Digital BW, The Print

Keith,

>  >Every sensor you have only senses "some" quality.  Because you only
> have the
>  >data from that one sensor doesn't make that data abstract, it's still
> real.
>  >Does someone who can't hear, not live in reality?  I believe your
>  >application here is entirely wrong.  Because one only senses one aspect
>  >(like IR, or UV or grayscale), such as a  particular spectrum, doesn't
> make
>  >it "abstract".
>  >
>  >
> It does not make the data or the phenomenon itself abstract..  BUT,
>   representation of the data, be they graphs, paintings, tables, or
> photos is abstract UNLESS that representation recreates the phenomenon.

Nothing can COMPLETELY, in complete accuracy recreate the phenomenon, but,
it can "recreate" it to a point that it is accurate "enough" to not be
considered abstract.

>  >By your interpretation, ever sense we have, vision, hearing,
> taste etc. is
>  >an "abstraction", and in fact, there is no reality.
>  >
> OH boy.  There's fun coming now.. You are on a train headed right into
> the philosophy of perception...  "Welcome to my lair said the spider to
> the fly."

Well, having done my post graduate work, and developed many different sensor
and AI systems, and lectured on the subject...I'm sure I can hold my own ;-)

>  > Fact is, we can only
>  >sense what our sensors allow us to sense, that's it.  Every sensor has
>  >limitations, and "expresses a quality apart from an object",
> period.  That
>  >does not mean what it senses is an abstraction.
>  >
>
> No,

No what?  There is not one thing "no" about what I said.

> what you sense is a manifestation of an object or phenomenon BUT
> that manifestation is NOT the object.

I didn't say any differently.  Don't say "no" to something and merely state
something that does in no way negate what you say "no" to.

>  Only the object itself  "knows" or "experiences" its own reality.

Not all "objects" know or experience, as far as we perceive that is.

> If you care to look at more recent philosophy,

Philosophy and sensory perception are two different things, though they do
have overlapping, and interesting, areas of discussion.

> Kant
> says we can never truly "know" something, and is 100% correct...

To a point, that is true...but there are certain aspects that application of
that thinking doesn't make sense, and depends on what your "point of
reality" is.  I KNOW I am wearing two shoes...in a "practical" sense that
is.  There are things that are subjective, and things that are, for the most
practical sense, not.  One has to accept some "level" of reality as being
reality.

> We
> cannot know without going at the door that we won't fall into a
> blackhole as we leave the house.  We can operate with the expectation
> that will not happen, simply because the logical probability of it is
> near nil.. Why?  In great part because we can only know our own version
> of reality as mediated through our senses..

Or...reality is what we perceive, and nothing more.

> We cannot perceive the
> future directly, we can only perceive what our senses, or extensions of
> those senses,  allow us to perceive of the present OR of other mediated
> records of the past.

Well, that is debatable, but from a practical standpoint, I agree.

> So  in philosophy, we clear separate between
> ontology, as "that which we know,"  and epistemology, in "how we know
> what we know."

Correct.

> Reality really only exists in that space and time occupied by a
> particular object.  Our perceptions of it are mediated and axiomatically
> abstracted.

Well, that I disagree with.  Everything is from a reference point.  Reality
is what one perceives.  What I may perceive as "blue", you may perceive as
something different, though it's pretty well proven that most human vision
systems are pretty equal, so that's a bad example...but take the example of
what a CCD sees, or what a fly sees, contrasted with what a human
sees...which one is reality?  Reality is what each one perceives in my book.
It's all relative, but there is a somewhat physically measurable
reality...that a particular color is at a particular wave length...and as
such, it can be "identified" as being the "same", or reasonably close to the
"same", and that's the issue.  Can "something" be reproduced reasonably
close to the "same", and the answer is, it can.

> I would recommend checking out Kant's "Critique of Pure
> Reason"..  You need to wrap your mind around the difference between
> "noumena" [noumenal realm]  and "phenomena" [predominantly rational
> realm].. (We'll skip the "emotional" realm for now)

Thanks, been there, done that...well wrapped already.

>  >  You're arguing what is
>  >reality.  Is what you sense reality, at least from your prospective?
> If so,
>  >then what ANY sensor senses IS reality, as far as that sensor's
> prospective.
>  >It's when you manipulate that sensors data that you make it abstract.
>  >
> Not true, perception is mediated...

Well, I guess that depends on your definition of mediated, and by what
reference.  There is, of course, mediation between color on the wall, and
color I perceive...since mediation simply means it traverses a
"middle"...the only things that really don't, at least outside our body, are
our thoughts.

There is a consistency that develops in the mind, that allows us to make
comparative judgments...such as comparing colors...and concluding they are
the same or different.  Seeing straight lines...etc.

> This is one of the major problems with REAL artificial intelligence.
>   How does one create an intelligence that we will recognize as such?

It's purpose and situation dependant.  Why do WE have to recognize it as
being intelligent?  One of the problems I've had (as my post graduate work
was in AI, and mobile robotics, and I've worked in that field for many
years) is trying to force machines to perceive things a we perceive
them...that's a mistake.  Any sensor sees as it sees, and it's the adaptive
system that "recognizes" what it sees that needs to be allowed to see what
it sees, instead of forcing some other perception on it.  That just doesn't
work.

> Part of the answer lies in making sure its perceptions of reality (its
> mediated perceptions)  accord with our own closely, or can be made to
> line up with our perceptions.

It is exactly the opposite, in my opinion.  Forcing one sensor's perception
onto another is a mistake, as far as AI goes.  We DO force CCDs perception
(at least the resultant data) onto our own, but that's because we are doing
it for us to see!

FYI I spent many years developing machine vision systems (and other sensory
systems) for robotic navigation, and developed the first demonstrable truly
autonomous mobile robot that could navigate a human environment...).  I also
developed the vision system for the first commercial vision guided welding
system, as well as visual parts inspection and vision guided assembly
robotic system.  I'm well versed in this branch of AI and vision sensory
systems and "machine" perception.

>  >Data can be "corrected" to make it more usable to the processing
> system that
>  >is processing it, namely in our case, our eye, and that doesn't make it
>  >"abstract".  Just like you do tonal corrections to the data, because the
>  >system that is sensing the scene REQUIRES tonal correction to
> convert from
>  >it's sensing view to yours.
>  >
> Bingo!  You just illustrated the point in some sense..  The fact that
> differing perceptions exist mean they only attempt to measure or
> abstract reality, not actually reproduce it..

I disagree.  Reality IS what is perceived.  Without it being perceived, it
doesn't exist, in one's mind, and that is where reality lives!

The issue we are having is viewpoint.  What IS reality.  Your stated view of
reality is based on what is, is...though that's true, "is" only "is" if it
can be perceived...and I believe that one's reality is only what one can
perceive.  That doesn't mean because one can't perceive it, it doesn't
exist...in someone else's reality, but it doesn't exist in one's "reality"
if one can't perceive it.

> There is also a line of philosophy and science that says our perception
> of reality actually impacts upon it and changes it simply b/c we are
> perceiving it..

Correct, it does, from OUR perception of it.  Our eye system actually
changes what we see to fit a model of what we expect.  Same with any of our
sensor systems.  That's the way adaptive sensor systems work.

>  > Of course, there comes a point where this
>  >correction can cause distortion...at least from your prospective, the
>  >original scene and your "representation" of the scene become divergent.
>  >
>  >
>  >
> They are always divergent...

Only to a point.  There IS resolution to any sensory system, and to your
need to have accuracy for it to not be "abstract".

> Only the object of our perception can actually know its own reality..

But that's IT'S reality, not YOUR reality.  They are different.

>  >  And as I said, I
>  >disagree with the whole premise you bring up, though I understand the
>  >arguments on both sides intimately.  I've done a LOT of work in the
> area of
>  >sensors and machine perception.  Reality is only what YOUR sensors
> allow you
>  >to perceive.
>  >
>  >
>  >
> NO,NO, NO...  Reality exists, our mediated perception of it is what our
> sensors allow us to know..

How do you know?  I understand what you are saying, but I look at reality
from the other side.  As I've said, because something isn't perceived,
doesn't mean it doesn't exist...but it doesn't exist in one's reality if one
is not perceiving it.

>  >Photography CAN be abstract, but not all photography, by definition, IS
>  >abstract IMO, in a practical sense use of the word.
>  >
> Photography works in two dimensions..  We live in four or more
>   dimensions.. Reduction of multiple dimensions to fewer dimensions is
> always axiomatically an abstracion...

I disagree.  We don't always perceive ALL aspects of something, and that's
the same with photography, it is imparting only a limited number of
aspects...and that doesn't make it abstract!

>  >  There is a level of
>  >accurate representation.
>  >
> Accurate is a wholly subjective term.. Especially since one cannot know
> reality, how do we know how much our perception TRULY differs from it..?
>   We cannot...

Yes and no.  Sensory systems have accuracy/resolution.  That's a fact.  If
they can't perceive a change, then as far as the sensory system is
concerned, no change exists.

> Sorry, but on this level the nihilists and existentialist are correct..
>   As we cannot KNOW reality, except that within our own bodies, and even
> that is limited, all we can do is accept our perceptions and exist...

Exactly.  That is my view of "reality" for the purposes of this discussion.

>  > Technically, you can never accurately represent
>  >anything physical, accurately...but there is a humanly
> acceptable level of
>  >representation that is accepted as being accurate.
>  >
> What it is, is sufficiently good a description/representation of our
> perceptions to allow us to predict  interactions and allow us to
> relatively safely move about the universe..  That does not make it
> accurate..

Why not?  Then the term accurate has no meaning.  Accuracy is ALWAYS a
tolerance, +- some difference.  Nothing is totally "accurate", except
counted numbers...like two shoes.  Accuracy has to do with "measurement"
only.

> With nuclear weapons i can "miss" the target by miles and still
> successfully destroy it.. But with a conventional bomb, a several mile
> "circular error probable" (CEP)  is unacceptable.. Not because it is
> more inaccurate in reality, BUT because for that purpose, in that place,
> and that time,  it is not sufficiently accurate.  Once again, it becomes
> subjective.

And that fits with my argument.  Circle of confusion fits well too.

>  >  There are also different
>  >aspects of accurate...a photograph has many aspects to it...relative
>  >dimensional accuracy, tonal accuracy...  It certainly is more
> accurate at
>  >some aspects than others, that's for sure...and that's true with any
> sensing
>  >system.
>  >
>  >I disagree with calling EVERY photograph abstract, and believe that
> when it
>  >becomes "abstract" it then moves from photography to graphics art.
>  >
>  >
>  >
> Say that all you want, but you cannot make it so..

No, but what is, is, right ;-)

> It's coldly sobering, but our consciousness axiomatically has a mediated
> perception of reality.

But that depends on what your viewpoint is.  How do you KNOW anything exists
outside of your mind?  You simply do not.  The only "truth" is what you
perceive!  Don't tell my wife that, BTW ;-)

> We are all inherently inaccurate in our
> understanding of reality, and we each exist ONLY within our own
> consciousness we cannot really "know" another, we cannot actually
> "experience" another consciousness,,,

That's divergent...if we only know what exists in and of our minds, then our
perception is entirely accurate, and the only reality!

> In the end, we are each alone...
> Art: photography, sculpture, painting, music, writing are ways to
> bridge the gulf between our respective consciousnesses..  They are
> mediated representations of our own already mediate internal perceptions
> of an external reality, and as such, axiomatically never an accurate
> depiction of reality..

We are simply looking at it from two different, and both very accepted,
standpoints.  I believe there is more than one reality.  My reality, your
reality and what is perceive as being reality by other analysis outside
ourselves.

Someone might be cold, but you might not be...whose reality is real?  If one
is cold, well, one IS cold, whether you are cold or not.  Everyone else may
not be cold, but that has no bearing on whether someone else is cold or not.
My point isn't subjective either, it's a physical reaction one has to
temperature...and obviously, there are "thresholds" that are different in
different people that make one cold or not...

OK, got to get back to work...thanks for the most interesting discussion!
Really ;-)

Regards,

Austin