I had an interesting case of momentary face blindness once. It was unnerving. I was elbowing my way through a very busy bar area (it was early and I had just started drinking) and eventually there was a person in front of me who started going to the left just when I went left, and vice versa, as often happens when you walk in a crowded place. After a few left/right attempts I suddenly realized that the person was, in fact, myself, and that I had reached a mirror that covered the entire end of the room. (The bar's bouncer was standing behind me and had watched the whole thing and was laughing very hard.)
The thing is, since I did not expect to see myself, I did not recognize myself. I believe that for one brief moment I truly saw myself as other people see me. We go through our lives being so psychologically connected to our outer selves, and being briefly disconnected feels very spooky.
This reminds of a fascinating book, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat by Oliver Sacks.
One of the most interesting stories is about a man who lost his ability to intuitively recognize things and needs to reason about their features to find out what they are.
This is my shoe, no?
No, it is not. That is your foot. There is your shoe.
Ah! I thought that was my foot.
Currently reading Hallucinations. His coverage of such bizarre conditions as Akinetopsia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akinetopsia) make his books great reads for the casually curious and really make it concrete how much of our reality is formed primarily in our heads.
I'm mildly face blind. Generally speaking it doesn't cause any problems - occasionally I spend the first 25 minutes of films wondering who is who and what's going on, and having missed the opening of The Departed I watched most of the film thinking Matt Damon and Mark Wahlberg were the same person.
However, there have also been some excruciatingly embarrassing situations where I've re-introduced myself (or ignored) people I actually know, although typically I've only met them a couple of times. Bizarrely, I'm worst with caucasian blonde women.
I think I am a bit face-blind too, and it seems to be mostly with women as well. I'm almost completely thrown off when a woman does a complete makeover. I find myself flustered by actresses quite often, having almost no idea if I should know who this person in the film is or not.
I can usually tell the difference between the various actresses in the same film, but across films I definitely have trouble.
But I have had trouble with some films that have multiple young brunette male actors (in their 20s to early 30s). There's been more than one movie where I didn't realize two different characters were two characters until it was almost over (or one of them died and the other kept on kicking). A second watching usually gets me sorted out.
I frequently weirded out by people who can look at a random candid photo of a famous person in a disguise and know who it is. The folks who work at TMZ blow me away.
There's this "mirror test" [1] where they put animals in front of a mirror. If they recognize themselves, they are considered to be aware of themselves.
This woman is either not aware of herself or her condition is a strong indicator that the mirror test might not be such a good idea at all. Definitely an interesting implication.
I've always considered The Mirror Test a deeply flawed experiment because it relies on a number of assumptions that are difficult (in my non-expert opinion at least) to guarantee.
For examples, babies are tested with a sticker, it's assumed that a baby's lack of motivation to remove the aforementioned sticker is proof that they baby is not yet self aware. Yet that's assuming that the child isn't just curious about his or her own appearance (as at that age they might not be familiar with their own image) so that the sticker is inconsequential to them.
Honest question: These guys mention using the results for research. They must know they are skewing their results quite significantly by singling out anyone who is a) aware that the result of this test can be embarrasing b) not comfortable linking their name to such a test with?
I'd guess according to this test face blindness is far less common than previously assumed : )
As I understood it, they're basically searching for people with prosopagnosia for further research. They also mention somewhere that some people with prosopagnosia can do well in the test (I assume if those people have seen the famous faces enough it can work for light cases.)
I just got two out of 18 that I was familiar with, but I'm not sure whether I was supposed to spend time thinking about it. Sometimes I was sure that I recognised the face, but couldn't place it, and said that I didn't know without really trying.
There were a few that I got wrong after thinking I knew it, and one that I got wrong after rejecting the correct answer as a hypothesis.
V gubhtug Ovyy Pyvagba jnf Fgrira Frntny; Wvz Pneerl jnf gur thl sebz Gur Fuvavat; Tnauqv jnf Rvafgrva; naq V qrpvqrq Znetrerg Gungpure jnf cebonoyl abg Znetrerg Gungpure. Ohg V tbg Xrnah Errirf naq Trbetr Ohfu.
"The researchers, led by Ken Nakayama and Richard Russell at Harvard and Bradley Duchaine at University College London, have found evidence that prosopagnosia, once thought to be exceedingly rare, may affect up to 2 percent of the population – suggesting that millions of people may be face-blind."
I am not only mildly face blind, I sometimes just can't recall names. I had the face test and I just realized that I had forgotten the name of lead actor of Rocky (S. Stallone), Ex- President of USA, Saturday Night Live star, Taxi Driver's Lead actor and what not.
I remember being in a very interactive week-long seminar where one of the 30 participants was a white guy with a beard. A few days into it I realized he was two guys. Just before the end of the week I realized he was (at least) three guys.
There's a really good scifi short story about something called calliagnosia, by Ted Chiang. (Calliagnosia is a condition in which a person can not recognize beauty in a persons face. Not sure whether it was invented for the story or not.)
This post creeps me out just a little bit, because I watched "Faces in the Crowd" last night (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1536410/), and I have never even heard of face blindness before. Waking up and checking HN to see this post is slightly spooky. That is all. Oh, and I personally wouldn't recommend the movie.
Stories like these leave me dwelling on what the majority of the population may fail to notice due to hard-wiring. For example: a small percentage of people see a wider range of color than average.
Does "situational blindness" or "system-level blindness" exist on a neurological level?
I wonder if it is possible to train people with such condition to successfully recognize faces.
I have some difficulties recognizing faces(not nearly as huge as describe in the article), and I think my ability improved during last couple of years.
It's a survivor behavior. Recognize weak and strong elements in the group. Recognize safe places and easy to hunt animals.
Recognizing things is the essence of good decision making. And decision making is the essence of life.
So, yes, the odd for recognizing anything from a gigantic bunch of proteins, water, and subtle mix of heterogeneous chemicals, are very little. But, considering billions of year of billions of dices running, probability was high, don't you think ?
That's not an explanation. This is not how evolution theory explains stuff.
CORRECT: Features are selected because they are useful.
INCORRECT: Features occur because they are useful.
But most of the evolutionary explanations are expressed in the second way. Recognition is tightly correlated to awareness and consciousness, which in no way have been, yet, explained by evolution. Yet. Although there are voices that say that it is impossible in principle for consciousness to occur by means of mere matter.
It might be that consciousness is like 7+6 in a dice trow. No matter how many times you throw a pair of 6 faces dice, you will never get that combination.
Right now it is assumed that in the future neuroscience will show how the brain works and gives us the mind. Until then, it's an hypothesis. A belief. Not a religious belief, but part of a metaphysical view on the world, that is, there is only atoms. Not a religion, but close.
Also, I think each generation has very interesting histories to tell. But we have lost almost all of them, except for an infinitesimal very last bit.
So we don't know what has happened in hundreds of thousands of generations, from the first cordates to therapsides to primates, that could perfectly explain it all.
No, I don't think. Such order is not probable, given infinite time.
That all of this occured randomly, beginning with an explosion (involvng matter which should not have existed, by the way), is absurd.
People who argue against intelligent design may quibble with the details of a particular religion, but our attempts to scientifically describe creation are so woefully inadequate as to be no more actual science than is religion.
Randomness is one such "scientific" explanation. In fact, it is the religion of science, serving as the de facto answer for unknowns regarding creation and existence.
Have you ever seen genetic algorithms at work? Any doubts I had about evolution being a reasonable explanation for the complexity of life vanished when I saw how quickly systems could converge to viable solutions to problems by mixing characteristics from the most pat members of a population.
Yes, I did research on genetic algorithms with a professor in my college years. Wrote a few myself, played with fitness measurements, crossover methodologies, etc. I found them fascinating as well.
The theory of evolution can certainly describe some of what we see, however, it is woefully incomplete in its suggested role in creation theory. And while randomness clearly has a role in nature, it has become the default go-to for too many things which science cannot explain. Notice how the parent just casually tossed out randomness as the "obvious" explanation for such complex behavior, as if it was a foregone conclusion. It's anything but.
These are tremendously organized and complex systems (including the creation of the Universe itself), for which the prime driver is supposedly randomness. I just think it funny that people deride religious explanations as utter silliness, while so willingly believing that randomness is responsible for, effectively, everything we see. What is scientific about that? We even suspend basic laws of thermodynamics regarding matter creation to accomodate our random-centric explanations.
Genetic algorithms only work in an environment designed for supporting the process, including coddling less-fit members of the population. They're barely comparable to real natural selection.
Your objection is barely coherent. A genetic algorithm is an abstraction of the natural process of evolution, and they are very much comparable. In fact, they are rather analogous. To claim that studying genetic algorithms tells us little to nothing about natural selection in nature is preposterous.
I think he's simply saying that genetic algorithms may be based on nature, but come nowhere close in complexity, as to serve as some sort of rigorous "proof" that our theories are true, as the parent suggested.
Put another way, genetic algorithms are derived from our theories about nature, not the other way around. That they can effectively model solution sets to (much simpler) problems that we identify or create, neither proves nor disproves our theories about nature.
What genetic algorithms do is validate the process of evolution and deriving complexity through unguided processes. While this doesn't "prove" biological evolution, it shows that there is nothing inherently impossible about greater complexity being derived from lesser complexity. I'd say this is a very important result.
>What genetic algorithms do is validate the process of evolution and deriving complexity through unguided processes.
No. They absolutely do nothing of the sort.
Do you truly understand how GAs work? There is nothing "unguided" about them. They are pre-programmed, with crossover functions, fitness measures, etc. As the OP mentioned, they operate within relatively simple, well-defined "environments". They are effectively used as a heuristic tool for searching solution sets to defined problems.
Also, no one claimed that it's inherently impossible to derive greater complexity from lesser complexity. That's a straw man. Still, just because it's possible doesn't mean it has actually happened or has any bearing whatsoever on the facts (actual evolution). But, beyond that, GAs are not purposed with "deriving complexity", nor is that a desirable result in their application. The goal is not to produce more complex offspring, but more suitable solutions.
>They are pre-programmed, with crossover functions, fitness measures, etc.
And these are all abstractions of the process of evolution in general, each one being analogous to genetic mutations, sex or gene sharing, fitness within an environment, etc.
>Also, no one claimed that it's inherently impossible to derive greater complexity from lesser complexity. That's a straw man
Plenty of people claim this; I never attributed that statement to you.
>GAs are not purposed with "deriving complexity", nor is that a desirable result in their application.
The "goal" is irrelevant to the question I'm addressing. Many people claim that evolution is impossible because complexity cannot be derived from "nothing". Genetic algorithms disprove that claim. The environment of a GA being artificial is irrelevant. Some GA's do in fact create complexity that even we cannot comprehend, I am reminded of a GA that developed a circuit design (for a DAC perhaps it was) that is completely incomprehensible, yet it works perfectly. This process validates the principle of evolution.
Randomness is one such "scientific" explanation. In fact, it is the religion of science, serving as the de facto answer for unknowns regarding creation and existence.
Your comment reminds me of the line attributed to Chesterton, "Give us one free miracle and we'll explain everything else."
This is wrong. This isn't just an oversimplification of the process, its a complete misunderstanding. Randomness is a component of evolution, but it is only one factor, and not even the most important one.
You underestimate the supposed role of randomness in evolution and science in general. The universe itself is supposedly the product of a random explosion. Hence, my phrasing, "that all of this occured randomly".
From there, life sprang up and evolved into these insanely intricate and complex life forms and systems. Give me a break. If people choose to reject religious explanations, then OK. But, it's a bit rich to pretend that science has much better answers to the really hard questions at this point.
Your objection to the answers that science offers is completely incoherent. So because science doesn't have an explanation for the origin of the big bang, you consider it on the same level as intelligent design? This is absurdly muddled thinking on your part. Science does have a very thorough and logical explanation for these "insanely intricate and complex life forms" btw. None of this is particularly mysterious now. There are some details that are still being filled in, but to act like we are in complete ignorance of how these life forms could come about is just flat out wrong.
"Incoherent", yet you were able to offer a rebuttal? You don't see the contadiction there? I think it would have been more accurate to state that you simply disagree.
And, "none of this is particularly mysterious now"? Are you kidding me? The origin of life and the known universe, and the spark that sparked the spark are all just mundane, settled science now, eh? I think it's time you held a press conference.
In any event, you are making my point with your blind adherence to scientific dogma. First, science doesn't offer "no answer", it offers that it knows the answer and that the answer is randomness. Huge difference and if you look at the OP, that is what is being claimed as if it's scientific fact. And, that is why I take exception. If science doesn't know yet, then fine. But, don't offer up a weak non-answer, base the entirety of its theory on it, then take a giant dump on the heads of those who point out that the emperor has no clothes.
So, my point is that there is nothing qualitatively superior about your randomness belief versus one of intelligent design (your knee jerk response notwithstanding). And, I challenge you to prove otherwise.
In fact, I (and many respected scientists) believe that the randomness argument is actually far inferior in the face of empirical evidence. It is much more plausible that there is some force behind creation beyond what we understand than it is to believe that fundamental laws of thermodynamics were broken in some random event to create our Universe.
So, you know, it's cool to believe what you believe, but let's not act all superior when the whole of your fundamental argument rests on "randomness", which is simply a thinly veiled "I don't know".
>First, science doesn't offer "no answer", it offers that it knows the answer and that the answer is randomness.
As I already stated, this is just flat out wrong. You cannot even do the argument you claim to be against even a modicum of justice. If you have something specific that you disagree with, I would try to provide an answer or point you in the right direction. However, I'm not going to tap out a dissertation for someone who is clearly woefully ignorant of even the basics. For starters, the question of the origin of the universe, of abiogenesis, and of the evolution of life are completely separate questions. You reveal yourself to be completely misinformed when you conflate these three separate issues.
But yeah, keep on beating that "randomness" strawman to a pulp. Feel free to offer specific questions if you want to actually engage in a conversation. But make no mistake, nothing you have said so far shows even the faintest understanding of what you claim to be against.
Nowhere did I conflate the two. In fact, I identified them as separate instances wherein scientists insert randomness as the catch-all answer. Read more carefully.
And now randomness is the "strawman"? Funny, randomness was my actual point from the start. Now you want to jump in and declare a subject change, drawing distinctions between evolution and abiogenesis? Looks like that's the strawman here.
Anyway, I do think that randomness as the linchpin for the creation of the universe is far more interesting and revealing. I mean, after all a theory of the creation of everything we know that leaves out the actual creation part is pretty rich. So, if you need to choose one, then feel free to choose that one.
And, the question was very specific as presented. I will even give you a "head-start" and assume that the Big Bang is true and that everything that followed (per what the current state of science tells us) is complete and true.
So the question is two-fold: how is the random explanation of the creation impetus qualitatively superior to one of intelligent design? How is it any more certain?
>Nowhere did I conflate the two. In fact, I identified them as separate instances wherein scientists insert randomness as the catch-all answer.
Not in this comment chain you didn't.
>I do think that randomness as the linchpin for the creation of the universe is far more interesting and revealing
I don't know of any scientific theory that claims this to be true. This is the strawman you keep proclaiming to the be great scientific answer to all of life's greatest questions. I'm here to tell you that it ain't.
Let's make a distinction between speculation about, say, the cause of the big bang, and actual scientific theories. There is no scientific theory that relies on "randomness" as the explanation for how a thing occurred (I'm not counting QM and its probability distributions here). Random mutation is a component of evolution, or the random reaction of molecules to form the first autocatalyzing molecule, but these are small parts of the whole story. The difference between scientific theories and Intelligent Design is that the former knows when to say "we don't know" while the latter drops a godidit and calls it a day. Just from this statement alone we see why the answers science provides are inherently superior.
>There is no scientific theory that relies on "randomness" as the explanation for how a thing occurred
The Big Bang itself posits randomness as the very catalyst. And, while randomness is only part of the evolutionary process, it is also the catalyst for the first life forms. But, here you are saying that the whole of these scientific theories resting on these random events is irrelevant.
And, these events are the events. These are creation theories that literally omit the actual creation part. "This explosion occured, but it was random. These molecules formed randomly, then evolved, blah, blah, blah."
Someone higher up on this thread referenced the quote, "Give us one free miracle and we'll explain everything else."
That is exactly what science and you are doing at this point. Except you are unwilling to admit that you're asking for the free miracle. That, or you are comically attempting to downplay the significance. I can't tell which.
I asked you very specifically about the role of randomness as the catalyst vs there being an intelligent impetus. You quickly attempted to dismiss the very catalyst as an unimportant part of the theory, then shifted gears to evolution and claimed victory.
Science does not say "we don't know" in these cases. Period. Your repeating it doesn't make it so. No need to continue this discussion when you are unwilling to acknowledge reality. You are so focused on attempting to appear intellectually superior that you cannot assemble a cogent argument, because you cannot acknowledge where you have overstated something or could be wrong. So, you are now effectively saying "up is down and down is up. See, there, I have won the debate".
>The Big Bang itself posits randomness as the very catalyst.
This is what I mean, you're not even getting the basic right. The Big Bang Theory says nothing about what initiated it. The theory begins microseconds after the initial event that triggered the expansion of the universe. Seriously, look it up. You will be surprised. Also, there is no scientific theory regarding the origin or the initiating event of the Big Bang. This is what I refer to when I say that science says "we don't know".
>I asked you very specifically about the role of randomness as the catalyst vs there being an intelligent impetus.
Here, I'll answer this right now. The question can be broken down to: which is more probable, that a self-catalyzing molecule formed randomly or that an intelligent being created life in the form that we see today (if it were just going to use evolution then that intelligent being brings nothing to the table).
Well, assuming a god-like entity, it would require a near infinite level of complexity, all of which must have come from somewhere. Thus we are making massive assumptions, all of which reduce the probability of this event in proportion.
Now lets consider the self-catalyzing molecule. We know that chains of amino acids form spontaneously. We don't know what such a self-catalyzing molecule would look like, or how many units it would need to do its job. Thus we don't know the probability of it forming spontaneously. But it's certainly less than the probability of an infinitely powerful god-like (from our perspective) creature. Further, lets consider that perhaps the whole of the earth was filled with these building-block molecules, and thus the potential for this unlikely reaction was playing out in millions or billings of locations simultaneously and continuously. I think its pretty clear at this point the relative likelihood of the two events in question. Once the self-replicating molecule formed, the primordial environment would exponentially fill with this molecule, the process of evolution by natural selection takes hold and thus the process of increasing complexity is self-sustaining.
It's right, full randomness it's a over-simplification of the system, I was turning my post in a Game theory view, so I didn't look too much into physics problematics.
However, I don't see all your point. Are you telling me that modern physics like Superstring theory is some kind of religion ? I fear I can't follow you in this path without further explanation.
Superstring is a past fad that was more about circular reasoning that ever got to modelling the universe in a predictive way. So that is a bad example.
Well, at least the default de facto answer for unknowns in science is "we don't know yet, but here is a good guess". This is also the meaning of Socrates 'I only know that I know nothing'.
Any other default answer is dogmatic and foolish in comparison, and from a Socratic point of view, a sophism.
The thing is, since I did not expect to see myself, I did not recognize myself. I believe that for one brief moment I truly saw myself as other people see me. We go through our lives being so psychologically connected to our outer selves, and being briefly disconnected feels very spooky.