On Nov 9, 2025, at 1:25, Stephen Guerin <[email protected]> wrote:
attn: Nick and Eric C
Glen writes:
But we've been here before, right? What does it mean to "do math"? Is the outfielder "doing
math" when she catches a fly ball? I mean, we know missile interceptors are "doing math" ... maybe. Is a
Kalman filter executing in the on board computer a "mental image". Can one understand quantum mechanics
without doing the math? Etc.
Mike McBeath, one of my cogsci professors, wrote this 1995 short Science
ecological psych article on how fielders catch fly balls.
https://redfish.com/papers/McBeath-BaseballCatch.pdf
<https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fredfish.com%2fpapers%2fMcBeath-BaseballCatch.pdf&c=E,1,Z1f81H9_SvCwA7rDW2PG6vjeQqvRKyF8ZywILNgH3086P6cQ3MJdNR7VQzALV5B5jU_kPc4wWNYTxSc0EAUGkef91_qcmeME_AsR1IdUMw9uJSZp0FE,&typo=1>
In Gibsonian and Turvey ecological language: the fielder does not calculate
trajectories or predict where the ball will land; instead, they visually couple
their locomotion to optical information that specifies the event of
interception. By continuously adjusting their movement to maintain a constant
optical acceleration pattern (the Optical Acceleration Cancellation strategy),
they exploit invariants in the optic flow—the affordance of catching emerges
directly from perceiving how the optical variables change, not from internal
computation or prediction.:
_________________________________________________________________
Stephen Guerin
CEO, Founder
https://simtable.com
<https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fsimtable.com&c=E,1,2crdSwIfa87nIRtrhHXjWoUtJvjN3l7SY6VKjbFctcgBoQvIYmOcGUr6HiP7n-sKqyZ5m_65Sa1WVBsUvYB9Q6GFXADTFeoiqtJVHvx6GAj7sw,,&typo=1>
[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>
[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>
Harvard Visualization Research and Teaching Lab
<https://hwpi.harvard.edu/eps-visualization-research-laboratory/home>
mobile: (505)577-5828
On Fri, Nov 7, 2025 at 10:43 AM glen <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
I haven't read the New Yorker article. But the category seems hopelessly fraught. Even the 2
"objective" measures I'm aware of (pupil response and binocular rivalry) are intertwined
with the body. I'm reminded of "motor imagery", where imagining some physical action
causes similar patterns to performing that action, and so-called mirror neuron[al activation].
But we've been here before, right? What does it mean to "do math"? Is the outfielder "doing
math" when she catches a fly ball? I mean, we know missile interceptors are "doing math" ... maybe. Is a
Kalman filter executing in the on board computer a "mental image". Can one understand quantum mechanics
without doing the math? Etc.
But I'm attracted to the invocation of analysis. My prof, which I managed to retain
during all 3 of Anal I, II, & III, was a fan of priming. He'd *draw* graduate level
concepts on the chalkboard before class, then really quickly run through all the jargon as if
we understood whatever he was yappin' about. Then he'd callously erase the art and get on
with what we were "supposed" to be learning. Dude was an artist. Full stop.
On 11/6/25 3:24 PM, Santafe wrote:
> I see; thanks Nick,
>
> I am happy the expected categories fell apart. But there have been
occasions when I went looking for categories something like these on my own too.
>
> In college (which I hit about like a bird flying into a window), as
sophomores we were taught algebra by Mike Aschbacher, one of the great algebraists
of the just-past generation. A man who never brought notes, wrote every proof
spontaneously, and could write on a chalkboard at the same speed as he talked.
>
> A friend and I — both of us just getting pounded into the ground —
decided that there were geometric thinkers, who exapted visual thinking, and
algebraic thinkers, who exapted syntactic thinking. Aschbacher being the most
syntactically superhuman being we had ever encountered. And we decided we were
both “algebraically impaired”.
>
> In contrast, analysis was straightforward, and always seemed to me to
have a somewhat visual angle to it, and algebraic topology and differential
geometry were even better. Although I never tried anything hard in those fields,
like proving things about more than 3 dimensions. So not sure how much
visual/geometric skill I have beyond the baseline for primates.
>
> I have continued to wonder where one should go to characterize
“elementary” or “primitive” modalities of cognition, and how to take them to
assemble into the kinds of synthetic things we call “skills”. Marc Hauser once
gave some very compelling talks along these lines for mathematical reasoning. But
since he was found fabricating data some years later, I don’t know how much of the
earlier stuff I should continue to find compelling. It might not have been
tainted at all; but I am not in the field.
>
> It’s a nice topic.
>
> Eric
>
>
>
>
>
>> On Nov 6, 2025, at 15:59, Nicholas Thompson <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
>>
>> I’m sorry for the misprint. The correct term is aphantasia.
>>
>> It took 15 minutes with a handful of people at thuam for the categories
to break down horribly. My prediction was based on no great insite. I had divided the
world up into picture people and word people assume that our word. I claimed no
wisdom here, only prejudices I seem to be a.-side myself
>> Sent from my Dumb Phone
>>
>> On Nov 6, 2025, at 1:02 PM, Prof David West <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
>>
>> Yes, please, what Eric asked.
>>
>> I would expect most people on this list to tend towards the "hyper," not the
"apha."
>>
>> davew
>>
>>
>> On Thu, Nov 6, 2025, at 10:38 AM, Santafe wrote:
>>> That’s interesting, Nick (on limited time here, but just for a while)
>>>
>>>> On Nov 6, 2025, at 11:19, Nicholas Thompson <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Given the work that many of you do, many of you are candidates for
"aphatasia"
>>>
>>> Can you say more about why you expect a correlation? This is not an
>>> association that would ever have occurred to me.
>>>
>>> Eric
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