PUBLIC MARKS with tag www.mindhacks.com

Perception is a fundamentally underconstrained problem. You get information in through your senses, but not enough information to be absolutely sure of what is causing those sensations. A good example is perception of depth in vision. You get a pattern of light falling on your retinas (retinae?), in two dimensions, and from that you infer a three dimensional world, using various clever calculations of the visual system and some assumptions about what is likely. But because the process remains fundamentally underconstrained, there is always the possibility that you will see something that isn't really there - that is, your visual system will take in a pattern of information and decide that it is more likely to be produced by a scenario different from the real one.

The International Robot Exhibition concluded recently in Japan, where the world's robot manufacturers displayed their most advanced and, in some cases, human-like creations.

"Mind Hacks already told you about Jabberwacky, the winner of this year's Loebner prize for the chatbot that comes closest to passing the Turing Test (to pass, a judge must be unable to tell whether she's talking to the chatbot or another human)."

Today's New Scientist is a special edition on creativity, tackling the subject from a number of angles.