Monday, April 6, 2009

Pattern recognition

It amazes me how well the human brain can identify something as complex as the identity of a person with minimal information. The back of a head, a profile and a beard, and there it is, John... Fingers sitting in his stylish, black VW Jetta (96? it sure Looks like mine, just with less rust and dents) in front of me on 12th as I was headed to work.

Really, I've never seen the car before, and all I had was his profile, partially in silhouette, and his, admittedly somewhat unique, beard.

I have at least one friend who would identify this very differently, having to do with energy recognition and other strangeness. I have to admit that even noticing John, being someone I never really see outside of faire, seems odd to me.

The mind is terrible and interesting.

Pattern buffer overflow, error 12.