Bob,
Thanks for reply, but you haven't quite answered. Geometry, in my
definition, is a systematic set of regular forms, which can be, and are,
used to deconstruct visual forms in various kinds of images. And geometry
is , as I understand - please correct me - the whole basis of current
approaches to visual object recognition. I don't think that will work,
because the "meaning" or, perhaps better, "sense", of the object - of the
dancer in that picture, say, - lies in the whole form, the whole shape of
the object or dancer. And as soon as you deconstruct it, you've lost it. The
shape can only be processed in an understandable way as a whole shape. (And,
if that's correct, the perceptual brain is a cartoonist, rather than a
geometer).
Hence, I think, a v. interesting distinction that I've just come across -
do you know it? - between "metric" and "semantic" approaches to vision
processing.
Comments?
Bob: Mike Tintner >> The recurrent, but underlying question in many
related discussions here is
whether you, (& Bob & a & linas), think a visual scene - let's say some
people dancing, (real life or in a picture) - can be understood
*geometrically/mathematically,* (by the use of geometric figures and
maths
alone). I say it can't, but my impression is that you guys say it can,
and
I'd like to be sure of your position. [I am moving on here a little
from
the subject of understanding verbal texts, although it's related].
Geometry is a fundamental aspect of most computer vision. The world
can only be perceived through a camera or an eye imperfectly and with
limited resolution, so that when you analyse collections of pixels
features such as lines and angles often don't really exist in the data
itself. Instead your mind is superimposing a geometry onto the data
as the best possible hypothesis derived from statistical properties of
significant numbers of pixels (a prediction which is continually being
refined as more data becomes available). Sometimes, as in the
surrealist double images, your mind will flip between alternative
hypotheses about what is being seen. Geometry allows you to
reconstruct visual information which is degraded, damaged, obscured or
otherwise ambiguous.
Just in case anyone objects that "blind people still have imagination"
there does seem to be considerable evidence that spatial awareness is
not solely a function of vision (for example
http://www.newscientist.com/channel/being-human/mg18524841.700). My
parents have a cat who is completely blind and quite deaf, but she is
still able to navigate around using a combination of tactile sense and
smell.
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agi
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