In preparation for Mois Navon’s talk here on September 5th, 2018, I read up a bit on the Israeli company MobilEye (bought by Intel), to the limited extent that my untrained non-technical eye can understand. And I came across this interesting yet perturbing nugget:
Mobileye’s strength comes in part from our early realization that a single-lensed camera (mono-camera) would become the primary sensor to support Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) and eventually Autonomous Vehicles. The mono-camera is the most versatile of sensing technologies, with the ability to identify shapes, like vehicles and pedestrians, as well as textures, like lane markings and traffic-sign text. This realization marked a revolutionary leap in the market, as sensors like dual-lensed cameras (stereo-vision) and radar were previously regarded as superior. Today, most global automakers have chosen mono-vision as the primary information source for Advanced Driver Assistance Systems, and Mobileye continues to lead innovation in the field.
Wow. This was surprising. You’d think that stereo is better than mono, that dual lenses would outperform single lenses. But that’s not the case, at least in the case of self-driving computer chips where lower power consumption and seamless integration and synchronization are key factors.
But (as we learn from the Baal Shem Tov to see and learn spiritual life lessons from everything and everywhere) what does this say to us about life… is the message that we ought to be simpler and less complex? is this advocating for narrower vision, for humans to have blinders like horses? That we live life in mono and not in stereo? That doesn’t seem right, does it?
This reminds me of a conversation between the Lubavitcher Rebbe and Rabbi Herbert Weiner (author of 9 1/2 Mystics – where this appears). Perhaps this can provide some life insight to the benefits of applying MobilEye’s pioneering mono-lens vision to our perspective on life as well.
Here’s the piece from Weiner’s book:
As a matter of fact, I blurted out, all his Hasidim seemed to have one thing in common: a sort of open and naive look in their eyes that a sympathetic observer might call t’mimut (purity) but that might less kindly be interpreted as emptiness or simple-mindedness, the absence of inner struggle. I found myself taken aback by my own boldness, but the Rebbe showed no resentment. He leaned forward. “What you see missing from their eyes is a kera!”
“A what?” I asked. “Yes, a kera,” he repeated quietly, “a split.” The Rebbe hesitated for a moment. “I hope you will not take offense, but something tells me you don’t sleep well at night, and this is not good for ‘length of days.’ Perhaps if you had been raised wholly in one world or in another, it might be different. But this split is what comes from trying to live in two worlds.”
The Rebbe (as obvious from his visionary style and approach) isn’t advocating that we be simplistic or use blinders to narrow our focus. Instead, he appears to be advocating for a single all-encompassing lens, a broad, rich and versatile yet unified perspective in viewing of all life, not fragmented or piecemeal, not cobbled together from different units seeing different things, but one great vision. The Rebbe saw all of a Torah through an interconnected and interwoven vision and he viewed all of life (from human experience to world events etc) all through the lens of Torah. You can have a rich, broad and colorful perspective, through one strong phenomenal lens. And that way it isn’t torn, or pulled, or lack of synchronization or draining power consumption.
One lens.