Quite agree, Dave - in fact I'd go further: Literal physical realism is a philosophical and practical impossibility. The idea of an artificial reality - sometimes called "virtual reality" that has ALL the causal attributes of "real reality" is entirely suspect - if it had all the atttributes, then you would just refer to it as "reality" and if it only had some, then this fact would logically be detectable. This argument is as old as the hills - it's not precisely what Plato was saying in his Cave metaphor (later made into a film : "the Matrix") but the example is germane. The appropriate argument for Plato's example (goodness knows, we're still arguing with him more than two-and-a-half thousand years later!) it the "...as if..." argument - if it looks, smells, feels like reality, proceed to treat it as if it is real. If it walks like a duck... etc
So, given that, for most purposes in most artificial environments, "plausibility" is the only game in town I tend to think of this question (which taxes me a lot, as you can imagine) in terms of "cognitive cartoonification" - that is to say, perception cannot possibly handle all of the "infinite" (oh, alright, not literally, but beyond my mathematical capabilities by many orders of magnitude) incoming information, ....in real time. So, processing shortcuts have to be made, and the selection of these shortcuts is what we normally call "evolution". Hence, the 'cognitive currency' of our everyday interactions with our environment is in the form of pared-down, but appropriate to the task in and, representations - cartoons. For a fine example of just how pared-down (in a non-noisy environment) see http://www.biomotionlab.ca/Demos/BMLwalker.html - 15 points of light can give you age, sex, weight, mood (along more than one dimension) Another way to think of it: you could have a made-for-TV period drama that is lusciously shot, using fantastic hi-def equipment, yet it seem lacklustre and boring. You could have badly drawn, badly animated, coloured-in-by-a-three-year-old cartoons (eg. The Simpsons) that are funnier, more interesting and philosophically deeper than the first example. So animated puppets, cartoons, theatre, paintings, can all engender the sense of plausibility without being remotely "realistic". Better go and do some work now... Dr. Peter Lennox Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy Senior Lecturer in Perception College of Arts University of Derby Tel: 01332 593155 ________________________________________ From: Sursound [[email protected]] On Behalf Of Dave Malham [[email protected]] Sent: 14 April 2015 07:12 To: Surround Sound discussion group Subject: Re: [Sursound] Re. Boids for Ambisonic Panning If there is a choice to be made, plausibility is definitely more important than realism - if nothing else, because plausibility is almost always (with due care and attention) achievable whereas realism almost never, or never, is. Dave On 13 April 2015 at 18:15, James Anthony Enda Bates <[email protected]> wrote: > I think most of the important points have been covered already but in > general I would say that when simulating distance effects, plausibility is > usually more relevant than absolute realism. > Also, the more cues, the better! > enda > > -- www.endabates.net > -------------- next part -------------- > An HTML attachment was scrubbed... > URL: < > https://mail.music.vt.edu/mailman/private/sursound/attachments/20150413/7dc6d25f/attachment.html > > > _______________________________________________ > Sursound mailing list > [email protected] > https://mail.music.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/sursound - unsubscribe here, > edit account or options, view archives and so on. > -- As of 1st October 2012, I have retired from the University. These are my own views and may or may not be shared by the University Dave Malham Honorary Fellow, Department of Music The University of York York YO10 5DD UK 'Ambisonics - Component Imaging for Audio' -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <https://mail.music.vt.edu/mailman/private/sursound/attachments/20150414/fff7c6e4/attachment.html> _______________________________________________ Sursound mailing list [email protected] https://mail.music.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/sursound - unsubscribe here, edit account or options, view archives and so on. The University of Derby has a published policy regarding email and reserves the right to monitor email traffic. If you believe this was sent to you in error, please select unsubscribe. Unsubscribe and Security information contact: [email protected] For all FOI requests please contact: [email protected] All other Contacts are at http://www.derby.ac.uk/its/contacts/ _______________________________________________ Sursound mailing list [email protected] https://mail.music.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/sursound - unsubscribe here, edit account or options, view archives and so on.
