From: Christopher Whipple (crw@well.com)
Date: Wed Oct 09 2002 - 11:27:10 MDT
Prompted by discussion on this list, I picked up a copy of Pinker's
"How the Mind Works" and have just reached the half-way point.
I find it rather sad that I feel I need to insert a disclaimer at this
point - especially with this bright bunch - but recent list squabbles
make me feel it's necessary. This email is intended to provoke
thoughtful discussion, not to raise anyone's ire. If you've nothing
positive to contribute, the delete key is an inch away. :)
That being said - the part of the book that's fascinated me the most so
far is explanation of the visual system. Especially the part about
motion- and space-sickness. And it got me thinking about how long it
would take to re-train our minds and bodies use our individual eyes
independent of one another.
Pinker went to great lengths to explain "cyclopian" vision - or the
image our brain receives from the combined input of both eyes... and
how it all works. He presented stereograms (which I *still* can't
see), illusions and diagrams to show how our side-by-side eyes
construct this image. But it left me wondering about other animals -
owls, fish, whales, squid(?) whose eyes are in a much different
configuration. What do their cyclopian images look like and how has it
affected their evolutionary behavior?
But stepping back to space-sickness. Pinker explained that this was
caused by a combination of what the eyes see and the way the inner ear
is set up to account for gravity. From what I understand of the way
the inner ear works, it's all based on vibration - which leads me to
wonder whether a specialized set of earmuffs might be able to cancel
out the vibrations and reduce motion- or space-sickness. I suppose it
would require some sort of gyroscope and a way to create vibrations
that gave the inner ear an artificial sense of gravity. How off-base
am I on this?
And back to changing our physiology - I want to pose this question -
what would the human body look like and behave like after a thousand or
so generations in a zero-gravity environment? What evolutionary
obstacles would have to be overcome? What I would consider non-answers
such as "we'll have reached the Singularity by that point so our bodies
won't matter" are to be expected - but let's say that nothing that
grand happens and humans are just left to live in space for awhile.
What's the outcome?
-crw.
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