A revolution in thought

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by The Lone Ranger

So what's the magic number? How much must the light be bent before we suddenly start seeing in delayed time?

Why is it that when light is bent only a little, we see in real time, but when it is bent a bit more, we see in delayed time?


You are aware, by the way, that those quasars no longer exist, are you not? Not in the form that we're seeing them, anyway.

All I am interested in is whether the brain decodes light into images or not. That's the only thing that matters in regard to this discussion. If we decode images as normal sight in the brain, this discussion is over. You win! We would see in delayed time whether light was bent a little or a lot. If we don't form images in the brain, then we would be seeing in real time because that would be the only other option. I don't want to get into telescopes and cameras and whether they only need light (not the object) to get an image. It's too premature and it's throwing the conversation off.

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by But

Then propose a test.

I already mentioned that we have to start here on earth, not in deep space. He questioned why dogs can't recognize familiar faces from sight alone whether through a picture or in person. Shouldn't they be able to especially if the eyes are a sense organ? He had an explanation for this, but first he had to show that dogs cannot accomplish this, which means that the eyes don't work like a sense organ because the definition of sense is the ability to receive and transmit external stimuli. If they can't do this, then we have to question why.

[But]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

I already mentioned that we have to start here on earth, not in deep space. He questioned why dogs can't recognize familiar faces from sight alone whether through a picture or in person. Shouldn't they be able to especially if the eyes are a sense organ? He had an explanation for this, but first he had to show that dogs cannot accomplish this, which means that the eyes don't work like a sense organ because the definition of sense is the ability to receive and transmit external stimuli. If they can't do this, then we have to question why.

Well, he's wrong.

Awake fMRI reveals a specialized region in dog temporal cortex for face processing [PeerJ]

Recent behavioral evidence suggests that dogs, like humans and monkeys, are capable of visual face recognition. But do dogs also exhibit specialized cortical face regions similar to humans and monkeys? Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in six dogs trained to remain motionless during scanning without restraint or sedation, we found a region in the canine temporal lobe that responded significantly more to movies of human faces than to movies of everyday objects. Next, using a new stimulus set to investigate face selectivity in this predefined candidate dog face area, we found that this region responded similarly to images of human faces and dog faces, yet significantly more to both human and dog faces than to images of objects. Such face selectivity was not found in dog primary visual cortex. Taken together, these findings: (1) provide the first evidence for a face-selective region in the temporal cortex of dogs, which cannot be explained by simple low-level visual feature extraction; (2) reveal that neural machinery dedicated to face processing is not unique to primates; and (3) may help explain dogs’ exquisite sensitivity to human social cues.

http://jov.arvojournals.org/article....icleid=2132249

Therefore, dogs are able to discriminate their handler from another human based solely upon face recognition.

[The Lone Ranger]

Goalpost shifting and/or denial in ... 5 ... 4 ... 3 ... 2 ...

[erimir]

What's the problem with admitting that humans construct images from patterns of light (i.e. photons) hitting the retina?

I mean, a digital camera constructs images the same way, and we see the pattern of pixels and are able to interpret what we're seeing even though it's composed of thousands or millions of monochrome dots. The human eye similarly has a "resolution" although a number of things improve on just what you'd get from the retina itself... The end result is that human vision has a much higher resolution/field of view than most cameras (certainly much much higher than any, say, smartphone camera). Well, as long as we're talking about what resolution a camera would require to produce images that we can't distinguish as being pixel images (and that's without trying to deal with making the images appear 3-D), it requires far more megapixels. Anyway, obviously we never notice the "pixels" that go into our vision. That's because we don't see using the raw input; our brains do a lot of processing on that input first.

(An easy type of visual processing to notice that your brain does is jitter reduction - your eye and head moves around a lot, yet the images you see don't "move" around much. But if you close one eye and put your finger on your other eye and push your eyeball a little bit, the image "moves". Because your brain doesn't account for that, but it accounts for movements of the eyeball when they're done by your eye muscles. Go ahead peacegirl, you can try it yourself! The comparison to a camera is easy: you see plenty of cell phone video on YouTube where the camera person's hand is shaking. That's more like what we would see if our brains didn't account for eye/head movements.)

This, for some reason, has moral implications?

[thedoc]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

All I am interested in is whether the brain decodes light into images or not. That's the only thing that matters in regard to this discussion. If we decode images as normal sight in the brain, this discussion is over. You win! We would see in delayed time whether light was bent a little or a lot. If we don't form images in the brain, then we would be seeing in real time because that would be the only other option. I don't want to get into telescopes and cameras and whether they only need light (not the object) to get an image. It's too premature and it's throwing the conversation off.

If the image does not form in the brain, where do you propose that it does form?

The only reason you don't want to consider telescopes and astronomy is because it flatly disproves Lessans ideas, It is not premature to the discussion, it ends the discussion by proving Lessans wrong.

FYI, the images are decoded and formed in the brain, so Lessans was wrong.

[thedoc]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

I already mentioned that we have to start here on earth, not in deep space. He questioned why dogs can't recognize familiar faces from sight alone whether through a picture or in person. Shouldn't they be able to especially if the eyes are a sense organ? He had an explanation for this, but first he had to show that dogs cannot accomplish this, which means that the eyes don't work like a sense organ because the definition of sense is the ability to receive and transmit external stimuli. If they can't do this, then we have to question why.

Since you have not reported any of Lessans alleged observations there is no way to test them for accuracy. At this point Lessans has no credibility.

Vision includes both on Earth and in space via astronomy, so it all applies. The only reason you don't want to consider astronomy is because it clearly proves that Lessans was wrong.

Dogs can recognize a familiar face in a photograph, but not all dogs are interested in doing so, but the ability is there in spite of what Lessans may have claimed. Lessans was wrong. And whether dogs can recognize a person in a photograph has nothing to do with the version of vision that is correct, either afferent or efferent vision would have the same results, the act of recognition is cognition not vision. Lessans was wrong. Lessans explanation of dogs ability to recognize a persons face in a photograph was meaningless word salad, you should drop it to not make Lessans look more stupid than he does in the rest of the book.

[thedoc]

Peacegirl, you are not doing your fathers memory any favors by dragging his book out into the open. You should have left it buried with all his other silly writings. You're just making him look like a buffoon by hawking his book to people who know something about the subjects he was criticizing. Your father's ignorance just becomes more obvious the longer you push his ideas into the public view.

[Spacemonkey]

Originally Posted by But

Well, he's wrong.

Awake fMRI reveals a specialized region in dog temporal cortex for face processing [PeerJ]

http://jov.arvojournals.org/article....icleid=2132249

How many levers were involved? Isn't it rather suspicious that this is not specified up front? What else are they hiding?

[thedoc]

Originally Posted by The Lone Ranger

Goalpost shifting and/or denial in ... 5 ... 4 ... 3 ... 2 ...

Peacegirl, I'm waiti.i.i.i.i.ing?

[thedoc]

Originally Posted by Spacemonkey

Peacegirl,
How many levers were involved?

Too many.

[LadyShea]

Originally Posted by erimir

What's the problem with admitting that humans construct images from patterns of light (i.e. photons) hitting the retina?

I mean, a digital camera constructs images the same way, and we see the pattern of pixels and are able to interpret what we're seeing even though it's composed of thousands or millions of monochrome dots. The human eye similarly has a "resolution" although a number of things improve on just what you'd get from the retina itself... The end result is that human vision has a much higher resolution/field of view than most cameras (certainly much much higher than any, say, smartphone camera). Well, as long as we're talking about what resolution a camera would require to produce images that we can't distinguish as being pixel images (and that's without trying to deal with making the images appear 3-D), it requires far more megapixels. Anyway, obviously we never notice the "pixels" that go into our vision. That's because we don't see using the raw input; our brains do a lot of processing on that input first.

(An easy type of visual processing to notice that your brain does is jitter reduction - your eye and head moves around a lot, yet the images you see don't "move" around much. But if you close one eye and put your finger on your other eye and push your eyeball a little bit, the image "moves". Because your brain doesn't account for that, but it accounts for movements of the eyeball when they're done by your eye muscles. Go ahead peacegirl, you can try it yourself! The comparison to a camera is easy: you see plenty of cell phone video on YouTube where the camera person's hand is shaking. That's more like what we would see if our brains didn't account for eye/head movements.)

This, for some reason, has moral implications?

His idea of conditioning is that we see things like beauty that don't actually exist because we project these words onto the seen reality, causing hurt.

Lessans slide and projection ideas work well as analogies for mental conditioning, but he added all kinds of nonsense about real time and efference, making it an empirically impossible thing rather than a psychological phenomena. Should have stuck with the less easily refuted stuff

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by LadyShea

His idea of conditioning is that we see things like beauty that don't actually exist because we project these words onto the seen reality, causing hurt.

Lessans slide and projection ideas work well as analogies for mental conditioning, but he added all kinds of nonsense about real time and efference, making it an empirically impossible thing rather than a psychological phenomena. Should have stuck with the less easily refuted stuff

This is anything but nonsense. It is a psychological phenomenon and he never denied that. This has everything to do with efferent conditioning. You think this is easily disputed but your disputation doesn't hold weight when you analyze it properly. How can you be the judge of what you yourself don't understand? That is the epitome of hubris. You have been hoodwinked by thinking too highly of yourself and your analytical ability.

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by erimir

What's the problem with admitting that humans construct images from patterns of light (i.e. photons) hitting the retina?

I mean, a digital camera constructs images the same way, and we see the pattern of pixels and are able to interpret what we're seeing even though it's composed of thousands or millions of monochrome dots. The human eye similarly has a "resolution" although a number of things improve on just what you'd get from the retina itself... The end result is that human vision has a much higher resolution/field of view than most cameras (certainly much much higher than any, say, smartphone camera). Well, as long as we're talking about what resolution a camera would require to produce images that we can't distinguish as being pixel images (and that's without trying to deal with making the images appear 3-D), it requires far more megapixels. Anyway, obviously we never notice the "pixels" that go into our vision. That's because we don't see using the raw input; our brains do a lot of processing on that input first.

(An easy type of visual processing to notice that your brain does is jitter reduction - your eye and head moves around a lot, yet the images you see don't "move" around much. But if you close one eye and put your finger on your other eye and push your eyeball a little bit, the image "moves". Because your brain doesn't account for that, but it accounts for movements of the eyeball when they're done by your eye muscles. Go ahead peacegirl, you can try it yourself! The comparison to a camera is easy: you see plenty of cell phone video on YouTube where the camera person's hand is shaking. That's more like what we would see if our brains didn't account for eye/head movements.)

This, for some reason, has moral implications?

The way your brain interprets the movement of your eyeball has no moral implications, but the fact that your eyes can be conditioned by words to see what doesn't actually exist in reality does have moral implications. Unfortunately, you have no understanding of any of this because you assumed from day one that Lessans was wrong and therefore never took the time to understand why this knowledge even matters.

[LadyShea]

You wouldn't be having so much trouble if he had stuck with it being purely psychological and not a physical process.

[The Lone Ranger]

It as been demonstrated repeatedly that some non-human primates are not only capable of recognizing individual people (and monkeys) based on facial features alone, but that they (like humans) have a specialized region of the brain devoted specifically to the task of facial recognition.

Indeed, as has been pointed out before, damage to the facial recognition centers of the brain leaves humans incapable of recognizing faces, even though their vision is completely unimpaired.

The ability to recognize human faces has been repeatedly demonstrated in dogs, and even in some bird species.

The point is, given that facial recognition involves some quite specialized processing by the brain, it has been a subject of considerable interest for quite some time.



As the links But provided show, one of the big questions regarding canine cognition has now been answered. Not only is it demonstrably the case that dogs can recognize individual humans by their faces (something that has been known for quite some time), but they have specialized brain centers for facial recognition.


So, those test of Lessans' ideas that you keep asking for, peacegirl? They've been done.

Interesting that you seem to be trying to ignore this. Again.

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by LadyShea

You wouldn't be having so much trouble if he had stuck with it being purely psychological and not a physical process.

Although it has psychological undertones, it IS a physical process first and foremost due to how our brains become conditioned.

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by The Lone Ranger

It as been demonstrated repeatedly that some non-human primates are not only capable of recognizing individual people (and monkeys) based on facial features alone, but that they (like humans) have a specialized region of the brain devoted specifically to the task of facial recognition.

I'm talking specifically about dogs so as not to confuse things.

Originally Posted by The Lone Ranger

Indeed, as has been pointed out before, damage to the facial recognition centers of the brain leaves humans incapable of recognizing faces, even though their vision is completely unimpaired.

That makes complete sense. It is the brain that interprets what it sees. This once again leads into the question as to why, if the eyes are a sense organ, do dogs not recognize their masters from sight alone?

Originally Posted by The Lone Ranger

The ability to recognize human faces has been repeatedly demonstrated in dogs, and even in some bird species.

The point is, given that facial recognition involves some quite specialized processing by the brain, it has been a subject of considerable interest for quite some time.

At least you agree that there is interest in this subject because it's not clear cut. The ability to recognize individual features has not been demonstrated in dogs.

Originally Posted by The Lone Ranger

As the links But provided show, one of the big questions regarding canine cognition has now been answered. Not only is it demonstrably the case that dogs can recognize individual humans by their faces (something that has been known for quite some time), but they have specialized brain centers for facial recognition.

I would like to see a dog that hasn't seen his master in months get excited over a picture of his master. The tests that you think have been done are completely unreliable.

Originally Posted by The Lone Ranger

So, those test of Lessans' ideas that you keep asking for, peacegirl? They've been done.

Interesting that you seem to be trying to ignore this. Again.

I'm not ignoring this. There is simply no proof that dogs can discriminate between individual human faces or animal faces without other sensory information to cue them in.

[But]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

I'm not ignoring this. There is simply no proof that dogs can discriminate between individual human faces or animal faces without other sensory information to cue them in.

Bullshit.

Explain why dogs react differently to pictures of their handlers versus pictures of other people.

The tests that you think have been done are completely unreliable.

Why? You're just bullshitting again.

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

I already mentioned that we have to start here on earth, not in deep space. He questioned why dogs can't recognize familiar faces from sight alone whether through a picture or in person. Shouldn't they be able to especially if the eyes are a sense organ? He had an explanation for this, but first he had to show that dogs cannot accomplish this, which means that the eyes don't work like a sense organ because the definition of sense is the ability to receive and transmit external stimuli. If they can't do this, then we have to question why.

Originally Posted by But

Well, he's wrong.

No he's not.

Originally Posted by But

Awake fMRI reveals a specialized region in dog temporal cortex for face processing [PeerJ]

This test doesn't even relate to what we're talking about. Dogs may very well be able to distinguish between nonface visual information, such as for scenes, bodies, and objects and face information. This has nothing to do with whether they can identify the subtleties in human features that would allow them to recognize their master in a photograph or on a computer screen.

Recent behavioral evidence suggests that dogs, like humans and monkeys, are capable of visual face recognition. But do dogs also exhibit specialized cortical face regions similar to humans and monkeys? Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in six dogs trained to remain motionless during scanning without restraint or sedation, we found a region in the canine temporal lobe that responded significantly more to movies of human faces than to movies of everyday objects. Next, using a new stimulus set to investigate face selectivity in this predefined candidate dog face area, we found that this region responded similarly to images of human faces and dog faces, yet significantly more to both human and dog faces than to images of objects. Such face selectivity was not found in dog primary visual cortex. Taken together, these findings: (1) provide the first evidence for a face-selective region in the temporal cortex of dogs, which cannot be explained by simple low-level visual feature extraction; (2) reveal that neural machinery dedicated to face processing is not unique to primates; and (3) may help explain dogs’ exquisite sensitivity to human social cues.

Originally Posted by But

http://jov.arvojournals.org/article....icleid=2132249

Dogs could very well be trained through a reward system to identify a photograph (light and dark contrast, shapes, outline, etc.) which is very different from true face recognition. These tests are far from accurate and don't prove that dogs can identify their masters from sight alone without any other sensory cues.

[But]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

Dogs could very well be trained through a reward system to identify a photograph (light and dark contrast, shapes, outline, etc.) which is very different from true face recognition. These tests are far from accurate and don't prove that dogs can identify their masters from sight alone without any other sensory cues.

Why do they react differently to pictures of their handler versus pictures of other people?

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by But

Bullshit.

Explain why dogs react differently to pictures of their handlers versus pictures of other people.

Why? You're just bullshitting again.

Where are the videos? Where are the samples? Where is the replication using different methods? Where is the damn proof? You just pull a couple of studies off the internet (one that doesn't even address the issue) and you think it's a done deal? Well it's not.

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by But

Why do they react differently to pictures of their handler versus pictures of other people?

First of all, if a dog really could recognize his master don't you think he would pick his master out 100% of the time, especially if his features were distinct from all the other pictures? If they have to use rewards, one idea is the dog could learn the word "daddy" in association with his master. When the dog goes to his master every time you say the word "daddy" you would know the training worked and he would get a reward. To test whether the dog recognizes his master in a picture, a bunch of pictures of different people would be lined up in a row. The background of the pictures would be exactly the same. The people in the pictures would look similar (hairstyle, gender, shape of face, etc) but not exact obviously. The experimenter would then say, "Where's daddy?" and the dog would then make a choice. The pictures could be rearranged each time the experiment was done. In one of the trials, the photograph of his master could be left out entirely to see what the dog would do. He would get a reward regardless of the picture he went to so he would not be influenced by the reward itself. That would be a more reliable test.

[But]

[The Lone Ranger]

That's just the point, these studies HAVE been replicated, using different methodologies; you've been provided with many examples of these sorts of tests. And the tests consistently show the same thing: dogs can recognize individual humans by facial features alone. The links But provided are just the latest studies which show this to be the case. Not only do they demonstrate that dogs can recognize people by their facial features, the researchers have even located the specific brain regions that allow them to do so.


And note that the studies to see if dogs can recognize humans by their facial features weren't biased against Lessans in some way, because the whole point of the studies was to see if dogs can recognize humans by their facial features alone.

And the results of the tests are unequivocal: Yes. Yes, they can.



But by all means, feel free to ignore this yet again, and to move the goalposts yet again.