Is nothing only perceived as blackness, or is it actually blackness?

[ryan]

I guess the other option is that nothing is not anything, not even blackness.

 

[gmbteach]

I think this sums it up for you:

 

[untermensche]

When you ask; What is black beyond our perceptions?

The natural question that follows is; To what?

 

[ryan]

When you ask; What is black beyond our perceptions?

The natural question that follows is; To what?

I am not sure what you are asking.

We experience something for each wavelength in the visible part of the EM spectrum. But when there is no light, we still seem to be experiencing something, blackness. Are we experiencing nothing, heat, a part of the brain, space time, etc?

 

[untermensche]

When you ask; What is black beyond our perceptions?

The natural question that follows is; To what?

I am not sure what you are asking.

We experience something for each wavelength in the visible part of the EM spectrum. But when there is no light, we still seem to be experiencing something, blackness. Are we experiencing nothing, heat, a part of the brain, space time, etc?

What I am saying is that perception only exists when there is something which perceives.

So any question about perceptions includes within it the question: Perception by what?

Humans perceive the absence of light as "blackness", even though there are many shades of "blackness".

What some other creature perceives in the absence of light is unknown.

Perceptions are not as if some window to the world has been opened.

Perceptions are something brains create in response to stimulation, or in the case of blackness the lack of stimulation.

 

[abaddon]

Christians who think the question “Why something instead of nothing?” do something like this too. They talk of “nothing” as a something. People who think there’s a netherworld beyond the phenomenal world will generalize the relativity of things observed in nature (like “there’s nothing in the fridge”) and turn them into principles and vague conceptions (“the reason it’s not anything at all is God”) in order to strip terms of their original use of being descriptive so they can be used in whatever useful way in the netherworld, the supernatural realm. Causation goes from being a relation between things in time, to being a “feature of God” so that it can happen even before time/the universe began is another example.

There’s not “nothing” except relative with something. Like my example “nothing in the fridge”. That you can expand the definition to be more vague and general than that does not make the word descriptive of any real thing. It’s why the whole “why is there something rather than nothing?” question is just an absurdity, like so many theological questions.

I ranted a bit, due to a recent brush with the cosmological argument, which relies the define-it-into-existence process I just described. Nothing is not “not anything” except in mere conception, and a pretty half-baked concept at that, so it’s just a confusion of words. You can't arrive at Nothingness by stripping perceived phenomena away. "I might perceive or experience nothing if only I strip away this and that" is only an absurd game of words.

 

[ryan]

I am not sure what you are asking.

We experience something for each wavelength in the visible part of the EM spectrum. But when there is no light, we still seem to be experiencing something, blackness. Are we experiencing nothing, heat, a part of the brain, space time, etc?

What I am saying is that perception only exists when there is something which perceives.

So any question about perceptions includes within it the question: Perception by what?

My question is more about what nothingness would look like. Imagine that there is an interval of time where there is nothing for your perception, whatever it is, to detect. Assume the other parts of your brain are still functioning normally except there is nothing visually to process.

Unlike other colors, are we actually experiencing the true "color" of nothing?

Perceptions are not as if some window to the world has been opened.

I would say that there is an open window, except the air that comes through mixes with the air inside to become something else. But that is enough to model the universe quantitatively and know that it has a wide range of qualities.

Perceptions are something brains create in response to stimulation, or in the case of blackness the lack of stimulation.

This is the heart of my question. How do you know that the blackness is not a "default" firing of some kind that the brain produces to fill the gaps?

 

[DBT]

Nothing cannot be perceived

 

[untermensche]

My question is more about what nothingness would look like.

Look like to what? To humans?

Because humans have eyes.

And nothingness obviously will have no effect on eyes, or anything.

 

[Speakpigeon]

I guess the other option is that nothing is not anything, not even blackness.

Some British painter obsessed with the colour black just bought for his exclusive use the blackest colour humans know how to produce. Other painters have complained. The effect is reported to be very strange, almost completely unlike usual blacks, which are all essentialy shades of greys. Basicaly, you brain fails to make up any reference point within the expanse of black and goes pear-shape. You probably nead to have the experience first hand to believe there's indeed something special. I haven't and I don't really, not much trusting third party reports. It's produce I think using a particular pattern of carbon nano-structure.

That being said, blackness is the perception of the absence of light, which is not nothing since you'd still have you eyes, you brain etc. There's something like a background visual noise that's robing us from experiencing absolute blackness.
EB

 

[ryan]

Let's say there is nothing for my photoreceptors to receive for 10 seconds, then what am I seeing for those 10 seconds, nothing?

 

[untermensche]

Let's say there is nothing for my photoreceptors to receive for 10 seconds, then what am I seeing for those 10 seconds, nothing?

Again, you don't seem to comprehend what the visual system is.

The visual system creates a representation of the world. This is what a person experiences when they say they are "seeing".

You experience a representation, not the real thing.

Your brain will create black when there is no light hitting the eye.

No light is no different from "nothingness".

 

[ryan]

Let's say there is nothing for my photoreceptors to receive for 10 seconds, then what am I seeing for those 10 seconds, nothing?

Again, you don't seem to comprehend what the visual system is.

This is so embarrassing on multiple levels.

The visual system creates a representation of the world. This is what a person experiences when they say they are "seeing".

You experience a representation, not the real thing.

Your brain will create black when there is no light hitting the eye.

No light is no different from "nothingness".

Thanks for wasting my time.

 

[Keith&Co.]

Let's say there is nothing for my photoreceptors to receive for 10 seconds, then what am I seeing for those 10 seconds, nothing?

If there's literally nothing for your eyes to see, I think your mind's going to supply something. After my retinal surgery, I became convinced I could see a light pattern that matched the plastic shield I'd seen in the mirror.
Which was ludicrous. My eye was shut, covered with a patch of gauze taped in place. The shield was opaque plastic with lots of holes, also taped in place on my face.

But my brain was telling me that I was getting inputs to match what I would have expected to see if I'd thought about it.

I just sat there, wondering why my brain wasn't telling me I had X-ray vision. I mean, my wife was RIGHT THERE! It would have been easy to imagine something a lot better than the back of the futzing shield...

Anyway, if you're expecting darkness, you'll see darkness.

 

[untermensche]

Thanks for wasting my time.

Your question is inane.

What do you think "nothingness" is to an eye beyond the absence of light?

Turn off all the lights at night.

Your eyes are experiencing what to them is nothingness.

 

[abaddon]

Either the OP is using the world “nothing” to mean a space with no visual stimuli, or he really means “nothing” to mean "total absence of everything within a given space". If the latter, then can ANYONE name an example of “nothing” in nature or anywhere? How would you test what human senses do or don’t detect in “nothing” if there’s no such thing as “nothing”? How would the eyes "see" a something called "nothing"?

I would think it’s weird to really be talking about a real “nothing”, but I don’t know... people bring up some weird shit on this board.

In deprivation tanks, people tend to hallucinate. So with minimal stimuli the mind fills in the blanks. When people say “I see nothing” what they mean they don’t see the expected objects within the swirl of dark and background colors/patterns.

 

[ryan]

Either the OP is using the world “nothing” to mean a space with no visual stimuli, or he really means “nothing” to mean "total absence of everything within a given space". If the latter, then can ANYONE name an example of “nothing” in nature or anywhere? How would you test what human senses do or don’t detect in “nothing” if there’s no such thing as “nothing”? How would the eyes "see" a something called "nothing"?

I would think it’s weird to really be talking about a real “nothing”, but I don’t know... people bring up some weird shit on this board.

The nothing in this case is basically when no physical thing exists that can have an effect on the neurons responsible for giving us a mental image. So imagine X affecting a single neuron to give us a very brief instance of the color green. Now, what happens when there is no transmission to that neuron? We see black.

My question is: is the blackness a moment of experiencing nothing, or are we experiencing our own neurons that have not been activated yet, or ...?

If we do not experience anything, then we are essentially experiencing nothing.

Imagine being in a perfectly dark room. Assume this would be dark enough so that not a single action potential is generated. It's almost like we know that the nothingness is there as our parallel sense of time continues.

 

[abaddon]

I’m told my tinnitus (ringing “in the ears”) happens because of hearing loss. Some range of my hearing mechanism is not being stimulated as it once was so the brain, missing some stimuli, fills in the blank with a loud hissy ringing sound. And oh what joy that is… You want to know what hearing “nothing” is like when this is happening! Some people have actually paid surgeons to cut their auditory nerve, thinking the noise is in the ear; so they end up deaf AND with a loud ringing still apparently “in the ear(s)”.

I’m supposing it’s similar with visuals. The lack of outer stimuli leaves the nervous system seeking stimulation elsewhere. My info is that the brain 'abhors a vacuum'; the brain does not agree with the "I wish I could know what silence sounds like!" exclamations of tinnitus sufferers. Wherever there’s less input than usual, it seeks whatever it can find and will input something to replace what it fails to find. So my vote is that there’s just no such thing as an experience of nothing.

 

[Keith&Co.]

I My info is that the brain 'abhors a vacuum';...Wherever there’s less input than usual, it seeks whatever it can find and will input something to replace what it fails to find.

Well, look at the blind spot. The part of your eye where there are no vision receptors. You don't see a dark spot on your vision, the brain just drags the colors around the spot into place, smoothing it over and tricking your eyes into thinking you see something.

Same thing happens when you get laser surgery to cauterize leaks in the eye. I don't see black spots, but through testing we can identify spots where my eye doesn't pick up a light if it's just a pinprick of color on a uniform field of white. It's like visual spackle...

 

[Kharakov]

I guess the other option is that nothing is not anything, not even blackness.

In the beginning there was no thin G, which created all kinds of problems for physicists, a few yo' mama jokes, and much ado.