how many THINGS can one person see?

**nokhor** · 03-23-2005, 06:46

the question i am asking is kinda hard to explain for me, so it may go through convoluted loops to say exactly what i mean. there has to be an upper limit to the amount of distinct things that a person can see and i want to know what that number is. i can't visualize a million. i don't think anybody can. i visualize many many separate objects, as many as i can, and then i just tack the noun 'million' on the amount i can visualize. but the total amount i can visualize is nowhere near that. it is probably in the thousands if not hundreds. and by visualization i mean a still image like a photograph or a capture frame. i don't mean like a sweeping panoramic view or a motion picture where the objects i am contemplating fade out of view at one edge of the viewing area as similar objects pop into view at the other end of the viewing area. but there has to be a specific number or range of numbers that is the upper limit of how many distinct things a human being can visualize, and i want to know what that number is. i have no idea what discipline that would fall under, or how to even begin searching for it. which is why i posted it here. sorry i couldn't be more concise.

**Togakure** · 03-23-2005, 07:55

hey mon, quit bogartin' dat ... thingie ma jig [as the PG-13 monitor zeros in overhead] !! Keep a cool head an' pass it on, pass it on ... . Plenty of time for doz babylon musings of yers now ... . Lemme get it da right mindspace firs m8, or I canna relay it.

[fffffffffffffff-fff-ff-f ... ... ... ACHHHHHH-ACH-ACCHHHH]

ahhh ... sh*t mon

... back atcha laterz I tink ... [clonk]

zzzzzzzz ... [dream-visualizes millions and millions of Doritos]

**Togakure** · 03-23-2005, 08:44

Some friends of mine who practice meditation (Zen and Sufism) focus on one thing, visualizing one thing, and in turn are supposedly, with much practice, able to perceive many things. My very limited understanding is that focusing on a single thing quiets the mind and enables it to--eventually--perceive the nature of reality: everything.

Personally I don't think there is a specific number that applies to all humans. I think it would be different depending on the perceptive abilities of each individual. And the phenomenon I described above suggests that it is quite a bit more complex in yet a different way.

I am curious--why are you pondering this?

**Byzantine Prince** · 03-23-2005, 09:11

I think it's obvious that he's on drugs. No sane person would think about this kind of thing.

Seriously though I think it all depends on your brain. I heard about this guy who's vision was so concentrated that he could see every single detail on everything he was starring at. He was born this way i think, it's not like he did something to bring this to himself. It's not quite the same thing but it's similar. The point is the mind can be very infinite in it's powers. Hopefully one day we'll get to experience that somehow.

**Ironside** · 03-23-2005, 11:53

The numbers of things you can see without define it as many (or start to count) is between 5-7. Most animals are in that number and very few animals can see more (usually 8).

On the question of how many things you can visualize, I've got no idea, but I suspect that it varies alot, when considering that training have a quite big effect.

I heard about this guy who's vision was so concentrated that he could see every single detail on everything he was starring at. He was born this way i think, it's not like he did something to bring this to himself. It's not quite the same thing but it's similar. The point is the mind can be very infinite in it's powers. Hopefully one day we'll get to experience that somehow.

Do you know why that condition is rare? The brain has problems handling it, as a big part of handling the information is to remove the irrelevant parts. The brain gets too much information and cannot simply handle the input in a good way. So it's not something to strive for, unless you got extreme control of it (like shifting, into different modes).

**Beirut** · 03-23-2005, 12:23

Ah, my kind of thinking. And if you don't mind, I'l take it a step further.

I had this thought a while back (and it's very possible I was not stoned at the time); how many time periods can a person see at once.

Allow me to explain. You are always seeing the thing you are looking at as it was in the past, given the distance divided by the speed of light. If you look at the moon, you see it as it was about two seconds ago, if you look at the sun (ouch!), you see it as it was about eight minutes ago. If you look at the chick across the street, you see her as she was about 1/50,000 of a second ago.

Now, how many pasts can you see and understand at once? I was walking down the street having this thought, thinking that I was seeing a hundred different objects in a hundred different variations of the past. I'm seeing the leaf on the tree as it was in a past that is different from the sidwalk under my feet, and that past is different from the building down the road. You see what I'm getting at.

Then I talked to some some, and now I'm seeing these same hundred different past variations while talking to someone and knowing that given the speed of light and the speed of sound, what I heard was not truly in sync with what I saw. His words were 1/5000 of a second in the past (let's say) but he, as I was seeing him, was 1/5,000,000 of a second in the past. And then add in the time it takes for my brain to absorb what he was saying.... it was like I was stuck in a temporal soup. I swear I nearly fell down while thinking about it.

"Plop!"

Anyone else ever have a "moment of clarity" like this?

**A.Saturnus** · 03-23-2005, 19:12

Originally Posted by nokhor

the question i am asking is kinda hard to explain for me, so it may go through convoluted loops to say exactly what i mean. there has to be an upper limit to the amount of distinct things that a person can see and i want to know what that number is. i can't visualize a million. i don't think anybody can. i visualize many many separate objects, as many as i can, and then i just tack the noun 'million' on the amount i can visualize. but the total amount i can visualize is nowhere near that. it is probably in the thousands if not hundreds. and by visualization i mean a still image like a photograph or a capture frame. i don't mean like a sweeping panoramic view or a motion picture where the objects i am contemplating fade out of view at one edge of the viewing area as similar objects pop into view at the other end of the viewing area. but there has to be a specific number or range of numbers that is the upper limit of how many distinct things a human being can visualize, and i want to know what that number is. i have no idea what discipline that would fall under, or how to even begin searching for it. which is why i posted it here. sorry i couldn't be more concise.

The discipline this belongs to is called general psychology. As Ironside already said, you can keep about 5 "objects" in your mind at a time. More precise, we speak about 5 "chunks". Such a chunk can be anything, for example the texture of sand. You cannot imagine every piece of sand at once, instead they all together form one chunk. Chunks can be quite complex things, but when you see it as one chunk, all its details become "fuzzy". If you start to think about these details the chunk dissolves into its parts which become then chunks of their own.

Originally Posted by Beirut

Then I talked to some some, and now I'm seeing these same hundred different past variations while talking to someone and knowing that given the speed of light and the speed of sound, what I heard was not truly in sync with what I saw. His words were 1/5000 of a second in the past (let's say) but he, as I was seeing him, was 1/5,000,000 of a second in the past. And then add in the time it takes for my brain to absorb what he was saying.... it was like I was stuck in a temporal soup. I swear I nearly fell down while thinking about it. "Plop!"

It's actually more mind-boggling than you think. Lets say you see a character. You have the impression that your conscious perception is formed instantly, but that is not so. Of course, as you already said, the light takes some time from the object to your eyes. It further takes several milliseconds from the retina to reach your brain. And then it gets complicated. You would assume that even though delayed, at least everything is ordered nicely in time. But in fact, things that happen after seeing something can influence what you saw. If the character is exposed for about 50 milliseconds, you would normally be able to see it. But not when the exposure of the character is followed by another shape at the same place shortly afterwards. We call that masking. That means the mask, which is shown after the stimulus, suppresses the perception of the stimulus. But it gets even worse.
If you look for 50 milliseconds at a stimulus (again, that's enough to identify a simple object such as a character) and then the stimulus jumps to a different place in your visual field so that you have to make an eye-movement, you cannot notice essential changes to the stimulus. But if the stimulus disappears the moment you make the eyemovement for 50 ms, then you will be able to notice the same change!

If that doesn't drive you crazy, study psychology. And if it does, do it too.

**Quietus** · 03-24-2005, 04:26

First of all, vision is different from imagination.

Vision comes from light sources. If you close your eyes, no light, no image.

How many cars can fit in a highway? How much light can the eye take at the same time?

What you see is simply an interpretation of your mind - in real time - through light sources. If you have a stain in your clothes and bleached it, it doesn't mean those stains are gone, they are still there (and must wash it with detergents). The chemical composition was just altered that when light hits it, all the wavelengths bounces back (i.e. sum of all colors is white).

**Tachikaze** · 03-24-2005, 08:36

I once visualized 72,438 objects, but that was after a good night's sleep and some really potent curry. It would have been 72,439, but one object was blocking my view of another.

**Navaros** · 03-24-2005, 23:43

how many things a person can see is directly related to the state of one's vitreous and other components of the eye, which is different for everyone.

visual perception really is "in the eye of the beholder"

just be thankful that you guys can see things without floaters driving you nuts, like they do to me.

i see dozens and dozens of floaters interferring with my vision most of the time. for me personally i'd wish that those were things that i could not see. i'd give anything to keep that crap out of my vision permanently. they are a plague.

sometimes it's better to not wish to see too many things at once.