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Blinking
#1
Blinking
In this excerpt from George Williams' "Natural Selection: Domains, Levels, and Challenges," which Dan Dennet quotes in "Darwin's Dangerous Idea," he writes: "A human eye blink takes about 50 milliseconds. That means that we are blind about 5% of the time we are using our eyes normally." However, I did the math based on 10 blinks per minute provided by laboratory settings, and I've concluded that we are only blind .5% of the time that we are using our eyes normally (if we omit 8 hours of the day for sleep). Anyone want to explain how Williams and Dennett came to 5%? Wouldn't this only apply if we blinked every second, which obviously we don't?

Source: http://books.google.com/books?id=nTJlZ9Q...=html_text
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#2
RE: Blinking
Fuck. Now I'm aware of blinking again. It took me way too long last time to become unconscious again of blinking. Fuck you!
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"The lord doesn't work in mysterious ways, but in ways that are indistinguishable from his nonexistence."
-- George Yorgo Veenhuyzen quoted by John W. Loftus in The End of Christianity (p. 103).
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#3
RE: Blinking
(January 11, 2014 at 8:20 pm)teaearlgreyhot Wrote: Fuck. Now I'm aware of blinking again. It took me way too long last time to become unconscious again of blinking. Fuck you!

Blink.

Blink.

Blink.

Blink.


P.S. You're welcome.
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#4
RE: Blinking
16 hours = 960 minutes = 9600 blinks. 9600(0.05) = 480 seconds spent blinking. 480 seconds = 8 minutes. 8(100)/960 = 0.83333%
That's what I got.

(January 11, 2014 at 8:17 pm)Pickup_shonuff Wrote: In this excerpt from George Williams' "Natural Selection: Domains, Levels, and Challenges," which Dan Dennet quotes in "Darwin's Dangerous Idea," he writes: "A human eye blink takes about 50 milliseconds. That means that we are blind about 5% of the time we are using our eyes normally." However, I did the math based on 10 blinks per minute provided by laboratory settings, and I've concluded that we are only blind .5% of the time that we are using our eyes normally (if we omit 8 hours of the day for sleep). Anyone want to explain how Williams and Dennett came to 5%? Wouldn't this only apply if we blinked every second, which obviously we don't?

Source: http://books.google.com/books?id=nTJlZ9Q...=html_text
Yeah, the math would work out to be about 5% if we blunk (is that a word?) every second.
[Image: thfrog.gif]



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#5
RE: Blinking
(January 11, 2014 at 8:28 pm)Sejanus Wrote: 16 hours = 960 minutes = 9600 blinks. 9600(0.05) = 480 seconds spent blinking. 480 seconds = 8 minutes. 8(100)/960 = 0.83333%
That's what I got.

Yeah, the math would work out to be about 5% if we blunk (is that a word?) every second.

Here's how I got .5%: 16 hours = 960 minutes or 57,600 seconds. A blink every 10 seconds = 5,700 blinks, which at 50 milliseconds = 288 seconds. 288/5,760 = .005, or .5%.

So how the fluck did this guy get 5%? :/
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#6
RE: Blinking
Maybe they forgot the dot in the printed book?
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#7
RE: Blinking
(January 11, 2014 at 8:46 pm)pocaracas Wrote: Maybe they forgot the dot in the printed book?

Maybe. But then Dennett just didn't think about it or do the math when he quoted it--kind of disheartening. Not to mention they both use it to discuss various adaptionist reasons why humans may have evolved this way and it kind of renders their subsequent points about it moot. Read the last paragraph in the e-book link I provided and 1st or 2nd on the next page. You'll see what I mean.
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#8
RE: Blinking
(January 11, 2014 at 8:39 pm)Pickup_shonuff Wrote:
(January 11, 2014 at 8:28 pm)Sejanus Wrote: 16 hours = 960 minutes = 9600 blinks. 9600(0.05) = 480 seconds spent blinking. 480 seconds = 8 minutes. 8(100)/960 = 0.83333%
That's what I got.

Yeah, the math would work out to be about 5% if we blunk (is that a word?) every second.

Here's how I got .5%: 16 hours = 960 minutes or 57,600 seconds. A blink every 10 seconds = 5,700 blinks, which at 50 milliseconds = 288 seconds. 288/5,760 = .005, or .5%.

So how the fluck did this guy get 5%? :/

Ahh, this is where you went wrong. In the OP it says you blink on average 10 times per minute, which would be 60/10 or 1 blink every 6 seconds. You used 1 blink every 10 seconds, or 6 blinks per minute. An easy mistake to make.
[Image: thfrog.gif]



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#9
RE: Blinking
(January 11, 2014 at 8:53 pm)Sejanus Wrote: Ahh, this is where you went wrong. In the OP it says you blink on average 10 times per minute, which would be 60/10 or 1 blink every 6 seconds. You used 1 blink every 10 seconds, or 6 blinks per minute. An easy mistake to make.

Ahh, that I did! Thank you for the correction! That makes their 5% statement even more baffling...
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#10
RE: Blinking
Staring contest... GO!
[Image: When%2Bhaving%2Ba%2Bstaring%2Bcontest_5f...011131.gif]
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