From: ZIERT@beloit.edu
Newsgroups: sci.virtual-worlds
Subject: PHIL: VR and the Euclidean "Sensible Realm"
Date: 21 Aug 92 20:15:00 GMT
Organization: University of Washington
Originator: hlab@milton.u.washington.edu



I don't know if I have committed a discussion group faux pax or not,
but I certainly seem to have silenced the beginnings of an interesting
conversation on the ethical ramifications of virtual reality
participation. I didn't mean to; let me apologize to Jeff, Avi, and
others.

When you begin to discuss the ethical and philosophical implications
of VR, you inevitably cross through my world. Let me explain.

I am a painter by training, School of the Art Institute Chicago, and
have been working for the last decade or so on a form of visual
representation which is essentially an embodied spacial reckoning. I
began with canvases, and when I had resolved the problem to my own
satisfaction, I looked around to see who might be interested in the
outcome. My own art community was less than enthusiastic, at least the
gallery owners.

The work is founded upon Alberti, Pierro della Francesca, and Leonardo
from about 500 years ago, and this sort of fundamental research in
visual forms is no longer considered to be a part of the artistic
discipline; rather it is now part of perceptual psychology.  And an
odd part of perceptual psychology considered to be 'ecological' in
character.

Now, please ask; Why I am hanging out on the VR newsgroup rather than
the Perceptual Psychology newsgroup? Somebody out there must be
curious.

The reasons are many, but there are two most appropriate to mention
here.

First; The individual who began the field of ecological psychology was
one of the early researchers in flight simulation during WWII, J.J.
Gibson. I have found his work to be invigorating and challenging, as
well as very supportive of my principle findings.

Second; There is supposed to be an overriding interest by researchers
in VR to represent human experience, and to fool more than the eye.
(We find sound, smell, and other topics being discussed as near term
possibilities within the VR field.) This is intriguing, but so much
could be accomplished by revising our current models of vision as
well.

Painters and those working in VR assume, just as most perceptual
psychologists do, that the 500 year old model of visual phenomena is
inviolable. Nearly every attempt today is set at elaborating or
improving an archaic form and methodology. I will avoid shameless
self-advertising here; but let me ask a question or two.

If you could fool the participant's sensory motor processes as well as
the cortical visual (meaning) structures, wouldn't you want to?  (Is
the virtual in VR intended as a policy statement rather than a
qualifier?)

What of the ethical implications, encountered or confessed, when
people discuss the representation of hyper-space? Clearly we admit an
aspiration to a wholly rational realm nearly unrelated to an embodied
vision. Does this seem innocent or misinformed?

I use the term 'rational realm' above as a contrasting statement and
consider the alternative in this case to be the 'sensible realm'.
Admittedly this sensible realm is an even more archaic concept than
our modern visual theory (ca 500 B.C.), but it would seem to be very
appropriate for the phenomena of vision. Rather than representing 'n'
dimensions as the rational realm implies we should do, we must attempt
to represent a unified field of dimensional values within which time,
space, and body are brought to a common term called rate. Even more
appropriate would be to consider the unified dimensional value as an
undifferentiated whole, one which Euclid's dimensional factoring had
never acted upon. The representation of an embodied dimensional value
is obviously something that the Euclidean model cannot do very well,
but there are viable alternatives.

Oddly enough some characteristic topics of an embodied spacial
reckoning arise within the language of VR technical discussions, an
example; The characteristics of boundary within the two sorts of
spacial methodologies are very different. In the rational realm we
find a classic Euclidean sense of limiting or 'keeping out', but
within the sensible realm classic Greek texts discuss a boundary of
horizon where things come to be. Now, circular boundaries are commonly
used in discussions concerning the choice of what objects ought to be
represented due to scale (etc.) in a VR, but regardless of its
technically Euclidean origins, by my estimation this technique
reflects at least one fundamental characteristic of the sensible
realm.

There are, as I said above, alternatives; alternatives that I believe
JJ Gibson would approve of, and they are of immediate interest to
studies in VR. Whether or not this discussion group is the place for
my particular area of expertise is debatable though, and I am curious
as to whether any of this interests discussion group participants.

We can't take a vote on it, but........

Courteous suggestions are welcome.


*****************************************
T. Zier                 E-mail; ZIERT@BELOIT.EDU
*****************************************
IMAGES AND THEORY DEMONSTRATING AN EMBODIED VISION
WITHIN A UNIFIED FIELD OF DIMENSIONAL VALUES.