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Although many have already registered their fascination with the last lecture already, I'd might as well throw my hat into the ring. Last class was particularly interesting because we melded mechanics with philosophy. I enjoy philosophical, abstract conversations as much as the next person but it is nice to have something more solid to grapple with. We've been learning about the biology behind nervous systems and applying that to philosophical issues quite a bit in this course; however, it's easy to lose sight of the actual biological mechanisms underlying the problems we've been discussing. This topic of visual perception and eye anatomy is so fascinating because it lets us see the man behind the curtain. We now know in what ways the very structure of our eyes limits us in perceiving reality.

The idea that we can perceive things by way of registering points of reflected light is a simple one, yet it's an idea I've always had trouble articulating. I would think about it a lot as a child when I was trying to figure out just what reality was. I couldn't figure out what it was that I was perceiving. Without anyone telling me, I intuitively felt that the world I saw around me might not be the world as it truly is, that my vision was dictated by the physical structures that enabled me to see (talk about catch-22). This issue seems especially pertinent when dealing with art. Who else has been frustrated when trying to draw from a certain perspective or trying to shade just so? The same thing goes for 3D computer modeling. How do we represent reality realistically? What cues us that one object is facing away a few degrees as opposed to straight on? How can we really tell the difference between an object and the background? It's not as if we're cartoon characters with thick, black outlines after all. It's hard to convey even these ideas, since they're taken for granted in day to day life. But if we consciously think about it, it becomes clear that a lot is going on here.

In any case, it's comforting (although I guess for others it's disconcerting) to know that certain quirks in the human visual system can be explained by basic physical principles.