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People are so used to seeing images that it's impossible to recognize that they're an _illusion_. If you see a drawing of an apple, it is colored pigment on a

People are so used to seeing images that it's impossible to recognize that they're an _illusion_. If you see a drawing of an apple, it is colored pigment on a page, it's not an apple, but it's _impossible_ to look at it and not see an apple. _Why_ do we recognize it as an apple? It's certainly not an exact duplicate of the light rays that would enter your eye from a real apple. How different can it be from an apple and still be recognizable? What exactly is the mechanism by which it triggers the recognition? Calling an image a "representation" or saying that it "has a liking" to the real thing is sort of begging the question. The question to be answered is: "In what way is it a representation? And how does it have a liking to the thing represented"?

coldtea 3y ago
>Calling an image a "representation" or saying that it "has a liking" to the real thing is sort of begging the question. The question to be answered is: "In what way is it a representation? Represenation or having-a-liking is not some hazy notion though. It means there are things in our drawing that map to how those things are in the actual thing. And there are: edges, proportions, shapes. But it's not some close mapping of edges in the literal sense. That is, a drawing doesn't have to follow the actual edges of the thing depicted with any accuracy for it to be recognized as such. E.g. we could draw a stick figure instead of a detailed line drawing of a person, or a highly stylized "child drawing" style house, and their edges would look nothing like the edges of the real thing's. But those line drawings would still be easily recognizable.
- empath-nirvana 3y ago
  > That is, a drawing doesn't have to follow the actual edges of the thing depicted with any accuracy for it to be recognized as such This is literally what this link is about, but you do still recognize that there is are "why" and "how" questions to be answered here?
  - coldtea 3y ago
    Yes, just not the why and how questions the author asks, or the way he phrases them...

coldtea 3y ago

>Calling an image a "representation" or saying that it "has a liking" to the real thing is sort of begging the question. The question to be answered is: "In what way is it a representation? Represenation or having-a-liking is not some hazy notion though. It means there are things in our drawing that map to how those things are in the actual thing. And there are: edges, proportions, shapes. But it's not some close mapping of edges in the literal sense. That is, a drawing doesn't have to follow the actual edges of the thing depicted with any accuracy for it to be recognized as such. E.g. we could draw a stick figure instead of a detailed line drawing of a person, or a highly stylized "child drawing" style house, and their edges would look nothing like the edges of the real thing's. But those line drawings would still be easily recognizable.

empath-nirvana 3y ago
> That is, a drawing doesn't have to follow the actual edges of the thing depicted with any accuracy for it to be recognized as such This is literally what this link is about, but you do still recognize that there is are "why" and "how" questions to be answered here?
- coldtea 3y ago
  Yes, just not the why and how questions the author asks, or the way he phrases them...