This is fantastic! I’ve tried reasoning along these directions, but never made any progress.
A couple comments/questions:
Why “veridical” instead of simply “accurate”? To me, the accuracy of a map is how well it corresponds to the territory it’s trying to map. I’ve been replacing “veridical” with “accurate” while reading, and it’s seemed appropriate everywhere.
Do you see the Spinning Dancer going clockwise? Sorry, that’s not a veridical model of the real-world thing you’re looking at. [...] after all, nothing in the real world of atoms is rotating in 3D.
I think you’re being unfair to our intuitive models here.
The GIF isn’t rotating, but the 3D model that produced the GIF was rotating, and that’s the thing our intuitive models are modeling. So exactly one of [spinning clockwise] and [spinning counterclockwise] is veridical, depending on whether the graphic artist had the dancer rotating clockwise or counterclockwise before turning her into a silhouette. (Though whether it happens to be veridical is entirely coincidental, as the silhouette is identical to the one that would have been produced had the dancer been spinning in the opposite direction.)
If you look at the photograph of Abe Lincoln from Feb 27, 1860, you see a 3D scene with a person in it. This is veridical! There was an actual room with an actual person in it, who dressed that way and touched that book. The map’s territory is 164 years older than the map, but so what.
(My favorite example of an intuitive model being wildly incorrect is Feynman’s story of learning to identify kinds of galaxies from images on slides. He asks his mentor “what kind of galaxy is this one, I can’t identify it”, and his mentor says it’s a smudge on the slide.)
Accurate might have been fine too. I like “veridical” mildly better for a few reasons, more about pedagogy than anything else.
One reason is that “accurate” has a strong positive-valence connotation (i.e., “accuracy is good, inaccuracy is bad”), which is distracting, since I’m trying to describe things independently of whether they’re good or bad. I would rather find a term with a strictly neutral vibe. “Veridical”, being a less familiar term, is closer to that. But alas, I notice from your comment that it still has some positive connotation. (Note how you said “being unfair”, suggesting a frame where I said the intuition was non-veridical = bad, and you’re “defending” that intuition by saying no it’s actually veridical = good.) Oh well. It’s still a step in the right direction, I think.
Another reason is I’m trying hard to push for a two-argument usage (“X is or is not a veridical model of Y“), rather than a one-argument usage (“X is or is not veridical”). I wasn’t perfect about that. But again, I think “accurate” makes that problem somewhat worse. “Accurate” has a familiar connotation that the one-argument usage is fine because of course everybody knows what is the territory corresponding to the map. “Veridical” is more of a clean slate in which I can push people towards the two-argument usage.
Another thing: if someone has an experience that there’s a spirit talking to them, I would say “their conception of the spirit is not a veridical model of anything in the real world”. If I said “their conception of the spirit is not an accurate model of anything in the real world”, that seems kinda misleading, it’s not just a matter of less accurate versus more accurate, it’s stronger than that.
The GIF isn’t rotating, but the 3D model that produced the GIF was rotating, and that’s the thing our intuitive models are modeling. So exactly one of [spinning clockwise] and [spinning counterclockwise] is veridical, depending on whether the graphic artist had the dancer rotating clockwise or counterclockwise before turning her into a silhouette.
It was made by a graphic artist. I’m not sure their exact technique, but it seems at least plausible to me that they never actually created a 3D model. Some people are just really good at art. I dunno. This seems like the kind of thing that shouldn’t matter though! :)
Anyway, I wrote “that’s not a veridical model of the real-world thing you’re looking at” to specifically preempt your complaint. Again see what I wrote just above, about two-argument versus one-argument usage :)
I like “veridical” mildly better for a few reasons, more about pedagogy than anything else.
That’s a fine set of reasons! I’ll continue to use “accurate” in my head, as I already fully feel that the accuracy of a map depends on which territory you’re choosing for it to represent. (And a map can accurately represent multiple territories, as happens a lot with mathematical maps.)
Another reason is I’m trying hard to push for a two-argument usage
Do you see the Spinning Dancer going clockwise? Sorry, that’s not a veridical model of the real-world thing you’re looking at.
My point is that:
The 3D spinning dancer in your intuitive model is a veridical map of something 3D. I’m confident that the 3D thing is a 3D graphical model which was silhouetted after the fact (see below), but even if it was drawn by hand, the 3D thing was a stunningly accurate 3D model of a dancer in the artist’s mind.
That 3D thing is the obvious territory for the map to represent.
It feels disingenuous to say “sorry, that’s not a veridical map of [something other than the territory map obviously represents]”.
So I guess it’s mostly the word “sorry” that I disagree with!
By “the real-world thing you’re looking at”, you mean the image on your monitor, right? There are some other ways one’s intuitive model doesn’t veridically represent that such as the fact that, unlike other objects in the room, it’s flashing off and on at 60 times per second, has a weirdly spiky color spectrum, and (assuming an LCD screen) consists entirely of circularly polarized light.
It was made by a graphic artist. I’m not sure their exact technique, but it seems at least plausible to me that they never actually created a 3D model.
This is a side track, but I’m very confident a 3D model was involved. Plenty of people can draw a photorealistic silhouette. The thing I think is difficult is drawing 100+ silhouettes that match each other perfectly and have consistent rotation. (The GIF only has 34 frames, but the original video is much smoother.) Even if technically possible, it would be much easier to make one 3D model and have the computer rotate it. Annnd, if you look at Nobuyuki Kayahara’s website, his talent seems more on the side of mathematics and visualization than photo-realistic drawing, so my guess is that he used an existing 3D model for the dancer (possibly hand-posed).
By “the real-world thing you’re looking at”, you mean the image on your monitor, right?
Yup, or as I wrote: “2D pattern of changing pixels on a flat screen”.
I’m very confident a 3D model was involved
For what it’s worth, even if that’s true, it’s still at least possible that we could view both the 3D model and the full source code, and yet still not have an answer to whether it’s spinning clockwise or counterclockwise. E.g. perhaps you could look at the source code and say “this code is rotating the model counterclockwise and rendering it from the +z direction”, or you could say “this code is rotating the model clockwise and rendering it from the -z direction”, with both interpretations matching the source code equally well. Or something like that. That’s not necessarily the case, just possible, I think. I’ve never coded in Flash, so I wouldn’t know for sure. Yeah this is definitely a side track. :)
Excellent. Sorry for thinking you were saying something you weren’t!
still not have an answer to whether it’s spinning clockwise or counterclockwise
More simply (and quite possibly true), Nobuyuki Kayahara rendered it spinning either clockwise or counterclockwise, lost the source, and has since forgotten which way it was going.
This is fantastic! I’ve tried reasoning along these directions, but never made any progress.
A couple comments/questions:
Why “veridical” instead of simply “accurate”? To me, the accuracy of a map is how well it corresponds to the territory it’s trying to map. I’ve been replacing “veridical” with “accurate” while reading, and it’s seemed appropriate everywhere.
I think you’re being unfair to our intuitive models here.
The GIF isn’t rotating, but the 3D model that produced the GIF was rotating, and that’s the thing our intuitive models are modeling. So exactly one of [spinning clockwise] and [spinning counterclockwise] is veridical, depending on whether the graphic artist had the dancer rotating clockwise or counterclockwise before turning her into a silhouette. (Though whether it happens to be veridical is entirely coincidental, as the silhouette is identical to the one that would have been produced had the dancer been spinning in the opposite direction.)
If you look at the photograph of Abe Lincoln from Feb 27, 1860, you see a 3D scene with a person in it. This is veridical! There was an actual room with an actual person in it, who dressed that way and touched that book. The map’s territory is 164 years older than the map, but so what.
(My favorite example of an intuitive model being wildly incorrect is Feynman’s story of learning to identify kinds of galaxies from images on slides. He asks his mentor “what kind of galaxy is this one, I can’t identify it”, and his mentor says it’s a smudge on the slide.)
Thanks! :)
Accurate might have been fine too. I like “veridical” mildly better for a few reasons, more about pedagogy than anything else.
One reason is that “accurate” has a strong positive-valence connotation (i.e., “accuracy is good, inaccuracy is bad”), which is distracting, since I’m trying to describe things independently of whether they’re good or bad. I would rather find a term with a strictly neutral vibe. “Veridical”, being a less familiar term, is closer to that. But alas, I notice from your comment that it still has some positive connotation. (Note how you said “being unfair”, suggesting a frame where I said the intuition was non-veridical = bad, and you’re “defending” that intuition by saying no it’s actually veridical = good.) Oh well. It’s still a step in the right direction, I think.
Another reason is I’m trying hard to push for a two-argument usage (“X is or is not a veridical model of Y“), rather than a one-argument usage (“X is or is not veridical”). I wasn’t perfect about that. But again, I think “accurate” makes that problem somewhat worse. “Accurate” has a familiar connotation that the one-argument usage is fine because of course everybody knows what is the territory corresponding to the map. “Veridical” is more of a clean slate in which I can push people towards the two-argument usage.
Another thing: if someone has an experience that there’s a spirit talking to them, I would say “their conception of the spirit is not a veridical model of anything in the real world”. If I said “their conception of the spirit is not an accurate model of anything in the real world”, that seems kinda misleading, it’s not just a matter of less accurate versus more accurate, it’s stronger than that.
It was made by a graphic artist. I’m not sure their exact technique, but it seems at least plausible to me that they never actually created a 3D model. Some people are just really good at art. I dunno. This seems like the kind of thing that shouldn’t matter though! :)
Anyway, I wrote “that’s not a veridical model of the real-world thing you’re looking at” to specifically preempt your complaint. Again see what I wrote just above, about two-argument versus one-argument usage :)
That’s a fine set of reasons! I’ll continue to use “accurate” in my head, as I already fully feel that the accuracy of a map depends on which territory you’re choosing for it to represent. (And a map can accurately represent multiple territories, as happens a lot with mathematical maps.)
My point is that:
The 3D spinning dancer in your intuitive model is a veridical map of something 3D. I’m confident that the 3D thing is a 3D graphical model which was silhouetted after the fact (see below), but even if it was drawn by hand, the 3D thing was a stunningly accurate 3D model of a dancer in the artist’s mind.
That 3D thing is the obvious territory for the map to represent.
It feels disingenuous to say “sorry, that’s not a veridical map of [something other than the territory map obviously represents]”.
So I guess it’s mostly the word “sorry” that I disagree with!
By “the real-world thing you’re looking at”, you mean the image on your monitor, right? There are some other ways one’s intuitive model doesn’t veridically represent that such as the fact that, unlike other objects in the room, it’s flashing off and on at 60 times per second, has a weirdly spiky color spectrum, and (assuming an LCD screen) consists entirely of circularly polarized light.
This is a side track, but I’m very confident a 3D model was involved. Plenty of people can draw a photorealistic silhouette. The thing I think is difficult is drawing 100+ silhouettes that match each other perfectly and have consistent rotation. (The GIF only has 34 frames, but the original video is much smoother.) Even if technically possible, it would be much easier to make one 3D model and have the computer rotate it. Annnd, if you look at Nobuyuki Kayahara’s website, his talent seems more on the side of mathematics and visualization than photo-realistic drawing, so my guess is that he used an existing 3D model for the dancer (possibly hand-posed).
I think we’re in agreement on everything.
Yup, or as I wrote: “2D pattern of changing pixels on a flat screen”.
For what it’s worth, even if that’s true, it’s still at least possible that we could view both the 3D model and the full source code, and yet still not have an answer to whether it’s spinning clockwise or counterclockwise. E.g. perhaps you could look at the source code and say “this code is rotating the model counterclockwise and rendering it from the +z direction”, or you could say “this code is rotating the model clockwise and rendering it from the -z direction”, with both interpretations matching the source code equally well. Or something like that. That’s not necessarily the case, just possible, I think. I’ve never coded in Flash, so I wouldn’t know for sure. Yeah this is definitely a side track. :)
Nice find with the website, thanks.
Excellent. Sorry for thinking you were saying something you weren’t!
More simply (and quite possibly true), Nobuyuki Kayahara rendered it spinning either clockwise or counterclockwise, lost the source, and has since forgotten which way it was going.