Comments on: How Mammalian Brains Map in 3D

By: Neil_Oz

Neil_Oz — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 07:06:41 +0000

Maybe our brains are 2D because we essentially live in a 2.01D world. The vast majority of us would have traveled thousands of kilometers across the surface of the earth and yet would at most moved less than 10km above or below sea level. For any person born before 1850 most likely they would have moved only a few kilometers up or down and usually over quite a long time.

By: eiskrystal

eiskrystal — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 20:28:17 +0000

True, but i would expect once battle commenced for all that to go out of the window anyway. The perp-line would only be for non-threatening travel while warping.

By: starskeptic

starskeptic — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 11:09:26 +0000

“I could see why you would want all ships following your command to be in similar planes to your ship.”

…in that case – it only takes one ship to give valuable info to an enemy fleet…

By: eiskrystal

eiskrystal — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 08:02:29 +0000

If you are moving multiple crafts through space, having some kind of perpendicular standard would reduce the likelihood of accidental crashes. Especially at warp speeds. I could see why you would want all ships following your command to be in similar planes to your ship.

By: Mlema

Mlema — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 23:56:41 +0000

Our binocular vision, on a horizontal plane line, enhances horizontal depth perception. A third eye above the other two would increase our vertical depth perception. But it’s more efficient to just move one of the two horizontal eyes up a little, since we’ve not required as much in the way of vertical differentiation. Ever notice that most people are a bit cock-eyed in that way? If you close one eye, and then the other, the scene will move left to right, but also up and down a little, yes? Um, I hope I’m not the only one that’s a little cock-eyed….but if I am, perhaps I have better vertical depth perception! (just worse aesthetics)
Flies are really good in 3D. Their eyes are huge, bulging, multi-faceted globes. Feeding lots of visual information to their brains, which probably only needs a little more room for the garbage-finding apparatus.

By: Woody

Woody — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 23:20:14 +0000

This topic reminded me of a recent article I read about autism visual processing:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?term=perreault%20a%2C%20autism

Many if not most autistic individuals process sensory information differently than non-autistic individuals. It appears that based on this study, autistic individuals are more adept at processing symmetry in the vertical and oblique planes than non-autistics.

Maybe we should have them pilot our future spaceships!

By: sonic

sonic — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 22:24:32 +0000

I wonder how it looks to a spider. They seem to be able to handle up-down and across really well.

By: tmac57

tmac57 — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 22:17:02 +0000

I believe that science fiction writers have predicted the greatest force yet to be discovered.It is derived from the Adhocion particle. With it,all things are possible.

By: Karl Withakay

Karl Withakay — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 20:51:32 +0000

TheBlackCat,

Well, as much of a fan as I am, the Star Trek universe has never been very internally consistent. For every hole we try to patch, another hole or two appears in its place.

By: TheBlackCat

TheBlackCat — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 20:32:15 +0000

“Maybe a ship’s artificial gravity field (weakly) extends so far beyond the ship that it interferes with the fields of other “nearby” ships unless they are aligned with each other.”

I think most submarine captains would tell you that broadcasting your location like that is NOT a good idea when the enemy has homing weapons. Heck, they could just toss a few dumb bombs in your general direction and your own ship would such them right to you.