P3D Re: Cyclopean vision

[Larry Berlin <lberlin@xxxxxxxxx>]

> Date: Fri, 17 Dec 1999 
> From: abram klooswyk <abram.klooswyk@xxxxxx>
> .........
> I will need more time to read Bruce Springsteen's series on
> Nomenclature and Larry Berlin's reactions. However, first a quick
> note on the Cyclopean image issue.
> 
> Larry wrote (P3d 3649, 15 Dec 1999):
> >I will point out it's a significant mis-use in light of current
> >knowledge.
> >*Cyclopean* CANNOT accurately apply to the inner mental experience
> >of stereoscopic vision as a Cyclops has only one eye, and would see
> >the world strictly in 2D.
> (...)
> >The synthesis of two images into one fully structured 3D and
> centralized
> >comprehension is inherent ONLY to two eyed creatures. It is completely
> >an ERROR to apply the term Cyclopean to this unquestionably binocular
> >function.
> 
> I'm afraid Larry misses the point by ignoring the history of research
> in binocular vision.
> It has wondered several scientists in many centuries that we have
> two eyes, but see one single world. Many solutions have been proposed,
> including the idea that always one image is suppressed, and Descartes'
> idea that some little man in the brain is doing the coordination.

*****  I don't think I missed the point at all. I'm aware of the history
and it doesn't justify the use of that word in this context. 

The POINT is -precisely- that the magic of stereo perception is
diametrically opposite any association with the word or potential
meanings of the word, Cyclops. I totally understand and share their
wonder in the experience. I don't wish to discredit the history of
exploration into this wonder by continuing to use the worst possible
wrong word in the language as a description for the experience.

If, as some have humorously suggested stereoscopy might be a sort of
religion, calling the key experience by the name of Cyclops would be,
well calling the wrong name... ;-)

Obviously some of those early scientists had some strange ideas about
the experience (like they were totally unable to be self aware in the
slightest), but at least it's obvious they had the experience and were
trying to describe it. I can't help but feel that thousands of commoners
who we will never hear about had a far better personal understanding of
the experience, they just didn't write about it, nor were they asked.

> 
> When you compare the visual directions from one eye with the
> visual directions you have with both eyes combined, in the latter
> case it seems that different directions meet in a point midway
> between the eyes, and a little behind the forehead.

*****  No surprise there. If you're skiing downhill and approaching a
tree. Why not send the Right eye around the right side and the Left eye
around the left? Of course we perceive a relativism between the outside
world and our bodies. Even one eyed people have a similar experience!

The primary reason we perceive one world is that there is but one world
to perceive. We evolved in it. No surprise that we see one world. Plenty
to discover though...

> 
> Julesz however showed that two images, which don't reveal any form or
> shape in either picture, can be combined in the brain to a 3D-form.
> He used the analogy of a "cyclopean retina", which is used to
> see these forms.

*****  Analogy, as if there were this third retina... another myth,
albeit purposeful and creative. So what. I appreciate creative license.

>.........
> So Julesz' usage is a generalization of the concept "cyclopean" to
> include stereo vision.

*****  A mistaken generalization of convenience that doesn't hold up to
scrutiny beyond the purposes within his book in the worst possible way. 

It reminds me of some jokes forwarded to my email to the effect that
foreigners were starting businesses in the USA and creating business
names and slogans by using a simple translation dictionary. Actually
some of them were Americans doing the same thing in foreign countries.
Needless to say, the results were anywhere from insulting to ridiculous.

Such translation mistakes need not be immortalized once they are
discovered. To continue using them after being understood, is worse than
the mistake itself. Then it becomes a deliberate misstatement...

Larry Berlin

3D Webscapes
lberlin@xxxxxxxxx
http://3dzine.simplenet.com
*-) ---> :-) ---> 8-) ---> 8-O