Daredevil Message Board

[jumonji]

[Francesco]

[Stanley]

I'm no scientist...but I try to make sense. No promises, though.

I like to think of Matt's radar sense as an extension of 'feeling'. In the sense that you can just tell when someone is behind you, I like to think that he can tell location of an object based on the volumetric displacement of air. So air velocity, not necessarily wavelength, is what he bases his radar off of.

In this way, movement of the object actually helps. And, when coupled with super-hearing, it seems to me that the radar sense as I've defined it can then give you a reasonable picture of what's going on at the other side of the wall. (Wouldn't help out in the case of a coffin, though he should be able to hear that the thing's hollow as it's being lowered in. Whatever.)

1) It's always active,
2) If he's thirty or so, he probably sifts through the data without an afterthought, and
3) The radar sense does not discriminate.

They're opinions, but to me, the sense is like having a talent. It's there when you need it, you don't need to try that hard, and if you actually do spend time to hone it, everyone better watch out. And at that point, dense objects vs. less-dense objects shouldn't matter.

There's my 86 bucks worth. (My thoughts are worth more than 2 cents.)

[jumonji]

Okay, I'm starting to feel like I'm moderating this thread or something. Not something I intended to do, but I'm really having fun reading everyone's entries. And responding to them...

[jumonji]

This thread has been dormant for quite a while now, but I thought I'd bring it back to life with just some general "me thinking out loud" style science reflections (if reading long posts is a problem for you, you may stop reading now ). I've had some radar related discussions with various people in the chat room (including on how it would be best portrayed in a movie), and also recently stumbled across some things in another forum that made me moan and groan (something about how DD's radar let's him "see" muscles contracting or something like that). Of course, some of the things I brought up in the "Faking it?" thread also sort of relate to this.

Okay, on to the topic at hand. First, I'll freely admit that the "DD isn't blind because he has his radar" notion is a major pet peeve of mine. So yeah, despite how I feel about the aspects of his blindess he does fake (there are also certainly many aspects that aren't fake), the idea that the radar sense actually completely replaces all properties of natural vision is completely illogical to me. So, I decided to do a little mini "science review" again and try to contrast DD's radar sense with natural vision.

Just some not-so-brief basics on natural vision: The whole basis of human vision is the ability of light-sensitive cells, so-called photoreceptors, to react to incoming light and forward this information to the brain. In this way, the retina of the eye is like the film of a camera that is exposed and continuously refreshed at certain intervals (the interval being the very short time it takes for each cell to restore the electric potential that is disturbed each time a signal is sent). What sets our actual visual experience apart from how cameras work is that it's more dynamic, with our brains filling in quite a bit of information for us. Nevertheless, sight is a very "photographic" sense and each retina records a flat image, just like a camera. Our perception of depth comes from the brain receiving two slightly misaligned images, one from each eye. People who are blind on one eye have impaired depth perception for this very reason. There are other ways for the brain to receive depth and distance information as well, which is why they world doesn't look completely flat when we cover one eye, beacuse we also use what we know about near objects looking larger than distant object as cues to relative distance. Also, actually moving through space aids in depth perception as well. But, at the end of the day, our sense of depth is something that our brain generates based on information that is actually two-dimensional.

Humans (and other primates) see extremely well compared to most other animals. It is estimated that dogs have about one fourth of the visual acuity of humans and cats have one fifth to one tenth. That means that many cats would be classified as legally blind if they were people. Fortunately for them, cats don't rely heavily on reading street signs to get around. Primates, such as humans, also have excellent color vision. At this point, it should be mentioned that most of the color processing actually takes place in the retina. This means that even if DD is able to in some way perceive color (which I doubt, although Stan Lee disagrees), he cannot experience color in a way that is even close to what sighted people experience. Any knowledge gained by touch would be entirely "academic."

Despite seeing as well as we do, humans only really see well straight ahead. Most of the cones (remember rods and cones from high school biology guys?) which are responsible for seeing color and fine detail are concentrated in the central portion of the retina, which is called the macula. The very highest concentration is found in the fovea which only accounts for 2% of the visual field (the entire macula accounts for 13%). If you try reading something out of the corner of your eye, you'll know that your peripheral vision is significantly less accurate than anything you can see straight ahead. The reason we don't think about this much is because we are constantly scanning things around us. Also the brain can use the information about what we know is there to sort of fill in the blanks.

So, to summarize before moving on to the radar sense, the strength of human vision is its ability to make out very fine detail, and perceive color to an extent that is unusally good in the animal kingdom. Primates, compared to many other groups of species, are also highly visual. For humans, 80% of what we take in through our senses comes through the eyes.

Moving on to what all this means for Matt Murdock. Well, in the strictly visual sense, Matt is actually unusually blind. Most "blind" people (90% of the so-called legally blind) can detect light and most can see color. Many people near the legal blindness limit can even pass for sighted in many situations. So, is having "no light perception" (as the clinical definition goes) a problem even if you have other ways of perceiving your surroundings? Well, let's first look at why it is that animals even use light to see in the first place. The easy answer is this: because it is literally everywhere. The sun emits all kinds of wavelengths, but only visible light actually penetrates the Earth's atmosphere to any significant degree, together with ultraviolet and some infrared radiation. This is fortunate for us because the properties of light are also unusually well-suited to interact with, that is to illuminate, physical objects. So, what Matt is basically lacking is access to an external light source. He has to supply his own "light" in order to illuminate his surroundings. I think I mentioned this further up this thread, but this would basically be like walking around in complete darkness with a light bulb on your head. The range of this sense would then depend on the intensity of it (about which nothing is known), but it would taper off rather quickly and most definitely not have anywhere near the same distance range as sight (if we are in a flat area and the sun is up with can look many miles ahead).

The second major difference between the radar sense and vision (and this holds regardless of which of the many interpretations of the radar sense one prefers) is that while vision consists of flat "photographic" images which are then translated into a sense of space, Matt's perceptions are the other way around. Regardless of whether the signal is electromagnetic, sound-based, air disturbance or "mysterious as-yet-to-be-described force," Matt's "visual" experience of the world consists entirely of space, depth and distance (and probably density). That is it. From this experience, that is the perception of differences in distance between himself and various locations in physical space, he presumably gets information about the shapes of these objects. This should obviously give him excellent, "better than sight" depth perception. When you throw in the fact that it's 360 degrees (and add his other senses), it's no small wonder that DD functions as well in combat situations as he does. The problem is, of course, that this state of affairs doesn't recreate or give him access to that photographic image of things on which most other people's perceptions are based.

Since color is a physical characteristic of objects which can only be brought fourth when said object is illuminated by visible light, DD's radar sense (which most definitely is not based on visible light) would have no way of giving him any information about the color of an object. This is a problem which is not restricted to esthetics. Most would probably agree that while Matt's world might have some sensual pleasures associated with it, it's not very "pretty." But color also translates into detail. We use color information to make sense of a great deal of what we're seeing. For this reason, I'm personally very sceptical of the extent to which Matt always seems to be able to identify objects by shape alone (keeping in mind that many objects have no relevant sound or odor associated with them). So often, he's written as if the old "my other senses more than compensate" slogan were always true with little respect for the many cases where this wouldn't be the case. (I buy the "my other senses more than compensate" for most combat situations, but find it to be more than a little silly as a general statement).

Another thing I'm sceptical of is when fans/writers say that the radar is more "accurate" than sight. I don't even know what that means. It has the obvious advantages I've mentioned above (as well as the somewhat questionable "seeing" through objects property), but the idea that the acuity of the radar sense would even come close to that of the central 2% of the human visual field (which has been hundreds of millions of years in the making) is more than a little "iffy" to me. In this sense, the old "my radar sense guides me over every obstacle" makes 100% sense, whereas I'd have to be doubtful that it's any good at locating a sewing needle on the floor or even immediately recognizing half of the obstacles he's "guided over."

Yes, yet another long "science post," liked by some, not so much by others. Either way, all input and comments are welcome. And for those of you who subscribe to the "radar is more accurate than sight" view, I would honestly like to know what you mean by that. I'm not going to hit anyone over the head, I would just be curious to know what you would mean by "better" in this case.
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The Other Murdock Papers