entailing blind variation and selective retention (BVSR). This proposal is developed by defining ... More

Donald Campbell proposed that scientific creativity and discovery could be best understood as entailing blind variation and selective retention (BVSR). This proposal is developed by defining blindness in terms of the magnitude of decoupling between variant probabilities and their corresponding utilities. The selection part of BVSR is then defined according to whether variant selection is simultaneous or sequential and external or internal. These definitions provide the basis for identification criteria that can be applied to determine where ideational variation falls on the blind-sighted continuum. Explicit blindness can be obtained by systematic or stochastic combinatorial procedures, whereas implicit blindness becomes apparent when variations have certain properties of blindness or are generated by processes that should yield blindness. The chapter discusses the most common criticisms of BVSR, some that arise from misunderstandings and others that are rooted in misconceptions. The chapter concludes by discussing BVSR in terms of a three-criteria definition of creative ideas.Less

From Possible to Virtually Certain

Geoffrey E. Hill

in Ivorybill Hunters: Search for Proof in a Flooded Wilderness

Hill, Hick, and Rolek return to the site of the ivorybill sighting and repeatedly hear and see what seem to be Ivory-billed Woodpeckers. The sightings culminated with a sighting by Rolek of two birds ... More

Hill, Hick, and Rolek return to the site of the ivorybill sighting and repeatedly hear and see what seem to be Ivory-billed Woodpeckers. The sightings culminated with a sighting by Rolek of two birds flying together. Two birds suggested a breeding pair and gave hope that a nest could be found in the spring.Less

Hunting Ivorybills in the Backyard

Geoffrey E. Hill

in Ivorybill Hunters: Search for Proof in a Flooded Wilderness

Hill gets a call from a bee-keeper who lives about 25 miles from Auburn and claims to have seen an Ivory-billed Woodpecker in his yard. He also says he knows of two other locations that ivorybills ... More

Hill gets a call from a bee-keeper who lives about 25 miles from Auburn and claims to have seen an Ivory-billed Woodpecker in his yard. He also says he knows of two other locations that ivorybills frequent. Hill and Hicks investigate and find that the man is earnest but that the locations seem like improbable sites for ivorybills. They are left with the dilemma of not wishing to dispute the account of an honest man, but not believing that he actually saw an ivorybill. Hill is aware that other birders and ornithologists would view his own claims of ivorybills in the same way.Less

Let the Search Begin

Geoffrey E. Hill

in Ivorybill Hunters: Search for Proof in a Flooded Wilderness

Winter of 2006 is the focused search period and this chapter describes how the search is to be conducted and the initial discoveries in the December 2005. Mennill's job will be to build automated ... More

Winter of 2006 is the focused search period and this chapter describes how the search is to be conducted and the initial discoveries in the December 2005. Mennill's job will be to build automated sound recording stations, and his student Swiston will live on site to run the stations. Rolek will live on site and try to get a photo or video of an ivorybill by watching cavities and looking for the birds. Hill will come down two weekends every month to search, and Hicks will search during breaks from college.Less

The Mule

Geoffrey E. Hill

in Ivorybill Hunters: Search for Proof in a Flooded Wilderness

This chapter takes up the narrative of the search, covering activities in January. Rolek and Swiston are living in tents in the swamp, and Hill is coming down every other week to pick up sound ... More

This chapter takes up the narrative of the search, covering activities in January. Rolek and Swiston are living in tents in the swamp, and Hill is coming down every other week to pick up sound recordings. Rolek is regularly hearing and occasionally seeing ivorybills, and Hill has his first clear sighting in January when a bird flies in front of him. Rolek has his kayak stolen from a landing prompting an emergency run to a sporting goods store 100 miles away.Less

Voices in the Wilderness

Geoffrey E. Hill

in Ivorybill Hunters: Search for Proof in a Flooded Wilderness

By February, the search crew was frustrated by their failure to photograph an ivorybill despite repeated encounters with the birds. The searchers were also concerned because they had not heard the ... More

By February, the search crew was frustrated by their failure to photograph an ivorybill despite repeated encounters with the birds. The searchers were also concerned because they had not heard the distinctive “kent” call of the birds in January. A week into February, however, everyone on the search team started hearing kent calls in the forest. By the end of March, definitive evidence stills remains elusive.Less

Cat Out of the Bag

Geoffrey E. Hill

in Ivorybill Hunters: Search for Proof in a Flooded Wilderness

Hill contacts Chuck Hunter of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service about the discovery of ivorybills in the forests along the Choctawhatchee River. Hunter was impressed by the number of sound ... More

Hill contacts Chuck Hunter of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service about the discovery of ivorybills in the forests along the Choctawhatchee River. Hunter was impressed by the number of sound recordings and the details observed in some of the sightings. At the end of April, the searchers packed up the swamp camp and Rolek and Swiston moved back to civilization.Less

Hair-Trigger Mouse Traps with Teeth

Carolyn M. King and Roger A. Powell

in The Natural History of Weasels and Stoats: Ecology, Behavior, and Management

This chapter introduces readers to the most important features of the weasels: their long, thin body, short legs, and short fur — the consequences of their specialized lifestyle as hunters of small ... More

This chapter introduces readers to the most important features of the weasels: their long, thin body, short legs, and short fur — the consequences of their specialized lifestyle as hunters of small mammals in tight spaces. All aspects of their lives and behaviour are subservient to their need to be small enough to follow mice and voles into their nests, and yet still strong enough to make successful kills there. As such, their skulls are elongated, their ears flat to the head, and their necks long enough to let them carry a dead vole without tripping over it. They can out-compete larger predators in exploiting small rodents, but usually come off worst in any confrontation. They are disproportionately strong for their size, but the long, thin weasel body-shape makes high demands on their metabolism. Thick fur would prevent access to rodent tunnels, so they are vulnerable to energy loss in cool climates.Less

Republic V–VII

Terence Irwin

in Plato's Ethics

This chapter endeavours to demonstrate the relevance of the epistemological and metaphysical doctrines of books V, VI, and VII for Plato’s ethics. Firstly, the role played by the analysis of the ... More

This chapter endeavours to demonstrate the relevance of the epistemological and metaphysical doctrines of books V, VI, and VII for Plato’s ethics. Firstly, the role played by the analysis of the sight-lovers theory and how it relates with the other aspects of this books is investigated. Secondly, the relevance of the doctrine of the Good as the supreme form and its analogy with the sun is evaluated. Thirdly, how the line and the cave fit with Plato’s discussion and the role they play is examined.Less

Spirit of Freedom

Terrence L. Johnson

in Tragic Soul-Life: W.E.B. Du Bois and the Moral Crisis Facing American Democracy

Chapter Three defines freedom within the moral and political imaginations of Du Bois and Frederick Douglass. Freedom here is not necessarily tied to the availability of state-supported rights, but is ... More

Chapter Three defines freedom within the moral and political imaginations of Du Bois and Frederick Douglass. Freedom here is not necessarily tied to the availability of state-supported rights, but is based on the moral and political agency one exercises, which emerges with self-consciousness.Less

Conclusion

Brian O'Shaughnessy

in Consciousness and the World

Why is consciousness so closely linked to perception? It is because consciousness is directed to the World, and perception our ultimate mode of access to the World. Thus, the most fundamental of the ... More

Why is consciousness so closely linked to perception? It is because consciousness is directed to the World, and perception our ultimate mode of access to the World. Thus, the most fundamental of the empirical relations of consciousness to the World is the perceptual. Through it the mind acquires both the content necessary for intentionality, and an awareness of the setting in which to lead a life. What does consciousness bring to this situation? Apart from availability of the perceptual Attention, the most important property is the rationality of the state. Two mental conditions of rationality were explored: self‐knowledge, and an overall mental activeness and pre‐eminently the active process of thinking. Then in the state of consciousness thus constituted we typically encounter the phenomenon of perception, set in the stream of experience, the unique experience, which is of the species‐type, experience‐of. Here we have the original epistemological relation between consciousness and the World, and the basis of all more developed or thought‐mediated intentional consciousnesses. Then, sight has a multitude of assets that make it the most effective example to demonstrate how in the perceptions of the conscious we encounter the fully constituted object in its universal setting. At that point, consciousness fufils an appointed destiny.Less

The Dioptra of Hero of Alexandria

J. J. Coulton

in Science and Mathematics in Ancient Greek Culture

Hero of Alexandria flourished in the late first century AD, and a considerable number of works on mechanics and applied mathematics are associated with his name. The Dioptra, a relatively brief work ... More

Hero of Alexandria flourished in the late first century AD, and a considerable number of works on mechanics and applied mathematics are associated with his name. The Dioptra, a relatively brief work describing a rather elaborate sighting instrument of that name, illustrates his interest in the meeting of mathematics and the practical world, and apart from a closely derivative late Byzantine text, it stands as the only surviving Greek treatise on land surveying. Hero's dioptra is presented in the scholarly literature on ancient surveying as both the most sophisticated instrument of its kind, equivalent to a modern theodolite, and as a clumsy and impractical device, of little use to practising surveyors. This chapter looks more closely at the form and capabilities of the dioptra, the methods of surveying proposed by Hero, and the reasons for the limitations in its design and use.Less