Why is the world right side up?

[The Mad Monk]

Because they fall toward where your feet are. The image is set so that you right hand appears to the right, and your left hand to the left, because to do otherwise and require you to make the adjustment consciously would take way too many processing cycles.

[pchang]

Let me be more explicit. You are thinking about vision without context. Our senses are coordinated together. Gravity imposes a directionality on our sense of feeling. There is an advantage to having our sense of vision align with our sense of feeling. This also holds for left and right. Hearing also imparts a sense of direction and there is an advantage in having that align with our other senses as well.

[Lorizael]

Let me be more explicit. You are thinking about vision without context. Our senses are coordinated together. Gravity imposes a directionality on our sense of feeling. There is an advantage to having our sense of vision align with our sense of feeling. This also holds for left and right. Hearing also imparts a sense of direction and there is an advantage in having that align with our other senses as well.

This is one of the two plausible answers I came across. We have other senses that detect direction.

[pchang]

This is one of the two plausible answers I came across. We have other senses that detect direction.

And that wasn't enough to convince you?

[Sava]

This is one of the two plausible answers I came across. We have other senses that detect direction.

The link I provided said as much. You should have read it.

[MrFun]

The link I provided said as much. You should have read it.

And he didn't.

[Lorizael]

And that wasn't enough to convince you?

Partially convinced.

The link I provided said as much. You should have read it.

I did. It doesn't.

[Sava]

I did. It doesn't.

Fail.

Perceptual adaptation is a theory that proposes the notion that our brain and senses collaborate.

I mean, it's in the conclusion. It has five sentences.

[Lorizael]

Partially convinced.

To elaborate, I'm only partially convinced by this answer because I'm not sure it proves anything more than that the senses need to be aligned, not that any particular alignment is better than any other.

The other possibility I ran across is this: we have two retinas that register two somewhat overlapping, inverted images. The nature of the inversion means that the two images don't actually correspond to one another when put together, so the brain has to flip the images back for them to make sense. A picture might help.

A pentagon:



The left and right sides of the pentagon individually inverted:

I mean, it's in the conclusion. It has five sentences.

That our brain and senses collaborate is a no-brainer. What's at issue here is that the senses collaborate with each other, which the article doesn't spend any time talking about. It's focused solely on vision.

[Sava]

The wiki entry has more than enough info and keywords for you to do your own research.

[Lorizael]

I have done my own research. I'm here for discussion.

[Sava]

Apparently not.

[Ben Kenobi]

Unfortunately, that article doesn't explain why right side up is what our brain considers normal, and that's what I'm asking.

the definition of 'right side up' is based on our perceptions.

[AAAAAAAAH!]

Why do you care?

[Lorizael]

Why do you care?

If this is directed at me, because I'm very interested in the way that the brain constructs reality.