In "The Flamingo’s Smile" by S.J.Gould, in an essay entitled "Human Equality Is a Contingent Fact of History", Stephen related the story of the question of access to the famous Lindbergh plane by the unsighted. A delegation of blind people had come to see the museum’s director. It was suggested that an exact model of the plane could be placed in the museum so that blind people could "see" the plane (that hangs well above the ground). The delegation said yes, but only if the model was placed directly below the real plane.
Why is it that the wedding ring you lost and have now found has the same magic as before, so long as your spouse does not admit to buying a replacement? If you found out would you discard the fake in disgust?
This kind of illusion is common - the reality is that there is no difference between rings and the Lindbergh model plane feels no different according to its location except for what the conscious mind does in response to the knowledge of its actual location.
We’ve recently discussed the placebo and nocebo effect. Now we can add general weighting of inanimate objects. Where does it end? The answer is that it doesn’t end. Qualia can be thought of as the finest and most transient manifestation of this same thing - there is no redness of the rose - that is simply an illusion generated in response to red roses.
What if you could switch off the illusions and see things as they really are? Well, that would not be wise. At least half of what you perceive is emulated (generated in response to stimuli rather than the actual stimuli).
Lets run through an actual visual experience with the illusion switched off. You see a page of black squiggles on a white background. You look at the squiggle on the upper left. You see "T", "h", "e". You might sound out the word "The" or simply know that you must be seeing a word and that it means "the", but you still only see squiggles - you don’t see any ‘word’ "the". As you look down the page, you carefully examine each letter being careful to recall what the last letter was and then consider what the set of letters you see might mean.
I personally know what the experience of the two cases is as occasionally words drop out of my recognition vocabulary. "The" is one of the words that drops out from time to time. So I can see a page of words and read in the usual manner until I encounter "the" when I see only a set of clearer-than-usual letters "t", "h", "e". which I intellectually piece together and "know" must be "the" even though I have no recognition of the word what-so-ever - I still see three letters and that’s it.
Without this illusion we would become totally dysfunctional. But only consciously. We would still see a lion and have an overwhelming urge to run, but the lion would appear to be no more frightening than a rug. The reason is that when we normally "see" a lion we also "see" our response cues. The lion "looks" like it could bite, scratch and otherwise cause us harm.
These are response cues and they could be modulated onto anything in our visual field eg, a pussy cat, a photocopier, a motorcar, a criminal-type etc. To perform this trick, part of what is actually seen is replaced with the response cues. It is only upon the arrival of these response cues that we actually feel we have "recognised" something.
It is possible to draw typical response cues [1] and to recognise them almost independently of the original perceived image. They are given the general name of caricature and they give us much amusement in the form of political satire, for instance.
"Response Cues" are not only visual - tactile response cues accompany the model of the Lindbergh plane, but only if it is found under the real plane. Such cues are found in medications if we think they will cure us (these response cues run deep into the subconscious enough to stimulate the immune system and to release natural pain killers etc - all response cues work "behind the scenes" - we never realise how much of the perceived world is emulated and if we did, and could prevent being fooled, we would become completely dysfunctional - the inability to read fluently being just one manifestation) (Placebo and nocebo effect), in inanimate things such as wedding rings, and in each other such as partners, children etc (which, in reality, are just other people or other children - this is not the way you see your own family).
The reason for the mixing of, say, actual visual information and response cues should be fairly obvious. There is no homunculus, though a model with a homunculus is not necessarily wrong, so there is no possibility of a point in the perceptual chain where the incoming or perceived information ends and the viewer or interpreter begins. In reality, the self and the image perceived are mixed together so that at one extreme end we have the image and no self and at the other extreme end we have the self and no image.
At every point along the way a response could be initiated in which case the self gets a report of the action taken (and does not actually initiate it, a process that would take at least 3 full seconds if the response were actually (inner) self generated). But the experience of, say, vision is not fixed at some point between perception and self. The more processed the perception (upon response) the slower the response and the closer to the self is the subjective perception. Fast reaction means less processed and so closer to actual sensed information.
That’s what we do with art, for instance. We try to let the perceived image go all the way in before a response is initiated - hence abstract art helps to achieve this. In martial arts and military training one learns to respond before making judgements, before the object that has breached your safety zone is recognised.
One could point out that deeper is broader is bigger picture. Shallow is ill considered, fast response, specific (not broadly applicable) etc. The upshot, though, is that what we ‘perceive’ is already processed and has been well and truly mixed with the self. In essence, we are seeing part of our selves when we see the world around us (and part of our inner selves IS the world around us - the dichotomy, between self and world, is a false one - we simply don’t see the environment in the self and we don’t see the self in the perceived environment).
[1] "response cue" is my terminology used for the purpose of this essay.
© Robert Karl Stonjek 2002