Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!bloom-beacon!apple!voder!pyramid!prls!philabs!linus!mbunix!bwk
From: bwk@mitre-bedford.ARPA (Barry W. Kort)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: The difference between machine and human intelligence
Summary: Substitution of sensory channels.
Keywords: Blindness, Imagery
Message-ID: <42467@linus.UUCP>
Date: 6 Dec 88 04:08:26 GMT
References: <401@uwslh.UUCP> <960@dgbt.uucp> <131@usl-pc.usl.edu>
Sender: news@linus.UUCP
Reply-To: bwk@mbunix (Kort)
Organization: The Taolight Zone, Ste. Elsewhen
Lines: 24

In article <131@usl-pc.usl.edu> Eric Lee Green (elg@killer.UUCP)
writes about Helen Keller:

 > ... which seems
 > to imply that one sensory input can, to large extent, substitute for
 > others, when there is some convention of information interchange.

Eric's point is well illustrated by the invention of devices for
the blind.  One such device is a TV camera which drives a bank of
vibrating pins.  The blind person straps the bank of vibrating pins
to his back, and "sees" a low-resolution bit-map image from the camera.
The camera is suspended in air from a cable so that the blind person
can easily point it around the room.

When one such person aimed the camera at a candle flame, he exclaimed,
"The flame dances!"  Before that time, he presumed that flames had
no motion.  

By the same token, an artist can take an image in his mind's eye
and transform it into a painting, a sculpture, a poem, or music.
Information-preserving transformations between the senses is a
time honored profession.

--Barry Kort