Investigating human-perceptual properties of "shapes" using 3D shapes and 2D fonts

Shapes are generally used to convey meaning. They are used in video games, films and other multimedia, in diverse ways. 3D shapes may be destined for virtual scenes or represent objects to be constructed in the real-world. Fonts add character to an otherwise plain block of text, allowing the writer to make important points more visually prominent or distinct from other text. They can indicate the structure of a document, at a glance. Rather than studying shapes through traditional geometric shape descriptors, we provide alternative methods to describe and analyse shapes, from a lens of human perception. This is done via the concepts of Schelling Points and Image Specificity. Schelling Points are choices people make when they aim to match with what they expect others to choose but cannot communicate with others to determine an answer. We study whole mesh selections in this setting, where Schelling Meshes are the most frequently selected shapes. The key idea behind image Specificity is that different images evoke different descriptions; but ‘Specific’ images yield more consistent descriptions than others. We apply Specificity to 2D fonts. We show that each concept can be learned and predict them for fonts and 3D shapes, respectively, using a depth image-based convolutional neural network. Results are shown for a range of fonts and 3D shapes and we demonstrate that font Specificity and the Schelling meshes concept are useful for visualisation, clustering, and search applications. Overall, we find that each concept represents similarities between their respective type of shape, even when there are discontinuities between the shape geometries themselves. The ‘context’ of these similarities is in some kind of abstract or subjective meaning which is consistent among different people

The Cruelty of Reading: Reading and Writing in the Works of Friedrich Schelling

Friedrich Schelling has re-emerged in Anglo-Saxon philosophy as a singularly important figure in Germand Idealism, not as some mediate figure in between Kant, Fichte, and Hegel. Because Schelling\u27s works resist being subsumed into a univocal or systematic articulation, they instead invite a reading, in the sense developed by Jean-Luc Nancy, that itself is transported to the writing of his texts. In order to show the auto-immune character of Schelling\u27s writing, this thesis will turn to Schelling\u27s First Outline of a System of the Philosophy of Nature (1799), the Philosophical Investigations into the Essence of Human Freedom (1809), and the unfinished The Ages of the World (1815). These texts show that the recent resurgence of Schelling in theory and philosophy is not because of philosophy\u27s re-discovery of Schelling, but that Schelling is representative of the crisis in which theory and philosophy currently find themselves, articulating a deconstructive writing avant-la-lettre