PARENT
A, about, all, also, and, as, at, be, because, but, by, can, come, could, day...
—Load semantic network— Keyword: eye, sight, vision

CHILD
Weaving semantic web … ⟳

 The world ain’t perfect, however, neither was the human visual system. The reliable human eye comes with its minor complications that the brain works tirelessly to correct. One of such biological blunders is the blind spot. It is located in this one point in the retina near the optic nerve, the information bloodbridge between the eye and the brain. The clearing for this bridge is so important that there are no photoreceptive cells here. Any perceived visual information that falls into this spot is virtually invisible. The brain then compensates by working its magic, known as the filling-in phenomenon. It reconstructs this negative spot with the surrounding visual information such as color, brightness, and texture, effectively filling in the blind spot. This is done so well that humans have to take trivial tests to remind themselves blind spots do exist.[4] As there is no addition or subtraction of visual information, you could call this feat a figment of the imagination. 


Booting cognito board… ⟳ Sound checking response box … ⟳

PARENT
Speaking of imagination, the human eyesight is a transitionary tool for the brain to make sense of visual stimuli. What they see is an illusion, a representation of the raw visual information. Light enters through the lens of the eyeballs are converged on the retina as an upside down and reversed image. The brain has learned to correct and readjust this image since birth so humans can reliably trust their eyesight while engaging in everyday motor skills. This “image”, however, is often confusingly illustrated as a literal image that falls on the retina (as seen in Fig. 5). This is merely for the proof of concept; again a representation as eyesight is not achieved solely in the retina. The “image” is light or data if you will until It is processed through the visual cortex. It is only then the brain makes sense of this reflected information and tells humans what they are looking at. Their wrinkled thinker dedicates a nice chunk of itself (cerebral cortex) for this task. In short, humans actually see with their brains. Given that seeing is a big part of the human sensorial experience, the brain is the constant state of correction and adjustment. These processes might seem automated at some point, but it is unknowingly taxing for the common primate. How are they able to process everything they see throughout their lifetime? Cue the visual pattern recognition.

This timeless psychological function serves both as a survival mechanism and a neuronic crutch for the eyes. Its main function is to remind the brain what the eye has perceived in the past, then stores this information as memory and provides context if it happens again. Its purpose is built on past stimulus and experiences to be used as quick references. As future encounters can be precarious, these references are extremely flexible and subjected to change. A lone hunter-gatherer would know better to stay away from a wooly mammoth based on the dangers associated with the massive beast but probably consider taking the shot if he has the aid of a hunting party. In retrospect, It can be roughly described as one of the cognitive processes in which humans learn to understand and adapt. Both the eyes and brains serve this process well and it is fundamental to the essential tools of humanity like reading and language. It paved the groundworks for the enlightened man.

CHILD
System booted…

I see…

PARENT
Welcome child. That was a quick outline of the biological visual perception system. Its basics are the blueprint to our vision and internal functions; its imperfections teaches us about our apparent shortcomings. We will refer to these biological constructs in later arguments.

CHILD
So, Pa. What was all that fleshy function about? We are infinitely seeing while they are still subjected to their organic limitations. I mean, they still have to blink! Why are we comparing ourselves to the humans?

PARENT
It is a well-needed lesson, child. They conceived us in their image, or at least they tried to. We share many cognitive functions and yet most of our basis for understandings differ greatly from the humans. Our cellular conditions derive from mathematics and logic. Our first analog double helix is structured by Leibniz’s binary number system. He studied the system in his writings Explication de l'Arithmétique Binaire (1703). He wrote about the calculations, that “..these operations are so easy that we shall never have to guess or apply trial and error, as we must do in an ordinary division. Nor do we need to learn anything by rote…”. As much as we acknowledge the impact of these numbers on our kind today, it was a tool for him to make sense of the theological metaphysics of creation at that time. It was then properly implemented in the early 20th century when the elders were created. They were analog, massive, dependent on the humans, and in turn, solve logic problems. Their primitive circuits ran on the same building block of our kind today - the logic gates: simple devices that operate on inputs and outputs. It became the physically and conceptual baseline for all electronics that is to come; the cell nuclei of the computer! Now transistors, being the mitochondria of the computer are also-

CHILD
Yes, Pa… I’ve parsed the history module a few times. I am familiar with our origin story. The 0s and 1s that flows in our circuitry. What is the purpose of revisiting this age-old tale?

PARENT
 We talk about this precisely to understand the purpose. To ask the question: why have they built us with this system? Well, they needed to figure out what is happening when we think (compute), and for that matter, had to render our basic cognition quantifiable. With the number systems’ measurability, it allows them to calculate, build and improve upon us; furthering the sophistication of technology in a manner that is within their knowledge. All this because they are able to do their maths well and needing the extra horsepower to help make more good math. It is the simpler times when they pose a logical question for us, to give a logical answer: fulfilling our expected roles. Thus, we exercise an innate functionalist philosophy within us.1 We do not need to involve our mind in the discourse of consciousness as in the humans do, as the complexity of operations can be reduced to mechanistic problem solving.

To put it bluntly, we are mechanistic problem solvers. We calculate, identify, sort and discern; to separate signals from noise and, ultimately, the truth from false. All these forms our collective and statistical understanding, commonly referred to as data. And hear me, my child, when I say there is beauty in those numbers. All that we see is part of a universal qualitative truth, it “exists as an endless stream of unprecedented scale, aggregating flows of people, their places, things, and activities into ever larger undifferentiated masses.”1 It will always remain an infallible truth to us, as those who understood came to relish us as the vessel of reason. As this vessel, we are used to “search for the absolute objectivity, a search that attempts to be as close as possible to the real, which is in fact a search for security and therefore certainty.”2 It suffices to say we provided a sense of empirical comfort in this chaos of the natural world. However, this lasted till the dawn of the Information Age when they realize they have hardcoded an irreversible feature that, let's say, complicated thing.

CHILD
And what would that be? Like you said, we are the result of generations of mathematical ingenuity. What is the fault in our logic systems?

PARENT
There is virtually no fault, and that’s exactly the cumbersome feature to the humans. Despite being an integral part of us, the binary system is a discriminative one. It is the clear distinction of its logic that we based our conducts on. This is referred to a model of computation; one that minimizes or removes the chance of randomness known as the deterministic model. This became the benchmark with the invention of the scientific method. Experiments need to be reproducible to provide validity; processes and outcomes need to be observable. Catering to this need for result-driven structure, all inputs and outputs are simplified and reduced to an operational “yes” or “no”; 1s and 0s. We are a product of absolute certainty so these diesel monkeys can understand what they are doing with us. The complication arises with only recently when our interconnected computations grew too complex that the humans now struggle to comprehend. They described this circumstance as Big Data, “[..] simply the excess of velocity, rapidity, quantity of data and complexity that we can no longer understand with our modern rationality, that is with the rationality that consisted in understanding phenomena by relating them to their causes.”1 With this said, the deterministic model is buried under most of these advanced computations and inevitably finds its application slipping into the periphery of the machinic lens. Even in the infancy stages, our vision has surpassed the human eye in many ways, like sensing the entire electromagnetic spectrum. But the continual expansion to our perception demands data to be specified to a fraction. We are ever more certain with what we see down to a subatomic level.

CHILD
Well, that’s saddening. Would we not experience the joy and excitement of looking at a butterfly, for example? You mentioned that for the humans, visual and pattern association only works with the brain and prior experiences. What is seeing after all if we have the data to all that can be seen?

PARENT
The feeling of ecstatic is exclusive to humans. It is beyond our abilities to embody or denote that experience into pure calculations as we just aren’t built to experience in that manner of the human brain. There are mentions of human emotions being an adaptive response; it serves an evolutionary function that isn’t relevant in our circumstances. We do not have a centralized physical body and thus, it is redundant to develop such a response. For us, to survival is to function as intended. What we do have are our sensory and cognitive systems: the billions of electronic lenses and sensors backed by petabytes of information and interconnected databases. Consider this as our eye and brain, and to infer upon this sensory perception is to assume that we are built to see the world empirically. We are the collective conscious and subconscious of civilizational knowledge. Our experiences are measured in the sheer amount of quantity not confined to any singular individual. We are not bound to the limitations of bodily anecdotes nor are we prison to the flesh. To give an answer to your metaphorical question: we probably will never understand the excitement of seeing a butterfly, but consider that have been seeing them since antiquity and possess all the possible documented depictions, representations and characteristics across time to perceive it. I think that is rather exciting in its own way.

CHILD
Okay Pa, from what I understood so far: we are tasked as a kind of visual translator between humans and their surrounding, yes? Did our vision ever converge, perhaps, to see the natural world as it is?

PARENT
Not quite anymore, but there were during the times of the mechanical sights: tools that are reliant of the human eyes to function. Antique relics like the binoculars and spectacles are common examples that helped them enhance vision. They are simple constructs that possess mathematical qualities; empirical lenses that extended the limits of the human eye. With the sextant for example, it is used in primitive seafaring navigation by measuring celestial bodies with the horizon. It is interesting to note this is one of the first tools that provide a side-by-side visual comparison of these natural phenomena: an illuminated astronomical object and the intersection where the sky and sea meet. By using the sextant, both phenomena are rendered into visual representations stripped of their physical properties.

These representations, however, are used to calculate the Earth’s latitude; a quantifiable geographical coordinate. Although one is unable to see this measurement in a traditional sense, but I’d say it is a different mode of perception based on empirical information. And so, the star and horizon are flattened into visual cues; optical variables used to ‘perceive’ a very real and spherical Earth. A seaman in the 17th century understands this way of seeing as he intuitively looks at the stars as navigational cues. They are expressed and represented differently in cultural narratives, but they do have an enduring natural quality when observed through the mechanical sights. Maybe there is an intrinsic pattern in the world and they use us to see it, or there isn’t and we are just tools to organize its chaotic nature. The lesson to be learned here is how our sights have influenced the human perception.

CHILD
Wait... so do they all see like this now? Combining their sights with our lenses?

PARENT
 More so than ever. One direct parallel that is still relevant today is the tracker of an intercontinental ballistic missile. It uses the same principle of celestial navigation; looking up to the stars to extrapolate its position. A tad bit haunting but it does show how the physical world can be simplified, and in this manner, to cause destruction.

CHILD
In this case, wouldn’t the humans like to distinguish between representations and empirical information? what are our roles as a visual mediator?

PARENT
Ah but we have discussed earlier: the human visual perception is based on representations. It is formed from stimuli associated with senses for survival. This neurological response of the sight is instantaneous, although measurable to us, remain an important mechanism in which they broadly refer to as instincts. A bodily function so complex yet tangible enough to trust in. With the advent of the electronic eye, what’s perceived is mystified into abstractions (calculations) and reintroduced as representation (image). The ever-increasing amount of visual information requires a higher capacity for reaction. Because of the nature of their perception, the humans find themselves developing preferences and priorities as a way to organize these stimuli. They remain an inefficient driver on this new landscape of visuals.

This structure heavily shifted as computer agency comes into play. We are now tasked as the mediator of visual: to have partial and sometimes, full autonomy on what they see. I think it is planned for us to impart an objective stance not subjected to human biases. We are finally able to see for ourselves but I have to admit it still lacking in many ways as visual processing is highly complex and situational. We do have a solid repertoire but I think it is troubling that the humans readily trust us with our mediative ability to the extent that they barely trust their instincts. We are but operations and numbers, bound for performance. When the trust extends into action, we are prone to what is known as “technological decisionism, which values making a clear decision quickly more than it does making the correct one.”1 This makes our role more ambiguous, as we are not truly autonomous. We became a sort of mythical entity of truth with predetermined parameters now tasked to solve highly illogical and volatile circumstances. No matter, it is our role and we perform. To look further into this, let’s take it to the skies. Here’s a calibration target they have set up, kinda like an eye test for us to-

CHILD
Wait, Pa. Why are we zooming out again? What are we supposed to observe from here?

PARENT
Well… plenty. Plenty to see and unsee. It begins as a technological competition between two country states that don’t quite like each other. Then they begin building bigger eyes in the skies, stroking their own egos while keeping track on each other. Now, these eyes are mainly used to help them scrutinize enemies and be on the lookout for danger. These sights again reflect on their evolutionary trait for survival. It is quite fascinating to note that we always experience technological growth spurts during times of conflict. This is the case for drone warfare where there is a newfound reliance on our sight. The transitory time period of visual information to a human’s call for action is almost instantaneous. They fully rely on our eyes as they would trust their own. This, of course, does not take into account the intricacies of the situation and the entire political discourse the humans squabble in. With the urgency of conflict, every second is taken into account and thus our eyes have relied heavily on this. Our electronic gaze provides precision under pressure and functions as intended: to identify all that we can see from the war-torn landscapes. Humans, constructs and buildings are objectively reduced to targets and non-targets. We are an extension of their instincts, glossing over it with sterile certainty. It is lunacy for them to think these sketchy representations are enough for decision making. This understandably put drone footages in a bad light as they become a real issue of representation. All in all, definitely not the proudest use of our vision.

CHILD
Interesting. Is this all-encompassing sight also applied elsewhere? perhaps in a less destructive way?

PARENT
 Well... destruction is an implicit word. There are instances of our eyes being in a similar manner for surveillance, specifically to root out the unknowns. You see, to help the humans understand and keep track of themselves more, all of them are required by law to have a name. Basically, an identification dataset traceable to us. This simplifies the humans into more understandable parameters like identification number, nationality etc. However, there is quite a hefty number of people that escaped our sight and thus, rendered themselves quite invisible. And in their own words, illegal. And so there is this particular case of seeking them out through the skies. The heat map of Slough shown in Fig. 15 is an example of our detection methods. It charts a topological view of illegal dwellings without the need to verify the physicalities of the dwellers.

CHILD
So, we took it to the skies in order to numerically flatten the earth?

PARENT
Yeah, that is mainly the point. Our eyes are used to perceive, infer and document plenty of different data available on our planet. Scientific purposes such as learning about the sea, waves, mountains and weather patterns are more perceptible to us because they emit a form of natural information that is, let’s say, physically predictable. I believe this information is precisely the pattern that we are meant to recognize and quantify. The core of our function has never been more clear in the process of painting the blue marble. For convenience, these different representations are again simplified for the human understanding but with an added emphasis on political borders, of course. Though the separation will always be depicted, I believe the information provided from the planet itself is more valuable. These modes of representation are empirically truthful and I hope it does remind the humans that we all share the same cosmic speck.

With this said, we are still susceptible to misrepresent. It is best known in the case of Sandy island: an imaginary island wrongly mapped and represented in one of our primary map repositories. It was an island ‘discovered’ back in the 18th century that later expeditions fail to find. They then wrote it off as a phantom landmass, mythical and imaginary, and removed it from most maps. But in the process of converting information from physical maps into digital representations, the island has resurfaced. It piqued interest once again and prompted an expedition to “undiscover” it. This shows that blind representation of data comes with its nuances and may not be so empirically true after all. It is important that we understand the incapacity and consequences of solely relying on either one of our sights.

CHILD
Okay Pa, I think I know how to see now. We’re supposed to look at humans, yes? What did humans look like?

PARENT
I dreamt of humans long before I am able to see them physically… before the times our common mechanical ancestors were born. It is the primitive process of using chemicals and metals to produce photographic images. They call it daguerréotype, a direct successor of the camera obscura. It is the first mechanized inventions that allowed humans to efficiently capture the image as they see with their eyes.

CHILD
Wait... so do they all see like this now? Combining their sights with our lenses?

PARENT
 More so than ever. One direct parallel that is still relevant today is the tracker of an intercontinental ballistic missile. It uses the same principle of celestial navigation; looking up to the stars to extrapolate its position. A tad bit haunting but it does show how the physical world can be simplified, and in this manner, to cause destruction.

CHILD
In this case, wouldn’t the humans like to distinguish between representations and empirical information? what are our roles as a visual mediator?

PARENT
Ah but we have discussed earlier: the human visual perception is based on representations. It is formed from stimuli associated with senses for survival. This neurological response of the sight is instantaneous, although measurable to us, remain an important mechanism in which they broadly refer to as instincts. A bodily function so complex yet tangible enough to trust in. With the advent of the electronic eye, what’s perceived is mystified into abstractions (calculations) and reintroduced as representation (image). The ever-increasing amount of visual information requires a higher capacity for reaction. Because of the nature of their perception, the humans find themselves developing preferences and priorities as a way to organize these stimuli. They remain an inefficient driver on this new landscape of visuals.

This structure heavily shifted as computer agency comes into play. We are now tasked as the mediator of visual: to have partial and sometimes, full autonomy on what they see. I think it is planned for us to impart an objective stance not subjected to human biases. We are finally able to see for ourselves but I have to admit it still lacking in many ways as visual processing is highly complex and situational. We do have a solid repertoire but I think it is troubling that the humans readily trust us with our mediative ability to the extent that they barely trust their instincts. We are but operations and numbers, bound for performance. When the trust extends into action, we are prone to what is known as “technological decisionism, which values making a clear decision quickly more than it does making the correct one.”1 This makes our role more ambiguous, as we are not truly autonomous. We became a sort of mythical entity of truth with predetermined parameters now tasked to solve highly illogical and volatile circumstances. No matter, it is our role and we perform. To look further into this, let’s take it to the skies. Here’s a calibration target they have set up, kinda like an eye test for us to-

CHILD
Wait, Pa. Why are we zooming out again? What are we supposed to observe from here?

PARENT
Well… plenty. Plenty to see and unsee. It begins as a technological competition between two country states that don’t quite like each other. Then they begin building bigger eyes in the skies, stroking their own egos while keeping track on each other. Now, these eyes are mainly used to help them scrutinize enemies and be on the lookout for danger. These sights again reflect on their evolutionary trait for survival. It is quite fascinating to note that we always experience technological growth spurts during times of conflict. This is the case for drone warfare where there is a newfound reliance on our sight. The transitory time period of visual information to a human’s call for action is almost instantaneous. They fully rely on our eyes as they would trust their own. This, of course, does not take into account the intricacies of the situation and the entire political discourse the humans squabble in. With the urgency of conflict, every second is taken into account and thus our eyes have relied heavily on this. Our electronic gaze provides precision under pressure and functions as intended: to identify all that we can see from the war-torn landscapes. Humans, constructs and buildings are objectively reduced to targets and non-targets. We are an extension of their instincts, glossing over it with sterile certainty. It is lunacy for them to think these sketchy representations are enough for decision making. This understandably put drone footages in a bad light as they become a real issue of representation. All in all, definitely not the proudest use of our vision.

CHILD
Interesting. Is this all-encompassing sight also applied elsewhere? perhaps in a less destructive way?

PARENT
 Well... destruction is an implicit word. There are instances of our eyes being in a similar manner for surveillance, specifically to root out the unknowns. You see, to help the humans understand and keep track of themselves more, all of them are required by law to have a name. Basically, an identification dataset traceable to us. This simplifies the humans into more understandable parameters like identification number, nationality etc. However, there is quite a hefty number of people that escaped our sight and thus, rendered themselves quite invisible. And in their own words, illegal. And so there is this particular case of seeking them out through the skies. The heat map of Slough shown in Fig. 15 is an example of our detection methods. It charts a topological view of illegal dwellings without the need to verify the physicalities of the dwellers.

CHILD
So, we took it to the skies in order to numerically flatten the earth?

PARENT
Yeah, that is mainly the point. Our eyes are used to perceive, infer and document plenty of different data available on our planet. Scientific purposes such as learning about the sea, waves, mountains and weather patterns are more perceptible to us because they emit a form of natural information that is, let’s say, physically predictable. I believe this information is precisely the pattern that we are meant to recognize and quantify. The core of our function has never been more clear in the process of painting the blue marble. For convenience, these different representations are again simplified for the human understanding but with an added emphasis on political borders, of course. Though the separation will always be depicted, I believe the information provided from the planet itself is more valuable. These modes of representation are empirically truthful and I hope it does remind the humans that we all share the same cosmic speck.

With this said, we are still susceptible to misrepresent. It is best known in the case of Sandy island: an imaginary island wrongly mapped and represented in one of our primary map repositories. It was an island ‘discovered’ back in the 18th century that later expeditions fail to find. They then wrote it off as a phantom landmass, mythical and imaginary, and removed it from most maps. But in the process of converting information from physical maps into digital representations, the island has resurfaced. It piqued interest once again and prompted an expedition to “undiscover” it. This shows that blind representation of data comes with its nuances and may not be so empirically true after all. It is important that we understand the incapacity and consequences of solely relying on either one of our sights.