Visual Phenomenology: a conversation with Dr. Michael Madary

In this video, Dr. David M. Peña-Guzmán interviews Dr. Michael Madary (University of the Pacific) about his recent book Visual Phenomenology (MIT Press, 2016). They discuss the nature of visual experience and visual content, and talk about how different experts have conceptualized and modeled vision in the 20th and 21st centuries. Is vision a bottom-up process of perception, or is it a top-down phenomenon that blurs the distinction between perception and cognition? Do we really see what "is there", or is visual experience driven by our own predictions and expectations? Finally, how does a theory of vision grounded in phenomenology explain our visual experience of other people and thus the so-called "problem of other minds"?
You can check out Madary's book here: mitpress.mit.e....
Graphics and editing by Aaron Morgan
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[@cultureandtheory5097]

"Thank you, Dr. Madary and Dr. Pena Guzman, for this insightful conversation on 'Visual Phenomenology.' Your exploration of the intricacies of visual perception and consciousness has been truly enlightening. Looking forward to delving deeper into the book and continuing to learn from your expertise in this fascinating field."

[@michaelsintef7337]

I am not very educated in philosophy, but enjoy the discussions raised on this channel. This one was particularly difficult for me to wrap my brain around. It might have been easier for me if there was a problem stated up front which the question of phenomenology is trying to solve.

[@iamyuvasrikishore04]

Sir can you explain the meaning of the terms "concept" and "mental representation" in philosophy with simple examples?

[@olives.twisted.branch]

David you're all up in the uncanny valley babe. This is so interesting. We're always building a mind map of our surroundings that is refreshed by incoming data from senses

[@olives.twisted.branch]

i Believe if my brain could all of a sudden start perceiving the world around me exadtly as David's brain would perceive it i would probably start freaking out at the differences and vice versa. i imagine it would be extremely disorienting. There was an Episode of Bob's Burgers where different animation teams each did a section of the show in their own visual art style {Super Cool Episode!} Thats what each one of our brains does to the world around us it hallucinates our internal perception of what most people believe is reality.

[@cgillespie8010]

Not sure if this will actually get read, but just to give an example of how volatile the argument is: a recent study indicated that at least one visual illusion which was thought to be cognitive and based in expectation could be explained a specific mathematical model of retinal cells. In other words, it was definitely a product of the interplay of the structural response of neurons to light (and can be anticipated by the model that otherwise simulates the response). That doesn't strictly answer the question though as the retina itself is a by-product of both bodily development and evolutionary learning, the latter point doesn't get brought up too much. But all you need do is have a stronger philosophical distinction about aspects of self that persist (think of language or motor tics that travel from dead parent to living son, or across twins that have never met) versus those that are emergent and immediate and you can get back to thinking in terms of anticipation (albeit with an extra layer fine-structure). I would argue that the absence of vocabulary in the present context is actually a by-product of art history and its relative distance from every-day acceptance (as opposed to music vocabulary) one problem is that each time a painter or artist has collected and created a term it tends to remain both specialist and located in the outlook of the artist or affiliated artists. If you have a different philosophy (less visually inclined) the next artists don't adopt the term so it doesn't enter vocabulary. And when they do, such as the word Surreal, they also become decoupled from the original intent. Basically unlike Philosophical language where you have a bunch of people who consistently argue and maintain definitions Artistic Language is more unstable. But that's consistent with changes in expectations and beliefs influencing perception. There is also a definitive set of conversations with artists, especially regarding Painting, where the Phenomology of the act of Painting is one that is trance-like, almost-chance like, emergent from awareness but also separate from it. It comes up in Francis Bacons conversations with Sylvester. All of which puts indeterminacy and determinacy at the core of action and vision as the interface of self, awareness and exteriority.

[@doylesaylor]

Peripheral vision sees the motion structure of the world. It’s not indeterminant or meaningless, it is the connectivity of everything. Daniel Dennett is particularly treacherous source of meaning to seeing. He loved to wave his hands and use reference to magic as a way to know what seeing does. Rods which are tuned to motion connect the whole field into one, whereas cones make bits and pieces of seeing. Which is precisely the function of seeing color. Meaning we know external things are in theirselves, where seeing motion says it is all one whole. The precise fundamental sense of every day seeing is it is one indivisible whole. Not center and surround as two distinct pathways of seeing. Which anatomically vision is a duplex architecture.

[@doylesaylor]

In a phenomenological approach just see in the images some word like, book, then in the video see the word book there. Is that seen book, specific, or word like apart from the object? Detachment signals cognition that language imposes upon the seen world in the video. Meaning the parallel internal reality of words has to detach from the seen whole of the world. This is why color in primates precedes the sense of both we know a colored object and it detaches as a thing in itself for us. Which detachment becomes a wholeness structure of speech acts.

[@youtoobfarmer]

Vision is not the same as perception and it's just pure confusion to conflate the two, as is done here so many times.

[@doylesaylor]

Why is this so much talk? Here is a video of these two people. So how is this connected to the phenomenology of seeing? What is being seen here? For example belief and seeing color are related. Color is not there, meaning color blind people don’t see the same colors as tri-receptors people see. Which is like saying a ‘belief’ is internal apart from the outside. Meaning color represents ‘knowing’ not the thing itself.

[@BadgerOfTheSea]

The answer is simple really. There is so much talk because this is a conversation.

[@doylesaylor]

@@BadgerOfTheSea Yes, that’s a norm. But the topic is visual phenomenology in which all the content is really words. In a video! Make words out of the pictures surrounding the talkers! Especially the concept of peripheral indeterminacy. Which is the equivalent of saying there is nothing there. It’s not nothing, but the sense of being ‘whole’ in the world. Wholeness is what the body does in a space. It’s not just seeing the outside consumer objects, and nature. It is us obligated to be alive in the world around us.