Why do scientists now believe we live in a 10-dimensional universe? Has physics finally reached the very boundaries of reality? There seems to be evidence to suggest that our world and everything in it are only ghostly images: projections from a level of reality so beyond our own that the real reality is literally beyond both space and time. The main architect of this astonishing idea is one of the world's most eminent thinkers- physicist David Bohm, a protege of Einstein's. Earlier, he noticed that, in plasmas, particles stopped behaving like individuals and started behaving as if they were part of a larger and inter connected whole. He continued his work in the behavior of oceans of these particles, noting their behaving as if they know what each on the untold trillions of individual particles were doing.

Proposing a new paradigm for perceptual science that goes beyond standard information theory and digital computation. This book breaks with the conventional model of perception that views vision as a mere inference to an objective reality on the basis of "inverse optics." The authors offer the alternative view that perception is an expressive and awareness-generating process. Perception creates semantic information in such a way as to enable the observer to deal efficaciously with the chaotic and meaningless structure present at the physical boundary between the body and its surroundings. Vision is intentional by its very nature; visual qualities are essential and real, providing an aesthetic and meaningful interface to the structures of physics and the state of the brain. This view brings perception firmly in line with ethology and modern evolutionary biology and suggests new approaches in all disciplines that study, or require an understanding of, the ontology of mind. The book is the joint effort of a multidisciplinary group of authors. Topics covered include the relationships among stimuli, neuronal processes, and visual awareness. After considering the mind-dependent growing of information, the book treats time and dynamics; color, shape, and space; language and perception; perception, art, and design.

Vision is crucial for the survival of all animals. However, as this book shows, its importance does not simply lie in visual perception, but is, rather, deeply rooted in human physiology, psychology and culture. For instance, conceptual metaphors often involve vision, such as “Seeing is Touching” and “Eyes are Limbs”, among others. However, this Anglo-centric linguistic view belies the fact that vision is not a universally-preferred source for metaphor, and less studied languages spoken in the four corners of the world can present cases that are unfamiliar to those who are only acquainted with Indo-European languages and cultures. In fact, other types of perception such as hearing are often preferred as a source of comprehension in a number of languages. This volume studies various issues concerning vision both synchronically and diachronically. Its discussion involves specialists from different disciplines, ranging from cognitive science to literary scholarship. It also covers a wide range of geographical regions, such as Africa and Asia. As such, this volume will serve to shed light on the integration of disciplines concerning vision.

How does the brain piece together the information required to achieve object recognition, figure-ground segmentation, object completion in cases of partial occlusion and related perceptual phenomena? This book focuses on principles of Gestalt psychology and the key issues which surround them, providing an up-to-date survey of the most interesting and highly debated topics in visual neuroscience, perception and object recognition. The volume is divided into three main parts: Gestalt and perceptual organisation, attention aftereffects and illusions, and color vision and art perception. Themes covered in the book include: - a historical review of Gestalt theory and its relevance in modern-day neuroscience - the relationship between perceptive and receptive fields - a critical analysis of spatiotemporal unity of perception - the role of Gestalt principles in perceptual organization - self-organizing properties of the visual field - the role of attention and perceptual grouping in forming non-retinotopic representations - figural distortions following adaptation to spatial patterns - illusory changes of brightness in spatial patterns - the function of motion illusions as a tool to study Gestalt principles in vision - conflicting theories of color vision and the neural basis of it - the role of color in figure-ground segmentation - chromatic assimilation in visual art and perception - the phenomena of colored shadows. Including contributions from experts in the field, this book will provide an essential overview of current research and theory on visual perception and Gestalt. It will be key reading for researchers and academics in the field of visual perception and neuroscience.

From a barrage of photons, we readily and effortlessly recognize the faces of our friends, and the familiar objects and scenes around us. However, these tasks cannot be simple for our visual systems--faces are all extremely similar as visual patterns, and objects look quite different when viewed from different viewpoints. How do our visual systems solve these problems? The contributors to this volume seek to answer this question by exploring how analytic and holistic processes contribute to our perception of faces, objects, and scenes. The role of parts and wholes in perception has been studied for a century, beginning with the debate between Structuralists, who championed the role of elements, and Gestalt psychologists, who argued that the whole was different from the sum of its parts. This is the first volume to focus on the current state of the debate on parts versus wholes as it exists in the field of visual perception by bringing together the views of the leading researchers. Too frequently, researchers work in only one domain, so they are unaware of the ways in which holistic and analytic processing are defined in different areas. The contributors to this volume ask what analytic and holistic processes are like; whether they contribute differently to the perception of faces, objects, and scenes; whether different cognitive and neural mechanisms code holistic and analytic information; whether a single, universal system can be sufficient for visual-information processing, and whether our subjective experience of holistic perception might be nothing more than a compelling illusion. The result is a snapshot of the current thinking on how the processing of wholes and parts contributes to our remarkable ability to recognize faces, objects, and scenes, and an illustration of the diverse conceptions of analytic and holistic processing that currently coexist, and the variety of approaches that have been brought to bear on the issues.

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Sample Book Insights: #1 The four initial stages of meditation are: making the groundwork and foundations solid, then moving on to the bliss states of meditation. You should spend a lot of time making the groundwork and foundations solid, then move on to the higher stories when they are ready. #2 When you work with your mind, you find that it is so strange. The mind can do wonderful and unexpected things. When you think during your meditation, How many more minutes are there to go. How much longer do I have to endure this. that is just wandering off into the future. #3 When you anticipate the future by thinking, How many more minutes until the bell rings. you torture yourself. So be very careful not to pick up the heavy burden of How many more minutes to go. or What should I do next. If that is what you are thinking, you are not paying attention to what is happening now. #4 The second stage of meditation is silent present-moment awareness. It is the silent awareness of the present moment, and it is more important than any thought.