The Interface Theory of Perception

[Diego Pigozzo]

The red/green thing is about dispersion not about veridicality.

You don't even know what I'm referring with the red/green thing and yet you're saying and I don't understand the theory these guys are selling.

What about explaining the red/green thing with these guy's theory?

[amolitor]

You don't even know what I'm referring with the red/green thing and yet you're saying and I don't understand the theory these guys are selling.

What about explaining the red/green thing with these guy's theory?

Your "red/green" thing is what you mentioned in reply #26, I assume, since that seems to be the only mention of anything to do with red versus green. If you're citing some random "red/green thing" from inside your own mind where nobody else can know what it is, well, you're on your own. I have already explained why the red/green thing is irrelevant, several times. Admittedly, I have done so using the language of the paper which you have not read and the theory about which you know absolutely nothing and so it's probably the case that you've missed the explanation.

[Diego Pigozzo]

I have already explained why the red/green thing is irrelevant, several times.

No you didn't.
So try again: how it comes that the perception of red and green maintains the "different" relationship of the two lights if the perception has nothing to do with the perception?

Let's see how your favorite theory response.

[amolitor]

No you didn't.
So try again: how it comes that the perception of red and green maintains the "different" relationship of the two lights if the perception has nothing to do with the perception?

Let's see how your favorite theory response.

Even if we discount your obvious typo, and assume you mean something like "the perception has nothing to do with the real world", you're simply wrong. There's nothing that even suggests such a statement in the paper, or in the abstract. You've simply made up this disconnect between the real world and perception, and are arguing from this completely wrong position. At this point. Sometimes you seem to be talking about perceptual strategies with dispersion, which are also irrelevant here.

Just to be clear:

nobody except you is talking about a situation in which perception has no connection to the real world

[Diego Pigozzo]

Even if we discount your obvious typo, and assume you mean something like "the perception has nothing to do with the real world", you're simply wrong. There's nothing that even suggests such a statement in the paper, or in the abstract. You've simply made up this disconnect between the real world and perception, and are arguing from this completely wrong position. At this point. Sometimes you seem to be talking about perceptual strategies with dispersion, which are also irrelevant here.

Just to be clear:

nobody except you is talking about a situation in which perception has no connection to the real world

From the link originally posted:

http://www.psychonomic.org/featured-content-detail/interface-theory-of-perception-future-of-science-o

From the abstract of the paper:

Thus, a perceptual strategy favored by selection is best thought of not as a window on truth but as akin to a windows interface of a PC. Just as the color and shape of an icon for a text file do not entail that the text file itself has a color or shape, so also our perceptions of space-time and objects do not entail (by the Invention of Space-Time Theorem) that objective reality has the structure of space-time and objects.

Maybe I'm not the one who doesn't understand the meaning of the paper.

[amolitor]

There's a world of difference between "no connection at all" and what the abstract says.

You are engaged here in what is called the Motte and Bailey fallacy. You argue based on wrongheaded nonsense "if there is no connection between reality and perception then.. " blah blah blah. Then, when confronted with the ugly truth that nobody is claiming that there's no connection, you retreat to quoting the part where they say that the connection between reality and perception is not necessarily direct and literal.

Then you hope nobody notices that you've retreated to a this quite different position.

Shortly, you will come bursting out again, arguing nonsense, when you think it might be safe to start claiming that the authors are saying stuff they didn't say.

Welcome to the internet!

[Diego Pigozzo]

There's a world of difference between "no connection at all" and what the abstract says.

What don't you show me where, in the paper, their theory says that the perception are constrained by objective properties of the stimulus?

Because, again, maybe I'm not the one who don't understand the meaning of the paper.

[amolitor]

For those playing along at home, and because I might as well stop torturing poor Diego:

The fact that any given color produces the same perceptual impression every time you see it is what "dispersion-free". If the same stimuli produce different perceptual impressions at different times, that is "dispersion".

If every color produced a different perceptual impression, then color perception would be "veridical". The fact that it is not means that our color perception is "non-veridical"

Interface theories of perception are dispersion free. The same stimulus produces the same perception. This is what you need to make science and engineering work. Interface theories of perception need not be veridical. It doesn't matter if you see "green" as a color or a smell or a looming beast, as long as you reliably perceive it the same every time. Dispersion-free, non-veridical. It works fine.

As for you, Diego, look up the definition of dispersion in the paper. Download it, search for the word "dispersion" and you will find precisely the place in the paper you're asking me to show you. As I have suggested repeatedly. Dispersion is precisely the concept you've gotten wrong all along, when you're bothering to argue from a coherent position at all.

[Diego Pigozzo]

For those playing along at home, and because I might as well stop torturing poor Diego:
...

Too bad that all of this doesn't answer my question: "What don't you show me where, in the paper, their theory says that the perception are constrained by objective properties of the stimulus?"
That's not an hard question for someone who have read and undestood the paper.

Don't worry, take your time to answer.
I know you will.

[amolitor]

Too bad that all of this doesn't answer my question: "What don't you show me where, in the paper, their theory says that the perception are constrained by objective properties of the stimulus?"
That's not an hard question for someone who have read and undestood the paper.

Don't worry, take your time to answer.
I know you will.

Uh. I already did. I gave you precise directions for finding the place. What more can I possibly do? Do I need to visit you at your home and read it out loud to you? I am quite genuinely puzzled at this response.

"Download it, search for the word "dispersion" and you will find precisely the place in the paper you're asking me to show you."

how much more can I say?

Perhaps "Definition 1, starting at the lower right corner of the third page" would be of assistance? And then Definition 7, which states that "an interface strategy is simply a dispersion-free perceptual strategy"? I mean, that seems to be absolutely unambiguous and complete. The next step is literally to read it out loud to you, Diego.

[Diego Pigozzo]

Uh. I already did. I gave you precise directions for finding the place. What more can I possibly do? Do I need to visit you at your home and read it out loud to you? I am quite genuinely puzzled at this response.

"Download it, search for the word "dispersion" and you will find precisely the place in the paper you're asking me to show you."

how much more can I say?

No, you didn't.

What about the "the sentence X in the page Y and line Z"
Because maybe you're not aware that "look for yourself" it's an old and cheese trick.

So, just to close this thing once and for all: can you show me where, in the paper, these guys are saying that perceptions are constrained by objective qualities of the stimulus?
If not, don't bother to reply.

If yes, reply with sentence/page/line coordinates.

[amolitor]

I didn't say "look for yourself", I gave you the equivalent of lines and pages. A search isn't ambiguous.

Anyways, you now have chapter and verse in the previous reply.

[Diego Pigozzo]

I didn't say "look for yourself", I gave you the equivalent of lines and pages. A search isn't ambiguous.
Anyways, you now have chapter and verse in the previous reply.

Ok, I acknowledge you can't do what I asked, so I'm not gonna waste more time with you.

[amolitor]

Not worth it even to call this guy out. It's obvious to all what he's at.

[BJL]

... you may perceive "red" and "green" in a completely personal way but, unless your vision is impared, your perception of "red" is different from your perception of "green".

Yes; how does that contradict the paper?  At most it indicates that our perceptions can fail to make some distinctions – typically distinctions that do not add significantly to our fitness in the sense of enhancing our contribution to the propagation of our hereditary traits, in particular the trait of the ability to make that distinction.

Can you point to where the paper implies that our perceptual system fails to report the difference between red and green?  "Not representing things as they literally are" is very different from "not representing important differences".  In that article's computer desktop analogy, the icons for different files are still distinguishable.  False color reproductions of infra-red or ultraviolet light and manipulation with color filters can even go in the opposite direction: deviating from literal representation can help to make some important differences more noticeable.

On the other hand, our visual system clearly does fail to make many color distinctions, since combinations of just three wavelengths can produce perceptions very close to light with a mixture of many more different wavelengths.  And many other animals do not distinguish those two colors or any others, because they have monochrome vision – sacrificing color discrimination can allow for better resolution and low-light performance, which can be a better fitness trade-off for some "lifestyles". And on the other hand, bees (if they could think and talk trash) might mock us humans for being ultraviolet-blind.

[Rob C]

 And on the other hand, bees (if they could think and talk trash) might mock us humans for being ultraviolet-blind.

That's why they sting us on the ass now and again. It's an advanced sense of humour to which we are generally blind and, when we see it at all, most unreceptive.

Rob C

[Justinr]

That's why they sting us on the ass now and again. It's an advanced sense of humour to which we are generally blind and, when we see it at all, most unreceptive.

Rob C

It's a noble gesture on their part and we should more widely appreciate it as they inevitably die through doing so (most species anyway).

[landscapephoto]

This is the absorption spectrum of chlorophyll, the pigment responsible of the green colour of plants:

http://www.ch.ic.ac.uk/local/projects/steer/cloroads.gif

If you take a picture of plants, you can try to match the color of the print with the colour of real leaves. You can succeed to match the two colours for the human eye (as long as you keep them under the same light), but the prints will have a completely different spectrum. There is no possibility to emulate the two narrow absorption peaks in the violet and blue range with just red, green and blue pigments. So the print and the original will be different for a spectrometer but will look the same to the human eye.

Our eyes have not evolved to allow us to recognise the functioning of chlorophyll in plants, because our ancestor did not need to do that. They have evolved to allow us to see the differences between leaves and berries (which a lot of animals cannot), because that was useful to our ancestors.

[Rob C]

Our eyes have not evolved to allow us to recognise the functioning of chlorophyll in plants, because our ancestor did not need to do that. They have evolved to allow us to see the differences between leaves and berries (which a lot of animals cannot), because that was useful to our ancestors.

And to think: instead of all that science they only needed food testers!

Imagine, no more capital punishment, life-imprisonment and the arguments about conjugal prison rights.

Sometimes, the perfect solutions lie right under our nose. Maybe it's the wrong colour filtration code?

;-)

Rob C

[Isaac]

If you take a picture with plants…