I have been thinking and reading about artificial intelligence a little bit lately and this has spawned some thoughts about why we only perceive some of our surroundings.
When a child is first born, it cannot make sense of the images it sees and hears. It has no model of the world yet, and therefore sees only meaningless shapes. Only after it has experiences can the child start to make a crude map of what these shapes represent. A mother’s face might initially only be understood as food and safety.
As children have new experiences their mental model of the world quickly becomes more detailed. After some time, the child starts to construct ideas of what to view as ’safe’ and what is unknown or could be a threat.
Eventually we grow into adults and have an extremely sophisticated models of perception. We have a very complicated understanding of what is safe and what is a threat, what is out of the ordinary, and what parts of our environment could be useful.
As an adult, we can walk by a tree and have a model of what to expect — there is very little chance of that tree attacking. Nor is that tree likely to have $100 bills hidden away in the branches. Trees are certainly useful and wonderful, but there is no signal to react (or sometimes even notice them) as we walk by. We have walked past thousands of trees in our lifetime and usually have no trigger for concern.
The same could be said about the leaves on the tree, but with even less trigger for concern, as there are so many more present. It could take years just to look at and notice the differences between the leaves on a single tree. Even if we try to perceive the individual leaves on the tree, it is extremely difficult because we have built a mental model that categorizes the individual leaves as being so similar that they are more or less interchangeable.
Alternatively, if there is an EXPLOSION nearby – we have no choice but to perceive it. There is a very intense signal sent to the brain that this is something important and out of the ordinary. Even if you wanted ignore it, there is almost no likelihood that you would succeed. Your body has considered it a potential threat and will most likely flinch in reaction.
This line of thought raises a few new issues for me. For one - if we are a slave to our perceptions and predispositions, can we change our mental models? If so, how difficult is that to accomplish? Also, how does Art fit into this? Art (by some definitions) has no practical quality, but can be extremely compelling.
For those interested, the book that I was looking through is called ‘Society of Mind’ by Marvin Minsky. I haven’t read the whole thing yet, but the chapters I’ve read have been extremely thought provoking.