A revolution in thought

[thedoc]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

You are becoming way too aggressive for my taste. Before we talk again, you really need to take a chill pill.

Duck and run, little weasel.

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by specious_reasons

I have 2 young dogs and an elderly dog. The young ones need to be walked much more than the elderly one. Normally, I'll walk around the block with the youngsters and leave oldest inside. He's deaf, just about 100% deaf. He can't really smell through the 2 doors, at least not to detect me and the others, and there's a decent chance I'm downwind of him.

Regardless, when he sees me walking back from around the block he reacts. He can't hear me, he can't smell or feel me, and it's really unlikely that he's tasting me, but he still reacts.

Obviously, he sees something. It could be your gait that he recognizes. I never said dogs can't see anything. They just don't recognize individual features. I also have two dogs. My elderly dog used to notice when an animal was on television because of the type of movement and she'd run up to the television set, smell it, cock her head sideways as if to be confused, and walk away.

Originally Posted by specious_reasons

Ever use a laser pointer on cats or dogs? The laser is a bright spot of light, nothing more or less, and animals react to it. Lessans' ideas are so flawed that it can't accurately explain the most basic of observations.

Of course animals react to light. Who is saying they don't? Some animals can see very sharp distant objects. The only thing Lessans is saying is that individual features are not recognized without some other clue. That gives us a clue that the eyes work differently than the other senses.

Originally Posted by specious_reasons

No one is going to believe Lessans because his ideas defy observed reality. Period. Your continued defense of his ideas about vision are a testament to your dysfunction.

My elderly sheepdog knows the sound of my car and will start barking the minute my car door closes. So there obviously is an association, but interestingly enough, if I stand back from the door, she approaches me cautiously until she smells me or hears my voice to confirm that it's me. His ideas do not defy observed reality.

[davidm]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

Of course animals react to light. Who is saying they don't? Some animals can see very sharp distant objects. The only thing Lessans is saying is that individual features are not recognized without some other clue. That gives us a clue that the eyes work differently than the other senses.

There she is, babbling about dogs again, because she can't answer the questions about Mars, the moons of Jupiter, etc.

Not only does she ignore (in one ear and out the other) all the studies we have linked to her proving that dogs can indeed recognize their masters' faces and even recognize them from photographs, she also conveniently ignores, or has forgotten (in one ear and out the other!) the recent article I liked to about how dogs can recognize, on video, not just human faces but specific human social cues. What about that, eh, peacegirl? There ARE no other clues or cues, except visual. Oh, well, Lessans was wrong again! At least he could hustle people pool and sell them cheap and defective aluminum siding, so he was able to get by, I guess.

[specious_reasons]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

The only thing Lessans is saying is that individual features are not recognized without some other clue. That gives us a clue that the eyes work differently than the other senses.

Even if it were true, and it's not, it would give us a clue that dogs have different cognitive abilities. Vision works in the same way, from the animals with simple eye spots to complex ones like mammals: by the detection of light.

Even if there were some room for debate on this subject, Lessans ideas are still inferior to the current scientific theory. His ideas on vision have no chance of ever catching hold.

[thedoc]

To be fair, yes the eyes work differently than the other senses. The ears pick up slight differences in the pressure and vibrations of the air. The tongue and other parts of the mouth pick up on different chemical compounds in the food and drink we consume. the nose detects different chemical compounds in the air we breath. The nerves in our skin respond to pressure and relay that to the brain to intrepret. All the senses work differently from the others, so there is no reason to single out sight because it is different than the others, of course it's different as they all are. Sight, the eyes, detect photons that pass through the lens and are focused onto the retina and the signals through the optic nerve are intrepreted by the brain as images. All the senses are different, if they were all the same what would be the point of having 5 different ones? Lessans ideas about conditioning were complete and utter nonsense, conditioning happens in the brain and not outside the body. The brain is conditioned internally and does not project anything out through the eyes, that is the idea of an ignorant fool without any understanding of human nature and physiology.

[seebs]

Peacegirl, the point is that all the claims about "efferent" vision are obviously wrong. We can prove that light travels and that's how things work. That's how light works, that's how eyes work, in us and in every other species.

So the guy was full of shit.

That your posts here themselves conclusively disprove his claim about the effect on other people of believing his nonsense hardly helps the matter.

[Spacemonkey]

Originally Posted by Spacemonkey

Bump.

2nd bump.

[LadyShea]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

The eyes should work like a sense organ, which means that something goes in and there is a reaction. In all the other senses, that's how it works. WHY NOT THE EYES?

Dogs can react to visual cues (they see something and they react) You admitted yourself a few posts back. They see a laser light and chase it (watched a dog do it last night). The laser light has no smell and no sound. That means the eyes are a sense organ.

That they can see and react to what they see is not what you were referring to at all.

You are talking about a specific type of recognition. That recognition is way beyond "you see you react"

Originally Posted by peacegirl

Dogs should be able to recognize their masters from pictures alone if the eyes are a sense organ, but they don't.

Originally Posted by LadyShea

This is a completely made up "should". Nothing in optics, neuroscience, anatomy, or any other vision related field says anything remotely like "Dogs should be able to recognize their masters from pictures alone".

if the eyes are a sense organ, dogs SHOULD be able to recognize their master just like they recognize their master from their other senses.

You are assigning a should where one doesn't belong. Recognition is about how the stimuli are processed in the brain.

Here you go, if the nose is a sense organ, you should be able to recognize YOUR dog by the smell of its urine on a towel...you should be able to differentiate between your dogs and distinguish your dogs urine from other dogs.

Originally Posted by LadyShea

If you think I am wrong, find me any literature, citation, or copy pasted link that indicates any relevant field of science predicts or states that this "should" be the case.

If you cannot do so, then I will stand on my belief that Lessans pulled that straight out of his ass.

Originally Posted by peacegirl

You are becoming way too aggressive for my taste. Before we talk again, you really need to take a chill pill.

You are weaseling because you can't answer

[seebs]

If you arrange for the light entering a dog's eyes to be exactly the same as it would be if they were looking at their master, they'd react the same way. But that's not the case with a two-dimensional photo!

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by Spacemonkey

No, the blue photon does not teleport Spacemonkey. For some reason you're just not getting the concept.

I told you that as light bounces off of an object, certain photons are being absorbed which displays the non-absorbed light, but as soon as the (P) light gets dispersed, we can no longer see or photograph the object due to the inverse square law, therefore we will no longer get the blue light at the film/retina; we will get all 7 colors of light (the default position).

Obviously you didn't.

YES I DID.

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by seebs

If you arrange for the light entering a dog's eyes to be exactly the same as it would be if they were looking at their master, they'd react the same way. But that's not the case with a two-dimensional photo!

Not if their other source of identification has been disabled.

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by LadyShea

Dogs can react to visual cues (they see something and they react) You admitted yourself a few posts back. They see a laser light and chase it (watched a dog do it last night). The laser light has no smell and no sound. That means the eyes are a sense organ.

That they can see and react to what they see is not what you were referring to at all.

You are talking about a specific type of recognition. That recognition is way beyond "you see you react"

You're right, but there is no reason why a dog would not be able to identify the particular features of his master whom he loves by sight alone, if the image is traveling toward his eyes, transducing into signals, and going to his brain for interpretation. Dogs can interpret the smell of many things, and identify them. The same goes for the sense of taste and sound. Why not sight? Why are you not recognizing that there is something different here going on?

Originally Posted by peacegirl

Dogs should be able to recognize their masters from pictures alone if the eyes are a sense organ, but they don't.

Originally Posted by LadyShea

This is a completely made up "should". Nothing in optics, neuroscience, anatomy, or any other vision related field says anything remotely like "Dogs should be able to recognize their masters from pictures alone".

if the eyes are a sense organ, dogs SHOULD be able to recognize their master just like they recognize their master from their other senses.

Originally Posted by LadyShea

You are assigning a should where one doesn't belong. Recognition is about how the stimuli are processed in the brain.

Here you go, if the nose is a sense organ, you should be able to recognize YOUR dog by the smell of its urine on a towel...you should be able to differentiate between your dogs and distinguish your dogs urine from other dogs.

You can't compare. We know that humans don't have that capacity because dogs have 25 times more olfactory receptors than humans do. Dogs actually capture more light in dimly lit areas which would also mean that the features of their owner would stand out if the eyes were a sense organ. They may have 20/75 vision but at that distance, the image would be clear, so once again this should not be an impediment to recognition if the eyes were acting as a sense organ. This article is very interesting.

http://www.animaleyecenter.com/Defau...ion=Two+Colors

Originally Posted by LadyShea

If you think I am wrong, find me any literature, citation, or copy pasted link that indicates any relevant field of science predicts or states that this "should" be the case.

If you cannot do so, then I will stand on my belief that Lessans pulled that straight out of his ass.

Originally Posted by peacegirl

You are becoming way too aggressive for my taste. Before we talk again, you really need to take a chill pill.

Originally Posted by LadyShea

You are weaseling because you can't answer

I just did. I don't like your aggressive attitude though. Please don't come off like you know all the answers, because you don't.

[LadyShea]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

You're right, but there is no reason why a dog would not be able to identify the particular features of his master whom he loves by sight alone, if the image is traveling toward his eyes, transducing into signals, and going to his brain for interpretation. Dogs can interpret the smell of many things, and identify them. The same goes for the sense of taste and sound. Why not sight? Why are you not recognizing that there is something different here going on?

There is no reason a dog should be able to do so in the standard model of sight. That the eyes detect light and send signals to the brain doesn't say anything about what should follow in the brain as far as interpretation and connections made with that stimuli.

Why are you assigning a should without reason to do so?

Originally Posted by peacegirl

if the eyes are a sense organ, dogs SHOULD be able to recognize their master just like they recognize their master from their other senses.

Originally Posted by LadyShea

You are assigning a should where one doesn't belong. Recognition is about how the stimuli are processed in the brain.

Here you go, if the nose is a sense organ, you should be able to recognize YOUR dog by the smell of its urine on a towel...you should be able to differentiate between your dogs and distinguish your dogs urine from other dogs.

You can't compare.

Of course I can compare. Dogs and other animals can recognize individuals from the scent of their urine. The nose is a sense organ, you should be able to do that too.

We know that humans don't have that capacity because dogs have 25 times more olfactory receptors than humans do

.
And humans have much better visual acuity than dogs, so why should dogs use sight the same way humans do?

To give you a feeling about how poor this vision is, you should know that if your visual acuity is worse than 20/40 you would fail the standard vision test given when you apply for a driver's license in the United States and would be required to wear glasses. A dog's vision is considerably worse than this.

Don't let these numbers fool you, however. Although the dog's visual acuity is considerably less than that of a normal human, a lot of information is still getting from his eyes to his brain, even though the focus is "soft" and he won't be able to make out many details. The effect is something like viewing the world through a fine mesh gauze, or a piece of cellophane that has been smeared with a light coat of petroleum jelly. The overall outlines of objects are visible but a lot of the internal details will be blurred and might even be lost.How good is a dog’s visual acuity compared to that of people? | Psychology Today

Originally Posted by LadyShea

If you think I am wrong, find me any literature, citation, or copy pasted link that indicates any relevant field of science predicts or states that this "should" be the case.

If you cannot do so, then I will stand on my belief that Lessans pulled that straight out of his ass.

Originally Posted by peacegirl

I just did. I don't like your aggressive attitude though. Please don't come off like you know all the answers, because you don't.

You didn't answer why dog's should be able to recognize individual humans from photographs based on available scientific literature. 2D photographs do not reflect light the same way a 3D face does, it's a completely different visual experience.

[seebs]

How do you know dogs don't recognize the picture as being a picture of their master?

If you see a photo of someone you know, do you walk up to it and start talking, because it looks just like them? Of course not!

[thedoc]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

You're right, but there is no reason why a dog would not be able to identify the particular features of his master whom he loves by sight alone, if the image is traveling toward his eyes, transducing into signals, and going to his brain for interpretation. Dogs can interpret the smell of many things, and identify them. The same goes for the sense of taste and sound. Why not sight? Why are you not recognizing that there is something different here going on?

You can't compare. We know that humans don't have that capacity because dogs have 25 times more olfactory receptors than humans do. Dogs actually capture more light in dimly lit areas which would also mean that the features of their owner would stand out if the eyes were a sense organ. They may have 20/75 vision but at that distance, the image would be clear, so once again this should not be an impediment to recognition if the eyes were acting as a sense organ. This article is very interesting.

.

Dogs do recognize things by sight alone which has been demonstrated by numerous tests, and the only thing wrong with those tests is that Peacegirl doesn't like them because they contradict Lessans book. All the qualities of sense organs apply equally to the eyes as to the others, Peacegirl has only claimed they are different to create a false problem for efferent vision to solve. But efferent vision does not solve any problems with the current theory of afferent vision because there are no problems that need to be solved. There are still questions about how the brain processes the signals from the eye and what parts of the brain do which exact process but this is all internal to the brain and does not involve external processes.

[LadyShea]

She is moving the goalposts as usual. She's trying to support requiring a very specific ability (recognizing facial features from a photograph) with very generalized visual acuity data.

[seebs]

Originally Posted by seebs

How do you know dogs don't recognize the picture as being a picture of their master?

If you see a photo of someone you know, do you walk up to it and start talking, because it looks just like them? Of course not!

I realize now I should clarify:

Do humans in general consistently interact with photographs as though they are the things they are photographs of? (More interestingly: Consider that humans do make these mistakes in some cases, such as when there's not enough light for the optical sense organs to work reliably.)

I need to clarify this because it occurs to me that for all I know, peacegirl does exactly that.

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by seebs

I realize now I should clarify:

Do humans in general consistently interact with photographs as though they are the things they are photographs of? (More interestingly: Consider that humans do make these mistakes in some cases, such as when there's not enough light for the optical sense organs to work reliably.)

I need to clarify this because it occurs to me that for all I know, peacegirl does exactly that.

I don't believe there are any mistakes made. We have to therefore empirically test these claims. Yes, humans make mistakes, but not all the time. Not every single time. Even if dogs see more clearly at 75 feet, it would be easy to set up an experiment where a huge billboard with their master's features are displayed. What would be the reason for these dogs not to be able to identify their masters features? In fact, we are going to do more than this; we are going to light up this billboard so that the dog's cones can see this billboard as clear as day. Let's determine whether the dog will be able to recognize his master when this experiment is under very specific controls.

[LadyShea]

Even if dogs see more clearly at 75 feet, it would be easy to set up an experiment where a huge billboard with their master's features are displayed. What would be the reason for these dogs not to be able to identify their masters features? In fact, we are going to do more than this; we are going to light up this billboard so that the dog's cones can see this billboard as clear as day. Let's determine whether the dog will be able to recognize his master when this experiment is under very specific controls.

How would you determine identification or recognition in your experiment? What seebs is pointing out is that dogs may in fact recognize the face in the picture, but ALSO recognize that it is a representation and not the real thing, and therefore not react in any way....or react in a way that we humans wouldn't understand and couldn't interpret as recognition or identification.

Just like you wouldn't introduce yourself to a photograph of a person, because you know it is a photograph and not the person, dogs may feel no need to interact with a photograph.

[seebs]

Okay, let's try an experiment. Let's take a photograph of Lessans, and blow it up, and put it on a billboard, then see whether peacegirl, upon seeing it, thinks that it is evidence of physical resurrection.

If she doesn't immediately say "wow, my dad is alive again!", we should conclude that she cannot recognize a photograph of a person as being the same as the person.

[thedoc]

Originally Posted by LadyShea

She is moving the goalposts as usual. She's trying to support requiring a very specific ability (recognizing facial features from a photograph) with very generalized visual acuity data.

There have been tests of a dog's ability to recognize people in a photograph but Peacegirl has rejected them simply because they contradict Lessans claims in the book. In effect Peacegirl has not really moved the goalposts because they have always been total acceptance and agreement with Lessans claims, anything else falls short of the goal in Peacegirls eyes. She should probably have her vision checked along with her sanity, or perhaps she already checked them when she entered this forum.

Eddie Howell Hatcheck Girl - YouTube

[seebs]

Linky to the tests? I am very curious as to how they are measuring/detecting recognition.

[thedoc]

Originally Posted by seebs

Linky to the tests? I am very curious as to how they are measuring/detecting recognition.

I didn't post them I believe that was LadyShea or TLR, but they are back in the thread or in the other one? Sorry I can't tell you where right now. I'll look when I have time, I need to go now relatively important meeting I need to attend.

[LadyShea]

Seebs, there are several articles and abstracts throughout this thread. I'll try to suss out a good search term.

IIRC some used gaze/attention time, and at least one had the dogs choose from between two photographs and they chose (preferred) familiar pictures of landscapes far, far more often than novel ones and familiar people to strangers....the brief abstract didn't detail how the choice was demonstrated. It could have been as simple as sitting in front of the chosen picture, or more complex like pushing a lever or button or something, but I don't know.

There is a video of a Border Collie that can distinguish between 1000+ toys by their names, meaning if you tell her "Go get Peaches" she can go behind a barrier (to prevent signaling from the trainer) to a huge pile of toys and choose Peaches from all of them (that was on Nova Science Now if you want to look it up on YouTube).

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by LadyShea

She is moving the goalposts as usual. She's trying to support requiring a very specific ability (recognizing facial features from a photograph) with very generalized visual acuity data.

Generalized visual acuity data? It's as specific as you can get? Talk about moving the goalposts! I don't care if it's a photograph or a real person, or even if that person is made larger so that the resolution is perfectly clear. If Lessans is right, the dog's master will not be able to be identified due to the eyes not being a sense organ.