Clear as Glass (part 2)
In the previous essay, I discussed the possibility that the brain is necessary to consciousness, but that it is not sufficient. In other words, there seems to be something needed beyond just material structures. We explored these ideas by considering the metaphor of a stained glass window, illustrating the possibility that we need to continue looking beyond strictly material solutions.
However, history shows that science has often been challenged with such paradigm shifts. Thus, it may be helpful to use non-science tools to explore these ideas while science is still far from conclusive answers. For example, sometimes metaphors can help us see beyond biases and preconceptions. As an example, in this essay we’ll consider the stained glass picture some more, and develop a picture that may illustrate why consciousness is so unique and why it’s too early to start closing off options for explaining it.
Imagine standing inside a church that is full of stained glass windows. These windows have a strikingly beautiful appearance, largely due to their glowing nature. If we were naive about their construction, we might wonder how they came to have such a striking appearance. Where does the extra light come from?
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Clear as Glass
This picture of a stained glass window is from a spherical picture taken in the sanctuary of a church. This particular church is filled with similar windows, and they are seen as one of the defining characteristics of the building.
Stained glass windows are also interesting topics/objects with which to explore the implications of necessity versus sufficiency that was introduced in an earlier essay.
The challenge is to recognize that something may be necessary but still not be sufficient. For example, food is necessary for us to live, but it is not sufficient. We also need air, water, and so on. This example is clear, but sometimes it’s not so obvious. In some cases, we may miss other things that are also needed if we focus on the most obviously important things.
Read more It’s All Relative
This is a simple picture of a gear with the most distant portion blurred. When I posted it on Instagram, I described it as “Emerging from the mists of time.” The idea was that this obviously old mechanism was present as a display, somehow representing its use many years ago.
The description was meant to evoke a sense of the gear approaching the viewer as it came from the past, emerging from the blurry darkness in the background.
Can you see it that way?
However, it could also have been seen as the gear moving away from the viewer into the distant darkness.
Now can you see it this way, too?
So which is the correct view? Neither, and both. It depends on the viewer. One person may see it one way, and another person see it the other way.
Read more Seeing Human Traits in AIs
This picture is titled “Bashful and Bold”. To me, it evokes two people standing next to each other. The one on the left looks like it is shyly hiding its face behind the shoulder of the other, while the one on the right looks like it is facing the viewer with arms outstretched, blasting forward.
Of course, these are only unusual flowers with none of the emotions described above. It’s common for people to attribute emotions or other human characteristics to inanimate objects. While this is fairly harmless for something like this picture, things get a little more complicated when we think about the latest developments in AI and how people may react to them.
Read moreThinking With Art
Much of our world today is governed by structured thinking and reasoning. Perhaps not day-to-day life for individuals, but business, government, science, and technology are all operated through well-defined rules and processes. This is a reductionist approach to understanding and affecting the world.
The reductionist approach works for things that are well understood, but I’m not sure it’s always as effective when faced with great uncertainty or ambiguity. Things like human behavior or topics at the edges of science like consciousness are harder to deal with analytically than physics or chemistry.
As such, I wonder if some ideas are better explored through other ways of thinking, such as art. This is more context-aware, more grounded in human experience and society. Although there are reductionist elements to it, perhaps in the craft portion, there is also an intuitive, creative aspect. Perhaps this is a way of thinking through a topic in ways different than typical rational processes.
Read more Sufficient Photography
Some things in life are necessary, but not sufficient. For example, we need food to live, but we also need water, air, exercise, and so on. Food alone is not enough, it is not sufficient.
While this seems obvious for some things like food, it’s harder to remember in other places such as when exploring new ideas, doing experiments, creating pictures, and so on.
For example, when taking typical pictures, things like proper exposure are necessary, but that is not sufficient to make a good picture. We still need to worry about proper focus, aperture, ISO, and so on, in order to produce a desired picture.
But even control of all the technical parameters is not enough if there is no artistic vision. There needs to be some sense of meaning and aesthetics in order to really craft a picture. Without those ephemeral things, we are simply making a snapshot. Maybe interesting, especially if the subject is profound, but generally not sufficient to create art.
Read more Careless Vision
A single dried leaf lays on the ground, backlit by the afternoon sun.
Glowing, reminding us of life that it used to hold, now fading like the sunlight itself.
A little moment of beauty that’s easy to miss in the daily rush.
A careless step and this bright little wonder would be ground underfoot.
It is often said that we should stop and smell the roses, to take the time to appreciate the beauty all around us. Before we can do that, however, we need to take the time to notice the beauty in the first place. Perhaps one reason it’s so easy for us to miss the smell of roses is that we are ignoring the flowers.
Read more Photographic Confirmation Bias
In photography, it is often thought that we need better scenes in order to take better pictures. For example, National Geographic photographer Jim Richardson said “If you want to be a better photographer, stand in front of more interesting stuff.” This seems to reflect a common perspective.
The implication is that there are places which lack interesting stuff, so we need to go elsewhere.
This is often exemplified by people going to extreme locations in order to get great pictures. And of course, they are often successful because there are indeed wonderful things to see there.
Read more Looking Closer
This is a picture of a plant that, at first glance, seemed to be dead. Maybe it really was, I’m not sure. However, a closer look revealed these little tufted ends, probably some sort of flower, so I took this picture. I think it’s interesting, like a little unexpected bit of elegance.
It’s also interesting because of the lesson it gives that we sometimes need to look closer at things to see their beauty, to see all that’s there. Photography is often about seeing, but it’s so easy to focus on what is easy to see, what would be obvious to anyone looking at the same thing.
Read more Outside the Region of Clarity
This is an example of limited depth of field. Only a narrow band is clear, and things become fuzzy when we move away from it. The further we get from the band of focus, the less we can see what’s going on.
In this simple case, it’s pretty easy to see that there’s not much going on in the fuzzy regions; we can infer, probably pretty accurately, that the same drop-covered surface extends in both directions and the result is just an increasingly smooth tone as things get more and more out of focus.
If there was more going on in the fuzzy areas, with vague lines and objects, regions of different color, and so on, then we might be able to guess what’s going on. Of course, the likelihood of being right diminishes the further we get from the zone of clarity even for a richer image.
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