OT: Natural blind spot

You can map your blind spot with just a pencil and sheet of paper with a dot on it. I used to do that in school when I was bored. I was bored a lot, actually.

John

I have wondered at the wisdom of doing this too much. The brain is wired to ignore the blind spot, but if you start drawing your brain's attention to it....

Sylvia.

ed

ound

Sylvia is right. I work with low to moderate power visible lasers and very once in a while you wonder if you have retinal burns. So you start scanning for errors by twisting your head around and blinking etc. This is bad, keep it up, and you stress the system, and get headaches or worse, two of three days of eye strain till the brain gets readjusted.

People who get small retinal burns in the main visual field will tell you about watching the brain "fill in" the black spot and then having trouble reading. People who get large retinal burns or hit the optic nerve will tell you about being on disability or needing to learn Braille and using a white cane. People who damage the peripheral vision with a laser die from getting hit by a truck driving or crossing the street..

Not a good idea on a daily basis.

Steve

Good point. You wouldn't want a blind spot getting uppity and taking over your whole retina.

There are lots of things you probably shouldn't bring to your brain's attention. Global Warming, for instance. Or leftist weenies.

John

How about people who incessantly whine about "leftist weenies"? ;-)

Actually, there's a lot that _should_ be brought to your brain's attention. Your brain has blind spots that work just like the ones in your eyes, but by a different mechanism, and your brain fills in those spot with what you want to believe, rather than the facts as they are in reality. ;-)

Cheers! Rich

"Do not look into LASER beam with remaining eye."

Cheers! Rich

... or rightist ones, for that matter.

Jeroen

The book "Inevitable Illusions" is a good read on the subject of cognitive illusions (a set of biases deeply embedded in our minds which distort the way we think).

b. farmer

exactly what the "progressives"(actually REgressives) do!

"progressives" think they can tax our way to prosperity.It hasn't happened anywhere on Earth. they think gun control is going to stop criminals from getting and using guns;hasn't happened anywhere on Earth.

Ronald Reagan used to say "it's not that liberals are ignorant; it's just that they know so much that isn't so."

don't recall where I got this one from;

Physics has given us electricity, machinery, air travel, computers, and all sorts of other things that make life for average citizens more interesting and enjoyable than the lives of royalty throughout most of history. Biochemistry has given us treatments and cures for many awful diseases, as well as longer, healthier lives. Psychology has given us a couple of generations of whiners who are convinced that they have this or that mental malady, and therefore the rest of us have to go out of our way to give them special privileges.

Sno-o-o-o-ort ;-) ...Jim Thompson

That's hardly a reasonable response. Wilful blindness relating to significant issues is quite a different matter from paying delibrate attention to something that's an unavoidable consequence of the poor way the eye is constructed, and which the brain dutifully ignores, given half a chance.

Training your brain to be aware of the blind spots is something you could have cause to regret.

Sylvia

Have you met Bill Sloman? You guys would get along great.

John

You need to be aware of the blind spots so that you know that you need to discover what you're blinding yourself from.

Hope This Helps! Rich

You do realise we're talking about the blind spots we're all born with?

Sylvia.

The ones in the eyes, of course. But it's the brain's own blind spots that we need to be careful of. ;-)

Cheers! Rich

There is no difference, really.

Mirrored such that the blind spot of each eye is visible to the other.

Kal

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al

em

JimYanik seems to be thinking about the kind of "psychology" that gets into the advice columns of the sort of newspapers that he reads.

The sorts of psychologists I run into do things like inventing cognitive therapy, which involves learning to think about your psychological problems in a productive way, and which has turned out to be the most effective way of dealing with depression.

-- Bill Sloman, Nijmegen