Steven Pinker -- How the Mind Works - Hampshire High Italian ...

The Mini's Eye | 251Finally, the figure could be produced by the specialists cooperating. Thepainter would paint a stripe across the middle of a square sheet of metal,the sheet mem I worker would bend it into a zigzag, and the light inndesigner would illuminate the piece with a floodlight. That, of course, ishow a human being interprets the image.Our brain faces the same embarrassment of riches as the set designerin the parable. Once we allow in a mental "expert" that can hypothesizepigmented surfaces out there, it could explain everything in the image aspaint: the world would be seen as a masterful trompe I'oeil. Likewise, alighting expert in the head could tell us that the world is a movie. Sincethese interpretations are undesirable, the mental specialists shouldsomehow be discouraged from making them. One way would be to forcethem to stick with their assumptions, come what may (color and lightingare even, shapes are regular and parallel), but that's too extreme. Theworld is not always a pile of blocks on a sunny day; sometimes it doeshave complicated pigments and lighting, and we see them. We don'twant the experts to deny that the world can be complex. We want themto propose exactly as much complexity as there is in the world, and nomore. The problem now is how to get them all to do it.Return now to the parable. Suppose the set design department is on abudget. The specialists charge for their services, using a fee schedulethat reflects how difficult and unusual a request is. Simple and commonoperations are cheap; complex and unusual operations are expensive.Painter Fees:Paint a rectangular patch:Paint a regular polygon:$5 each$5 per sideSheet-Metal Worker Fees:Right-angle cuts:Odd-angle cuts:Kight-angle bends:Odd-angle bends:$2 each$5 each$2 each$5 each