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>From: gene@nynexst.com (Gene Miller)
Subject: Re: Grasping concepts... is it polite?
Message-ID: <1992Jan6.195822.697@nynexst.com>
Keywords: grasping, representations, numerals, ultra-intuitionism
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References: <1992Jan2.221158.17575@cambridge.oracorp.com> <1992Jan4.173301.3331@csc.canterbury.ac.nz> <1992Jan5.004957.15767@cambridge.oracorp.com>
Date: Mon, 6 Jan 92 19:58:22 GMT

In article <1992Jan5.004957.15767@cambridge.oracorp.com> ian@cambridge.oracorp.com (The Floating Man) writes:

>>(3) what a pile of million apples would *look* like
>
>      By the way, I wonder if you really mean (3) in any
>precise sense.  Could you, for instance, tell me off the top of your
>head (that's a restriction on resources :-) how many apples you could
>actually SEE in a pile of a million apples of a certain shape?  I
>can't.

If the apples are uniformly sized spheres that are closely packed in a
rectangular lattice to form a cube (of which you see 3 sides) then you would
see 100x100 + 99x100 + 99x99 ~= 30,000 apples on the outer surface.
You would also see somewhat fewer apples on the planes  ajacent to the
outer surface. (The precise number depends on lighting conditions,
angle of view, etc. You would dimly see some apples further in the interior
too. Things are getting a bit murky here after about 30 seconds of analysis.)

It's clear to me that the ability to "grasp" an object in a given
domain depends on how much experience you have in manipulating objects
in that domain.
-- 
Gene Miller		Phone 914 644 2834
gene@nynexst.com	Fax 914 644 2260


