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2 The Visual World
content. Mixing the physical signals isn’t even remotely related to reconciling
their content.
An alternative theory is based on 40 Hz wave detected in peoples’ brains
with an EEG. The wave, originating in the thalamus, sweeps the brain from
front to back 40 times per second drawing different neuron circuits into synchrony, and hypothetically conjoining visual elements to yield a composite.
This explanation, however, has the same flaw as the previous one: Firing in
synchrony is just another way of getting all the information together physically
as a simple confluence of separate information streams (For example, separate
series of 0s and 1s.).
It ought to be clear that joining together, or commingling, physical information streams—for example merging simultaneous telephone lines, or joining
wires carrying different TV signals—can result only in a chaotic mess. In the
binding problem, we must explain how the content of numerous related (but
separate) streams of information is meaningfully fused into a new higher-order
synthesis. The synthesis must be hierarchically organized to include the information of the separate streams, and additionally, to present a scaffolding which
displays how all this information together forms a single, coherent whole. This
happens, but no-one knows how.
Dueling with Dualism
The binding problem is closely linked with a question which has dominated
philosophy for the past 400 years. The question was clearly and lucidly laid out
by the seventeenth century philosopher René Descartes. We live in a material
world which exists in space and is subject to physical law. But also, we have
sensations, feelings and awareness. These things are mental and seem to be
of an entirely different kind from physical events. The mind seems to be
non-material, though tied to the brain which is material. This is the famous
dichotomy between matter and mind.
Descartes recognized a problem at this point: Our mind receives information
about the world through our sense organs, and conversely, we are able to act
on the world by willing ourselves to move muscles. How is it possible for a
thought or intention of the immaterial mind to “flip a switch” in the material
brain in order to make a muscle contract? The very idea of mind acting on
matter by a pure effort of will appears a little spooky.
Descartes proposed that in our pineal gland there is a channel of direct
communication between mind and body. Descartes’ proposal would easily
solve the binding problem, for the computations of the visual brain would pass
2 The Visual World
content. Mixing the physical signals isn’t even remotely related to reconciling
their content.
An alternative theory is based on 40 Hz wave detected in peoples’ brains
with an EEG. The wave, originating in the thalamus, sweeps the brain from
front to back 40 times per second drawing different neuron circuits into synchrony, and hypothetically conjoining visual elements to yield a composite.
This explanation, however, has the same flaw as the previous one: Firing in
synchrony is just another way of getting all the information together physically
as a simple confluence of separate information streams (For example, separate
series of 0s and 1s.).
It ought to be clear that joining together, or commingling, physical information streams—for example merging simultaneous telephone lines, or joining
wires carrying different TV signals—can result only in a chaotic mess. In the
binding problem, we must explain how the content of numerous related (but
separate) streams of information is meaningfully fused into a new higher-order
synthesis. The synthesis must be hierarchically organized to include the information of the separate streams, and additionally, to present a scaffolding which
displays how all this information together forms a single, coherent whole. This
happens, but no-one knows how.
Dueling with Dualism
The binding problem is closely linked with a question which has dominated
philosophy for the past 400 years. The question was clearly and lucidly laid out
by the seventeenth century philosopher René Descartes. We live in a material
world which exists in space and is subject to physical law. But also, we have
sensations, feelings and awareness. These things are mental and seem to be
of an entirely different kind from physical events. The mind seems to be
non-material, though tied to the brain which is material. This is the famous
dichotomy between matter and mind.
Descartes recognized a problem at this point: Our mind receives information
about the world through our sense organs, and conversely, we are able to act
on the world by willing ourselves to move muscles. How is it possible for a
thought or intention of the immaterial mind to “flip a switch” in the material
brain in order to make a muscle contract? The very idea of mind acting on
matter by a pure effort of will appears a little spooky.
Descartes proposed that in our pineal gland there is a channel of direct
communication between mind and body. Descartes’ proposal would easily
solve the binding problem, for the computations of the visual brain would pass