Geoff writes: "Cheerskep: Citing Bill Bradley and yourself as examples of most people's responses is a doubtful strategem. For most people, as well as animals which don't live in Central Park, Michael's arguments hold (unless he chose to argue that there were no exceptions)."
Now, that's naughty, Geoff. An even more doubtful "stratagem" is to respond to a remark you haven't read carefully. Michael wrote: "Consider your field of vision. Have you noticed that you cannot perceive the end of your visual field? You have no ability to recognize and discern what is on the edges, or for that matter, where the end of your vision is." His first sentence asks ME to consider MY field vision. So I did that, and I found that his next three assertions are untrue of my field of vision. My response was: "That has not been my experience." And then I described my experience. At no time did I assert that Bradley and I exemplify most people's responses. In fact, I explicitly said, " As I say, that simply isn't true of some of us." I could argue, Geoff, that not only did you not read me carefully, you didn't Michael either. In effect, Michael's use of "you" implied he was addressing ANYONE who was reading. This, I'd claim, is indeed very like saying there are no exceptions. Finally, Geoff, you write, "For most people, Michael's arguments hold." One of Geoff's positions is that "you" (meaning everyone) have no ability to recognize objects on the periphery of vision. I should ask where is your evidence for believing Michael is right about this? Even if you change it to "MOST people can't recognize objects on the edge of their field of vision", where is your evidence for that? ************** One site keeps you connected to all your email: AOL Mail, Gmail, and Yahoo Mail. Try it now. (http://www.aol.com/?optin=new-dp& icid=aolcom40vanity&ncid=emlcntaolcom00000025)
