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Blindsight: Some people who have lost their vision find a “second sight”

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Re: Blindsight: Some people who have lost their vision find a “second sight”

#21

Post by mirimir »

subliminalzen wrote: post #6

Advertisers use what is known as the Low Attention Processing Model.[1] With this particular advertising strategy, brand information, and even an emotional attachment to a brand, can be 'acquired' at low and even zero attention levels using implicit learning.[2] Implicit learning cannot analyse or re-interpret anything. The information goes directly to the subconscious mind. Depending on the message, this can be posi…

Yes! This is why I very carefully avoid viewing ads. I avert my gaze. If necessary, I close my eyes. When driving, it's the same skill that we learn to avoid being blinded at night by oncoming headlights.

Re: Blindsight: Some people who have lost their vision find a “second sight”

#22

Post by mirimir »

paol wrote: post #15
lukev wrote: post #10

The hard SF novel Blindsight , by Peter Watts, is an excellent and extremely interesting exploration of this idea and its ramifications.

Not just this idea, almost every question of consciousness/intelligence/self awareness is approached in some form or another, from different angles. I could go on about it, but I'll just say it's the best SF I've read in a long while.

I love it too. Conscious self-awareness is arguably not very useful. It pretends to be in control, but mostly it's just observing what the mind has already done, and makes up stuff to rationalize it. At best, that's merely superfluous. But at worst, consciousness gets in the way, and generates counterproductive emotional states. But fortunately, ones mind can trick its consciousness into being useful :)

Re: Blindsight: Some people who have lost their vision find a “second sight”

#23

Post by embwbam »

subliminalzen wrote: post #6

Advertisers use what is known as the Low Attention Processing Model.[1] With this particular advertising strategy, brand information, and even an emotional attachment to a brand, can be 'acquired' at low and even zero attention levels using implicit learning.[2] Implicit learning cannot analyse or re-interpret anything. The information goes directly to the subconscious mind. Depending on the message, this can be posi…

Regarding zenpusher: From my armchair, It seems like you should make the contrast higher for the fonts. I've been reading Thinking, Fast and Slow, and his research shows that text that is hard to read activates the conscious part of our brain, and makes it harder to get messages into the subconscious.

Re: Blindsight: Some people who have lost their vision find a “second sight”

#24

Post by subliminalzen »

embwbam wrote: post #23
subliminalzen wrote: post #6

Advertisers use what is known as the Low Attention Processing Model.[1] With this particular advertising strategy, brand information, and even an emotional attachment to a brand, can be 'acquired' at low and even zero attention levels using implicit learning.[2] Implicit learning cannot analyse or re-interpret anything. The information goes directly to the subconscious mind. Depending on the message, this can be posi…

Regarding zenpusher: From my armchair, It seems like you should make the contrast higher for the fonts. I've been reading Thinking, Fast and Slow, and his research shows that text that is hard to read activates the conscious part of our brain, and makes it harder to get messages into the subconscious.

Actually, what happens isn't much different than a magician's slight of hand. The eyes are drawn to the underlying image, thereby suspending the critical faculties of the mind and creating an opportunity for implicit learning.

Thinking Fast and Slow is one of my favorite books. Read it twice!

Re: Blindsight: Some people who have lost their vision find a “second sight”

#25

Post by themgt »

mirimir wrote: post #22
paol wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not just this idea, almost every question of consciousness/intelligence/self awareness is approached in some form or another, from different angles. I could go on about it, but I'll just say it's the best SF I've read in a long while.

I love it too. Conscious self-awareness is arguably not very useful. It pretends to be in control, but mostly it's just observing what the mind has already done, and makes up stuff to rationalize it. At best, that's merely superfluous. But at worst, consciousness gets in the way, and generates counterproductive emotional states. But fortunately, ones mind can trick its consciousness into being useful :)

Worth trying to differentiate between "consciousness", which I think it's obvious cats and many other animals have, and the human "voice inside your head" / narrative self, which is much more a tower of babel built on symbolic cards, which is a very recent human invention, and arguably that moreso than "consciousness" is what can cause us so much harm.

Re: Blindsight: Some people who have lost their vision find a “second sight”

#26

Post by nikanj »

walterbell wrote: post #16
subliminalzen wrote: post #6

Advertisers use what is known as the Low Attention Processing Model.[1] With this particular advertising strategy, brand information, and even an emotional attachment to a brand, can be 'acquired' at low and even zero attention levels using implicit learning.[2] Implicit learning cannot analyse or re-interpret anything. The information goes directly to the subconscious mind. Depending on the message, this can be posi…

Well done. This could be a sub-genre across all media formats: intentional supraliminal messages overlaid on carrier media. Silly example: a paid subscription service to insert contextualiy appropriate supraliminal images into online articles, with revenue split between the article publisher and the image creator.

You might enjoy reading https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Space_Merchants

Re: Blindsight: Some people who have lost their vision find a “second sight”

#27

Post by ssewell »

I've personally experienced this decoupling of vision and second sight. When I've had bad migraines in the past, I typically experience scintillating scotoma, which isn't that unusual.

But the odd thing is: even though I can visually "see" certain objects, I don't feel like I'm observing them. For example, I can look directly at text on my screen, but have a difficult time reading the text. It's quite an odd experience.

Re: Blindsight: Some people who have lost their vision find a “second sight”

#28

Post by KingMob »

alextgordon wrote: post #19

If you look at the visual system[1] the signal passes through many preliminary nodes before it reaches the back of the brain aka the visual cortex (which is responsible for the conscious visual field, i.e. "seeing"). For example, one of these preliminary nodes is the Superior colliculus , which is part of the 'midbrain'[2]: > The general function of the tectal system is to direct behavioral responses toward specific…

I studied blindsight in grad school, and actually analyzed the data of patient GY, probably the most widely-studied blindsight patient.

I forget the authors, but there was an anatomical paper showing that blindsight requires all the secondary connections in order to happen.

So, everything from the retina synapses onto the thalamus first, and then 97+% goes on to the primary visual cortex. The last few percent go to areas like the SC, the frontal eye field, and V5/MT. This paper showed that if the damage was prior to, or including the thalamus, no blindsight was ever shown, but if the damage was between the thalamus and V1, or involving V1 itself, blindsight was possible.

The real question still is, why are these minor regions capable of supporting tasks, but not experience?

Re: Blindsight: Some people who have lost their vision find a “second sight”

#29

Post by KingMob »

mirimir wrote: post #22
paol wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not just this idea, almost every question of consciousness/intelligence/self awareness is approached in some form or another, from different angles. I could go on about it, but I'll just say it's the best SF I've read in a long while.

I love it too. Conscious self-awareness is arguably not very useful. It pretends to be in control, but mostly it's just observing what the mind has already done, and makes up stuff to rationalize it. At best, that's merely superfluous. But at worst, consciousness gets in the way, and generates counterproductive emotional states. But fortunately, ones mind can trick its consciousness into being useful :)

This is the epiphenomenal position, that consciousness is just along for the ride.

However, it strongly requires that consciousness be not detrimental (at least not overall), because otherwise, evolution probably would have weeded it out.

The novel Blindsight kind of suggests that humans are a local evolutionary maxima, that we achieved mastery of our planet due to our other talents, despite being burdened with consciousness. But again, this runs afoul of evolutionary fitness. Even if animals lacking consciousness couldn't surmount our other abilities, if a mutant human arose without consciousness, presumably it would have an advantage over other humans, and its genes would spread throughout the populace.

The book is really interesting, but having studied this for 7 years of my life, there's no way the author is correct. It's much more likely that other animals experience conscious awareness too. We don't know for sure, and we don't know where to draw the line (fish, insects, aplysia, bacteria?), but it seems reasonable to believe higher mammals have awareness (which is distinct from language, tool use, self-reflection, Theory of Mind, etc).

Re: Blindsight: Some people who have lost their vision find a “second sight”

#30

Post by KingMob »

themgt wrote: post #25
mirimir wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love it too. Conscious self-awareness is arguably not very useful. It pretends to be in control, but mostly it's just observing what the mind has already done, and makes up stuff to rationalize it. At best, that's merely superfluous. But at worst, consciousness gets in the way, and generates counterproductive emotional states. But fortunately, ones mind can trick its consciousness into being useful :)

Worth trying to differentiate between "consciousness", which I think it's obvious cats and many other animals have, and the human "voice inside your head" / narrative self, which is much more a tower of babel built on symbolic cards, which is a very recent human invention, and arguably that moreso than "consciousness" is what can cause us so much harm.

Exactly. Perceptual awareness does not require self-consciousness.
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