Abstract
Gregory Bateson construes mental process as the flow and transforms of differences in a system. Stuart Kauffman uses NK Boolean systems to model the emergence of order in biological evolution. Because the Boolean base (0, 1) maps to Bateson's idea of difference, we simulate Bateson's epistemology with a Kauffman Boolean system. Bateson's asserts that knowledge (in this case visual form) emerges from the relations among multiple (at least two) descriptions, where a description is here defined as a flow of dynamic and systemic process that encodes differences. We therefore propose a perceptual model in which visual form emerges from the phase relations between two such descriptions. Though we are not modeling neural activity per se but rather an abstract difference-based epistemology, to be concrete we can say the first description might correspond to retinal activity; in that case retinal activity is modeled as a discrete dynamic system that falls into different attractor cycles with different fundamental frequencies. The second description is a representational process based on apparent motion phenomena. Using Java Applets we demonstrate how dynamic form perception might emerge from the phase relations between the first and second descriptions; that is, we will demonstrate how changing the phase relations between two flows of Boolean difference will cause different forms to pop out. Moreover, two classes of forms, fundamental and derived, emerge from these phase relations. Our demonstrations suggest that the phase relations that produce apparent motion can also produce visual form perception. Preview Applets at: www.psych.utah.edu/dynamic_systems/exemplar1 and at: www.psych.utah.edu/dynamic_systems/exemplar2