Rules: episode two

At reference 1 we talked about defining layer objects and their parts using high valued perimeter cells. At reference 2 we started on the details and here we do some more. In particular, details on the background and foreground introduced at reference 1.

In what follows, to be read in conjunction with the definitions and rules set out near the beginning of reference 2, we continue to consider the affairs of a single layer of our LWS. Links between layers will be covered in a paper to come.

As before, we use a red surround for the layer, a surround which marks the boundary of the layer for the purposes of illustration, but is not, itself, part of the layer. In the sense of the order of reference 1, the surround can be thought of as being in front of everything else. Green for background and pink for foreground. Blue for high value cells and yellow for low value cells. No colour, that is to no fill in Excel, means not of present interest - with Excel being used to create these illustrations.

Figure 1

Here we have the background, shown in green and below that the foreground, shown in pink. They are behind everything else. The backdrop, as it were, to the main business of the layer. Unlike the surround, the background and foreground are fully part of the layer, their cells do take values and they do have texture, in the same way as most layer objects.

Note the yellow boundary between the foreground and the background, rather than the original blue, this to stop the boundaries of the nearby objects extending a long way beyond their proper limit, to the point of joining the left hand object to the top right hand object, according to clauses 11 and 15 of reference 2.

Then we have five layer objects set against that backdrop: two overlapping pairs and one, top right, free-standing.

Part F of the top right hand object is entirely contained within the layer, as is shown by the completion of the blue border along the boundary. While the one part object I, bottom right, is not complete, extending in an undefined way below and to the right of the layer – in the same way as the left hand border of the one part object E is undefined, and the right hand border of the one part object H is undefined.

The green and pink regions are what is left over, that which is not enclosed by blue or yellow borders and which are the background and foreground to the objects which are so enclosed. Many of which objects stand on the foreground, and some of which fly through the air of the background.

This may seem clear enough, but, notwithstanding, we elaborate in what follows.

Figure 2

This snip shows has the basic idea; a two part layer object set against a green background which touches the whole of the surround. Put another way, the layer object is in front of the background.
This is works fine so long as a layer object does not run up against the surround, breaking the flow of background around the regular layer objects.

Figure 3

Here we have three regions defined by the high value lines: the grey, the purple and the brown. But neither the grey region nor the brown region are complete and the layer as a whole would be interpreted as follows.

Figure 4

The gray and the brown regions have both been interpreted as background, not regular layer objects at all, because they both touch the top of the surround. We just have the one part layer object with a purple interior and an extended boundary.

Note that we allow the background to be made up of two or more disconnected regions – something we do not allow in the case of regular layer objects – although we will come to a work-around using column objects in a paper to follow.

Figure 5

While here we have two parts of green background at the top and one part of pink foreground at the bottom. Background parts touching the top of the surround, foreground touching the bottom of the surround.

In practise, we would not usually want the extended boundary to the purple object and we would have something more like the next snip.

Figure 6

We have replaced most of the blue boundaries of the foreground and background parts with yellow boundaries, leaving the purple object with a sensible boundary.

Figure 7

Here we have completed the brown region with yellow, low value markers, marking a brown part with undefined boundaries top and right. So we now have a two part object top right made up of a purple part and a brown part, in front of the green background. With the convention introduced at reference 2 that this object is deemed to be under the surround.

Figure 8

While here, what was the green area now been given a boundary, mostly blue but with some yellow, a boundary which defines a part, with the resulting one part object sliding under the other object, the two part object, with the result that there is now no background at all.
Notice that the boundaries of these two objects might touch but they are also disjoint, as required.

Figure 9

And now the grey one part object has lost its southern boundary, with the result that it becomes foreground and most of its boundary is superfluous. The only bit with meaning is the top section which makes what lies below into foreground rather than background, with the snip above being more or less equivalent to the snip below.

Figure 10

All we have lost is the emphasis that the object top right is in front of the foreground.

Figure 11

And here we show again what is special about the background, that these disconnected parts are still be considered the background, background because they touch the top boundary.
Furthermore, a background which can be thought of as continuing unseen under the other objects, a fact which we make use of when one of these other objects moves against, moves across the background.

What we have not done

Figure 12

We thought about requiring the fact that a regular layer object was in front of the background be marked with yellow low value markers, in the way that we mark the fact that one layer object is in front of another. But it is not strictly necessary and we decided against.
At this level, apart from changing all the illustrations, it would not have made much difference if we had gone the other way.

Conclusions

We exemplified and hopefully clarified the workings of the rules about objects touching the boundary of a layer, about the background and the foreground, set out in reference 2.

From our fiddling about with boundaries, we associate to the interesting boundary effects one gets in Fourier analysis. A quite different kind of effect, but nonetheless another example of the problems one has when talking about boundaries, boundaries which we are quite unaware of in the case of looking, of the visual field. Somehow, the field is just not there any more. But I continue to puzzle about the experience of people who are said only to see one side of things, either the left or the right but not both.

Abbreviations

LWS – local workspace. The proposed vehicle for consciousness. Named for contrast with the GWS – the global workspace – of Baars and his colleagues.

References

Reference 1: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2017/06/on-elements.html.

Reference 2: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2017/07/rules-episode-one.html.

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