“Revolution in Thought: A new look at determinism and free will"

[peacegirl]

I have one person on ignore, he tends to be abusive and says nothing. I never complained to mods, I put him on ignore.

Just trying to save you the trouble of saying something that has been said to her over a million times over the last quarter century at about ten different boards. But hey, knock yourself out. I’ll just sit back and be amused.

A dog's eye works pretty much as humans. Light hits the retina, photons are converted to electrons.,and the image is transmitted to brain via nerves.

Then why can't they recognize the person closest to them if this light is traveling to their eyes?

THEY CAN!

Not true. I don't know what it's going to take to get you to see that they can't.

That's your "why" resolved, right there.

That's your "why" not mine.

You could as well ask "If wings are made for flying, why can't birds fly?"

That's how reasonable you sound here.

Truth is stranger than fiction, as the saying goes.

... then where do all the calculators go??

That was actually clever. Thanks for the giggle.

 

[DBT]

The basics:


View attachment 48569



"First, light passes through the cornea (the clear front layer of the eye). The cornea is shaped like a dome and bends light to help the eye focus.

Some of this light enters the eye through an opening called the pupil (PYOO-pul). The iris (the colored part of the eye) controls how much light the pupil lets in.

Next, light passes through the lens (a clear inner part of the eye). The lens works together with the cornea to focus light correctly on the retina.

When light hits the retina (a light-sensitive layer of tissue at the back of the eye), special cells called photoreceptors turn the light into electrical signals.

These electrical signals travel from the retina through the optic nerve to the brain. Then the brain turns the signals into the images you see."

How the Eyes Work | National Eye Institute

All the different part of your eyes work together to help you see. Learn the jobs of the cornea, pupil, lens, retina, and optic nerve and how they work together.

www.nei.nih.gov

None of how vision works changes. Light is still at the eye and transduction still applies. The only difference is that the brain looks through the eyes to see the external world. The external world doesn't travel to the eye in delayed time.

The physics of how light is simply 'at the eye' without travel time is something you need to explain.

 

[DBT]

Damn it, no page 100 party.

We do tend to see the world through the lense of our beliefs, where some see signs wonders in what others consider to be mundane events, where one man's pastor, prophet or saviour may be seen by others as either mistaken/conditioned or fraudulent.

That is true. We see the world based on our experiences that form our beliefs. This is also why we develop associations with certain sounds, smells or sights that trigger an emotional response, but none of this negates his claim of real time vision. If anything, it supports it.

How exactly does it support real time vision? A description of the means would help.

For example, the word dog makes us conscious that this something is not a cat or a cow, and it allows us to see this difference between existing bits of substance because the word used to describe this particular animal is different from words used to describe other animals, which is why we give it a different name. Consequently, the actual word contains the consciousness of a difference that exists in the external or internal world. Remember, there is absolutely nothing that travels from the dog to the optic nerve, although the bark does strike the ears, and this sound is a slide in itself which then permits the brain to look at this bit of living substance through the many relations that become associated with the sound. As stimuli enter through the four senses and get combined in various relations, they are then projected onto the screen of substance through the eyes, which see everything in relation to what is on the slide. If a child gets frightened by the barking of a dog, this fear is recorded on the slide and photographed in relation to it, and when a dog is seen the fear is projected.

Among human relations, there are a tremendous number of differences between word slides that each of us stores in our brains because we are all different to some degree; consequently, what you experience in your world depends on the slides through which you see your experiences. The words that you learned while growing up and reading many books are the particular slides through which you experienced in context — in relation to certain things — which means that you will use and look through them as these experiences project the relation. These word slides represent your consciousness of something you know exists because these things are seen with your eyes (after the relation has been made and a photograph taken), and here is the true source of all the confusion, for although the experiences are real and cannot be denied, your understanding of them is fallacious since your brain never photographed an accurate mathematical relation, and as a result, you see a faulty version of reality.

Words are just symbols we use to communicate. Where sounds or scribbles are said or made and a group of people agree on what that sound or scribble refers to.

Obviously, the word is not the thing itself, and means nothing to someone who doesn't know the language.

 

[peacegirl]

Adios amigos y amigas.

I have run out of things to say.

May the bird of paradise fly up your nose(s).

Back to dogs’ eyes — we are all over the map — they aren’t as good as human eyes in color perception, as I noted, because they have one less cone than we do, but they are better at night vision because they have more rods (all of which, of course, demonstrates for the billionth time that all eyes are sense organs). However, it is true that their main sense organ is the nose for scent, whereas our main sense organ is they eye (though again, this does not mean they can’t recognize humans by sight alone. They can).

No they can't. It's hard to tease out cues that would indicate they recognize but put them in front of a picture or a cardboard replica of their owner which is right in front of them and see what happens. This could be done when the dog hasn't seen his owner in a while and loves his owner very much by the anticipation every day when his owner has come home from work. This can't be that hard to test without levers.

Their sense of smell is mind-blowing. They can smell cancer. They can smell moods. They can smell scents from a mile away that we lost after a couple of feet. They can smell in stereo, whatever that means. When they look out the rolled-down windows of moving cars, as they so often do, they are not sight-seeing as we would, but scent-smelling. Dawkins speculates they smell in color. Some people do, too, or experience color through sounds. It is called synesthesia. Van Gogh may have had it. He took piano lessons and loudly banged on the keys while crying, “Chrome Yellow! Prussian Blue!” etc. His piano teacher thought he was a madman and stopped giving him lessons.

That's so sad!

It's all beside the point.

Animals have evolved eyes and brains in order to detect light in the external world and make sense of it in order to visually navigate and survive.

Whatever a dog or cat, chimp or whatever can or can't do, recognize objects in pictures, etc, is a matter of the architecture of their brain, not their eyes.

That's what I've been saying all along. The brain takes a photograph of the relation between the object and the word, which creates a connection that is then recognized whenever the word is mentioned. But a dog is very limited in this ability to do this.

 

[peacegirl]

A lot of well meaning people try to change the world for the better, and their work may be worthwhile, indispensable even, yet here we are in a world in crisis, needless suffering, inequality, war, ecosystems in decline.....

Lots of people think they had the solution, but this one can prevent needless suffering, inequality, war, which will open up the ability to stop the environmental destruction. This one really is the gem, not because he was my father but because of extending the principles. Understandably, people are skeptical and will continue to be skeptical until they understand why man's will is not free and why the eyes are not a sense organ. He did describe how we are conditioned to seeing what really isn't imbedded in light. No light is traveling with beauty and ugliness in them, yet this conditioning makes it appear that beauty and ugliness are part of the real world. We become conditioned due to words that lie to us, and there's no escape from this unless the words that are attached to certain features that condition us to seeing with our very eyes that some people are more beautiful or ugly than others, are removed from our dictionaries. Scientists and philosophers don't want to hear an outsider debating the creme de la creme in their particular field. They resent him highly. I'm only asking people to take the time to study the book and not compare it to others who meant well but didn't have the answer. We are in a crisis on many fronts. This should at least give people a pause before they jump to premature conclusions.

The issue of how we view the world, our attitude and how we respond has nothing to do with the speed of light or how our eyes work, but a host of other factors such as life experience and social conditioning, where what may have been good and moral for an ancient Roman or Aztec is not acceptable in this day and age.

It has everything to do with how the eyes work because of what we are conditioned to see due to words. Did you not read the excerpt?

Scientists, believing that the eyes were a sense organ, unconsciously confirmed what man saw with them because they were unaware that it was possible to project a fallacious relation realistically. Consequently, everything in the external world will be distorted if the words through which man looks at what he calls reality are inaccurate symbols or if the relation that is photographed becomes, as in the five senses, an inaccurate negative that is then projected realistically upon undeniable substance. The word beautiful has absolutely no external reality and yet because it is learned in association with a particular physiognomy, a beautiful girl is created when no such person exists. Obviously, there is a difference between the shape and features of individuals, but to label one beautiful and another ugly only reveals that you are conscious of a fallacious difference that is projected through your eyes upon substance that cannot be denied — which makes the projection appear real. By having the words beautiful, ugly, gorgeous, etc. as slides in a movie projector through which the brain will look at the external world, a fallacious value is placed upon certain specific differences only because of the words, which are then confirmed as a part of the real world since man will swear that he sees beautiful women with his eyes. But in actual reality, all he sees are different shapes and different features. This beautiful girl is not striking his optic nerve which then allows him to see her beauty, but instead he projects the word onto these differences and then photographs a fallacious relation. The brain records all relations, whether true or false, and since it was considered an indisputable fact that man had five senses which were connected in some way with the external world, and since four of these were accurately described as sense organs, that is, they receive and transmit external stimuli, it was very easy for Aristotle to get confused and put a closure on further investigation by including the eyes in the definition, which he did only because he never understood their true function.

"Social conditioning is the sociological process of training individuals in a society to respond in a manner generally approved by the society in general and peer groups within society.

The concept is stronger than that of socialization, which is the process of inheriting norms, customs and ideologies.

Manifestations of social conditioning are vast, but they are generally categorized as social patterns and social structures including nationalism, education, employment, entertainment, popular culture, religion, spirituality and family life. The social structure in which an individual finds him or herself influences and can determine their social actions and responses."

Social conditioning

Social conditioning is the sociological process of training individuals in a society to respond in a manner generally approved by the society in general and peer groups within society. The concept is stronger than that of socialization, which is the process of inheriting norms, customs and...

dbpedia.org

I am not disputing any of this. All I am saying is that we become conditioned to favoring certain facial features when we have learned from an early age what constitutes beauty in the eyes of society, and what doesn't. American faces to many Orientals are more beautiful so they are getting their eyelids done to look more American. This conditioning could not occur if not for words that give the appearance of reality. Being labeled beautiful or ugly also has an effect on social conditioning because of how people are judged by their looks and their social status. Every culture is slightly different in their standard of beauty, but this doesn't change how this conditioning takes place.

Again.

It's not the eyes that generate vision and see.

That is true, but it's the direction of how the brain interprets. It is what it sees, through the eyes, that is at issue. Light is a necessary condition of sight. We can't see without light but that does not mean light is traveling to the eye at all. I know this is whole discussion is getting old and I'm sorry I haven't been able to create more interest. That's beyond my control.

It is the brain.

The function of an eye is to detect light and convert whatever information is acquired and transmit it to the brain for processing.

Again, no one is arguing with you. The exact mechanism I can't explain other than to say that if he is right, the brain is looking through the eyes, to see reality, not the other way around.

Our social values and conditioning has nothing whatsoever to do with our eyes, light at the eye or instant vision, but the conditions in the world around us.

The eyes of ancient people, Khan's Mongols, Aztec, Romans, etc, were exactly the same as ours, yet they had different cultures and values.

This was one of his discoveries, but this doesn't relate directly to his other discovery that man's will is not free and how this knowledge can change our world for the better. So can the knowledge that the eyes aren't a sense organ. If you read the book, you would see how it all fits.

 

[peacegirl]

Damn it, no page 100 party.

We do tend to see the world through the lense of our beliefs, where some see signs wonders in what others consider to be mundane events, where one man's pastor, prophet or saviour may be seen by others as either mistaken/conditioned or fraudulent.

That is true. We see the world based on our experiences that form our beliefs. This is also why we develop associations with certain sounds, smells or sights that trigger an emotional response, but none of this negates his claim of real time vision. If anything, it supports it.

How exactly does it support real time vision? A description of the means would help.

For example, the word dog makes us conscious that this something is not a cat or a cow, and it allows us to see this difference between existing bits of substance because the word used to describe this particular animal is different from words used to describe other animals, which is why we give it a different name. Consequently, the actual word contains the consciousness of a difference that exists in the external or internal world. Remember, there is absolutely nothing that travels from the dog to the optic nerve, although the bark does strike the ears, and this sound is a slide in itself which then permits the brain to look at this bit of living substance through the many relations that become associated with the sound. As stimuli enter through the four senses and get combined in various relations, they are then projected onto the screen of substance through the eyes, which see everything in relation to what is on the slide. If a child gets frightened by the barking of a dog, this fear is recorded on the slide and photographed in relation to it, and when a dog is seen the fear is projected.

Among human relations, there are a tremendous number of differences between word slides that each of us stores in our brains because we are all different to some degree; consequently, what you experience in your world depends on the slides through which you see your experiences. The words that you learned while growing up and reading many books are the particular slides through which you experienced in context — in relation to certain things — which means that you will use and look through them as these experiences project the relation. These word slides represent your consciousness of something you know exists because these things are seen with your eyes (after the relation has been made and a photograph taken), and here is the true source of all the confusion, for although the experiences are real and cannot be denied, your understanding of them is fallacious since your brain never photographed an accurate mathematical relation, and as a result, you see a faulty version of reality.

Words are just symbols we use to communicate. Where sounds or scribbles are said or made and a group of people agree on what that sound or scribble refers to.

Obviously, the word is not the thing itself, and means nothing to someone who doesn't know the language.

Very true. There has to be a basis for communication, or all is lost.

 

[DBT]

Adios amigos y amigas.

I have run out of things to say.

May the bird of paradise fly up your nose(s).

Back to dogs’ eyes — we are all over the map — they aren’t as good as human eyes in color perception, as I noted, because they have one less cone than we do, but they are better at night vision because they have more rods (all of which, of course, demonstrates for the billionth time that all eyes are sense organs). However, it is true that their main sense organ is the nose for scent, whereas our main sense organ is they eye (though again, this does not mean they can’t recognize humans by sight alone. They can).

No they can't. It's hard to tease out cues that would indicate they recognize but put them in front of a picture or a cardboard replica of their owner which is right in front of them and see what happens. This could be done when the dog hasn't seen his owner in a while and loves his owner very much by the anticipation every day when his owner has come home from work. This can't be that hard to test without levers.

Their sense of smell is mind-blowing. They can smell cancer. They can smell moods. They can smell scents from a mile away that we lost after a couple of feet. They can smell in stereo, whatever that means. When they look out the rolled-down windows of moving cars, as they so often do, they are not sight-seeing as we would, but scent-smelling. Dawkins speculates they smell in color. Some people do, too, or experience color through sounds. It is called synesthesia. Van Gogh may have had it. He took piano lessons and loudly banged on the keys while crying, “Chrome Yellow! Prussian Blue!” etc. His piano teacher thought he was a madman and stopped giving him lessons.

That's so sad!

It's all beside the point.

Animals have evolved eyes and brains in order to detect light in the external world and make sense of it in order to visually navigate and survive.

Whatever a dog or cat, chimp or whatever can or can't do, recognize objects in pictures, etc, is a matter of the architecture of their brain, not their eyes.

That's what I've been saying all along. The brain takes a photograph of the relation between the object and the word, which creates a connection that is then recognized whenever the word is mentioned. But a dog is very limited in this ability to do this.

It's an association. We relate mental images of objects with words. And what other animals are capable of is determined by the structure of their brains.....where dogs have a vastly superior sense of smell, for instance, yet are demonstrably able to recognise objects by sight alone.

 

[DBT]

Haven't read it, but just came across this author, who's work appears to relate to this discussion.

"Drawn from more than two decades of pathbreaking writing, and ranging across the biggest issues of our time – inequality, technology, the identity of ‘the West,’ democracy, art, power, anger, mutual aid and protest – Graeber’s essays challenge the old assumptions about political life.

Despite converging political, economic, and ecological crises, our politics is still dominated by either ‘business as usual’ or nostalgia for a mythical past.

Instead, Graeber shows himself to be a trenchant critic of the order of things, driven by a bold imagination and a passionate hope that our world can be different."

THE ULTIMATE HIDDEN TRUTH OF THE WORLD . . . - David Graeber

“The ultimate hidden truth of the world is that it is something that we make, and could just as easily make differently,” wrote David Graeber. During a moment of daunting upheaval and pervasive despair, the incisive, entertaining, and urgent essays collected in The Ultimate Hidden Truth of the...

davidgraeber.org

 

[peacegirl]

A baby not recognising objects in the world around them is not the same as literally not seeing these things.

A newborn baby would not be able to focus without the other senses stimulating him.

if a newborn infant was placed in a soundproof room that would eliminate the possibility of sense experience which is a prerequisite of sight — even though his eyes were wide open — he could never have the desire to see. Furthermore, and quite revealing, if this infant was kept alive for fifty years or longer on a steady flow of intravenous glucose, if possible, without allowing any stimuli to strike the other four organs of sense, this baby, child, young, and middle aged person would never be able to focus the eyes to see any objects existing in that room no matter how much light was present or how colorful they might be because the conditions necessary for sight have been removed, and there is absolutely nothing in the external world that travels from an object and impinges on the optic nerve to cause it.

Some are born deaf, yet do have sight. Being deaf may have effects on perception, but that doesn't eliminate being able to see.

He never said that it did. An infant would not be able to focus no matter how much light was present or how colorful the objects would be if the baby was not stimulated by any of the other senses. Sound is just one sense. Touch, smell, and taste could also do the job. Once the eyes are focused, the eyes stay focused. It's just when they are born that the other senses are of paramount importance when it comes to sight.

"What Did We Find?
As we thought, the deaf and hearing babies did behave differently in our experiment. The deaf babies took longer to habituate to the pictures of colorful toys. On average, they looked at the toys for about 70 total seconds during the test. The hearing babies looked at the toys for about 42 total seconds (Figure 2). We think this means the deaf babies took longer to process what they were seeing than the hearing babies."

Does Being Born Deaf Affect How We See?

Have you ever heard someone say that if you are born deaf, you have better vision to make up for it? People often think so, but is that actually true? We know that what babies hear, see, and touch determines how their brains develop. When you are growing, your brain is flexible. This means it...

kids.frontiersin.org

Interesting article. Thanks!

And it contradicts your claim.

I don't think it does at all because their other senses are still in full working order. If one is taken away, it does not mean they are not stimulated by touch, sound, and smell. If all of them were taken away, an infant would not be able to see, as sight is dependent on sense experience in order to focus. He writes: If a newborn infant was placed in a soundproof room that would eliminate the possibility of sense experience which is a prerequisite of sight — even though his eyes were wide open — he could never have the desire to see. Furthermore, and quite revealing, if this infant was kept alive for fifty years or longer on a steady flow of intravenous glucose, if possible, without allowing any stimuli to strike the other four organs of sense, this baby, child, young, and middle aged person would never be able to focus the eyes to see any objects existing in that room no matter how much light was present or how colorful they might be because the conditions necessary for sight have been removed, and there is absolutely nothing in the external world that travels from an object and impinges on the optic nerve to cause it. That was his claim anyway. If people believe he was wrong and science got it right, then they are entitled to their beliefs.

 

[peacegirl]

Haven't read it, but just came across this author, who's work appears to relate to this discussion.

"Drawn from more than two decades of pathbreaking writing, and ranging across the biggest issues of our time – inequality, technology, the identity of ‘the West,’ democracy, art, power, anger, mutual aid and protest – Graeber’s essays challenge the old assumptions about political life.

Despite converging political, economic, and ecological crises, our politics is still dominated by either ‘business as usual’ or nostalgia for a mythical past.

Instead, Graeber shows himself to be a trenchant critic of the order of things, driven by a bold imagination and a passionate hope that our world can be different."

THE ULTIMATE HIDDEN TRUTH OF THE WORLD . . . - David Graeber

“The ultimate hidden truth of the world is that it is something that we make, and could just as easily make differently,” wrote David Graeber. During a moment of daunting upheaval and pervasive despair, the incisive, entertaining, and urgent essays collected in The Ultimate Hidden Truth of the...

davidgraeber.org

Thanks. I'll take a look at it.

 

[peacegirl]

A lot of well meaning people try to change the world for the better, and their work may be worthwhile, indispensable even, yet here we are in a world in crisis, needless suffering, inequality, war, ecosystems in decline.....

Lots of people think they had the solution, but this one can prevent needless suffering, inequality, war, which will open up the ability to stop the environmental destruction. This one really is the gem, not because he was my father but because of extending the principles. Understandably, people are skeptical and will continue to be skeptical until they understand why man's will is not free and why the eyes are not a sense organ. He did describe how we are conditioned to seeing what really isn't imbedded in light. No light is traveling with beauty and ugliness in them, yet this conditioning makes it appear that beauty and ugliness are part of the real world. We become conditioned due to words that lie to us, and there's no escape from this unless the words that are attached to certain features that condition us to seeing with our very eyes that some people are more beautiful or ugly than others, are removed from our dictionaries. Scientists and philosophers don't want to hear an outsider debating the creme de la creme in their particular field. They resent him highly. I'm only asking people to take the time to study the book and not compare it to others who meant well but didn't have the answer. We are in a crisis on many fronts. This should at least give people a pause before they jump to premature conclusions.

The issue of how we view the world, our attitude and how we respond has nothing to do with the speed of light or how our eyes work, but a host of other factors such as life experience and social conditioning, where what may have been good and moral for an ancient Roman or Aztec is not acceptable in this day and age.

It has everything to do with how the eyes work because of what we are conditioned to see due to words. Did you not read the excerpt?

Scientists, believing that the eyes were a sense organ, unconsciously confirmed what man saw with them because they were unaware that it was possible to project a fallacious relation realistically. Consequently, everything in the external world will be distorted if the words through which man looks at what he calls reality are inaccurate symbols or if the relation that is photographed becomes, as in the five senses, an inaccurate negative that is then projected realistically upon undeniable substance. The word beautiful has absolutely no external reality and yet because it is learned in association with a particular physiognomy, a beautiful girl is created when no such person exists. Obviously, there is a difference between the shape and features of individuals, but to label one beautiful and another ugly only reveals that you are conscious of a fallacious difference that is projected through your eyes upon substance that cannot be denied — which makes the projection appear real. By having the words beautiful, ugly, gorgeous, etc. as slides in a movie projector through which the brain will look at the external world, a fallacious value is placed upon certain specific differences only because of the words, which are then confirmed as a part of the real world since man will swear that he sees beautiful women with his eyes. But in actual reality, all he sees are different shapes and different features. This beautiful girl is not striking his optic nerve which then allows him to see her beauty, but instead he projects the word onto these differences and then photographs a fallacious relation. The brain records all relations, whether true or false, and since it was considered an indisputable fact that man had five senses which were connected in some way with the external world, and since four of these were accurately described as sense organs, that is, they receive and transmit external stimuli, it was very easy for Aristotle to get confused and put a closure on further investigation by including the eyes in the definition, which he did only because he never understood their true function.

"Social conditioning is the sociological process of training individuals in a society to respond in a manner generally approved by the society in general and peer groups within society.

The concept is stronger than that of socialization, which is the process of inheriting norms, customs and ideologies.

Manifestations of social conditioning are vast, but they are generally categorized as social patterns and social structures including nationalism, education, employment, entertainment, popular culture, religion, spirituality and family life. The social structure in which an individual finds him or herself influences and can determine their social actions and responses."

Social conditioning

Social conditioning is the sociological process of training individuals in a society to respond in a manner generally approved by the society in general and peer groups within society. The concept is stronger than that of socialization, which is the process of inheriting norms, customs and...

dbpedia.org

I am not disputing any of this. All I am saying is that we become conditioned to favoring certain facial features when we have learned from an early age what constitutes beauty in the eyes of society, and what doesn't. American faces to many Orientals are more beautiful so they are getting their eyelids done to look more American. This conditioning could not occur if not for words that give the appearance of reality. Being labeled beautiful or ugly also has an effect on social conditioning because of how people are judged by their looks and their social status. Every culture is slightly different in their standard of beauty, but this doesn't change how this conditioning takes place.

Again.

It's not the eyes that generate vision and see.

It is the brain.

Right.

The function of an eye is to detect light and convert whatever information is acquired and transmit it to the brain for processing.

Right.

Our social values and conditioning has nothing whatsoever to do with our eyes, light at the eye or instant vision, but the conditions in the world around us.

The eyes of ancient people, Khan's Mongols, Aztec, Romans, etc, were exactly the same as ours, yet they had different cultures and values.

The eyes are the window of the brain. The brain focuses the eyes to see, as the author described. No one said eyes worked differently in ancient cultures. This is getting way off track.

Didn't you say that light is 'at the eye' with no travel time? How does it get there?

And the point of my remark is that it is not the eye or light that creates conditions in the world.

That is true but if you understood how we are conditioned, you would understand why removing words like beautiful and ugly, which create a false stratification of value, would bring everyone up to a level of equality. This was the point of that chapter, which also leads into other words that are not descriptive of reality. People have been so hurt by words, it's hard to even measure the extent of the harm these words have caused. The conditions of the world are a separate issue where the corollary that goes along with no free will (no blame) will revolutionize the world in ways that are hard to envision coming from the world we live in.

 

[DBT]

A lot of well meaning people try to change the world for the better, and their work may be worthwhile, indispensable even, yet here we are in a world in crisis, needless suffering, inequality, war, ecosystems in decline.....

Lots of people think they had the solution, but this one can prevent needless suffering, inequality, war, which will open up the ability to stop the environmental destruction. This one really is the gem, not because he was my father but because of extending the principles. Understandably, people are skeptical and will continue to be skeptical until they understand why man's will is not free and why the eyes are not a sense organ. He did describe how we are conditioned to seeing what really isn't imbedded in light. No light is traveling with beauty and ugliness in them, yet this conditioning makes it appear that beauty and ugliness are part of the real world. We become conditioned due to words that lie to us, and there's no escape from this unless the words that are attached to certain features that condition us to seeing with our very eyes that some people are more beautiful or ugly than others, are removed from our dictionaries. Scientists and philosophers don't want to hear an outsider debating the creme de la creme in their particular field. They resent him highly. I'm only asking people to take the time to study the book and not compare it to others who meant well but didn't have the answer. We are in a crisis on many fronts. This should at least give people a pause before they jump to premature conclusions.

The issue of how we view the world, our attitude and how we respond has nothing to do with the speed of light or how our eyes work, but a host of other factors such as life experience and social conditioning, where what may have been good and moral for an ancient Roman or Aztec is not acceptable in this day and age.

It has everything to do with how the eyes work because of what we are conditioned to see due to words. Did you not read the excerpt?

Scientists, believing that the eyes were a sense organ, unconsciously confirmed what man saw with them because they were unaware that it was possible to project a fallacious relation realistically. Consequently, everything in the external world will be distorted if the words through which man looks at what he calls reality are inaccurate symbols or if the relation that is photographed becomes, as in the five senses, an inaccurate negative that is then projected realistically upon undeniable substance. The word beautiful has absolutely no external reality and yet because it is learned in association with a particular physiognomy, a beautiful girl is created when no such person exists. Obviously, there is a difference between the shape and features of individuals, but to label one beautiful and another ugly only reveals that you are conscious of a fallacious difference that is projected through your eyes upon substance that cannot be denied — which makes the projection appear real. By having the words beautiful, ugly, gorgeous, etc. as slides in a movie projector through which the brain will look at the external world, a fallacious value is placed upon certain specific differences only because of the words, which are then confirmed as a part of the real world since man will swear that he sees beautiful women with his eyes. But in actual reality, all he sees are different shapes and different features. This beautiful girl is not striking his optic nerve which then allows him to see her beauty, but instead he projects the word onto these differences and then photographs a fallacious relation. The brain records all relations, whether true or false, and since it was considered an indisputable fact that man had five senses which were connected in some way with the external world, and since four of these were accurately described as sense organs, that is, they receive and transmit external stimuli, it was very easy for Aristotle to get confused and put a closure on further investigation by including the eyes in the definition, which he did only because he never understood their true function.

"Social conditioning is the sociological process of training individuals in a society to respond in a manner generally approved by the society in general and peer groups within society.

The concept is stronger than that of socialization, which is the process of inheriting norms, customs and ideologies.

Manifestations of social conditioning are vast, but they are generally categorized as social patterns and social structures including nationalism, education, employment, entertainment, popular culture, religion, spirituality and family life. The social structure in which an individual finds him or herself influences and can determine their social actions and responses."

Social conditioning

Social conditioning is the sociological process of training individuals in a society to respond in a manner generally approved by the society in general and peer groups within society. The concept is stronger than that of socialization, which is the process of inheriting norms, customs and...

dbpedia.org

I am not disputing any of this. All I am saying is that we become conditioned to favoring certain facial features when we have learned from an early age what constitutes beauty in the eyes of society, and what doesn't. American faces to many Orientals are more beautiful so they are getting their eyelids done to look more American. This conditioning could not occur if not for words that give the appearance of reality. Being labeled beautiful or ugly also has an effect on social conditioning because of how people are judged by their looks and their social status. Every culture is slightly different in their standard of beauty, but this doesn't change how this conditioning takes place.

Again.

It's not the eyes that generate vision and see.

It is the brain.

Right.

The function of an eye is to detect light and convert whatever information is acquired and transmit it to the brain for processing.

Right.

Our social values and conditioning has nothing whatsoever to do with our eyes, light at the eye or instant vision, but the conditions in the world around us.

The eyes of ancient people, Khan's Mongols, Aztec, Romans, etc, were exactly the same as ours, yet they had different cultures and values.

The eyes are the window of the brain. The brain focuses the eyes to see, as the author described. No one said eyes worked differently in ancient cultures. This is getting way off track.

Didn't you say that light is 'at the eye' with no travel time? How does it get there?

And the point of my remark is that it is not the eye or light that creates conditions in the world.

That is true but if you understood how we are conditioned, you would understand why removing words like beautiful and ugly, which create a false stratification of value, would bring everyone up to a level of equality. This was the point of that chapter, which also leads into other words that are not descriptive of reality. People have been so hurt by words, it's hard to even measure the extent of the harm these words have caused. The conditions of the world are a separate issue where the corollary that goes along with no free will (no blame) will revolutionize the world in ways that are hard to envision coming from the world we live in.

How we are conditioned by our environment and our own make-up is well enough understood.

Where the first step in understanding is to realize that we are conditioned, that a lot of our thinking is conditioned, that this is not other people, the other guy, but we ourselves, where the idea of light at the eye and instant seeing has no relevance.

 

[peacegirl]

A lot of well meaning people try to change the world for the better, and their work may be worthwhile, indispensable even, yet here we are in a world in crisis, needless suffering, inequality, war, ecosystems in decline.....

Lots of people think they had the solution, but this one can prevent needless suffering, inequality, war, which will open up the ability to stop the environmental destruction. This one really is the gem, not because he was my father but because of extending the principles. Understandably, people are skeptical and will continue to be skeptical until they understand why man's will is not free and why the eyes are not a sense organ. He did describe how we are conditioned to seeing what really isn't imbedded in light. No light is traveling with beauty and ugliness in them, yet this conditioning makes it appear that beauty and ugliness are part of the real world. We become conditioned due to words that lie to us, and there's no escape from this unless the words that are attached to certain features that condition us to seeing with our very eyes that some people are more beautiful or ugly than others, are removed from our dictionaries. Scientists and philosophers don't want to hear an outsider debating the creme de la creme in their particular field. They resent him highly. I'm only asking people to take the time to study the book and not compare it to others who meant well but didn't have the answer. We are in a crisis on many fronts. This should at least give people a pause before they jump to premature conclusions.

The issue of how we view the world, our attitude and how we respond has nothing to do with the speed of light or how our eyes work, but a host of other factors such as life experience and social conditioning, where what may have been good and moral for an ancient Roman or Aztec is not acceptable in this day and age.

It has everything to do with how the eyes work because of what we are conditioned to see due to words. Did you not read the excerpt?

Scientists, believing that the eyes were a sense organ, unconsciously confirmed what man saw with them because they were unaware that it was possible to project a fallacious relation realistically. Consequently, everything in the external world will be distorted if the words through which man looks at what he calls reality are inaccurate symbols or if the relation that is photographed becomes, as in the five senses, an inaccurate negative that is then projected realistically upon undeniable substance. The word beautiful has absolutely no external reality and yet because it is learned in association with a particular physiognomy, a beautiful girl is created when no such person exists. Obviously, there is a difference between the shape and features of individuals, but to label one beautiful and another ugly only reveals that you are conscious of a fallacious difference that is projected through your eyes upon substance that cannot be denied — which makes the projection appear real. By having the words beautiful, ugly, gorgeous, etc. as slides in a movie projector through which the brain will look at the external world, a fallacious value is placed upon certain specific differences only because of the words, which are then confirmed as a part of the real world since man will swear that he sees beautiful women with his eyes. But in actual reality, all he sees are different shapes and different features. This beautiful girl is not striking his optic nerve which then allows him to see her beauty, but instead he projects the word onto these differences and then photographs a fallacious relation. The brain records all relations, whether true or false, and since it was considered an indisputable fact that man had five senses which were connected in some way with the external world, and since four of these were accurately described as sense organs, that is, they receive and transmit external stimuli, it was very easy for Aristotle to get confused and put a closure on further investigation by including the eyes in the definition, which he did only because he never understood their true function.

"Social conditioning is the sociological process of training individuals in a society to respond in a manner generally approved by the society in general and peer groups within society.

The concept is stronger than that of socialization, which is the process of inheriting norms, customs and ideologies.

Manifestations of social conditioning are vast, but they are generally categorized as social patterns and social structures including nationalism, education, employment, entertainment, popular culture, religion, spirituality and family life. The social structure in which an individual finds him or herself influences and can determine their social actions and responses."

Social conditioning

Social conditioning is the sociological process of training individuals in a society to respond in a manner generally approved by the society in general and peer groups within society. The concept is stronger than that of socialization, which is the process of inheriting norms, customs and...

dbpedia.org

I am not disputing any of this. All I am saying is that we become conditioned to favoring certain facial features when we have learned from an early age what constitutes beauty in the eyes of society, and what doesn't. American faces to many Orientals are more beautiful so they are getting their eyelids done to look more American. This conditioning could not occur if not for words that give the appearance of reality. Being labeled beautiful or ugly also has an effect on social conditioning because of how people are judged by their looks and their social status. Every culture is slightly different in their standard of beauty, but this doesn't change how this conditioning takes place.

Again.

It's not the eyes that generate vision and see.

It is the brain.

Right.

The function of an eye is to detect light and convert whatever information is acquired and transmit it to the brain for processing.

Right.

Our social values and conditioning has nothing whatsoever to do with our eyes, light at the eye or instant vision, but the conditions in the world around us.

The eyes of ancient people, Khan's Mongols, Aztec, Romans, etc, were exactly the same as ours, yet they had different cultures and values.

The eyes are the window of the brain. The brain focuses the eyes to see, as the author described. No one said eyes worked differently in ancient cultures. This is getting way off track.

Didn't you say that light is 'at the eye' with no travel time? How does it get there?

And the point of my remark is that it is not the eye or light that creates conditions in the world.

That is true but if you understood how we are conditioned, you would understand why removing words like beautiful and ugly, which create a false stratification of value, would bring everyone up to a level of equality. This was the point of that chapter, which also leads into other words that are not descriptive of reality. People have been so hurt by words, it's hard to even measure the extent of the harm these words have caused. The conditions of the world are a separate issue where the corollary that goes along with no free will (no blame) will revolutionize the world in ways that are hard to envision coming from the world we live in.

How we are conditioned by our environment and our own make-up is well enough understood.

Where the first step in understanding is to realize that we are conditioned, that a lot of our thinking is conditioned, that this is not other people, the other guy, but we ourselves, where the idea of light at the eye and instant seeing has no relevance.

It’s true that a lot of our thinking is determined by what we think. But a lot of what we think is conditioned by our values. When it comes to what we see, we are conditioned by words that contain these values that could not occur any other way than through this projection that the brain is capable of doing. That is the reason it has everything to do with how the eyes work and why they don’t function like the other four senses.

 

[peacegirl]

Adios amigos y amigas.

I have run out of things to say.

May the bird of paradise fly up your nose(s).

No one is asking you to say anything. They are asking you to listen. This is not meant to be disrespectful. I'm sure you have lots of knowledge to share. Please don't take this the wrong way Steve. We are All just trying to figure out how reality works, but I do think Lessans got it right, not because he was my father but because he saw something that no one else considered. He was not a guru or some special human being that you seem to accuse him of.

 

[peacegirl]

This makes sense.

How could you possibly know? You have demonstrated an astonishing inability to determine what does or does not make sense.

How? You're just making an assertion.

 

[peacegirl]

If it is just light, then what do light wavelengths mean?

Colours. Different wavelengths of light are different colours.

That's all.

Nothing changes other than the brain using the eyes, as a window, to look through them to see the object. It cannot see the object without the wavelength, but it does not work the way science thinks. That is the reason for this refutation. It amazes me how quickly people defend science yet they say science is never settled. Go figure. Bilby said is something possible or is it not? In this case, it is possible that Lessans could be right because there is nothing so outrageous by these claims that would appear impossible such as flying elephants.

 

[peacegirl]

I believe in science bilby, so stop telling me I'm someone who I'm not.

But that's exactly what I am telling you.

You believe in science. So you are doing it wrong.

Belief in things is the antithesis of science.

I am asking you to please stop. This is not the antithesis of science. You have a preconceived idea that is ruining it for you and for the author, as well-intentioned as you are trying to be.

But you genuinely think of science as just another of the many possible religions you might believe in; And you feel (as all believers do) smugly confident that, having chosen the correct belief, your conclusions are superior to those of the fools who believe in other religions.

That's not how science works.

OMG, this is insane. I am asking you politely to stop this bullshit trying to compare Lessans to religion or any other fraudulent claim. This is not the same thing, so please back off!

 

[peacegirl]

You're not even hearing his reasoning. You are assuming his premise is wrong because you believe science got it right.

No, I am assuming that his premise is wrong because of the overwhelming evidence that his premise is wrong.

Based on the conventional thought. Again, whether you think there is overwhelming evidence against him is because the conventional theory believes they got it right and it looks like all the pieces fit together. But there is a problem with their view. Should he never have said anything just to make scientists happy?

I don't believe that science got it right; Science isn't even a thing that can get things right. It's a tool for determining what is wrong.

Exactly, so let's find out who is wrong, not just assume he is wrong because you believe science got it right.

Science takes claims and sorts them into two categories: Proven to be wrong; and Not yet proven to be wrong.

If your worldview includes a "Proven to be right" category, then you are not doing science.

Isn't that what science is doing when they make the claim that the eyes are a sense organ? It's such a double standard when no one dares to say otherwise or the repercussions will be tarring and feathering. Can't you see the problem here?

 

[bilby]

If it is just light, then what do light wavelengths mean?

Colours. Different wavelengths of light are different colours.

That's all.

Nothing changes other than the brain using the eyes, as a window, to look through them to see the object.

OK, not only does that sentence not make a lot of actual sense, it also appears completely unrelated to the post it is quoting.

We aren't talking about changes in anything. We are talking about the meaning of the word "wavelength".

Wavelength, frequency, and colour, are (for light) different ways of describing the exact same thing.

It cannot see the object without the wavelength, but it does not work the way science thinks.

It doesn't "work" at all.

If I look at an apple, it might be green. It would make exactly no sense whatsoever to say: "the eye cannot see the apple without the green, but it does not work the way science thinks". 'Science' doesn't think; Scientists don't think that colour is crucial to the operation of the eye, largely because it's obviously NOT - we see green apples exactly the same way that we see red apples. Wavelength is completely irrelevant within the visible portion of the EM spectrum, and we don't see light of other wavelengths at all.

That is the reason for this refutation.

What is? You haven't goven a reason for anything, nor do you appear to be talking about, much less refuting, the post to which this is apparently a response.

It amazes me how quickly people defend science yet they say science is never settled.

I am not defending science, I am pointing out the definition of the word "wavelength". If anything, I am defending vocabulary.

Go figure. Bilby said is something possible or is it not?

No, bilby said: "Colours. Different wavelengths of light are different colours. That's all".

In this case, it is possible that Lessans could be right because there is nothing so outrageous by these claims that would appear impossible such as flying elephants.

The question was "What do light wavelengths mean?", and Lessans cannot be right unless he said: "Different wavelengths of light are different colours".

Because that's a full, accurate, and complete answer to:

If it is just light, then what do light wavelengths mean?

 

[peacegirl]

That's not good enough. Not doubting is like saying it sounds possible. What happened to the evidence? Did it just fly out the window?

Not doubting is EXACTLY saying that it sounds possible.

Again, you fundamentally misunderstand how the scientific method works.

Science does not prove anything to be true; It either proves claims to be false, or leaves them in the "possible" basket.

If an idea has no evidence against it being true, then it is possible.

If an idea has any evidence against it being true, then either it is wrong, or the evidence is misleading.

If an idea has been ruthlessly and frequently tested for a long time by determined people, and still has no evidence that it is false, then we can, as a shorthand, consider it to be true; But in fact it is merely possible, and can never be more certain than that - because tomorrow we may find evidence that it was, after all, false.

So, according to science, because delayed vision has been tested frequently and for a long time by determined people, real time vision is ruled out? Or does it mean that because tomorrow they may find evidence that something was, after all, false, where does this knowledge fall into according to science? Is there no point to get into this subject because it's off limits since scientists did the hard work and real time vision is ruled out? Or could his claim still be in the "possible" basket? IOW, does this author have a chance to explain his findings (as he has done; it was not an assertion) or is his claim deemed impossible, according to scientists, because they say (without understanding his explanation) that real time vision was ruled out 300 years ago, therefore his claims have been shown to be false? If that is true, then there's no point in me talking about this subject anymore. No one will even hear his explanation. Is that what you and others want? I don't want to waste my time if people are just humoring me.

One does not use evidence to test for truth; One uses evidence to test for falsehood. It is impossible to prove things true, outside of mathematics.

Science is the process of pruning the false ideas from the tree of possibility, so that what remains is more and more possible.

I understand. You explained this very well. Thanks bilby.

OK, well there's another thing we can do to test for falsity; We can use logic.

It cannot tell us which ideas are false, but it can tell us that one of any two must be.

We can look at "possible" idea A, and use logic to show that if A is true, B must be false, and vice-versa. Note that it is only possible to show that things are false; Just because two ideas cannot logically both be right, that doesn't imply that they can't both be wrong.

Even though this is not the subject of this post, I wanted to add that this applies to free will and determinism as well. If one is true, the other is false because two ideas cannot logically both be right or both be wrong.

It's like looking for your friend's pet. He might be in the loungeroom; He might be in the bedroom. Logically, he cannot be in both. But he could be in neither.

Now, that doesn't tell is which is false, so it's not very helpful; But if there's another idea, C, which has the same logical relationship with A, then we can start to get an idea of which way to bet - we want to assign ideas to that "false" category, the help to prune the tree of "possible".

If our idea is that maybe your friend has a cat in her bedroom, then finding her pet in the loungeroom would falsify that idea; As would finding her dog in her bedroom (after we have already established that she has only one animal).

So, if A implies that B is false, and C (which has nothing to do with A - which room a pet is in tells us nothing about whether it is a dog or a cat) implies also that B is false, we would be more likely to be right if we bet that B is the false claim out of these three.

If A and C are both very well tested, and we have put huge effort over long periods of time by our best and brightest into trying to falsify them, and have failed to do so; And if B is a new idea that has yet to be thorougly tested, it is an even better bet that B is the idea that will turn out to be false.

Now, if not only A, and the independent idea C are logically incompatible with B, but so is D, which is yet another unrelated and well tested "possible", it starts to look a bit foolish to bet on B.

And if E through Z (all independent of each other) also all contradicted B, one would be a total fool to bet on B being right, and all the rest of the alphabet being wrong - even though we have not yet been able to falsify any of the alphabet.

Of course, long shots do occasionally pay off, and it is possible that the vast majority of what we think we know is, in fact, wrong.

But that's not the smart bet. Particularly when the idea B, that is the challenger for that huge body of well-tested ideas, has not itself been very well tested.

This example comes down to the process of elimination, but as you just said, the challenger is the underdog here, especially when the belief has become a building block of other theories that have been established as true. When you say this theory has been well tested, delayed vision can only be inferred. The cat may still be in the loungeroom even though C is associated with A. Logic is not proof and can lead us astray. This is not about betting on B; it's about leaving open the possibity that B is not dead in the water.