The previous thread was getting to long. I would like to respond to some posts when I have time, now I will just respond to 1post per post.

Dmatech wrote:
<<<<<This really makes a lot of sense...If the conscious mind can only process ~7 pieces of info/second, it would make sense that the subconscious mind would filter out everything
outside of your direct concentration by making it appear blurry...this doesn't necessarily mean that your eye cannot clearly distinguish details outside of that focus, just that your subconscious is filtering what your conscious mind sees.>>>>>

The brain is not my area of expertise so much of this is just an opinion. I don't know if the subconscious plays an active part in filtering our senses (there are as always possible exceptions - excessive pain for instance). Perhaps it is the conscious mind just ignoring what it wants to ignore, and paying attention to what it wants to focus on. I just ask, why, when even I try can I not make out the letters that are not in the center of my focus on an item I am not familiar with. This leads us to :

<<<<<The lens is the eye...it can CLEARLY see everything within its view. The filter is like the subconscious mind...it blurs everything outside of a certain radius of focus. Unfortunately there is no way I know of to test this theory, but for all we know, the subconscious mind might be able to clearly see everything within the view (peripheral or otherwise) of our eyes.>>>>>

There are a good number of ways for scientists to test your hypothesis that I can think of.

1. Contact lenses these days can have graphics, if you have ever attended a rave or seen Michael Jackson Thriller? with those 'werewolf' eyes you know what I am talking about. Why not contact lenses which have black plastic in the middle which would block us from seeing in the center of our vision. The objective would be to see if people could make out items in detail that they do not know, could they read? Perhaps this experiment needs to be done with only one eye so the other eye does not fill in the gaps though.

In case this experiment does not work (people still see through plastic, etc) there are possibilities for the future:

2. This was a small story in 1999, scientists somehow intercepted the signals from a cat's vision to the brain by using electrodes and some such thing and project what it was seeing on to a computer monitor, the technology right now is very primitive I understand but this could be used to see if the story is true.

3. Scientists are working on a laser that would beam images directly into your eye. This would supposedly be the VR of the future and replace TV/Monitor like devices. This technology in the future could be used to test the theory out same way as the contact lense, have a black image of significant size in the center vision and see what people can make out in detail out side of it.


I would think the contact lens test would be easiest and important testable today as opposed to the other 2 ideas.

[This message has been edited by chaosadelt (edited March 22, 2001).]