1/ A quick thread on perception: I just had a retinal migraine. I get 'em about 1-2 times a year. They are *fucking weird*. It's a sudden-onset and soon-dissipating blindspot. But, just like your normal optic nerve blind spot, it's *out-of-awareness*.
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2/ Meaning? It's not like a sudden, "Whoa, everything is black!" It's a "Wait, what? Why do I keep bumping into walls?" It requires conscious interrogation to notice: putting things in my field of vision and realizing, "I don't perceive anything in some places where I should."
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3/ Ignoring the annoyance, it's actually a perennially-humbling experience. Your visual processing system is good. Like, remarkably so. And, it's something that people who aren't blind use constantly.
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4/ Outside of infancy, it's something so well-tuned, that it just works You don't think about it. Except, when it fails. Then, you realize that the you that thinks and the sensor that sees aren't actually the same thing.
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5/ I like optical illusions for this reason. It gives you that same recognition (without the headache). My favorite is Nino's Extinction Illusion. I use it in my dissertation as an analogy to the limits on our short term memory.
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6/ There are several dots in this image, but you can't perceive them all at once. If I asked you to identify the position of dots, you could do so. But, your visual system *doesn't* make it obvious. It's unstable. You have to abstract and extract information.pic.twitter.com/IXASOBAzRS
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Replying to @generativist
Enjoyed playing with this. If you look sideways you can see two dots at once.
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Interesting...gotta look up the exact pattern that leads to interference now...
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