Sense & Sensibility
– SENSE & SENSIBILITY OVERVIEW
This project explores the realm of computer consciousness, including exploring computer vision, artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML); their associated toolsets, philosophical and ethical considerations.
Students will be introduced to methods which allow the computer to see and make sense of its environment, and look at how these can be used to drive realtime applications.
The keyword to consider here is awareness. What exactly is awareness and how do we evidence it? How can we make the computer more aware of its surroundings, build knowledge from this and respond to external stimuli? How can we make the computer seem aware?
Over the period of the project we will look at methods for expanding the computer’s awareness of its environment and itself, but also explore debates surrounding recent developments in the subject area.
3/4
Project Start
The Sense & Sensibility project has begun. The tutors introduced project overview to us and explained about Alan Turing, Turing Test and Chinese Room Argument.
Alan Turing is a mathematician who first proposed the possibility of a digital computer that we think of today, and he claims the possibility of artificial intelligence. In Turing’s paper, Computing Machinery and Intelligence, the first sentence is “Can a machine think?”
To summarize this paper, Turing suggested that the machine should ask whether it can pass behavioral intelligence tests, not asking if machines can think. The intelligence test he proposed is now called the ‘Turing test’. In the test, the AI program should talk to the investigator (human) for 5 minutes while exchanging messages online. The investigator’s task is to guess whether the contact is a programme or a human. If more than 30% of investigators are mistaken for a human, they are considered to have passed the test.
When asked about the first sentence of his paper, Turing refuses to respond immediately. When the word ‘think’ is defined according to the normal usage, it is same as defined through the public opinion poll. Each person actually understands the word ‘think’ differently, and it is difficult to determine which of them is correct. It is unreasonable to decide by principle of majority rule.
Turing faced a principle problem in defining ‘think’. Thus, if the problem of ‘exact definition’ of ‘think’ is reserved, and an agent can imitate activities that people understand in terms of ‘think’, it would be decided ‘think’ in that case. This is a strategic approach to fundamentally avoid the burden of defining ‘think’.
Turing suggests changing the question, “Can machines think?” The answer to that question is to get it through the answer to the other question. And for that other question, it suggests a ‘imitation game’.
The imitation game is made up of three people: a man (A), a woman (B), and a man (C) who can be both male and female. The interrogator stays in a room separate from the other two. The purpose of the game is to determine who is male and female. The interrogator knows the two as X and Y. At the end of the game, say ‘X is A and Y is B’ or ‘X is B and Y is A’. Interrogators are allowed to ask questions to A and B. The goal of A in games is to try and induce C to wrong identification. The purpose of Participant B is to help interrogators.
Turing then suggests: Now we ask. ‘What happens when the machine takes on the role of A in this game?’ Will the interrogator make the wrong decision at the same frequency as when the game is done between a man and a woman, even when the game is done like this? This question replaces our original question “Can machines think?”
Turing said the machine he thought is a ‘digital computer’. Interestingly, in this paper Turing proposed a modified version of this question.
– The first variant – “Is there any imaginary digital computer that will play a good imitation game?”
– The second variant – “Are there discrete state machines that will do well?
– The third variant – Let us fix our attention on one particular digital computer C. Is it true that by modifying this computer to have an adequate storage, suitably increasing its speed of action, and providing it with an appropriate programme, C can be made to play satisfactorily the part of A in the imitation game, the part of B being taken by a man?
According to a later interview by Turing, the meaning of the third variant is summarized as follows. The role of ‘A’ in digital computers means that the interrogator does not properly identify human (B) and computer (A) by pretending to be ‘B’ (human, brain). The point is that if interrogator who is human decides not clearly to tell whether human or machine. Then the all of them should be judged as “they are thinking” whether it is a human or a computer.
What is “thinking” that we have explored through philosophical inquiry?
John Searle (Professor emeritus at UC Berkeley) questions the Turing test itself. He argues that artificial intelligence that passes the Turing test is a strong artificial intelligence. This discussion, known as the ‘Chinese room’ was first presented in 1980.
The point is that if the strong artificial intelligence is true, then anyone who can run that computer program to simulate any cognitive ability must be able to gain that cognitive ability. For example, let’s do this in Chinese.
“Actually, I do not know Chinese at all. Japanese characters and Chinese characters cannot be distinguished. But let’s imagine this. I am now locked in a room with boxes full of Chinese symbols, and I have a computer program that allows me to answer a set of rules, that say, questions submitted to me in Chinese. I receive symbols I do not know, that is question. Then, I take the symbols out of the boxes, manipulate them according to the rules of the program, distribute the symbols that need, it is interpreted as the answer.
We can assume that I passed the Turing test to measure Chinese understanding, but at the same time I do not understand Chinese at all. But if I do not understand Chinese just because I run the right computer program, just running the program on any other computer does not mean that I understand Chinese. Because no computer has something that I don’t have.”
The proposed ‘Chinese room’ is a virtual agent that executes Chinese input, rules processing, and Chinese output. The computer works by manipulating the symbols. The processes are defined purely syntactically. On the other hand, the human mind has more than just unintelligible symbols. The human mind attaches meanings to symbols.
Computers are only syntactic that deal only with the relationship between symbol and symbols, that is algorithms or programs, while humans approach the meanings attached to each symbol. That is, the unique characteristic of the human mind is that it can understand the meaning. The theory for some essence but that essence premise cannot be proved. The essence of that Searle called ‘understanding of meaning’, but it may be said to be ‘consciousness’ more broadly.
How Turing disputed what he called a “ritual – based argument” According to the most extreme form of this viewpoint, the only way to be certain that a machine thinks is to ‘be a machine’ that feels like a machine. Then it would be possible to describe these feelings to the world, but they will not draw anyone’s attention.
Likewise, according to this view, the only way to know what a person thinks is to become that particular person. This is a solipsism perspective. It may be the most logical view to keep that in mind. But that makes communication of thoughts difficult. ‘A’ can believe that ‘A thinks, but B does not think’, but at the same time ‘B’ can believe that ‘B thinks, but A does not think’. Rather than continually debating this issue, it is common for everyone to follow a polite convention of thought.
Turing was disputing the opposition of ‘Searle’ in advance. It is possible to ask not only the ‘Agent’ such as the Chinese room but also other human beings around, whether there is a real consciousness, but there is no way to check it. In other words, there is no reason to force a higher standard on the machine because there is no evidence of the other’s mind state. Turing’s strategy is same as when he avoided the precise definition of the word ‘think’. In other words, it is difficult to define precisely what ‘understanding of meaning’ or ‘consciousness’ is, in the reality, we only can access indirectly or roundabout way. And the only way is to offer a way to examine whether you understand the meaning or whether there is consciousness. It goes without saying that it is the Turing test.
The keyword to consider here is awareness.
What exactly is awareness and how do we evidence it?
How can we make the computer more aware of its surroundings,
build knowledge from this and respond to external stimuli?
How can we make the computer seem aware?
I should continue to consider the above sentence throughout this project.
In this project, the keyword ‘awareness’ and the computer vision ‘OpenCV’ can be used to express the concept of human consciousness.
‘OpenCV’ is a programming library mainly for real-time computer vision. Originally developed by Intel. It is a library focused on real-time image processing. When used on Intel CPUs, it supports IPP to see speed improvements. ‘OpenCV’ is used in applications such as object-face-behavior recognition, reading (Lip recognition), and motion tracking.
That makes a computer working same as human eyes being. ‘OpenCV’ containing many image features supports the development of computer vision applications including behavior recognition, object tracking, face recognition, and more.
And what tutors showed us as an example of our project today is,
-Machine learning to link to related topics after image combination and image analysis.
– Google Cloud Vision API and Translate API
In this project, tutors don’t want to create brilliant effects in the output. Because it is a three-week project, it is more likely to be produced by exploring rather than by implementing high-level technology.
What is consciousness?
It refers to the totality of psychological activities peculiar to humans. Consciousness is the product of all the activities of human knowledge, emotion, and will, as a reflection of the material world, and is manifested by the provision of certain material conditions at the development stage of material change. In addition, before to the development of human beings, biological and experiential physiological and psychological presuppositions are formed to establish consciousness through natural history and biological development over a long period of time, and psychological activities based on sensory organs, has developed.
According to the most general view, mind is equated with ‘Consciousness’. Consciousness is the mind. So, what is consciousness? We still do not know what consciousness is yet, but I have not seen much difference in seeing consciousness as self-awareness. To be consciousness is to ‘know and feel what I am myself’ and ‘I am aware conscious’, otherwise it is unconsciousness.
The origin of ‘consciousness’ can be divided into three parts: ‘con-scious-ness’. The first ‘con’ means ‘together’, and the ‘ness’ at the end points to an abstract noun. The middle part is the Latin word ‘scientia’, meaning ‘knowledge’, which is ‘science’ in English. It comes from ‘skei-‘, which means ‘splitting’. Why did ‘science’ come to possess such an etymology? People believe that knowledge is formed when it is divided well and distinguish. Science is to know what difference from distinguish for each other.
In the etymology, ‘to know together’ is called ‘consciousness’, which means same as ‘self-awareness’. It is also a circular and reflexive definition.
Through the 19th century, important counterargument emerges in the view that the mind equates with consciousness. According to Freud who invented psychoanalysis at the end of the nineteenth century. Freud’s unconsciousness is the area of the mind that is not awakened but that forms part of the mind and that we can identify and explore part of mind. Unconsciousness is a complementary set of consciousness in the mind. Freud’s innovative argument is that the unconscious is part of the mind and that the unconscious process forms or defines consciousness.
It extends the range of mind outward of consciousness. Outside of consciousness, the mind is still working. Dreaming, returning from dream to reality and recover consciousness are all activities of the mind. Sometimes we do things that we do not even know about, which is also part of our mind activity. Ultimately, expanding the range of mind without being limited to consciousness is a sufficiently convincing argument in itself.
In the Bateson writing,
‘Image formation processes are unconsciousness’
This generalization is due to my often-conscious action of pointing the sense organs towards some source of information. I seem to be true about everything that happens to my conscious work, which derives information from images that I see, hear, feel, taste, and smell. Even pain is a clearly created image. Processes of perception are inaccessible. The products of perception are only conscious. Of course, what is needed are products from them. For me, empirical epistemology begins with two general facts. First, the process by which images I consciously see are created is unconsciousness to me. Second, in these unconsciousness processes I use all the wide range of premises to be captured in the finished image.
Of course, we all know that the images we see are produced by the brain or mind. But there is a big difference between knew this fact as just knowledge and realized feeling it.
So, Bateson does not want to deal with the issue of consciousness, considering it is vague. The consciousness is only the result, and the mind process proceeds unconsciously, however the unconscious is inaccessible at all. If the unconscious is the cause and the result is thought or consciousness, then it can be said that the unconscious is in a more fundamental position.
Also, if you can incorporate the unconscious as part of your mind, another question arises. It is a question of where to extend the unconscious. This is the question of how far the range of the mind can be extended.
In the mid-19th century, Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) said that the body was a hierarchy mind and body was a real mind. It does not mean that there is no mind, but the body is unconsciousness. Meanwhile, Marx extended the range of the unconsciousness to the material world by saying that society defines consciousness.
And this is also possible. Everything that influences our thoughts and actions includes everything. The environment is an important trigger of consciousness behavior. The physical environment itself can be called unconscious. In that sense, it can explain the different cultures and customs depending on geography and environment.
Understanding, sympathy
Among the features of the mind are understanding and sympathy. These two concepts are different. If understanding means comprehensive of ‘understanding of meaning’, sympathy refers to ‘understanding of others’ feelings.
Earlier, Hume identified humans as being partial, rather than egoistic. However, he was argued that human reason why partial is because of compassion. Compassion is stronger in the close from you, and weaker in the farther away.
The human mind is by nature biased. That attract on the nearest from you. If bias is a natural feature for humans, I do not think that artificial intelligence necessarily imitates human intelligence. Artificial intelligence that works with other algorithms may be better to humans, rather than using same as human intelligence.
Rationality, Reason, Ratio
Humans have chosen reason as their own realm. At least for Westerners. However, the reason meaning is quite wide. The most widely known meaning among us is the meaning derived from the Latin “ratio”. This word originally means ‘calculating ability’. It is also the etymology of English ‘rational’, which means reasonable rationality.
Humans are weak in numbers and poor in calculations. Paradoxically, however, humans have built a machine that performs calculations well. The computer is a calculator. The computer as a calculator is a sum of rationality as the ability to calculate. The calculator is one of the greatest accomplishments of human beings.
Among the existing works, there are things related to calculations and things that are not. We have to distinct them so that the work related to computation is separated as artificial intelligence, and the other part should be left for human. There is no need to be surprised that a human who does not do well in calculations cannot beat a machine that is maximized in calculation. This distinction has important implications for future work and what we need to learn and teach. Reason is unique ability for human being. Just think about like that humans have an external brain that is well-calculated.
Free will and intention
Human begins has free will. Human acts with intention of what to do next. Free will and intention are also presented as unique characteristics of the human mind. Strictly speaking, intention is a concept under free will. Without free will it is impossible to do something.
Mind and body
It may have been different in the Far East, but at least in the West, the body and mind were opposed.
Once we look at the Western world first, our bodies and minds seem intuitively different. Because the body takes up space. It is a three-dimensional volume. Also, in third person, that is, objectively identifiable. On the other hand, the mind is hard to say exactly where it is. The mind is in the brain, but we don’t know exactly where it is. After all, the mind does not seem to take up space. Like a point in the 0-dimension. It is also identified only in the first person and subjective. The body is obvious, while the mind is non-locality.
The first explicit claim to the dualism of body and mind is usually said to be Descartes. Most relevant discussions begin in Descartes. But it is wrong to start discussing from Descartes. For Plato, who was active almost 2,000 years before Descartes, the dualism of body and mind is claimed in a clear form.
Perception
Let’s look at what it means to perceive the world, and what happens in the process of perception. And other senses are not different. The mechanism is the same, but the vision is good example because we can identify it relatively objectively. What happens when we look at the world through our eyes? Do we accept, select, or transform the world? or you are decorating the world? I think we can have a question about that.
When we normally see, visual illusions often occur. It can be seen that the interesting part happens not only to humans but also to cats at least.
What happens when you see a color, ‘colour constancy’ is an example. This is famous for the colour and controversy of the clothes that have been popular on the Internet before. Whether it’s a black lace on a blue background or a white gold. Originally, the colour itself does not change, but in reality, the colour of an object always changes according to the situation. However, the brain considers it and tries to restore the original colour. The colour we see in our brain is impossible for the reconstructed colour.
The strange thing about the structure of the eye is that there are no visual cells in the part where the optic nerves anatomically gather and transmit visual information to the brain. It is called the blind spot. Visual information coming through the lens reaches the blind spot is not actually visible. But when we see the world, we cannot experience somewhere is empty or hole in there. It is because the brain appropriately fills it. The brain is doing something that makes information even where do not have information.
The Chilean cognitive biologist Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela concisely say, “The surprising thing about the blind spot experiment is that we cannot see that we do not see it.”
In addition, our eyes only receive limited visual information, but the brain actively uses existing information to reduce the burden on the brain. It’s a kind of Photoshop work. So, we feel like the world is always full.
Considering shapes, colors, blind spots, and volume of information, it is hard to say what is actual seeing the world through eyes. In some ways, it seems difficult to say that you see something in the world. In many cases, we only can see the result of processing by the brain. It is true that the process of perception is unconscious and only the product by brain is conscious.
And this is also common in other senses. Rather than seeing what’s really there, it’s just what you see. How it came to be seen is not an area where consciousness can be approached. We are confronted only with perceived results. We are conscious of only the result of the brain ‘s decoration. It is sophisticated, but it would be only true to see, to sense, to perceive.
Artificial Intelligence
In the case of intelligence, there are artificial intelligence and human intelligence. Let’s see what it is.
Artificial intelligence is a computer program that realizes human learning ability, reasoning ability, perception ability, and natural language understanding.
Artificial – made by people, often as a copy of something natural: = 인위(人爲), 인조(人造) 사람이 하는 일. 사람(人)이 자연물(自然物)을 가공(加工)하는 일.
Meaning of consciousness in artificial intelligence
Can artificial intelligence have consciousness? This is the most controversial question about artificial intelligence. If artificial intelligence has consciousness, artificial intelligence may have to be viewed as a human being, and artificial intelligence can make a different decision than our intention. However, since it is not yet scientifically investigated what consciousness is, it seems impossible to answer it now.
And it has not been long since scientists have recognized consciousness as a scientific research topic. The philosopher David Charmas, who ignited the 21st century consciousness study, divided the problem of consciousness into two parts. ‘Easy problem’ is about how the brain accepts and interprets sensory input. The ‘difficult problem’ is how the physical description causes a subjective experience.
The psychophysical argument of Charmas is mainly an argument that modern science or existing physicalism cannot explain mind or consciousness. To illustrate this, the concept of an easy problem and a hard problem emerges. Charmas claim is that we can explain the easy problem, but the hard problem we cannot be described as consciousness.
It is this difficult problem, the problem of sensory Qualia, that the philosophers have a question. Many people presented a variety of explanations for the hard problem ‘Qualia’, but ’Charmus’ thought all of explain is not properly. So, Daniel Dennet assume states that ‘Qualia’ does not exist to solve the ‘Qualia’ problem. Many psychologists have taken a position similar to this Dannets position. On the other hand, philosophers such as Patricia Churchland saw that the problem of ‘Qualia’ would naturally be solved by solving the easy problem. To put it easily, easy and difficult problems are related, and difficult problems are entangled with easy problems that we do not yet know. In other words, I thought that if science developed further, it would be solved.
Charmas argues that rituals or ‘Qualia’ cannot be explained by modern science and suggests a hypothesis for that reason. According to Charmas, physicists think there is a fundamental element of the universe. For example, there are space, time, and materials. In the 19th century, Maxwell found that electromagnetic phenomena could not be explained by traditional Newtonian physics, and he proposed the basic laws of electromagnetics to explain this phenomenon. He assumed electric charge as a fundamental element of the rule. ‘Charmus’ says that our situation is similar to the above situlation. “If you can’t explain consciousness in terms of existing basic elements-space, time, matter, and charge, you have to logically expand the list. So, what we have to do is to assume the basic components of nature based on consciousness itself.” he explained.
Human Intelligence and artificial Intelligence
Human intelligence is the ideal and example of artificial intelligence. We might have a question whether AI should resemble human intelligence. In view of the partiality of human beings mentioned above. But at least to date, human intelligence still presents the ideal model of artificial intelligence technology to overcome its weaknesses and limitations. At least if there is one ideal target system that AI wants to simulate, human intelligence is can be a goal of system. Human intelligence eventually consists of a cognitive system centered on the brain. Thus, the question of the nature of intelligence can eventually lead to a question about the human brain’s cognitive system.
To better understand the process of intelligence generation and its essence, let’s first look at the basic functions of the brain. Why does the brain exist? What are the core functions of the brain? Biologically, every individual seeks survival and reproduction, and the brain’s control of the body for this is the most basic key function. In other words, the brain plays a pivotal role in perception and behavior in order for an individual to adapt and survive. What’s the brain trying to solve? To survive and multiply in the environment, you need to recognize objects, recognize your opponents, avoid enemies, capture prey, and find mating partners. For this purpose, many higher organisms have developed cognitive functions such as vision, hearing, memory and selective concentration, and to humans, higher cognitive functions such as language and thinking have been added.
The concept of ‘intelligence’ is completely different in the human brain and artificial intelligence. Computers only perform tasks with mathematical integrity. Humans, on the other hand, aren’t just doing things that are mathematically complete. Rather, most people think about difficult to think mathematically.
A good representative example is the process of the child stands up. The child can be crawl, walk and run through self-learning. It is a natural process for a child, but the machine is not easy. Because it is not easy to mathematically express ‘how to center the weight in real time, how to move muscles and bones’. The answer most often by scholars about the difference between the human brain and artificial intelligence is ‘expectation’. Humans have the ability to anticipate the next situation, but computers do not. It is also about free will.
Imagine a child opening the door. The child has always seen the door open when pulled, so child expect the door to open when pulled. However, if child have a experience that the door is only opened by sliding, child learn there were different type of door opening way which is pulled or slid. This is how humans understand the world. It is an animal that humans learn through mistakes.
There are more differences. Unlike computers, humans have a ‘brain that understands’. In Bloom’s Texanomie, humans go through the Comprehension phase and into the Application phase. Computers, on the other hand, go from knowledge to application without comprehension. This is because machine learning can solve problems without understanding even with a huge amount of data.
Humans should find what only humans can do. The answer lies in the difference between brain and artificial intelligence. Analyzing and expanding data is much faster in AI, so we have to do something that requires comprehension. It is the human realm to work critically against existing data.
QUALIA
Tutors also talked about ‘QUALIA’ in the lecture. ‘QUALIA’ = sensory qualities, such as feelings that come to feel something, perceiving imagery, have characteristics that are difficult to express in words. Because it is the first-person viewpoint, it is subjective and difficult to observe objectively.
In describing intelligence, tutor also introduced an early interactive system called Eliza.
Eliza
Eliza – is an early natural language processing computer programme created from 1964 to 1966 at the MIT. Created to demonstrate the superficiality of communication between humans and machines, Eliza simulated conversation by using a ‘pattern matching’ and substitution methodology that gave users an illusion of understanding on the part of the programme but had no built-in framework for contextualizing events.
The most famous script, DOCTOR, simulated a Rogerian psychotherapist and used rules, dictated in the script, to respond with non-directional questions to user inputs. s such, ELIZA was one of the first chatterbots and one of the first programs capable of attempting the Turing Test.
SHRDLU
SHRDLU – was an early natural language understanding computer programme, developed by Terry Winogard at MIT in 1968 – 1980. In it, the user carries on a conversation with the computer, moving object, naming collections and querying the state of a simplified “block world”, essentially a virtual box filled with different blocks.
How does the background of the study centered on the understanding of natural language, in addition to the progress of language theory, how to express grammar or meaning on a computer? It is thought that the problem of the expression of knowledge is also started at the same time.
Later, tutor showed how to use OpenCV with some examples of how it was actually working that face recognition, image and video analysis, and face recognition in real-time cameras.
This is my primary idea of project. It may be interesting to examine ” How do you sympathize with someone who has a different perspective? Is it coming from linguistic or semiotic, or from somewhere else?” I also wanted to find out which part of the ritual governed this part. I will also examine how the social norms of linguistics and semiotics affect our consciousness.
3/5
NOTE
Today, we learn how to use Eliza library on the Processing. We downloaded the library from Processing first.
– Editing a word in the text editor can change the word that appears. ex) First initial
– I can modify the text to change the sentence, so it might be better to explore further personally.
For example, choose a topic and discuss?
– I can create multiple virtual personality with multiple scripts to enable chatting at random.
– tutor also explained how to create scripts by importing text from the outside.
+ The processing ‘trim’ function prepends an empty space such as a leading indent.
In addition, there is a Rita library lecture in the YouTube coding train channel. The Rita library is also optimized for text generation. For example, random placement of words, random placement of sentences, analysis of existing text, etc.
3/8
NOTE
What is machine learning?
In the morning, we learned how to use ‘Wekinator’ and in the afternoon we learned ‘Runway’ programme.
— Wekinator —
What we did during the workshop was image processing, which first input multiple images as an example -> Learn -> Output.
— Wekinator —
– It is possible to send / send information using OSC.
– The port number is important. Changes are possible, but the example is 6448.
– OSC message = Where to receive input of information, leave it alone.
– Leave the OUTPUTS as is. Only change the port number
– dest = new NetAddress (“127.0.0.1”, 6448); = Data transmission, IP setting
– Input the number of input data, ex) Mouse X, Y
– – (number) class = – (number) label
– If you train -> train button, it changes from purple to green,
The output labels from 1 to 5 where the data was entered are automatically changed.
– Input – Weki – Output (ex) You can load an image or image from an output to an if statement)
– Weki Input Helper
As an example, we analyzed the color of the camera’s pixels and learned it with the Wekinator.
– Classical pie can learn from 1 ~ x list
– The Wekinators’ continuation can be learned with the slider bar between A and B.
You can also use 5 parameters to map the points in different directions so that they can be moved up, down, left, and right.
– It is likely to be able to recognize and use audio by mapping the content of speech to text with words.
– ex) The accent that Trump makes to speech, the analysis of the accent that others speak.
Runway
Runway is an interface to machine learning software. There are many machine learning tools. However, to run ‘Runway’ on Windows, you need a ‘Docker’ programme, which was very painful from the installation to the execution process. In conclusion was to update Windows Home to Pro and install Docker.
Reason:
I found out that when I installed the Docker tool box, the Docker for window could not be installed even if I upgraded to Windows Pro. It seems to be a problem inside the operating system. Only way you can solve this problem is Windows clean format(Not fast format, I try that more than three times) or find out how to install the tool box in Google(I can found so many tutorial, but it does not work 😦 ). If you do both things in the middle, you will be suffer a lot. The sad fact is, I did not use Runway programme for my final work.
Afterwards I decided to the idea of my project. The starting point for the idea began with what Marx said about “how society affects the formation of human perceptions.”
And I tried to get an idea from a documentary called ‘East and West’ which was aired on EBS. Eastern and Western social structures, hierarchy and ideology are different in many ways. If so, where did the differences in thinking between the East and the West originate? This consideration starts from what I felt during live in the Glasgow. Sometimes I can feel differences in the behaviors or thinking.
How to watch
Type ‘East’
OR
Youtube
Part 1 – https://youtu.be/ZoDtoB9Abck
Part 2 – https://youtu.be/jLh4QZDyNUA
GENERALIZATION ALWAYS INVOLVES A LOT OF ERRORS. I WANT YOU TO LOOK AT THAT JUST FOR FUN.
Westerners see nouns, Easterners see verbs.
Westerners generally see space as something that is mostly empty, Westerners tend to envision space as the thing in which planets float the objects in empty space exist independently of their surroundings. But to Easterners space has been believed since ancient times to be filled with energy known as ‘Gi – 기 (氣) ‘. Objects made from ‘Gi’ are always closely related to the surrounding ‘Gi’.
In the West objects are thought to exist in empty space while in the East objects are seen as being made from ‘Gi’. From this small difference in perspective stems the difference between East and West.
In Western thought process if two objects are separated they do not really affect each other the reason is that the space between them is empty. In Eastern thought, however, the two separate objects affect each other anyway in the East all objects all of objects are made of ‘Gi’ and all thing are related through this ‘Gi’. It is in this way that ancient scholars in the east came to realize the tides were the result of interaction between the earth and the moon.
Everything in space operates on every other thing. This notion of universal interactivity is well represented in Japanese garden ‘ かれさんすい – karasansui ( Japanese rock garden)’.
This differences between typical Eastern and Western thought can be summed up as the difference between objects and substance. According to Professor Mutsumi Imai of the Department of Cognitive Science at University of Keio,
“If you break the object in front of you a piece of it. it is not the same as the whole object. However, if you have a lump of clay or lump of wax and then you break it each piece is the same as lump of clay. So the criteria for the same is very different for substance and an object and for substance there is no notion of individuality and then notion of wholeness. You know whole and part it is the same for substance, but for object you know how is a hole and then piece of it or part of it’s no longer than same object consider the same. So, this distinction is very important conceptual. English and another Western language hold this distinction conceptual distinction in grammar.
In the east Asia countries, there is no need to give special emphasis because it has become a habit to reason through context. It is assumed that they will understand each other without revealing the quantity of specific objects. – Professor of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley – Professor Peng Kaiping
Object are at the centre of Westerners thoughts so in western languages there is a clear difference between singular and plural nouns but there is no such clear distinction in Eastern languages.
Westerners tend to emphasize the individuality of objects. Wholeness refers to a collection of individual thing. but Easterners wholeness refers to a lump without any distinct individuality. In other words, oneness.
Differences can also be found in the language. Why did Western languages develop with a noun focus and Eastern language with a verb focus? let’s take the example of a person drinking tea when asking whether more tea is wanted. There is a clear difference in terms used, Westerners typically ask more tea? with an emphasis on the noun tea. An Easterners, however, might typically say drink more? focusing on the verb. ‘Drink’ the verb drink expresses the operation between people and tea Easterners typically think of the interactions between individual people or objects so they tend to use more verbs. On the other hand, Westerners may focus on the people and tea as a separate objects so the noun ‘Tea’ is used in their suggestions so Westerners use nouns to express individualism and Easterners use verb as an expression of interactions. In other words, the West typically sees the world with nouns and the East sees it with verbs.
For Easterners, everything in space is constantly changing. To the typical Easterners everything is the result of these interactions with the surroundings. This Chrysanthemum is part of this interaction, it is the result of many interactions with the surroundings over a long time.
In order for a Chrysanthemum
to blossom,
an owl must chirp
from spring
-서정주
Many objects are created and disappear as a result of many causations. In Buddhism, this is called ‘Youngi’ which mean arising from conditional causation. ‘Yonngi’ refer to the idea that everything arises from conditions and not being spontaneous and self-contained has no separate and independent nature. In English, it can be translated as ‘Arising’. In the West, objects are typically referred to as being. Them as stationary object arising or bringing about is a verb. In the East, being means existing and it is stationary. In the West, illustrates nicely the different vintage points from the East and the West.
Consider the question why is this object blue? To Westerners the cause is inside the object because the surroundings are empty. In Eastern thought the space is filled with ‘Gi’ and the objects are concentration of this ‘Gi’. Therefore, the object is blue because of the surrounding ‘Gi’. This object is closely related to the objects around it meaning there might be more complicated operations causing its blueness. Easterners typically think the cause and effects are complex.
According to Incheol Choi who is professor Seoul Nation University, “In explaining behaviors, people live in the context of many objects and their behaviors are explained with many things. For Westerners, people are individuals with less connection to their surrounding context. What is inside them is enough to explain how they behavior. Such different points of views for people explain many issues like this.”
According to Takahiko Masuda who is Professor of Psychology in the University of Alberta.
“Westerners, in general they focus on the centre of the scene which mean the center person. And they try to get the patterns about the centre of figures facial expression. Then even to the background has been changed during a angry, sad, happy background they do not care so much. Which means they nicely produced the consistent deviation to us the same type of facial expressions.
Japanese are strongly influenced by the changes in the background facial expressions which means that there if you are presented with happy background. The happy centre person are seen as a much more happier than the case that they are presented with the sad or neutral background.”
In Eastern thought the property of an object can differ depending on where it is. Depending on its venue the property changes. This surrounding will you can be called the field objects belong to the field around them in what is known as the situation.
Easterner, contend to over analyze the situation of an object because the situation decides it s properties.
In East Asian(China, Korea, Japan, Taiwan) society, it seems to be natural to see yourself from outside you are also the part of the society if you take you know inside person point of view. You are going to go observe this world from your eyes. You are always the center but, the yourself is not visible. So, everything occurs to you is just come in front of your eyes and you cannot see yourself. East Asian society you can even contextualize yourself. If you rake outside as point of view you are also in the part of the group and part of the society. When you take a look East Asian paintings, you can easily identify that they take a bird’s eye view which is not completely different techniques to compare to the Western perspective.
The interaction yin and yang is the representative principle of Eastern thought. Yin is the shade and yang is the sunshine. According to this principle no object exists without a partner just like sunshine and shade.
This exists and that exists.
This brings about that.
Without this, that is not.
This disappears and that disappears.
– Samyuktagama (Buddhist Sutra)
Westerners see objects they separate them from their background by looking at them. This way they simultaneously interpret their meaning. Denise Park who is professor of Psychology in University of Illinois said Americans showed more activation in their brains in the middle temporal that’s a part of the brain that is associated with contacting the meaning of objects. Westerners separate objects and interpret their meaning. Separating and interpreting is analysis. It is origins are in the separating process. Westerners see objects through this functions like instinct.
Westerners wanted chaotic individuals in the world to be arranged in order. That is why Westerners tend to make categories depending on the properties of the objects. Categorizing things brings great advantage it helps knowledge build up over time from this stems scientific development. The word science which originates from this concept means separate. Science has the origin meaning separate. This separation means a lot to Westerners.
Sculptors in ancient Greece, exemplified this analytic thought process. They believed that the beauty of object came from a proper proportion of each part. This is known as the golden ratio. Even the word reason comes from the word ratio.
For Westerns the world is a collection of individual. For Easterners on the other hand, the world is a big field where everything is related and interconnected. Westerners see the world as individually expressed nouns and Easterners see the world as verbs that express the interactions between the objects.
Westerners want to see, Easterners want to be.
Which one is ahead?
In Western culture seeing things is highly regarded. Philosopher Rene Descartes believed that human vision was a blessing from God. Perspective is designed to portray the world precisely as the human eye sees it. This type of painting method interprets the three-dimensional world into the two-dimensional space using a device like a window frame with this type of perspective space can be incorporated onto a coordinate system. In doing this, it becomes objective space in observation using perspective the observer is the centre and everything else is an object.
The English word ‘object’ can refer to both target of observation and anything. Objective originated from object means not subjective. Besides its literary meaning I see is also a stand-in for I understand. This perspective which originates from the act of seeing is an important element in understanding the common Western mindset. The act of seeing means the observer is visually seeing objects. The vision of observers is to ward objects and the direction is the front of observers.
That is why in the question asked earlier which one is ahead the most distant object from the observer is the farthest ahead.
In that perspective, the nearest is biggest and the most distant is the smallest. In traditional Eastern thought, this concept works in an opposite way. This is traditional Korean folk painting. In this picture, the Western perspective is applied in an opposite way. Here the most nearest is smaller and the most distant is bigger.
This painting method called retro perspective is common to Asian paintings. What is the method developed in the East?
The concept of Indra Net(因陀羅網) is introduced in the book Avatamaska sutra(?) a major Buddhist scripture. Indra Net refers to the big web said to cover space. This term is a metaphor suggesting that everything in space is part of this network, clear marbles hang on every knot of the Indra Net. These marbles represent every object in space and each marble contains the images of other marbles around it.
The way that marbles contain the images of objects is synonymous with the Chinese letter yin(?) and means to be seen or to show up.
In the West, to see is from the observers point of view. In the East, to see is an action that comes from objects. In other words, it is not the observer that sees, but the object that shows up. In many cases in Eastern thought it is objects that are the centre this is one reason. For example that Eastern learners of English have difficulty with negative questions. In the East, if you asked do not you would like Kiwis “Yes” if you do not like them. Because about not liking them the positive response to the question is the right one which considers the questioner therefore the answer is “Yes”. But in Proper English “No” is the right answer. In English ‘I’ is the centre of most things. If I like the answer is “Yes”, but if I do not like the that the answer is “No”.
I think, the most different thing between English and Korean(Japanese sentences composition is same with Korea) is the composition of sentences completely different. Simplest example is we use the verb at the end of sentence. Normally Subject + Object + Verb.
Anyway…. In the East, ‘I’ thinks from the perspective of how others think and speak. Westerners see objects from the speaker’s point of view. This is called insider’s perspective or first-person perspective.
On the other hand, Easterners see themselves from the viewpoint of others this is the called the outsider’s perspective or the third-person perspective. Westerners with an insider’s perspective focus on what they feel therefore they tend to believe that others feel the same as they do. This is called called egocentric projection. Easterners with an outsider’s perspective focus on what others think and feel. They try to imagine what others think and feel. This is known as relational projection.
The way marble contains images of other marbles is analogous to the Eastern mindset of relational projection from the opposite viewpoint. What is seen is opposite to my perspective? therefore the painting are portrayed in an opposite way from the viewers perspective.
Korean folk painting provide examples of this outsider viewpoint. The picture is painted not from the painters viewpoint but from the objects viewpoint.
In Western culture ‘I’ is at the centre of most things. In English I is even capitalized no matter it falls in a sentence. Even the word individual formed from the negative prefix ‘in’ and ‘divide’ suggests something that cannot be divide any further. Individuals are synonymous with atoms that are seen as indivisible and unbreakable into further parts. In Western culture individuals are often treated atoms the basic units of everything.
According to Sharon Shavitt who is professor of marketing in University of Illinois. “If you think about what is the life goal of an independent person. A person from an independent sort of culture or an individualistic culture. That life goal is to be self-reliant capable of doing things on one’s own smart and discerning and all of that is fed by the notion that you need to present yourself as being overly smart almost impossibly capable. So, almost a Superman kind of view of the self.”
Building self-confidence is one of the most important things in American education.
“Education System in the U.S. and parents responses to children in the U.S encourage children to inflate themselves to brag to present themselves in a positive way to say. I am greatest, smart, capable and I can do it.”
Westerners place a high value on statements like I am confident in my judgement. I can tell when some is lying and many people think that I am special.
“Westerners score high on this scale and they tend to agree with statements like I am very confident of my judgments or I can always tell when some is lying to me or many people think that I am exceptional. Western individualist are more likely to agree with statements like that.”
In every society there are expected behaviors which are considered socially desirable or responding. In Eastern society people who behave modesty are considered to be good people. Whereas in Western society people who look find approval.
We all care about looking good to other people. We all want to present ourselves positively, but what that means can change from culture to culture. So, in an Eastern culture presenting yourself positively means “I do not break a rules. I behave as I am expected to I can be trusted to be a good friend or a good person for my group helping people.” That is presenting yourself positively.
In Western culture. it is quit different presenting yourself. Positively means being smart and capable “I can do it, I am smarter than average person, I can be self-reliant.” Western way of being desirable and positive is to brag a little bit about my own personal qualities and how capable I am. But the Eastern way of being desirable is not to brag it is to be modest but also following the rules and doing what is expected.
Western parents teach their children to independently make judgment about thing by themselves. In the East, parents typically make choices for their kids. Children believe that their parents choose what is best for them. They trust and follow their parent’s choices. 
Westerners set up standards to justify their actions, especially when they follow their emotions. When they feel good about something, their action can be justified. Easterners, who find themselves more enmeshed with society and the people around them, tend to judge themselves by doing what they are expected to do based on the standards of social pressure, familial responsibilities, and regulations. They constantly compare themselves with others. As a result, the level of happiness is evaluated differently in Western and Eastern countries. Easterners, in fact, often find it hard to experience individual happiness.
Easterners evaluate themselves depending on the standards of others for the society. What others think of them is more important than their own evaluation. Plus, Easterners are typically very sensitive to others judgment. This phenomenon that is so prominent in the consciousness of Easterners is called the ‘Generalized Other’.
The picture of one’s own self image in the mind of others is the generalized other. This features is analogous to when marbles contain images of other objects on themselves. One marble contains images of other objects in relation to itself.
If you look closely at a marble on the Intra Net, you can see one marble contains many marbles. In Buddhism, this is called ‘Il-jung-da, Da-jung-il = 일중다, 다중일 / 一中多,多中一’ which means the parts belong to the whole and the whole belongs to the parts.
If you look closely at a leaf, you can find the entire figure of a tree in it.
There are many such example like this in nature. It is widely accepted that in the East. It is considered a law of nature. It is believed that every object in the universe moves according to this law of nature.
In Confucianism people are taught live by this rule. The teaching of Confucius focused heavily on how humans can live according to the law of nature. In the West, however, the human mind has often been seen as superior to laws of nature. “Life lies before us, as huge quarry lies before the architec: he deserves not the name of architec, except when, out of this fortuitous mass, he can combine, with the greatest economy, and fitness, and durability, some form, the pattern of which originated in his spirit.” – J.W. Goethe
In the West, it is believed that it is the mind that binds truth not nature. Pen Kaiping Said, like in Western college they always emphasize seminars, emphasizing debates. Why? because is coming from the Greek traditions. Because more you fight with each others and debate with each others. Then you will find the truth. That is precisely our stater said choose is property of the discourse. That is he said what it means is that truth is not in the book, truth is not in your head, truth is not his head, truth in between. So, we fight with debate we argue then we discover where the truth is in the middle.
From ancient time in the West, observation and analysis have developed for finding truth. This process make it necessary for observers to present their findings and to allow others to search for fallacies and errors.
Thus the process of exchanging ideas and holding free discussion is required in order to find truth. In the West, oratory has traditionally been highly regarded. This is why eloquence and rhetoric have developed into virtual art forms.
Quite to the contrary people who are eloquent are often not trusted in the East. Korean proverbs like the ’empty carriage makes a lot of noise’. This idea that when you hear a lot talking often means there is not so much thinking going on or in Japanese context people say the mouth is the source of misfortune. This idea that talking is not always thought to be a good thing and being the person who knows is often the person who is quiet and does not have a lot to say.
“Those who know do not speak.
Those who speak do not know”
– Laotzu
In the East, a negative image of eloquence has long existed. Easterners traditionally believed that language is a means for delivering meaning. So, language cannot be for some other purpose. The philosopher ‘Chuang-tzu’ spoke the ‘Tug-i-mang-on = 득의망언 / 得意忘言’ which means that if you understand something, them forget the words.
Confucius himself referred to on ‘On-bul-chin-i = 언불진의 / 言不盡意’ which means that language cannot hold every meaning in the world.
The operation in the mind and the language take place at the same time for Westerners. When they see a pipe Westerners come up with the word pipe and recognize it. This principle of identity is a basic building block of Western logic.
In the book of oriental philosophy ‘The Book of Changes = 주역 / 周易’ refers to changes core of the book is about change and alteration.
While the basic philosophy of the West is the principle of identity. The East is the principle of change.
Westerners and Easterners typically see objects in different ways. Westerners try to understand by analyzing object and Easterners try to become one with them. This is why we say Westerners want to see and Easterners want to be.
Return to the project, my plan is that I am focus on comparing the space where we live in now days. I believe that the difference in space affects the perception of people. And Marx society affects human perception a lot. As humans be through the socialization process, they follow the characteristic of the group to which they belong.
From that perspective, I am start to develop my own idea. Society means the space where we are we living. The book ‘The Geography of Thought: How Asians and Westerners Think Differently – And Why’ written by Richard E. Nisbett, he said “the cultural differences coming from the ecology difference”.
So I can questioning to “what kinds of differences we can see in the real space between East and West?”. And “I am want to keep thinking about that to my own, was it really affects to people’s consciousness?”. Then, I wonder what kinds of difference we can find? It might be city shape, route, percentage of green space, topography near the city and etc.
It would be more interesting to compare the past city maps of the East and the West. However, I could not find a image that shown similar scale whole city structure from the sky, thus, I replaced it to modern city images. However, I can do that but, I do not have enough time to do that.
Western
Rome
Rome – Carthago
Florence 1493
Constantinople – CG image
Paris 1539
Bologna
Edinburgh
London 1560
Exeter 1617
etc…
Eastern
Basic form of the city structure
CG Image
CG Image
China – Chang’an
CG Image
CG Image
Korea – Gyeongju
Japan – Kyoto
The above images shows the Eastern and Western cities. In the case of the West, I do not have knowledge about detail of city planning, but in China, Korea and Japan, we had the basic urban form that called ‘Zhuque Street / 朱雀大路 / 주작대로’. It is original way of build a city in the China Tang dynasty (7th – 10th).
And the structure of the city was not completely different from the past. Somewhere is keeping an original shape.
Back in to the project, my question is “How did the physical space structure, that is, the difference in the space in which we actually live, influenced the awareness difference in East and West perceptions?”
To answer the above questions, I will research about the structure of the city, which from first appeared in 11,000 years in human history to now the place where we live. Later, using OpenCV image matching, I plan to find out how similarity East and West city structures are. As I mentioned above my idea start from “how society affects the formation of human perceptions.”
I don’t know whether Marx’s society is a physical or a concept, that is, a linguistical defined in a dictionary. I take back into look at the documentary I saw above once assuming. It seems almost correct that different perceptions are generalized once in the region where we live, in different cultures.
Template matching
Template matching is a technique in digital image processing for finding small parts of an image which match a template image. It can be used in manufacturing as a part of quality control, a way to navigate a mobile robot, or as a way to detect edges in images.
The main challenges in the template matching task are: occlusion, detection of non-rigid transformations, illumination and background changes, background clutter and scale changes.
Feature-based approach
Feature-based approach relies on the extraction of image features such, i.e. shapes, textures, colors, to match in the target image or frame. This approach is currently achieved by using Neural Networks and Deep Learning classifiers such as VGG, AlexNet, ResNet. Deep Convolutional Neural Networks process the image by passing it through different hidden layers and at each layer produce a vector with classification information about the image. These vectors are extracted from the network and are used as the features of the image. Feature extraction by using Deep Neural Networks is extremely effective and thus is the standard in state of the art template matching algorithms.
This method is considered more robust and is state of the art as it can match templates with non-rigid and out of plane transformation, it can match with high background clutter and illumination changes.
Then we will work with the hypothesis that local, spatial characteristics, affect human consciousness. I will use Python and OpenCV as a research method. The object of comparison is the city structure from the past to the present in the East and the West, but it is difficult to obtain the ground plan data of historical city. The other way is to compare the maps of the old city structure is I restore it myself through historical painting and compare it, but I know that there is a big problem in terms of time and accuracy.
Finally, for map data, I decided to import it from Google Earth Studio. Image analysis will work by using Image Matching, which is supported by OpenCV. If I put two photos, it will automatically match similarity parts.
For comparison, I chose Western European countries such as England, Germany, Spain, France, and Italy, and decided to compare the capitals of the three Far East Asian countries: Korea, China, and Japan.
City list : London, Paris, Berlin, Madrid, Rome, Beijing, Seoul, Tokyo
Project Code
import cv2
import numpy as np
img1 = cv2.imread("berlin15.jpeg", cv2.IMREAD_GRAYSCALE)
img2 = cv2.imread("rome15.jpeg", cv2.IMREAD_GRAYSCALE)
# ORB Detector
orb = cv2.ORB_create()
kp1, des1 = orb.detectAndCompute(img1, None)
kp2, des2 = orb.detectAndCompute(img2, None)
# Force Matching
bf = cv2.BFMatcher(cv2.NORM_HAMMING, crossCheck=True)
matches = bf.match(des1, des2)
matches = sorted(matches, key=lambda x: x.distance)
matching_result = cv2.drawMatches(img1, kp1, img2, kp2, matches[:1000], None, flags=100)
cv2.imshow("Matching result", matching_result)
cv2.waitKey(0)
cv2.destroyAllWindows()
cv2.imwrite('BerRo.jpg', matching_result)
Result
Interaction Design & Design for Performance and Interaction 