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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Oct 27, 2015 - 08:12pm PT
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Jan, I think that's a very perceptive note on the part of your student that raises many fine points. Pretty much agree with all of it. Thanks for the share.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Oct 27, 2015 - 08:15pm PT
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"Our sense organs and awareness and minds etc. encourage us to believe that "blue" is an objective quality "out there" which we perceive. For example, the sky was "blue" long before humans existed and if we all died tomorrow of a sudden plague, the sky would still be blue for another billion or so years. The blueness would remain the same. But none of this is true in any literal, objective sense.
Johnny with different colored eyes did not see a different blue "out there" because no such thing exists - "out there." All you have out there are a mixture of light waves of different wavelengths, none of which are inherently "blue."
Tha is - "blue" does not exist or become real till those light waves penetrate an eyeball, excite a brainpan, and appear in our field of awareness as the experience known as "blue." Without eyes, a brain, and awareness, those light waves are never reified as "blue," which is entirely a human perception.
In terms of human perception, blue is entirely real. But objectively, minus our subjective influence, blue is merely light in a particular wavelength. Sure, we can objectify and designate a wavelength as "blue," but without a human's perceptual apparatus, blue does not exist. An Alien with different visual equipment might come here and to him or her or it, our "blue" might be his "pink" because color itself is a subjective experience, not an objective thing out there." -Largo
That was an excellent bit. Really appreciated its accuracy.
.....
I hope I'm not the only to watch David Eagleman's The Brain airing presently on PBS. Episode #3 airs tomorrow night. He addresses many of these mind-brain perceptual phenomena in exciting new ways.
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Oct 27, 2015 - 09:42pm PT
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Dingus, maybe you can understand it this way:
Color Wavelength Frequency
violet 380–450 nm 668–789 THz
blue 450–495 nm 606–668 THz
green 495–570 nm 526–606 THz
yellow 570–590 nm 508–526 THz
The "objective" metrics mentioned above per wavelengths and frequencies remain the same regardless of the observer. The words in the left column, however, do not literally mean (for example), 450–495 nm and 606–668 THz, the wavelength and frequency of blue, but rather the subjective experience when a human being encounters said wavelength and frequency. The mistake you are making is in believing that the human being's experience of 450–495 nm and 606–668 THz, which we call "blue," is the very same thing as the light waves. Put differently, the lightwaves themselves are not blue - they are only lightwaves.
Same thing applies to the old saw: If a tree falls in a forest and no one is there to hear, does it still make a sound?
The falling tree makes sound waves, but a sound is a human interpretation of the soundwaves, not a inherent quality of falling trees that is there sans observer.
While some may chuckle at those saying only measurements are real, they might have a point. We measure physical phenomenon and get numbers that via experiments remain the same, but the "what" that is measured, the apparent stuff, upon close inspection, tends to dissolve in our hands.
Go figure. Literally.
But no, Dingus. The sky is not blue and never was. Blue is entirely in your mind, which is this instance and others, does not furnish an accurate picture of some thing or quality "out there," but fashions it out of whole cloth.
JL
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WBraun
climber
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Oct 27, 2015 - 09:50pm PT
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That is the impersonalist interpretation.
Unfortunately the Absolute Ultimate Truth is personality.
And thus Dingus Milquetoast is correct ........
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Oct 27, 2015 - 10:15pm PT
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This is why they are so bewildered
I was less bewildered when I was your age, Duck.
Your time will come.
;>)
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WBraun
climber
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Oct 27, 2015 - 10:26pm PT
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Largo is also correct.
The impersonal features of the absolute truth also exist.
And thus the impersonal and personal features are simultaneously eternally exhibited.
But ... the personal features are higher.
Thus it proves that the material world is a direct reflection of the real.
Fruit man will now have another melt down ......
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Gnome Ofthe Diabase
climber
Out Of Bed
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Oct 27, 2015 - 10:55pm PT
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As a tonic this thread is sublime, if it changes your understanding of consciousness ,
That would be of the utmost of interest. I have often found myself confused by the views held by some that seem to contradict what they have previously posted.
When I went back 100s of posts I did not find the examples that I thought I clearly remembered, So the only example of hipocritical thinking I could find was my own thought that
Some posts had been hipocritical .
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Chauncey
Trad climber
Truckee, CA
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Oct 27, 2015 - 11:07pm PT
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Geez, how many of us old climbing kooks have turned into intellectual academics? Not that we weren't intellectual before.
It is interesting to me that the monism (some prefer the term non-dualistic) of Thales found its way to Spinoza, Mach, et al., and in modern times to Skinner (largely misunderstood), and currently with Hayes (RFT, Relational Frame Theory) and other "third wave" behaviorist, aka functional contexualists (functional contextualism has become a preferred term for the earlier problematic moniker of Radical Behaviorism coined by Willard Day in reference to the philosophy of Skinner vs the dualism of the methodological behaviorist a la John Watson) who see "mind" as an illusory construct based on human cognitive experience. We are holistic behaving organisms rather than separate entities of mind and body. It is striking to me that this rational western civilization line of scientific reasoning has come to considerably, at least on this topic, parallel Buddhist non-dualism and their perspective on "mind" and cognition.
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Oct 28, 2015 - 06:53am PT
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Blue is entirely in your mind
I think I've seen people who feel the same way about red, yellow, and green at intersections.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Oct 28, 2015 - 09:00am PT
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Sorry Moose either you don't get it or you're not being clear in your post. Largo's clip, previous page, is straight up neuroscience and psychology. The point being made is that the universe absent perceiving minds is colorless. It's an important point because we grow up conditioned to believe we live in a colored world full of sounds also; and it is an important point because many if not a vast majority of the world population still believes this way. If it weren't so important, Eagleman for example would not have opened his The Brain with this very point: reality vs perception of reality... and described this very thing.
The human perception system gives the red rose its color. In other words, the rose itself is not innately colored red. Vast swathes of humans have not made this distinction because they don't know better.
Similar with your visual field, btw, in another respect besides color. We're conditioned to think our perceived visual field is the outer world itself. It's a powerful insight to learn that all that 3d is a creation by the brain. In other words, hit your optic nerves with your eyes closed with the same complex electrical signal and your brain will recreate that same 3-D visual field. It's a powerful insight that for people hitherto not aware can change their whole entire worldview about reality.
.....
Speaking of blu...
Jammer is Blublocker reincarnated!!!
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Oct 28, 2015 - 09:09am PT
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You guys are all over the place it's depressing. Go read some science books.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Oct 28, 2015 - 09:21am PT
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"educated people" "by stating the obvious"
and yet, moose, it is tricky subject because umpteen millions around the world are not scientifially literate, not aware of this basic psych / neuroscience.
and yet, to the word, what Largo wrote what dmt and you called incorrect (wrong or muddled) is staight up current neuroscience.
"the point that was trying to be made is wrong" -dmt
Largo muddled the subject of perception - moose
Better read it again.
Other intentions Largo might have are besides the point.
You think dmt really knows a rose is not inherently red or that what he perceives as his visual field is not really out there but instead a creation by his brain which could be re-simulated by appropriately applied electrical coding on his optic nerves? I don't know, I'm not convinced.
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WBraun
climber
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Oct 28, 2015 - 09:22am PT
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I read all the science books.
They're all full of corn syrup.
I threw them into the furnace.
It's back to the braunz age where men are men and women are women.
Not like this modern age where men all want become women and women want to become men and everyone is color blind ....
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Jan
Mountain climber
Colorado, Nepal & Okinawa
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Oct 28, 2015 - 09:26am PT
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One of the arguments against people not being able to see blue a thousand years ago is that they mixed paints and dyes to make things blue on both cloth and pottery.This statue is over 3,000 years old and contains six colors including what archaeologists know as Egyptian blue frit. Blue frit, was made from quartz, lime, a copper compound, and an alkali flux, all heated to a temperature between 850 and 1000°C. The earliest appearance of blue frit as a pigment on a tomb painting is found at Saqqara dated to 2900 BC
As for color blue-green color blindness, that is a relatively new phenomenon. It may have been around for awhile but was very dysfunctional in a hunting environment and is unknown among modern day hunters and gatherers. Like many traits, it is increasing in the modern world because it is no longer selected against.
My guess is that the person making the statement was referring to the fact that many pre industrial societies do not have separate words for blue and green, the Sherpas and Japanese among them. When I asked the Sherpas if they really saw the sky and grass as the same color they said no. When I asked why they used the same term then, they just shrugged. In Japan when I asked that question, I was told it wasn't important or that they did have different terms now - midori which is used only for blue now if if one is being modern. The new separate term for green has been borrowed from English so you know it's new. And what is it? "Greenu".
There's a whole literature in anthropological linguistics on color terms. Some societies have only black and white. if a third term is added, it is always red. If four terms exist, it is a term that signifies both green and blue. If a fifth term is added, it is always yellow. etc.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Oct 28, 2015 - 09:41am PT
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When I asked why they used the same term then, they just shrugged. In Japan when I asked that question, I was told it wasn't important or that they did have different terms now - midori which is used as blue and if if one was being modern, a separate term for green. The separate term for green has been borrowed from, English so you know it's new. And what is it? "Greenu
Very interesting.
You could carry this over to god concepts, too, btw. We distinguish different god concepts by giving them distinct names. Those who don't think it's important for whatever reason won't while those who think it is important for whatever reason will.
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Oct 28, 2015 - 09:43am PT
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If goldfish can see blue, probably early humans could, too.
Color vision is a long story. To say simply that blue is in your mind is not enough.
In 1985, in Land's laboratory, David Ingle managed to train goldfish to swim to a patch of some preassigned color in an underwater Mondrian display. He found that a fish goes to the same color, say blue, regardless of wavelength content: it selects a blue patch, as we do, even when the light from it is identical in composition to the light that, in a previous trial and under a different light source, came from a yellow patch, which the fish had rejected.
Thus the fish, too, selects the patch for its color, not for the wavelength content of the light it reflects. This means that the phenomenon of color constancy cannot be regarded as some kind of embellishment recently added by evolution to the color sense of certain higher mammals like ourselves; finding it in a fish suggests that it is a primitive, very basic aspect of color vision.
Experiments with stabilized color borders are consistent with the idea that differences across borders are necessary for color to be seen at all. Alfred Yarbus, whose name came up in the context of eye movements in Chapter 4, showed in 1962 that if you look at a blue patch surrounded by a red background, stabilizing the border of the patch on the retina will cause it to disappear: the blue melts away, and all you see is the red background. Stabilizing the borders on the retina apparently renders them ineffective, and without them, we have no color.
from David Hubel's
Eye, Brain, and Vision
http://hubel.med.harvard.edu/book/b40.htm
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Oct 28, 2015 - 09:48am PT
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Yes Jammer it's true, I don't like you.
You're as vulgar and disrespectful as Blu and Wb.
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WBraun
climber
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Oct 28, 2015 - 09:58am PT
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I wouldn't trust any perception of reality acquired by the mind alone.
Yes
And that is why meditation is required to free one from the limitations of the dualistic nature of the mind ....
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