How Far Away Is the Television Screen of Visual Experience?
... not that I think there really is one, even in a loose, metaphorical sense. (See here.) But:
David Boonin (a visiting speaker from Colorado) and UCR graduate students Alan Moore and Matt Braich and I were hiking up Mt. Rubidoux. From the top, we could see several miles across town to the UCR campus. We pointed out to Boonin the clock tower, and then Alan said that the humanities building housing the philosophy department was also visible nearby, down and to the right, "about an inch and a half away".
What, an inch and a half away?! Alan's statement -- as I'm sure he knew -- sharply conflicted with my published views about the nature of the visual experience of perspective. And yet I knew exactly what Alan meant. He had effectively pointed out the spot. It seemed to me that "an inch and a half" was a much better description of the apparent distance than, say, a millimeter or twenty feet. (Of course the real distance is much larger than any of those.)
My thumb is about 3/4 of an inch wide. Holding it at arm's length, I saw that it almost perfectly occluded the distance between the clock tower and the humanities building. Thus, if the television screen of visual experience were arm's length away, Alan should have said that the distance was 3/4 of an inch. From the fact that the building's apparent distance (in some sense of "apparent distance"!) was an inch and a half, I thus geometrically derive the conclusion that the television screen of visual experience is about five feet away.
There, proved!