SCIENCE

AND PROGRESS

Demidov

AS
We see what
WHAT TO
SEE

"Knowledge"
Publishing Moscow
1979
88
D30

Demidov V. E.
D 3 0 As we see what we see. M., "With knowledge
of "1979.
208 S. (Science and Progress).

The problem of perception of the external world with the help of view of the authorities - is one of the most
interesting scientific problems. Among those who paid tribute to her, we will find the names of many eminent
people of different ages and nations. Now over this problem of my work large research teams, armed sa mymi
modern research facilities. Among them the Research Laboratory of Physiology, Institute of Physiology. IP
Pav fishing USSR in Koltushi near Leningrad, use the principle of holography to explain the "mechanism" of
visual information processing by our brain. Speaking about the work of the laboratory, the author of widely
attracting materials obtained nye

other Soviet and foreign researchers. This science-fiction book is intended for a wide circle of
readers.

Knowledge" Publishing House, 1979

The author of this book - is not only a journalist but also engi neer. And the book
itself - the result of five years of creative collaboration with scientists from the
Laboratory of Physiological ology of the Institute of Physiology. I. P. Pavlova of
the USSR. All these five years, the author closely followed the success of its
employees and constantly played with a hundred tyami about their works.

The problems discussed in the book B. De Ministries of Foreign Affairs sets

out, based on the hypothetical holographic memory of the brain, is actively
developing in recent years scientists all over the world (for the sake of rigor
should be noted that this concept is shared not all researchers). Among these
studies occupy a prominent place Trudy Soviet scientists, especially working in
the institu tions of Physiology. I. P. Pavlova. Since holography - the brainchild of
engineers, it is understood nym why one of them could easily and naturally
navigate using holographic computer sa sea of various data, which looks ka
zhutsya scattered, but actually demonstrating by the profound unity of the
material nature of the world, opening in front us.

A unified approach to a variety of problems earned him well-deserved

success. Analyzing with one voice the question of identification of visual images
and ranks "whims" of fashion, color perception and the structure of individual
systems of the optic tract, optic yl-

3
lyuzii and the formation of an internal model of the world, De foreign ministers is
successful explanation of "mysterious" phenomena, advances a plausible
hypothesis. By Kim finds that include, for example, the hypothesis about the
causes of changes in fashion, the explanation of the "secrets" Penrose triangle
and "impossible paintings"; its image and curious author's approach to the
problem of noun Nosta abstractions and concepts of beauty. Convincingly
disclosed externally paradoxical thesis that behold tion illusion - the reflection of
accuracy of automatic operation of the visual apparatus, reflection Nosta correct
model of the world is shaped by the past experience of the person.

Clarity, accessibility and at the same time scientific Straw guest of

presentation - the undoubted dostoinst in the book you hold in your hands. In the
list of the literature used by the author, - the works of cereals Nation scholars
engaged in vision problems, both Soviet and foreign. Demidov personally zna is
many of his characters, he had been in the scientific Laboratories riyah, was
present at the experiments, and because scientific research atmosphere is
transferred to them as convincing and entertaining.

Good, figurative language stating the extremely complex problems of

neurophysiology and psychology, ki cybernetics and medicine, the author never
falls into garizatsiyu Vul. He freely uses the term many sciences, results in
successful, vivid examples, so dit follows the plot of the logic of the reader will
baa zuslovno interesting. Holography problem - the problem is largely
mathematical, and so pleasant that it uda elk explained without formulas on quite
understandable to the general reader level. It is very important that Demidov
refers to the most recent work, the results to be published toryh literally just that,
in 1977, -. In the book felt the pulse of the present, it is relevant and fresh.

The history of knowledge of mechanisms of work of the visual apparatus - is

the story of the struggle between science and idealism. New studies also confirm
once again the materialistic thesis of Mosti knowable nature in all its
manifestations, including such complex as vision and thinking. In place of the
"soul" of science puts amazing in its ottochen-

4
Nost electrochemical processes in the neural networks of the brain.
Experimental Techniques every year Stano vitsya more sophisticated, our
penetration into the essence of things - deeper. Man learns more and more
himself, gets into these mysteries, to whom the secrets of the ocean and space
fade away. And (with the language of science is becoming increasingly complex,
science breaks up into increasingly narrow disciplines so that scientists
rabotayu boiling in one of the laboratories, already struggling in the landmark
are the problems of their neighbors behind the wall. Volume Institute formation
increases as the snow com, and because the role on Manual discharge

popularization, special generalizing

related achievements, and related disciplines, there is a growing these years.
The scientist often cher Paet of these works useful information. Book Demidov is
precisely one of these books - a successful attempt to generalize the results up
by professionals working in sama x times the personal fields of knowledge. And
not just to summarize, but also to connect these results with the problems of life,
close to literally every person, combining ser eznost approach scientist eagerly
style writer.

Academician OG r a h e n to about
 In the I want to get to the very essence

B. Pasternak

. . . Before the eyes at me, or rather, right in front of one of the HVA Zom, because the left is
closed black piece of paper, in the form of hole Neet bright rectangle in which a bizarre set Coy
intertwined thin wavy lines. Clicked, the line IC chezli, the box for a moment sprinkles white, and
again there was interlacing lines.

- Well, that you saw?

- Nothing - I must confess I am.
- And rightly so. So it should be. And now? Again click. This time seemed to see that
outline ka someone quadruped.

- Dog - I say. - Or any other animal. Not just looked really.

Again, clicking disappears interweaving lines. And here I have understood clearly: the goat! Or
maybe a goat: about udder remains to doubt ...

- Goat - speaks Aleksandra Aleksandrovna Nevskaya.

- And because the people you are untrained, and the time you have one hundred fifty
milliseconds. You do not know what I'm going to show pictures.

- And if a trained and knew - what then?

- Then you would have seen it before, even if a hundred, and even at sixty milliseconds.

- Why is this?
- Because then your visual apparatus would be much fast! Ray walked around "wood
sign."
- "Trees signs"? Just some kind of genealogy ...
- To some extent there. But first - a bit of the history of this whole problem. The view when
you start to understand, it is strange and mysterious literally everything ...

So began my acquaintance with the Laboratory of Physiology, led by Professor Vadim

Davidovich Glaser.
 Chapter first

BORDER preconscious

. . . The facts are not explained by of an existing

theories, the most up to the horns of the science,
of their development
should mainly be expected for its development ...

A. M. Butlerov

Why all conceivable tables combined with our knowledge of the word "table"?
Why all conceivable dere Vias - "tree"? As a man learns what he sees?

Three centuries ago, the English philosopher and educator Dzhon Lokk
wrote a book: "The experience of the human ra zoom". He worked on it for
almost twenty years. He cried about it convincingly and unequivocally: "In my
heart there is no innate ideas!" The human brain, he claimed - a "clean plate",
which draws its patterns world perceived by the senses.

To identify an object, it must be attributed to the determined divided by

class. Which? Child vet suggest from parents,
student - teacher, the ignorant -
knowing. Here's the first way of knowing.
The second way - his own impressions. To get acquainted with the world of,
you need not contemplate it without bars tatsya in scholastic reasoning and
boldly, "WMO dit in contact" with him, let him make mistakes, falling down, but
always getting up and moving forward fearlessly. The experience produced even
at great cost, the most faithful teacher. There is nothing higher experience and
nothing that could replace it. So Locke taught.

Locke objected to his contemporary, the great German mathematician cue

Gotfrid Vilgelm Leybnits: Yes, but the faiths, all delivered to the mind by the
senses, everything. For IC exception ... of the mind!

The basic ideas of logic and mathematics, these "truths

9
Reason "are obliged (according to Leibniz) is present in the minds of Vat initially.
The idea of the length of, for example, should be laid back, long before the age of
the forehead begins to measure anything. Therefore, the ability to assess the
extent of the innate as well as the nature of man are many other talents.

Only experience? Or just inherent from birth? Experiments were carried out
almost no time, attempted to resolve the problem of the mind.

- Take a look at the newborn! - cried empi Rist, followers of Locke. - Do

you think it is something to see? In his head he's nothing but solid welter, hash
hazy spots!

- What spots ?! - outraged nativist, for protects views Leibniz, Descartes

and Kant. - Yes

Fig. 1. Developing a living being, and it becomes more difficult the organization of the cortex of his
brain. Notice how thicken processes - dendrites as they are increasingly branching

3 months 15 months 24 months

10
thousands of years of human existence, his eyes had to evolve as well, the baby
sees no worse than an adult! He just does not know how to say, but it would all
become clear ...

And does not allow the dispute lasted a good two hundred and fifty years.
Was ahead of science, the contestants went on more and more evidence in their
favor. And neglected those "poured into the hands," the opposite side. Only in sa
mye last years of the century, it became clear that no point of view has no
advantage. Or, if you prefer, "he won the friendship": the truth lies in the middle,
only a flexible combination of experience and innate forms a complete living being.

Experience, of course, gives the body extremely INR th. If a young

chimpanzee be grown in the dark, only for a very short time, including a weak
scattering yanny light, they do not become a bad vision: shifts of look is much
greater, it is not so much of how the brain itself. Conditional Ref Lexa in these
chimpanzees occur much more slowly than their counterparts living in normal
circumstances. On the divided light creation is not distinguished minister, tory to
their feeds from the outside public. Even butts span of milk, so addictive to a
small monkey, does not cause their emotions ... And the reason is that "animals
deprived of visual feeling Nij corresponding neurons did not develop in the bio
chemical terms," - explains a prominent physio log Jose Delgado, known for his
interesting study of the brain.

they are very few proteins and ribonuk

leinovoy acid - the same RNA which is especially important for the organism. And
the weight of the cerebral cortex, planted on starving infor mation, is lower than it
should be.

In 1931, German physician Max von Senden cataracts removed several

blind from birth children. The rest of the optic tract was their right. Still, it turned
out that "during the first days after the operation the visible world was deprived of
any meaning for them, and familiar objects, such as a cane or a favorite chair,
they recognized only to the touch." Only

eleven
after a long workout Clearwisdom children were taught to see things, but the
vision to act and in the future a lot worse than usual at this age. They could
hardly distinguish the square of the hexagon. To detect them the difference,
considered angles, helping himself with his fingers, often brought down, and it
was evident that for them is the PBO znavanie difficult and serious task.
Moreover, they have confused things. Rooster and the horse perceived equally
because both animals have a tail, the fish looked like a camel, because the fin
looked like a hump ...

On the first day of appearance of the baby born of view of

It helps him to comprehend the world. But this
undeniable truth does not solve the problem, which is one hundred and yawl at
the origins of the dispute empiricists and nativist: the difference is that a newborn
baby in what he sees, or not?
If we talk about animals, experiments on shimisya hatched from an egg
chicks showed as if the truth of nativist. The ability to distinguish between (at
least in feed) are given to the birds from birth. day tsyplya-

Fig. 2. What is more like an object on the grain, the cha slit peck his chickens,
showing that the way
Nost distinguish the shape inherent from birth:
1 - after 10 minutes after Vlu pilis chicks from the egg; II - after 40 minutes

12
that pecking balls ten times more often than rolled in a number of pyramids.
They always prefer circles triangles. And if we have to choose between the ball
and the circle, do not hesitate to pay close attention to the three-dimensional
shape and ignore ruyut flat. In short, for them more interesting that more closely
resembles food. We call the ability to bite, barely born, instinct. A spo lities
understand what peck - also John stinkt? Of course. But instinct is not enough.
Necessary and the ability of the visual apparatus to identify the round, Poho
zhee feed. But if an idea about the food on the investigation?

The experimenter moves from the chickens to the herring gull chicks. In the
nest of their feeds from the beak of botlivaya mother. And during the experiment
cub bites often objects that resemble the form of mother's beak!

There is no doubt: the visual system of chicks immediately after birth so

perfect that they consisting SRI distinguish the form. However, we are not too
opti mystic? Suddenly the vision "set up" just before the Meta, the reference for
each species of birds, and more or anything else does not understand?

The question disappears like smoke as soon as we mimsya signs with

imprinting. This amazing psychologists cal mechanism lies in the fact that, for
example, duckling in the interval between the thirteenth and semnadtsa fifth
hours after the release of the egg, "said the mother," any moving near his
subject and then always running after a "mother", even if it would be a minister of
the incubator , a soccer ball, or "little green box with an alarm clock ticking
inside." There is no and there can be no instinctive "Settings" on the form, nor
the study: form too unexpected and too insignificant a little time between the
birth and the development of "habits". In addition, the imprinting does not occur if
you try to call not only many hours later, the optimal period. For chicks then a
mother - someone else's duck. So he sees things from chetlivo and firmly
remembers

their. - Oh, this is not evidence - objected, and to a certain extent, not without

reason, empiricists. - experiments

13
put on the animal and the animal - not a man ... Now, if you could ask a baby ...

Yes, the baby - that was until recently the last argument of the invincible.
Indeed, how to speak to the merits, do not know the speech?

Surprisingly, tormented by this problem, physiological gi somehow long time

remembered Sgiach classical experiments I. P. Pavlova. Meanwhile Pavlovian
conditioned reflex method is equally applicable to not able to talk to the dog and
not yet learned to speak the newborn. When researchers figured out how to put
the experience to not bore the child and not hurt him, she fell down and that "the
last fortress empiricist."

Kids who are old, just turned from one to fourteen days, a Swiss physician
F. Shtirniman showed color card: if there was a pattern he has always aroused
more interest than "flat" flat painting. Other researchers mouth novili that in two
weeks of age the baby pref reads to look at objects, shape and color (or rather,
diversity) which is more difficult, and in two months of his pain Chez like pictures
with concentric circles than with parallel lines. What are the "formless nye spots",
where the "confusion" ?!

Children who are less than a month, from a distance of a meter odd vert
distinguished line of three millimeter thick pa, half-year - the thickness of
four-tenths of milli meters. This last result, however, is still five times worse than
the sharpness of an adult, but it is far better than hitherto imagined doctors and
psy hologi.

Even more sensational were experiments in which newborns showed piled

up: in one - a schematic drawn fun cheloveche skoe person on the other - in
disarray scattered uly bayuschiysya mouth, nose, eyes, eyebrows, and on the
third-or anything, just a brightly colored plane . The children aged from four days
to six months favored the first oval, showing scientists its inherent from birth the
ability to perceive organized structures than, of course, is a human face. Even if
we assume that the Ministry of Health n baby laid on a standard identification of
persons

14
(Later we will see that this is not so but neveroyat), the visual apparatus must be
so again vit to the standard could be used, and this vision is quite apparently,
cope. There is something to think about the people that produce toys for the little
ones ...

Thus, the eye gives a person an important tion of information from the very
first day of its life. But as the baby learns what he sees? Look after it may be
held and completely meaningless images: an eight minedelny baby, for example,
drew attention to the circle with tisnut thereon newspaper text three times, four
times more often than on a smooth painted circled ki, but no one would claim
that the child's integral resuyut letters.

Fig. 3. Infants are much more likely to look at the complex patterns in texture than plain { A B C -
Red, baa ly and blue discs), and the human person draws special but a lot of attention. Blue bar
- children aged

2 to 3 months, shaded - older than 3 months

 And interest is still there. Hence, the vision gives eye muscles some signals.
On the other hand, speaking of the adult visual system, Engels wrote: "To Shem
eye on joining not only has the other senses, but also the activities of our
thinking." Actually, a modern science no longer separates the brain from the
eyes, as once. She no longer believes that the role of limited "delivery" of
information, analogously to the way they bring the postman does not claim that
the role of the brain is reduced only to the "perception" napodo Bie letter read.
Physiology of the second half of the XX century. formulates clearly: "The eye - it
is part of the brain withdrawable nutaya to the periphery."

"Part of the Brain" ... Where the apparatus of the optic ends and where
begins his own brain - a repository of intelligence?

German Gelmgolts, that, according to I. M. Sechenova, "the greatest

physiologist" of the nineteenth century, is called the perception of our
"unconscious umozaklyu cheniyami". Indeed, when we look at the aqua rium
with goldfish, we are not engaged in the construction of syllogisms Niemi: "Being
possessing gills and live in the water, the essence of the fish; These beings have
gills and the liquid in the vessel, apparently, water; consequently, they are fish. "
We simply refers "by The collection of signs," the dim flickering calf to a class of
fish, without a moment's hesitation about how we do it.

It looks very different solution to the problem: "By Ka, who belongs to the
class of an unknown organism, you lovlenny networks from the depths of the
ocean?" At this point we mo bilizuem our logical ability and knowledge to carry
out an accurate classification. We will think, though the problem seems to be the
same: to carry to class tselakantusa caught fish. Of course, the cradle of the
boundary, and the Helmholtz rightly we conclude that "there is no doubt about the
presence of similarity between the results, which can be reached with the help of
conscious and unconscious umozaklyu cheny".

In this similarity - the reason that people are practical cally never be able to
tell how they vie DYT what they see. They invent, they are trying to construct an
act of the way they have it po-

16
Nima, trying to put into words the phenomenon of the process that occurs during
operation of the visual apparatus. A word - it's not something what the vision.

They will show you several thousands of photos seascape ments, and then
demonstrate a few hundred very similar, but which you certainly have not seen
before. In at least eight cases out of ten, and usually much more confident,
people distinguish unfamiliar picture of the old "feeling that I have not seen her
..." Why is felt? Where the hidden mechanism Various cheniya? Sometimes the
viewer with difficulty, but finds the words to somehow mark the difference. But for
this it is necessary to recall the stress, turn to the experimenter for leading
questions - tion layer, spend a lot of time and effort with little, in general,
expectations of success. And to answer that this is not a photo, needed only a
quick look!

"Pictures remain in the memory is not in the form of words", - writes the
American physiologist R. Haber article about experiments with the recognition of
landscapes. Add to this: on the contrary, people often try to memorize it word - in
the form of visual images. The book known Soviet psychologist Alexander Luria
Romano Witch "Little book of big memory 'describes the history of observations,
which the author conducted over several decades of professional nym
mnemonist Sh, has a truly phenomenal tional memory. "He did not care if he
brought meaningful words or nonsense syllables were, numbers or sounds, if
they were given either orally or in writing; it needed only to one element of the
proposed number has been separated from another pause of 2-3 seconds, and
the subsequent playback of the series did not cause him any difficulty.

Even after many years of Sh reproduced predyav lennye once the series
without the slightest error. As he remembered them? Show Tables
"photographed" look, and they are firmly imprinted in his mind. And if he ranks
dictated memorization technique was different:

he set word-images along the street. Usually it was Gorky Street in

Moscow, of the area

17
Mayakovsky to the center. The figures, for example, converting the people were
in the figures: Seven looked "a man with a mustache," eight - "very complete
woman" and therefore the number 87 was seen "full woman with a man with a
mustache." The word "rider" appeared in the form of a cavalryman, then (when
Sh becoming profes tional mnemonist, moved to the "economical" SIS theme of
remembering) in the form of army boots with a chip seal swarm.

Once the images have been placed, it has no difficulty (not was, of course,
only for Sh) to remember them, "walking" on the street - in the direction of Liu
buoy, from any location. If the "word-figure" accidentally fell into an unfavorable
position - We say, in the shadow of the gateway, - Sh could and "did not notice"
it. He explained those rare occasions when his catch whether forgetfulness: "I
put a pencil near og glad - you know the fence on the street - and that's Karan
das merged with a fence, and I passed."

Widely known Einstein's statement about his "meditation techniques" during

operation: "In Vidi Momo, words of the language in their written or oral, play no
role in the mechanism of thinking. Psi hicheskie entities that are likely to serve by
the elements of thought - are certain signs and more or less clear images which
can be "arbitrarily" to reproduce and combine with each other ... Plain nye words
and other signs have to painfully Isa skivat only the second stage when the
association said the game is quite established and can be reproduced at will. "

With the same view, although marked with some other positions, we meet in
the book is known from Russian statesman MM spe Ranskiy "higher eloquence
Rules," published in 1795 .: "Our thoughts run much faster without Gelis our
language , whose slow, heavy, and always conquered by the rules of course
infinitely complicates expressed voltage ... Clutch concepts in mind it is
sometimes so subtle, so gently, that the slightest attempt one to discover this
very relationship breaks her words and destroy ... "

Especially sharply expressed Tiutchev: "Thought izre Chennai is a lie!" And

we want you to learn from man, as his brain sees what he sees, why

18
all the tables for him - "table". Does An attempt ka hopeless? No!

Modern science has excellent master key to the essence of all kinds of
mysterious mecha mov - method of "black box". Researchers are called black
box all the things that can not say how they are arranged. Inside the box is dark,
and from the outside - a wide scope for hypotheses. And about believing their
experiments such as described Kozmoy Prutkovym: "Click the mare's nose - it
will wave hvos that." The person conducting the experience, "click" black box (as
- is and is the ability to ask questions of nature), and then writes a response rea
tion. Question-answer, question and answer ... The diversity and sophistication
of its interrogative side of things, the bo Slack received information.

What then? Then it is necessary to analyze the list of questions and

answers, to put forward the hypothesis of the internal structure of the black box
and check them again, asking him a new, more profound dialogue of man with a
black box - a wealth of material for long-Sheha scientific research. Sooner or
later, however, the present Paet moment to take stock, make exception for how
our box works. And interpretation is the results of the study - it is sometimes very
slippery. So why play chess doll can drive any dodgy Lowland fur or hidden
inside the player. Doll reaction to our moves suggests, both the variants of.
Where is the truth? To make a final judgment, it is necessary to open the shell
and machine posmot ret.

View want and psychologists from "behavioral" experiments involving

animals or humans, a researcher proceed to study individual neurons and
neuronal networks, considering the visual apparatus to work under a variety of
angles. We will go with them all the way to the end to make sure: nai more
plausible, the richest of the investigation and "lateral moves" model of visual
perception, memory, and recognition that sees the people (and not only people),
- the holographic model. In different countries, many experts have expressed on
this topic suggestions found very convincing indirect

19
nye confirmation. Laboratory staff, sleeves Dima Professor Glaser, first got Real
proofs at the level of visual neurons to brain ry. And along the way we
discovered many more important details of the work of the visual mechanism.

And now it's time to 'answer the question, where it ends

visual apparatus, and begins his own brain. In the retina of the eye one hundred
twenty-five million light sensitivity of cells - the photoreceptor. From them to the
Ministry of Health gu go eight thousand nerve fibers. For every fifty cells of a
single fiber - which means that even at the level of the retina occurs some very
of effective information processing. The nerve signals po-

Fig. 4. The human eye

20
step into different parts of the brain, including in the lateral geniculate body (NCB),
then in the visual cortex of the hemispheres. From a visual signal on each stage of
the extracted most significant, then to a higher level,

this information was

convenient to operate. Including engaged and by manifold logical
transformations.
That is why the Laboratory believe that the "eye", or rather, the visual
apparatus ends where concretizes retnoe (visual) thinking is replaced by logical
(abstract). The mechanisms of this "preconscious" pre- logical system here and
learn all the techniques available to modern physiology.

Of course, here in Koltushi unable to OX vatit all problems. Visual apparatus

ty study syachi laboratories in the world, in our country, many of them de syagki,
if not hundreds. Vision problems interesuyut- camping experts on television and
designers elec- tronic computers, machine tools designers and creators of all
kinds of transport tech- nicknames, the perception of contours and colors of the
traffic police care workers and architects, designers, artists, pri-

Fig. 5. As presented in different parts of the retina HA ruzhnyh geniculate bodies (NCB) - 4 and
occipital regions of the cerebral cortex - 5. The visual field of the right and left

eyes overlap, but not completely. Due to the intersection of optic nerves 3 ( chiasm)
central, the most important part of Naja visual field presented in both hemispheres

signals from both eyes

21
giving the technique so refined and expressive forms, and those who design
children's toys. Cage dy researcher examines the receipt and processing of
visual information by slightly different angle, apply some special technique Vaeth
compare and summarize the results obtained by scientists working in other
related fields. Vision gives the brain nine-tenths of the information from all the
senses, and it is not surprising that the grip is all mysteries. Research staff of the
Laboratory fi ziologii of the Institute of Physiology. IP Pav fishing USSR Academy
of Sciences are working closely with the work of thousands of scientists mi. It is
impossible to reach the top without relying on the broad and solid basis, without
checking se os experience of others, do not start from the results. Therefore, we
do not go around in silence, and studies done in various laboratories around the
world.

So, in a way? Perhaps ... Or not: linger a little longer, take a glance past.
"Respect for the E nuvshemu - this feature that distinguishes education from
savagery", - said Pushkin. And therefore do not how many steps back to get an
idea of the building, which is going to enter.
 Chapter Two

FORESIGHT Galena

And the one who will give a satisfactory explanation

of the phenomena of these, the proportion of women to
be true inventor and man, very well versed in and are
grappling with internal devices such anatomical
machines.

Mr. Pauer. experimental

Philosophy, 1664

"Why does the eye see why memory is stored as a live, pictures of the past
where it hides na crush?" -? Such and similar children's questions forehead
eyelids began to ask themselves, should be
since that
time the self-realized person.
Vague arguments about the soul, looking at the world through the pupils of
the eyes, as if to open the door, even in ancient times calmed curiosity only
those who did not want to think. Critical minds tre Bova real, material food. Tit
Lukretsy Carus ironically:

. . . Kohl's eyes only door we have replaced, then eliminating them, obviously, would be
much better to see the way was the spirit, since stocks themselves would not have been.

Philosophical treatise, of which these are taken Straw ki, was clothed in
elegant form of the poem "On the Nature of Things." Lucretius in I. BC. e. as it
summed up the achievements of science of the ancient world. Following
Empedok scrap from which Lucretius separated four centuries, the
poet-philosopher, believed that

We have things that we are the ghosts of their honor; They are like fine
Pleven, bark il call them, because the shape and form and keep these
reflections, Phone, from which they are isolated, wandering everywhere.

23
 To make his point convincingly, he Obra schalsya analogies. You've seen
the light smoke cost ra, felt the heat of an invisible flame, marveled reset Noah
snake skin, down to the smallest repeating ADVANCED Nosta shape of her
body? Such are the "ghosts":
lungs,
invisible, mimicking the form of objects.

It is now clear to you that from the surface of bodies of continuous fine things and figure
them thin tissue pour -

concluded poet.
The hypothesis of "ghosts", "images of objects" needed to ancient Greek
philosophers to explain the mechanism of vision. Empedocles, for example,
taught that the SFA charger incorporates the proceeds from the pupils' vnut
rennim light "(that turns out to be a ripe old age" shining eyes "!). Contact
generates oschu schenie - a person sees things. So look through vayuschaya
pupils soul simply is not necessary: the work of view - is, as we would say today,
ordinary tive of the physical process.

It is physical, material from the wood of them were Greeks, and "images".
Democritus (..... Ca. 460 - ca. 370 BCE), for which the world there was nothing
but atoms, claimed: "ghosts" - the essence tonchay Chiyah atomic layers, flown
away from the surface of bodies in space. They enter through the pupil into the
eye. And the eye - it is also the atoms, and among them certainly there exist like
those who came. Like this since unifying the similar, there is a "sensual
impression" that drives the atoms of "the soul, and the soul lives in the brain.
Intelligent, sentient soul, unlike Ms votnoy, finds the heart, and plant, locat
dyascheysya abdominal ...

But this is what led to the confusion. Kohl brain is the "sense of the soul",
he should feel. Meanwhile Medicine showed that the brain does not feel so
much pain. And Aristotle, who did not approve of the views De mokrita makes at
the end of the IV. BC. e. conclusion: "There is reasonable to Dr. reason to
believe that the mind is connected to the body," therefore, no reason to make
the seat of the mind brain. With the body, Aristotle argued, connected soul, it is
the "cause and the beginning of a living body," and place it in the heart (that we
have found the origins of "heart

24
inclinations "and other things in the same way!). The brain also play the role of fi
losof refrigerator, moderating serdech ny heat. Anatomical representation of the
time very accurately no different opinion celebrities to deny no one dared. And
then ... then the author tete Aristotle with all his delusions firmly stood a good
half millennium.

During these fifteen hundred years of only one Najd physiological views of
Aristotle were subjected to - and successfully - criticism. I made it Clave Diy
Galen, second only to the giant ancient Hippocratic medicine.

Greek, Galen was born in Pergamum, the capital of the kingdom of

Pergamon. The exact date of this soby ment is unknown, it can be carried to 130
AD. e. Galen's father was an architect, a man of substance, and youthful sha
received an excellent education. The Library of Pergamum, numbering about two
hundred thousand books (of their wealth is second only knigohrani lischu
Alexandria), he became acquainted with the writings of Plato and Aristotle, the
writings of philosophers, Stoics and their implacable enemies - philosophers epic
Reitz. Galen studied medicine at the best doctors Per- din, and then four years of
travel around the city, famous for its scientists. He was in Smyrna, Corinth and,
of course, in Alexandria, where doctors were considered the guardians of the
ancient Hellenic art of healing. Back in the III in. BC. e. physicians Herophilus
and Era zistrat here dissected corpses,

After returning from their travels, Galen received a doctor in the gladiator
school. The fact that he was asked to take such a position, evidence of the talent
of the young medic. Fighters pricey, put them on their feet after severe wounds
that inflict di Kie animals or fellow opponents, it was in the interests of the owner
and the bad doctor the way the school was closed.

Pergamum at the time turned out. capital of the kingdom in the town
governor of one of the many about wine each of the mighty Roman Empire.
Magnificence ny, lush, concentrated artists, Filos FOV, scientists, Rome
attracted talents. I went to Rome and Galen. He quickly gained popularity there (
"notoriety", - underline the historians) and

25
as a practitioner and as a theorist of medicine. His lectures are always a lot of
people came. He became a celebrity, and when tried to remove Xia back to
Pergamum, the emperor Mark Avrely called it out to him and made a court
physician. Gale well was then about forty years.

The emperor-philosopher (Mark Avrely was the last major stoic, his book
"Alone with you" remains the villa where deeper memory of him than all his wars
and public order) of dostoinst Wu appreciated the talent of your doctor. Galen no
one interfered in academic classes. He became the first in the history of science
physiologist-experimenter: the animals did tre panacea skull bared brain and
removing it in parts or slicing, trying to comprehend the relationship of the
business brain senses. He cut the nerves, to find out their purpose. How many
discoveries did Galen, dissecting animals! He first describe fats seven pairs of
nerves coming from the brain to the ears, nose and other organs, it is found in
the brain visual hillocks, and in the eye - the retina,

connected to the bumps

special nerve.
Vision, Galen believed, is due to the "light pneuma", which is located
between the lens and Dr. duzhnoy shell. It is continuously supplied here from the
brain through the optic nerve and receives light beams. Formed from the merger
of the feeling passes to the "central visual body" - so called Galen visual hillocks.

"To create the feeling - he wrote - kazh DOE feeling must undergo a
change that will be perceived for the brain. None can fail to feeling mo undergo a
change from the world, except for vision, for it has a feeling of clean and shiny
Chuv stvuyuschy body - the lens moisture. But the treason of the left would be
useless if it were not brought to the consciousness directing the beginning, that
is, until mestopre byvaniya imagination, memory and intelligence. That's why the
brain sends to the particle itself lens moisture in order to recognize it receives an
impression. If the brain was not the point from which emanate and koto rum back
occurring in each of the bod ies feelings change, the animal would have
remained deprived nym sensations. In the eyes <. . . > Color impressions

26
quickly reach the prisoner in the eye with h and t h and mo - hectare (italics are
mine. - VD) - the retina. " What a great visionary conclusion! Ost Wim aside
Aristotle pneuma which allegedly brain sends to the eyes (however, in views
nekoto ryh our contemporary physiologists, Naya central nerve system sends
signals to the retina; run sensitivity Suitable cells). We neglect the fact that the
role of the photosensitive element given Dotterel ku, rather than the retina (all
dogalenovskie Chiyah and many later philosophers and doctors make the same
mistake). shall not require the researcher answers to all the questions at once.
Admire better how convincingly returned to its true role of the brain, which has
since nobody is no longer contested, except hopeless
GOVERNMENTAL-Aristotelian scholastics, praying on his idol. We should give
courage to the claim that the eye - an integral part of the brain.

Galen distinguished courage inherent in all true scientists. He was ready to

defend the most incredible in terms of "common sense" hypothesis, if only to
explain the action of the living body without the mysterious and unknowable
forces. This hypothesis, inter alia, proposed to solve the puzzle, rather confuses
anyone who only engaged in vision: how to manage to penetrate into the tiny
pupil "images", flying to the eye of the items and retain them, objects, positive
integer size? When the eyes of peeping at Rouge soul, the question did not
exist:

she saw them.

But what to do with "image" without it? And Galen otbrasy Vaeth "images" with
the soul. We see in his manuscript B first in the history of science drawing
illustrating the work of the eye as it seemed to the scientist: Op gan view - is a
kind of current locator.

Yes, I said Galen, Empedocles and Plato was right: eyes really emanate
rays. But they do not need to be connected to the flying of the subjects 'image'.
Rays probed objects like thin invisible needle. Let a tower or a mountain will be
arbitrarily huge - small pupil will manage its "beam" to feel their shape. You
seem naive reasoning Galena? A radar on the aircraft it is shown the pilot to
land that way ...

A little over a quarter of the Millennium pos-

27
les death of Galen fallen Western Roman Empire. Ancient science in Europe
have forgotten almost ten centuries. Fortunately, unlike the Europeans, Persians
and Syrians are subject to them, and especially won in VII. Persian Empire
Arabs treated en cal knowledge with great pietetom. Syriac is still in the V
century. It was translated some works of Aristotle, Pliny then. Appeared in the
language and writings of Galen.

Slowly flowed century, the rulers changed, blossomed and came to the
decline of the city, and with them the philosophical schools. In the IX century.
East science center was Baghdad, the fabulous city of the Caliphs. There he
worked a great thinker, physicist, mathematician and physician Abu Ali Ibn
al-Haitham, known in medieval Europe as the Hazen. Especially his famous
Sochi neniem was "Optics".

Hazen stated that no ray eye EC admits. On the contrary, it is the objects
are sent into the eye-rays of each of its particle! And each beam excites the eye
of the corresponding point of the lens
(Here, alas,
Hazen was in complete agreement with Galen and believed hru- Stalik
"senses").
Weight rays - and only one pupil ... Will not they get confused, intertwined?
Hazen puts experiment carried lights a few candles in front of a small hole drilled
in the box. And what? On the wall of the hole about opposites appear PICTURE
Nia each of the candles. No distortion, no confusion! Scientist concludes: any
beam moves through the hole on their own, without disturbing others, and the
principle that "it is necessary to adopt all transparency GOVERNMENTAL
bodies, including transparent material eyes."

So Hazen invented the camera obscura. But, as is often the case, did not
give his observation of the importance it deserves. After all, it was enough to
send the hole than the candles and onto the street, and ... Hazen did not plunge;
thank pervoot model kryvatelya eyes slipped away from him ...

The model does not get even because of one circumstance greatly puzzled
researchers: ka paintings on the back of the box was inverted. World in glazu-
"upside down"? Impossible, because we see it right! Hazen knew Evkli-

28
ANNUAL "Optics", well-versed in matters of refraction of light. May be,
"Transparent material"
eyeball alter the path of light so that the IMAGE voltage in the eye turns "just
right"? Under the predetermined answer and drove scientist drawing ho yes
rays. A fitting for an answer, as we well know, does not bring success even to
schoolchildren. Hazen did not believe the results of experiments and made the
discovery. Bo Lee that his proposed model of the eye was the cargo, pulling
back and other researchers.

Succumbed to the authority of Alhazen even a genius of engineering, like

Leonardo da Vinci, brow century, the many centuries ahead of its time with its
technical ideas. The contradiction between the fifth move the image, and "direct"
perception Lonard allowed to "Arabic": Build the path of rays in the eye so that
the image on the back of the lens has been "down down" ...

And here we are missing quite a few years that would immediately meet
with Giambattista della Porta, a rich Italian aristocrat, a man Nez uryadnym and
contradictory. (German historian physical

Fig. 6. As imagined by Leonardo da Vinci in the path of rays

chapter. He, like many others, thought that the crystal "feels light

29
ki F. Rosenberger gave him such a characterization: "poludiletant, polunevezhda
and largely quack"; however, other researchers do not agree with us so harsh
assessment and consider it to be "overkill"). His curiosity was incredible, he was
not tired in finding the new scientific data and the weight Tersko conducted
various experiments, some of which have earned him attractive and dangerous
glory black scribe. He built the <and then the well-known Kama ry pinhole, and
while messing around with them made a remark-inflammatory invention. "I want
to discover the secret of the koto Roy still had reason to hold back - he wrote in
1570 - If you insert into the hole dvoyakovy the convex lens, you can see things
more clearly, so clearly that you will recognize in the face of people walking
down the street as if they were in front of you. "

Then, the inventor compared the new camera Ob py with the eye and quite
rightly pointed out that HRW Stalik needed as a lens in the camera, in order to
project the image of Vat on the back wall of the eyeball. But then, alas, the
"amateurism" makes itself felt: della Porta contrary to all logic says that the
sensitivity to the elements of the eye is still not netted a minute, and the lens.

But for a man who knows how to think and signs direct to the anatomy of
the eye better della Porta, all become vitsya into place. Thirteen years after the
opera- katsii posts about the new camera obscura (hearth that barking,
unhurried century) learns about her doctor and anatomist Felix Plater, which
Iogann Kepler called zna will cancel. Plater have no doubt: the camera - it've
likolepnaya very exact analogy eyes. And he re-raises on board the idea of
Galen that the retina has a delicate "process" of the brain located in the eyeball.
However, Plater was unable to draw a picture of Vat rays travel through the lens.
Skie mathematical knowledge it for such work were insufficiently. The final touch
to the picture does Kepler (by the way, to build a large camera obscura in Lin
Tse to observe a solar eclipse in 1600):

Seemingly cares astronomer to physiology? But in those days, every

serious scientist was filo Soph, and therefore, interested in science generally,
not za-

thirty
Fig. 7. The first flawless in terms of building physics ki of the rays in the
eye made great
German astronomer Iogann Kepler

81
mykayas in the shell of professional interests. And four years after the
construction of the camera, Kepler publishes the treatise "Supplement to
Vitellius" where Th
Werth and fifth chapters expressed their views on the work of the eye - the point
of view of mathematics. Geometrically constructing leave no doubt that the "right
side of the object depicted on the retina of the left, left - right, top - bottom and
bottom - up".

Unlike their predecessors, Kepler was not confused with the result. For
astronomers the world is the way it works, but not as we wish to Xia ... Kepler did
not invent artificial spo sob image flipping "feet down" inside the eye. For what?
After all, the picture is obtained on the back of the eyeball, "is not the final act of
view of up to as long as the image perceived Net Coy as such, will not be
transferred to the brain."

Science regained the ideas of Galen, to have The possibility of moving

forward.
But then, at the beginning of the XVII century. No one admired about
zorlivostyu great physician. Neither progressive scholar of that time could not
afford to rely on Galen: it would be tantamount to an alliance with the dark forces
of reaction. After all, medieval Schola sty turned works of Galen, with all their
errors (and, alas, lacked ...) in the Bible, fiercely persecuted all who dared to
clarify or correct to write there. Books Galen was "heavy artille Ria"
obscurantism, for the progress of medicine tre Bova rejected, and rejected,

is not separating
the grain from the husk ...
Only many years later, when scholasticism was finally defeated and
became a sad chapter in the history of the Middle Ages, science was able to
clean up the works of the great physician of all superficial; that shall cleave to
them whether theologized philosophers. For, in the words of the famous English
naturalist Huxley devyatnadtsa of the century, "Everyone who read the works of
Galen, unwittingly surprised as the diversity of his knowledge and clear ideas
about the ways, koto rymi should develop physiology."
 Chapter Three

TRAPS part forms

Perceive - it means otbi army, and to understand the

world - It is to understand the rules by which produces
the Xia selection in perception.

A. Mole. Information theory

and aesthetic perception

- Recently re-read Pavla Antokolskogo - Getting conversation Vadim

Davidovich Glaser - and remember the lines were:

What is memory? .. Pantry. Dungeon. Life haphazardly

dumped there. Sleeping on the court laid dead,
motionless, not shifted from the shallows.

Beautiful picture. Very impressive. In poetry, of course, everything is

possible, that's why she and poetry. But in real life ... Many now think that the
memory - it is something BPO de reservist picture gallery: standing at the wall in
slonennye together thousands of paintings, you need aux string - pulled out,
looked ...

Who looked? Ancient answered the soul. But we know that there is no
separate living soul from the body is not present. Out of the brain in humans little
"man", which looks kind of TV set; which, they say, there is wi dit own eyes
people, which way is the memory? Ten billion nerve cells in our brain, going from
one to the other electric pulses of different frequencies and amplitudes,

in cells occur
various chemical changes, and anything other than that - you know, anything! -
no. And we see, and na crush exists, and pictures of the past we are vspo Minh.
What comes from the eye to the brain?

2, V. Demidov 33
 In the Middle Ages it was believed that the ideas come. By stepping on the
optic nerve and folded in D reservoir of memory, which is believed located
somewhere near the back of the head. But, again, the word "idea" does not
explain anything. When widespread knigope Chatani - was taught that the brain
somehow by having image prints. Even in the 50 years of this century were
scientists who propovedova there is almost the same look: visual sensations - it

original photography copies of

which seems to gaze. The solid books .... Do Pease

And in the XIX century., When physiologists was more or less known to the
structure of the retina, popular enjoyed the view that each of
svetooschuschayusche receptor in the brain is one nerve fiber. It was a very
important step forward. We ran out of "ideas". The "excitation relief": it was
believed that ki-stand cortex respond to the triggering of the photoreceptor, and
there is a sort of electric car Tina seen. For a long time the hypothesis presented
familiarize the only true, it protected the largest physiologists, in particular
cross-section. But still had from her, despite the tempting simplicity and
perspicuity Nost, refuse, when they learned that the sensitive elements of the
retina in a hundred and fifty times more than in the curl.

After all, if indeed the transfer of images from the eye to the brain was on a
"point to point" Maley Chiyah disruptions to the optic nerve or behold-negative
cortex would dramatically distort the picture, would prevent recognition. And in
experiments (on kosh kah) animal cut almost three-quarters of a lock of the optic
nerve, it would seem - the end, the whole system out of action. But no, the
animal will recognize simple shapes, as if nothing had happened. Rats were
removed nearly ninety percent of the visual cortex, and a job identification
mechanism is not affecting lo, at least in the experiments conducted after
surgery. But with the intervention of such cruel SHALL whole "projection
system", it exists in fact, would be hopelessly spoiled. Try those in the computer
does not break three-quarters, and even if only a tenth of the connecting wires ...

34
Fig. 8. The scheme of the retina, as seen by electron microscopy: TO - cone, P - stick; in elongated
segments of these receptors is a plurality of membranes, which at CREPLA molecule substances
responsive to photons; H - knife ki photoreceptors, which come into contact nye horizontal cells g, and
dwarf bipolar cells kb paloch kovye bipolar cells pb, flat bipolar cells PLB.

amacrine cell a - following the bipolar layer therein tron, processing information transmitted
photoreceptor mi. ganglion cells g - the last step infor mation processing in the retina and "transfer
station": it is from these adhesive current begins fiber optic nerve. The box shows how synapse The
dyadic (top) contacts the ridge

E ganglion and amacrine cells

tion unit acts as something different. Again the question is: how?

And once again called on the help of technology, they began to look for an
analogy in it. That's it - the technique. She's the first Section simpler nature, it is
easier to understand, and as a model at a certain stage of technical analogy
useful. The whole history of science shows that some researchers were in
life-physiologist technical stizheniya to those he used to explain the figure of an
organism. And to the contrary, from biology to the nickname - very small, very
rarely ...

See: developed mechanics - have come to believe that all the body
functions according to its laws. Camera- obscura invented - please, here's a job
for the SFA. Then the photo attracted even plate with a photosensitive layer
found - Pale conductive to light red rhodopsin in the retinal rods. Then he
developed the telegraph, telephone, and brain upodo fought in other writings of
the telephone exchange, and the nerves turned into electrical wires. Turn came
in the end to television: broadcasting camera televis Zion - that is, they say, what
a sight! Each photoreceptor - the point on the sending screen, in the Ministry of
Health re - "receiver" of the cell, and the memory - the recording of this "TV
signal" on something like a magnetic computer memory carpets. Clearly, just ...

But the analogy with television only started the business to a standstill. If the
eye image "decomposed" into electrical impulses, like the television, over sixty
years of human life, each of de syati billion neurons of the brain had to be zapom
thread six million bits of information - the mouth, this calculation did Din Vuldridzh
of California as technologically Institute in his book "The mechanisms of the
brain." There is no reason to doubt the correctness of its figures. And remember
one neuron six million bits - this thing is very questionable. Extremely. So that TV
hypothesis has died.

In general, conventional television as a way of transmitting information only

unprofitable. Huge cardinality television transmitters wasted, in fact, empty. Here
show the hero on the background of colorful carpets. The man's face to the
viewer, of course, at this stage the most important subjects. A camera with
equally thorough

36
telnostyu perceives the face and background, to equal hundred raniem transmits
both the air. Just think: fifty times per second antenna peredatchi ka go signal
carrying information about the picture of the carpet - the figure in which
absolutely nothing is able to change. Convey to him once - and be done with it,
and all the attention focused on ac tere. However, modern television is not able
to. It is very economical to use a communication channel.

Other business - visual system. She primarily cleans up a picture of

unnecessary redundancy infor mation. The first hints of this is found in 1932 Ame
rican physiologist X. Hartline, then Knob Levski winner. He investigated the frog
retina, and surprised to see that each fibril in its behold tion nerve is like a
telegraph line through which signals are transmitted is not one of the
photoreceptor, and many at once. This alone was not clear why nature to
arrange such a mixture? Not that "link" to transmit signals when the receptors
connected to them of the incident light rays, while other lines - on the contrary,
"telegraphed" only when lighting gave way to darkness. The first associative
ciation Hartline receptors called "he" ( "ON" in English), the second - "off" ( "off").
These terms are nowadays have become generally accepted.

nerve cell signals are passed through the force Tel resemble a drum roll.
So you usly shite them in any laboratory,
which examined the work
neurons and their signals are recorded on tape. Cells are "talking" between the
most resistant to interference method - pulses which are good for the fact that
well suited for transmission of information from all receptors: light sensitivity,
olfactory,

perceived sound
point oscillations, and so on.
Nature did not immediately find the most profitable way of intercellular
communication. In mollusks and other invertebrates information is transmitted
very primitive: a change in the amplitude of the electrical signals. According ble
that any interference, adding or subtracting with the useful signal, is able to
distort it - definition of work "actuators" then do not wait. In higher animals, the
nerves go "packs" im-

37
pulses. The amplitude of the pulses in "packet" is constant, but varies only their
number. It depends, for example, on the degree of the receptor cell stimulation.
In other words, the receptor transforms external impact number.

And with numbers, you can continue to do whatever you want: add and
subtract at least. The cells are not only able to convert the number of impacts,
but lo garifmirovat wherein: the number of pulses in the "pack" is proportional, for
example, the logarithm of the illuminance. After such an algebraic operation cells
can (at least in principle) input actions multiply, divide, involute and extract roots,
logarithms do it all easier to just go. So the parallel between the brain and the
computer is not without reason, though, as any comparison, the analogy is
incorrect handling yell very lame.

As the neurons, which receives signals from the receptors,

do math? To do this,
each cell, as well as any active element of a computer, there are inputs (to
receive signals) and one output, where the pulses are sent to other neurons.
Inputs - dendrites - usually many, and the output - axon - one. To submit sig nal
several cells, it splits. The dendrites of the neuron are not equivalent in their
roles. One way to exist excitement, as if throwing a little weight on the pan,
others inhibit the activity of the cell. Scientists have called the contribution of
each dendrite excited - "weight".

As long as the algebraic sum of signals at all WMO dah does not exceed a
certain level, there is no pulse, and the output (strictly speaking, this is not quite
true: many neurons there is a "background activity", ie they are without any input
excitation periodically Starbases bark output pulses along the axon - Prove ryaya
not in whether the line is okay, not that "do not give sleep" was adopted cerned
information cell, but for simplicity ne- raving this feature). As soon as the joint
effect of the input signal has exceeded a certain threshold, the neuron "shoots"
or committed burst but stops background activity. Will input signals continuously -
our neuron con-

33
ously or will "telegraph" or remain silent as much it is supposed to, "according to
the order."
"He" and "off" Association - fields, as they call them - are formed because
the photoreceptors via the intermediate layers of the retina are connected to
ganglion cells. Each cage - several tens or even hundreds of receptors. From the
ganglion-stand ki it goes to the brain optic nerve fibers. Exact same intermediate
layers perform complicated mathematical processing of the signals obtained
from svetochuvstvitel GOVERNMENTAL cells. So the brain is transferred directly
tat the results, rather a lot of results.

In 1959 American physiologist Ivan Lettvin,

Maturana H., W. McCulloch and W. Pitts found in the retina of the frog several
types hitherto completely unknown stnyh cells - detectors. These cells engage
the safety of Tyva, perceiving the different specific properties of the image. Some
people react to the boundary between the dark and light areas, that is on the
edge before the meta. Other excited when this border is smiling in the
movement, but "silent" when it is stationary. Still others point out that in view of
the SFA frog appeared something small, dark and moving: mining, apparently - a
fly. For scarcely "it" approximation zitsya - and distance measurement,
apparently, also feature a special detector - frog Nemedia ately attacks that
"something". By the way, exactly the same fly, but no signs of life lying on the
ground, attacked the middle Gushka will not. She can starve ret mind if the circle
will be quite edible, but the fixed nye fly. This much vysokospetsializizrovanny
and not very clever device - frog eyes. It transmits to the brain about some
properties of data objects and thus already prescribes animal actions tsipu
received "little - Hunting," "great - saves" and so on ...

Eye more highly animals, especially human eye no regulations, unlike frog
does not issue. He tells the brain all the information is given on the picture, which
is only possible (within the physiological abilities of the visual apparatus, of
course) to convey. He has an excellent line of communication, but not the
commander. That is why the frog eye longer fasting fork questions than it
resolved. From him it was not possible pe-

39
Fig. 9. In the retina of the human eye (as well as monkeys, dogs, cats and other animals)
photoreceptors merged into al sociation - field thanks to the neurons that lie between the
photo receptors and ganglion cells. There schematically one such field is depicted, inner
part is excited by the light and generates a signal ( "he" -region), and the outer at this
time "silent" ( "off" -region). The reverse reaction of the inner and outer parts. It
summarizes the effect ganglion cell and transmits the signal to the outside to

lenchatoe body

40
rebrosit bridge to mammals, the visual system. Indeed, the very first
experiments prodemonst ingly,
what eye cats, it OK
orient themselves in space predator, arranged quite differently. First of all, look
for a different field associated with ganglion cells: no solid ace sociation of the
same sign, and the "two-stage". Each field nature designed as a circle with a
"he" or "off" the center and the outer ring of the opposite action. Such fields can
emphasize the contour image ry, enhance the contrast between the image areas
slightly differing in brightness. Very effectively demonstrated this in 1959 is the
same X. Hartline. After his experiments, it became clear po-

Fig. 10. Answers cells, summing the signals internal and ruzhnoy floor area of
the retina (Figure 9.) On the impact of the world:

41
which arise "Mach bands" - the dark fringes on the borders between areas of
different brightness: rims creates visual apparatus "of or anything" just because
he is so arranged.

The fact that the retina is able to highlight the contours, it is very important. Because the
circuit contains the most essential infor- mation concerning the subject matter, and we are able
to restore his "inner eye" even bulk for imaging, especially familiar. Television systems
designers have long used this property is the human eye to using less energy to transmit TV
signals, to make it less vulnerable to interference. Many ways underscores Bani circuits
invented Soviet engineers and Uche nye - YM Braude-Zolotarev, I. I. Tsukkerman, S. Sherman
and others. For example, the author received a certificate skoe YM Braude-Zolotarev on this
method in 1957: we take two transmit television cameras and one the sharpness, and the lens
is slightly different rasfokusirovyvayut. Further, a clear image is subtracted from the blurred:
contours immediately Venue Paiute sharply, as if they had a drawing pen ... In recent years,
with the development of digital electronic computer GOVERNMENTAL machines, abrupt
changes in brightness - and the outline is just looks so drop - discovering shall use all sorts of
mathematical meth- ods image. So, for example, came Ameri Kan Space Station, dropping to
Mars: it is primarily allocated contours that saw her teleglaz. And industrial robots, which Wuxi
ately engaged now in many countries, in cluding the USSR, considering the world with their
"eyes", the variable is not singling out the contours. We shall use all sorts of mathematical
meth- ods image. So, for example, came Ameri Kan Space Station, dropping to Mars: it is
primarily allocated contours that saw her teleglaz. And industrial robots, which Wuxi ately
engaged now in many countries, in cluding the USSR, considering the world with their "eyes",
the variable is not singling out the contours. We shall use all sorts of mathematical meth- ods
image. So, for example, came Ameri Kan Space Station, dropping to Mars: it is primarily
allocated contours that saw her teleglaz. And industrial robots, which Wuxi ately engaged now
in many countries, in cluding the USSR, considering the world with their "eyes", the variable is
not singling out the contours.

However, television systems, which were discussed, trying to emulate the

work only of the retina, and its live visual system is only just beginning. To
understand how the eye works, it is necessary to study the brain. Indeed, the
most interesting thing started when in the years 1959-1961 American
physiologist D. Hubel and T. Wiesel introduced in the visual area of the brain cat
microelectrode - insulated wire with a bare tip diameter of about one ten
thousandth of a millimeter. Microelectrode penetrates the neuron, and the
experimenter recorded on magneto-

42
 background cell signals. What they will be - a matter of chance. And the case
has helped to detect neurons in the cortex, which converge the information is not
from a few hundred photoreceptors, as the ganglion cells of the retina, and at
once from many thousands. This remarkable discovery was the result of new
experimental techniques.

Previously, to detect the field associated with gan glial cell needed a
simple message: thin like a needle, beam. The bright dot on the screen - that's
what excites "he" and "off" of the field. Turning to the cells of the cortex, we must
show the animal more sophisticated image-incentives: straight lines and
rectangular ki. But not every incentive to make the cell respond. "Quite often
requires many hours of searching to obna ruzhit retina department associated
with a particular roll stands Coy bark, and pick the best for this cell stimuli," -
writes Hubel. Words about the irritation of residents is not necessary for the cells,
of course, understand beech Valenod. The concern is that the retinal receptors to
the cell turnkey higher parts of the brain through a plurality of intermediate
neurons. Due tacos mu connection cells react to a particular element of the
image - makes it stand out. Scientists have agreed to call the visual field on
behalf of those departments behold tion tract where to study these fields are
entered microelectrodes. We have already talked about the fields of retinal
ganglion cells, and now it was the turn of the cortex fields in the future will meet
with the fields of the lateral geniculate body cells ...

Hubel and Wiesel found in the simple bark out complex and highly complex
field.
simple "Tuned" on the allocation of direct fine lines. Hardly this line enters
the retinal area where deployed field as cortical neurons literally "cries": "I see, I
see!" Removed line screen - broke off and the cell, like a faded signal lam
kidney.

Complex isolated field variations such as "straight edge" brightness,

"angle", "arc". They are activated and when the field of view appears a moving
object, and thus resemble frogs detectors ry. But just remind. Signaling cells to
hodyatsya not in the retina, and in the cerebral cortex, and it speaks of far more
complexity and flexibility of the optic appa-

43
rata cats. There were fields, sensing the slope of the lines about every six
degrees around corners Range area from zero to one hundred and eighty. There
are fields to torye only see, say,
a horizontal line,
moving from top to bottom, and vertical, conductive walk left and right, do not
pay attention. (By the way, in the year when Hubel and Wiesel published the
results of their work are you, Academician V. M. Glushkov considered

Fig. 11. crust Field summing signals fields ganglionic

retinal cells identifies a straight line.

44
theory of action of the electronic system recognizes the simple geometric shapes
regardless of their relative rota Powo axes. The scientist came to the conclusion
that this "electronic eye" is obliged to primarily highlight the straight lines and
arcs!)

Most interesting is extremely complex field are isolated not just lines and
lines of a well-defined length

Fig. 12. As long as the field is not "seen * line on the allocation of which it is set up, the
cortex neuron produces only rare pulses with" background activity ". Powerful impulses
series of steps to other cells as long as the stimulus impact

on the field

45
us. A slight deviation in the size of one or the other hundred Ron - and the
reaction of the neuron has not been detected, "Lamas kidney" does not flash.
And then suddenly stumbles on a microelectrode Supercomplex cell, which
nature has set the task to respond only to information coming from both eyes at
once, and to be silent, if one does not see the stimulus on the screen. Moved
microelectrode slightly deeper or slightly to the side - there neuron sharply
perceive signals from the right eye than the left, and the next - the island from the
left than on the right, "bulb", indicating that the subject is not directly in front, and
aside...

Penetrating microelectrode into the bark, Hubel, and video zel noticed
another interesting feature. Oka turned out that the field lines and responsive to
the differences of brightness of the "straight edge", presented in the cortex sort of
"columns" of cells. For each column converging signals from the field, holding
onto the retina about the same place and the same orientation: for instance,
emits just faiths tikalnye lines and edges. Next - the column where signals
converge on the field a little different inclination, and so further, that, and so on.

Fields of the cortex - thousands, hundreds of thousands and millions.

Overlapping each other, they allow visual apparatus via the same receptor Rate
Vat, capture and object movement, and the elements of its contour, and the
brightness and color. And do it all over the field of view simultaneously. In the
clearest Vidi bridge - the fovea of the retina - focused form field. Closer to the
edge - the field and the brightness of motion, so that even peripheral vision fails
to notice the racing car and broke out a flashlight; these specific fields found in all
mammals, who have only to look for them.

Field - the innate structure. Their cells - "lam kidneys" are found in the
cerebral cortex has not yet zrevshih about kittens. However, the researchers got
a fundamentally important issue: they organizova us, these fields? The result of
whether they work or retinal layers then come into play intermediary between it
and the crust divisions of the visual apparatus? Do some field related to the
identification of images? Many Uche nye, for example P. D. Lindsay and
Norman, who wrote

46
very interesting book "Processing of information in humans"
(It was published in Russian in
. 1974), believe that is exactly what is the case: Kar Tina is analyzed sequentially
in simple, complicated and highly complex GOVERNMENTAL fields, after which
the brain makes a conclusion about what the object is in front of the eyes.
Evidence of the reality of such a scheme, however, they do not lead, and the
problem remains unresolved.

In the Laboratory of Physiology in Koltushi lucheny of results that add up to

a very slim and promising theory works the viewer Noah system. Yes, the field
needed, but not the only ones on the koto ryh discussed. We need also other
fields, even more important, busy even more interesting and challenging for
rabotkoy image. Talking about them is inevitable, and it will take place.
 Chapter Four

Wood identification
GOOD AND EVIL

Through his eyes, not eye view of the world is

able to reason.
Vilyam Bleyk

In the room where the work Aleksandra Aleksandrovna Nevskaya, sitting,

leaning eye to the eyepiece unit, the subject. "Goat" - he says. In the protocol, a
wish to set up a tick. It is replaced by transparency. Again click. "Hand" - sounds
answer. Checked, change the slide, click - response. Check mark, slide, flip ...
And so over and over again, tens and hundreds of clicks ... Fifth, sed my twelfth
test ... Day after day, week after week. Tick protocol migrate to "sheet" graphs,
line up in the chain of points, then go to the line averaged them.

One test does not say what will be the car Tinky, others consider them to
give long and hard experience. Again, click the shutter, and again people try to
see the outline in a moment a light flashed on the small square - sheet

triangle,
briefcase, hand, iron, pliers, box, face, goat ...
Pull the moment ... from behind and show a moment drawing easier: just! -
and please. However, this is not the experience, and the game. In serious nom
same experiment is "time" is not easy, and not easy to achieve with all this
"please".

Our eyes - extremely highly sensitive naya system. Akademik Sergey

Ivanovich Vavilov in his book "The Eye and the Sun" wrote that the irritation
threshold fell a check, which we see at night is equivalent to the power of
ordinary light candles under consideration with the distance

3 V. Demidov 49
Niya two hundred kilometers. Then, on a piece of the retina, which is about four
sticks, it gets just six to ten rays - the minimal "then tions" of light energy and in
general the electromagnetic wave. That is to trigger photoreceptor sufficiently a
single quantum, because it is extremely unlikely that not only Yuce, but even two
"of a particle" of light were right on the same receptor.

For many years, this result also confirmed ny experiments, during which the
eyes really felt the quantum nature of light seemed conductive bordering on the
miraculous: how nature managed to Construct Vat such a mechanism? The
latest research on the question whether the answer. Has wasted photon
light-sensitive cells - it is like a finger, pull the trigger.

The fact that the outer wall segment photorecombination acceptor - the
membrane - is a thumbnail hydrochloric power DC generator. By Single photon
not hit the photoreceptor membrane almost equally well it passes through a
sodium and potassium ions: sodium - from cells, potassium - into the cell. Cage
dy ion - carrier of electric charge, and generates a torus produces a small
voltage.

"Shot
gun "changes the picture. In the membrane as it is opened up valve,
dramatically increasing the flow of sodium ions, and hence the voltage. As a
result of the internal structure of the photoreceptor amplify the signal first
elements ny - photon energy - approximately two mils Lyon times. And the
experimenter sees on the screen oscillograms count pulses - light-sensitive cells
in the response of a photon hit.

All this explains much longer than prois walks. After "clicking on descent" ra
fotoretsepto signal enters the neural retina chain you syachnye three fractions of
a second. The most remarkable that nature remains true to this pattern in
process viewer GOVERNMENTAL bodies of all living beings - from mollusks to
humans.

It turns out that the eye is able to notice even very brief flash, as long as it
was strong and sufficient Vila retina of the required number of photons. In the
30s Soviet researcher BN Convivial to prove this, illuminating an electric spark
items

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