Seeing Is Believing: How the Brain Interprets Vision November 6, 2009

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Complete video at: http://fora.tv/2009/06/24/Seeing_Myself_See_The_Ecology_of_Mind

R. Beau Lotto, head of Lottolab Studio in London, explains that the human eye is not capable of seeing actual objects, only light reflecting off of those objects. "The patterns of light that fall onto your eye are meaningless because they could mean anything," he explains.

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To understand the human mind it is necessary to understand what we actually see when we open our eyes. Color suggests an answer to this question: we see not the world as it is, but a world that was useful to see in the past.

Beau Lotto performs a series of experiments involving the sky, music and bumblebees that show how quickly the brain can learn to see what is useful, and demonstrate that our perception and conception of the world reflects our past physical, social and cultural interactions.

These optical and color experiments illustrate that none of us is an outside observer of nature defined by our essential properties, but is instead defined by our interactions with nature.

Join RSA to experience how color, vision and "seeing ourselves see" can contribute to a richer, more empathetic view of nature and human nature. - The RSA

R. Beau Lotto is the head of Lottolab Studio, which creates installations, musical performances and educational programs, and performs carefully controlled experiments on the perception and behavior of humans, bumblebees and evolved artificial life systems in laboratory and public realms.