Biology of Knowledge: The Evolutionary Basis of Reason.

Riedl, Rupert

doi:10.2307/2530895

Cited by 16 publications

(26 citation statements)

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“…In both examples the direction of the luminance gradient is important. Things tend to appear ‘object-like’ (‘animal’, ‘grain’, etc), that is convex , if they are light on top, dark at bottom, a polarization that can be traced to the predominantly tendency of natural illumination to be directed top down (Metzger 1975; Riedl 1984; Süffert 1932; Thayer 1909). Illumination from above derives from both direct sunlight (the sun generally appearing above the horizon) and overcast skies (the zenith being the brightest patch in the scene) (Minnaert 1993).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Shading Cue in Context

2010

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The shading cue is supposed to be a major factor in monocular stereopsis. However, the hypothesis is hardly corroborated by available data. For instance, the conventional stimulus used in perception research, which involves a circular disk with monotonic luminance gradient on a uniform surround, is theoretically ‘explained’ by any quadric surface, including spherical caps or cups (the conventional response categories), cylindrical ruts or ridges, and saddle surfaces. Whereas cylindrical ruts or ridges are reported when the outline is changed from circular to square, saddle surfaces are never reported. We introduce a method that allows us to differentiate between such possible responses. We report observations on a number of variations of the conventional stimulus, including variations of shape and quality of the boundary, and contexts that allow the observer to infer illumination direction. We find strong and expected influences of outline shape, but, perhaps surprisingly, we fail to find any influence of context, and only partial influence of outline quality. Moreover, we report appreciable differences within the generic population. We trace some of the idiosyncrasies (as compared to shape from shading algorithms) of the human observer to generic properties of the environment, in particular the fact that many objects are limited in size and elliptically convex over most of their boundaries.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Shading Cue in Context

2010

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“…While earlier capacities presumably retained some of their functional components within higher capacities, it must also be recognized that great qualitative changes in ability cannot be adequately explained by their preconditions alone (Medicus. 1987;Riedl, 1984). Presumably, over great time spans, there is expanded potential for autonomous forms of expressed development that transcend (go beyond) the conditions that initially gave rise to them.…”

Section: The Linguistlc Inheritancementioning

confidence: 99%

Communication, Conflict, and Culture

Mortensen

1991

Commun Theory

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This study examines the role of complex language in the evolution of communication, conflict, and culture. The main thesis is that language, conflict, and communication initially arose from pressures built in to the critical life-or-death situations our ancestors were compelled to share with one another. From such a perspective, communication is viewed as a world-analyzing, reality-testing, sutvival-oriented mechanism. Complex language enables humans to transform the cultural inheritance and fulfill basic ecological tasks associated with individual security and collective well-being.Neither our kinship with other animals, nor the shortcomings of our culture, of our customs and our social institutions, can be overlooked without loss. (Agassi, 1983, p. 237) The Study of OriginsIt is important to understand what made it possible for our human ancestors to learn to talk with one another after the vast expanse of unrecorded history. After all, what happened 10 to 50 thousand years ago is not all that far removed from what transpires within our own time and place in recorded history. Moreover, our ancestors constitute the living legacy for life in the 20th century. Contemporary communicative practices, however they may or may not be related, are manifestations of cultural systems related by the principle of descent with modification (Durham, 1990). Humans, unlike other animals, have developed, as Smillie (1985) states, "the capacity to transmit information, not just laterally, within generations, but vertically across generations" (p. 80). From an ecological standpoint, then, the invention of complex language is only a flicker, a flashpoint, in time removed from the stream of contemporary events. To understand elements of stress, strain, struggle, and strife in the social fabric, we must be prepared to take into account a written legacy that measures the full magnitude of our inheritance.The essential task is to study face-to-face interaction in a way that seeks to demonstrate how the conduct of various individuals, and the systems and structures that support or threaten their collaborative endeavors, are all historically constituted, both at the (micro) level of given types of exchange relations and at the larger (macro) level of the diverse institutional conditions in which they are embedded. This study seeks to reexamine a body of scholarly literature that 273

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“…Smuts would no doubt have approved of Riedl's (1981) comment elsewhere that the analytic, atomistic 'left brain' approach which is characteristic of Western thinking, which tends overall to favour reductionism, has 'forced holism out of biology, wholeness out of psychology and heuristics out of logic'. In the psychological literature, holism in a broad sense has been consistently ranged against reductionism and behaviourism.…”

Section: Holism and Reductionismmentioning

confidence: 99%

Smuts's Holism and Evolution Sixty Years On

Poynton

1987

Transactions of the Royal Society of South Africa

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Biology of Knowledge: The Evolutionary Basis of Reason.

Cited by 16 publications

References 0 publications

The Shading Cue in Context

The Shading Cue in Context

Communication, Conflict, and Culture

Smuts's Holism and Evolution Sixty Years On

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