Thread by @PnictogenHorses

ah, here it is! we were trying to remember this: the tweet in which @fchollet eloquently demonstrated their incompetence at understanding how perception works, on a fundamental level.

this mountebank thinks that expectation precedes perception.

(1/x)

https://twitter.com/fchollet/status/1146194198875561986

to put it more bluntly, @fchollet thinks that perceiving things starts with knowing what you want to perceive first. there's a word for this sort of perception: it's called BIAS. Chollet has, in his tweet, described *perceptual bias*: applying filters to one's perceptions.

(2/x)

why would @fchollet make such an elementary blunder? well, likely Chollet (in common with most #computer professionals these days) is hideously biased about most things. the high-tech field, especially in the higher echelons of management, is sodden with bias and bıgotry.

(3/x)

but there's a technical issue at work here: @fchollet works not with reality but with computers, and computers only do what they're told to do. living organisms have broad-spectrum perceptual apparatus; computerized devices, however, tend towards extreme specialization.

(4/x)

the *reality* of perception is that the perceiving entity may be exposed to _any stimulus_, whether or not it's one that they're conditioned to expect. applying fixed expectations to perception is only a _hindrance_ to effective perception—a *bias*.

(5/x)

the more conditions you place on your perceptions, the less you're able to perceive: your biases screen out anything that doesn't fit preconceived expectations.

how this applies to the likely perceptive ability of @fchollet...I leave as an exercise to the reader.

~Mona Drafter

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