Status
Available
Publication
New York : W.W. Norton, 2000, c1998.
Description
"In an informal style replete with illustrations, cognitive scientist Donald Hoffman presents the compelling scientific evidence for vision's constructive powers, and in so doing he unveils a grammar of vision - a set of rules that govern our perception of line, color, form, depth, and motion. Hoffman also describes the loss of these constructive powers in patients who have suffered devastating impairments: the artist who can no longer see or dream in color; the woman who, having lost her perception of motion, can no longer cross the street. Finally, Hoffman explores the spinoff of visual intelligence in the arts and technology from the dynamics of film special effects to the visual worlds of virtual reality."--Jacket.
User reviews
LibraryThing member abraxalito
I discovered Donald Hoffman from reading edge.org where I was entranced by his answers to the annual questions. I've become a big fan of his philosophy of 'conscious realism' - that our world (what we refer to as reality, the philosopher's world of tables and chairs) is a multi-modal, species
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specific user interface to something deeper. This book goes some way towards explaining how this is so. Show Less
LibraryThing member RajivC
I like this book, and in one sense there is no need to give it a three star rating. The book has been very well laid out, and systematically guides through the reader through the various aspects of seeing, and how we form images in our brain and the "confusion" between the three and two dimensional
The only reason I give this a three star reading, and not a four star rating, is that I, personally, would have been happier with a more engaging style in writing.
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world, in how we draw out three dimensional images on the two dimensional space. There is enough here to entertain and educate the reader. The only reason I give this a three star reading, and not a four star rating, is that I, personally, would have been happier with a more engaging style in writing.
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