Hofstadter, Dennett - The Mind's I

Beyond Rejection 247with some mirrors and gears on top. As he reached her, she turned to face him andpushed the goggles into his hands."Yes, thank you for volunteering. Put them on." Not knowing what else to do, hedid."I want you to look at that blond-haired girl who just sat down over there." Sheheld his arm lightly as he turned and his balance wavered. He appeared to be lookingthrough the goggles at a point several degrees to the right of Candy Darling."Now I want you to point at her with your right hand-quick!" The young man'sarm shot out, the finger also pointing several degrees to the right of the girl. He beganmoving his finger to the left, but Germaine pulled his hand down to his side, outside thefield of vision that the goggles allowed him."Try it again, quick," she said. This time the finger was not as far off On the fifthtry his finger pointed directly to Candy Darling, though he continued to look to her right."Now off with the goggles. Look at her again. Point quick!" Germaine grabbedhis hand the instant he pointed. Though he was not looking directly at Candy Darling, hewas pointing several degrees to the left of her. He looked baffled.Germaine Means chalked a head and goggles on the blackboard, seen as if youwere looking down at them from the ceiling. She dress another head to the left of the lineof sight of the goggled head and chalked "15"' in to indicate the angle."What happened is a simple example of tuning. The prisms in the goggles bendthe light so that when his eyes told him he was looking straight at her, his eyes were infact pointed fifteen degrees to her right. The muscles and nerves of his hand were tunedto point where his eyes were actually pointed-so he pointed fifteen degrees to the right."But then his eyes saw his hand going off to the right, so he began to compensate.In a couple of minutes-five tries-his motor coordination compensates so that he points towhere his eyes tell him she is-he adjusted to pointing fifteen degrees to the left fromusual. When I took the goggles off, his arm was still tuned to compensate, so he pointedoff tc the left until he readjusted."She picked up the goggles. "Now, a human can adjust to that distortion in a fewminutes. But I could calibrate these so that they would turn the whole room upside down.If you then walked around and tried to do things, you would find it difficult. Verydifficult. But if you kept the goggles on, the whole room would turn right side up after aday or two.