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

Peacegirl. We went over this with you at FF. How in the world do you think a mirror works??
 
Reverse engineering may show that light travels and strikes the retina, but it cannot show that the light bounces off an object, taking the information with it through space/time. They cannot prove this.

:unsure: You are seriously saying that we can’t prove that light is reflected off of objects??? OMFG there are about a million ways to prove it. You can easily prove it yourself with a flashlight!
I am seriously saying that. A flashlight allows us to see in the dark as far as the light allows. I'm not sure where this proves that light is reflected off of objects.
 
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Reverse engineering may show that light travels and strikes the retina, but it cannot show that the light bounces off an object, taking the information with it through space/time. They cannot prove this.

:unsure: You are seriously saying that we can’t prove that light is reflected off of objects??? OMFG there are about a million ways to prove it. You can easily prove it yourself with a flashlight!
I am seriously saying that. A flashlight will only show what Lessans tried to explain. We would see the wavelength of light projected, but we would not see that same wavelength traveling through space/time without the actual object present.

You can see for yourself light being reflected off a mirror, starting at about 1:51 in the video.
 
Peacegirl, have you ever seen your own shadow?? You are blocking the light. Where does that light go?? Most of it reflects off of you — which is why other people can see you! If you absorbed it all, you would burn up!
 
Reverse engineering may show that light travels and strikes the retina, but it cannot show that the light bounces off an object, taking the information with it through space/time. They cannot prove this.

:unsure: You are seriously saying that we can’t prove that light is reflected off of objects??? OMFG there are about a million ways to prove it. You can easily prove it yourself with a flashlight!
I am seriously saying that. A flashlight will only show what Lessans tried to explain. We would see the wavelength of light projected, but we would not see that same wavelength traveling through space/time without the actual object present.

You can see for yourself light being reflected off a mirror, starting at about 1:51 in the video.
I saw the part you told me to go. Reflection only means the wavelength of light that allows us to see ourselves in the mirror as it is reflected back to us, but the light does travel with that image of myself beyond what my eyes can see. If I backed up far enough from the mirror, my image would be too far away to be seen. If my reflection bounced off the mirror, why wouldn't I see it if I was in a direct path of the mirror?
 
Peacegirl, have you ever seen your own shadow?? You are blocking the light. Where does that light go?? Most of it reflects off of you — which is why other people can see you! If you absorbed it all, you would burn up!
Are we in Flat Earth territory at this point?
 
I saw the part you told me to go. Reflection only means the wavelength of light that allows us to see ourselves in the mirror as it is reflected back to us, but the light does travel with that image of myself beyond what my eyes can see. If I backed up far enough from the mirror, my image would be too far away to be seen. If my reflection bounced off the mirror, why wouldn't I see it if I was in a direct path of the mirror?

:rolleyes:

First, yet again, it is not the “wavelength” of light that is reflected, it is the light. Second, for the ten millionth time, light does not carry an image. The image is made in the brain. Third, above, you admit light reflects off the mirror, contradicting your earlier claim that light is never reflected. Fourth, if you backed away from the mirror you WOULD continue to see your image. Try this for yourself! The only way you would stop seeing your image is if you got so far away from the mirror that you could no longer see the mirror itself.
 
Peacegirl, have you ever seen your own shadow?? You are blocking the light. Where does that light go?? Most of it reflects off of you — which is why other people can see you! If you absorbed it all, you would burn up!
I am not debating how light works—whether it's blocking the light and is reflected off of me or whether I am seeing myself in a mirror. I am only debating one thing, and one thing only. It is true that light travels at 186,000 miles a second, but when it strikes an object, it does not take the information through space/time with it as it travels. The light allows us to see the object by its reflective properties, but, once again, it does not bounce off of the object taking the image (or information) with it over long distances. That's also why the object looks smaller the farther away it is. That's what he meant when he wrote the following. I know you've read this and you may disagree, but what he said made absolute sense. It is not gobbledegook.

Once again, certain facts have been confused, and all the reasoning except for light traveling at a high rate of speed is completely fallacious. Scientists made the assumption that since the eyes are a sense organ, it followed that light must reflect an electric image of everything it touches, which then travels through space and is received by the brain through the eyes. What they tried to make us believe is that if it takes 8 minutes for the light from the sun to reach us, it would take hundreds of years for the reflection of Columbus to reach Rigel, even with a powerful telescope. But why would they need a telescope?

They reasoned that since it takes longer for the sound from an airplane to reach us when 15,000 feet away than when 5000; and since it takes longer for light to reach us the farther it is away when starting its journey, light and sound must function alike in other respects, which is false, although it is true that the farther away we are from the source of sound, the fainter it becomes, as light becomes dimmer when its source is farther away. If the sound from a plane, even though we can’t see it on a clear day, tells us it is in the sky, why can’t we see the plane if an image is being reflected towards the eye on the waves of light? The answer is very simple. An image is not being reflected. We cannot see the plane simply because the distance reduced its size to where it was impossible to see it with the naked eye, but we could see it with a telescope. We can’t see bacteria either with the naked eye, but we can through a microscope. The actual reason we are able to see the moon is because there is enough light present, and it is large enough to be seen. The explanation as to why the sun looks to be the size of the moon, although much larger, is because it is much much farther away, which is the reason it would look like a star to someone living on a planet the distance of Rigel. This proves conclusively that the distance between someone looking and the object seen has no relation to time because the images are not traveling toward the optic nerve on waves of light; therefore, it takes no time to see the moon, the sun, and the distant stars.
 
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Light at the eye/instant vision is not logical.
It actually is. If you read and reread what he wrote, you would have understood more thoroughly why he was so confident in his claim. He did not say light impulses don't do what they do. They do everything science states, from entering the retina to the optic nerve to being transduced into impulses that the brain receives. What does not occur is the brain's ability to turn these impulses into images. Light does not bounce off of objects taking the information with it through space/time. This is an assumption on the part of science, which Lessans refutes. As far as being logical, it's just as logical as any other version of sight.

That's what doesn't make sense. Light does in fact convey information. The brain as an information processor does in fact generate consciousness based on information acquired by the senses that is integrated with memory function to enable recognition.
The brain IS an information processor but this does not explain how we see. Memory is also an integral and essential part of how information is retained and used to connect what is learned in everyday life in order to make sense of the world. Without memory nothing would make sense because there would be no way to categorize our experiences to be used for later reference. Consciousness is a prerequisite for life itself. Without consciousness, we would be unaware of our very existence or who we are as individuals.

But that does nothing to explain 'light at the eye/instant vision.' What you say goes against the contention.

I hope this helps;

The central nervous system
''Every moment of the day your nervous system is active. It exchanges millions of signals corresponding with feeling, thoughts and actions. A simple example of how important the nervous system is in your behavior is meeting a friend.
First, the visual information of your eyes is sent to your brain by nervous cells. There the information is interpreted and translated into a signal to take action. Finally the brain sends a command to your voice or to another action system like muscles or glands. For example, you may start walking towards him.
Your nervous system enables this rapid recognition and action. ''

Well lets take just one of our senses, vision. Light enters through the cornea, reaches the retina and is converted to nerve impulses by complex chemical reactions (rod,cones, etc) and conveyed by the optic nerve to the visual cortex, from there it is propagated throughout the brain, gathering memory and information before the signals return to the visual cortex and a representation of that information is formed, a conscious image of what we see.

The visual information is interpreted by the various systems of the brain and translated into a signals to take action (visual,auditory,tactile reflexes) and on to the prefrontal cortex region which deal with complex responses, one's social values, cultural expectations, ethics, etc - the seat of one's personality and sense of self. Finally the brain forms conscious thoughts a deliberation and sends a commands to its motor neurons, muscle groups, glands... and the action is undertaken.''


Social Conditioning
''Human behavior is affected both by genetic inheritance and by experience. The ways in which people develop are shaped by social experience and circumstances within the context of their inherited genetic potential. The scientific question is just how experience and hereditary potential interact in producing human behavior.

Each person is born into a social and cultural setting, family, community, social class, language, religionand eventually develops many social connections. The characteristics of a child's social setting affect how he or she learns to think and behave, by means of instruction, rewards and punishment, and example.

This setting includes home, school, neighborhood, and also, perhaps, local religious and law enforcement agencies. Then there are also the child's mostly informal interactions with friends, other peers, relatives, and the entertainment and news media. How individuals will respond to all these influences, or even which influence will be the most potent, tends not to be predictable.

There is, however, some substantial similarity in how individuals respond to the same pattern of influences that is, to being raised in the same culture. Furthermore, culturally induced behavior patterns, such as speech patterns, body language, and forms of humor, become so deeply embedded in the human mind that they often operate without the individuals themselves being fully aware of them.''
 
Peacegirl, when you see a rose, what happens?

Is the rose red? No, it is not. “Redness” exists entirely in the mind, and it is called a quale. Multiple quale are qualia.

Now why does the rose look red? Here is the correct use of the word “wavelength.” Each color we see has a distinctive wavelength associated with it. When we look at the rose, the flower absorbs all of the wavelengths associated with colors OTHER THAN red. It reflects to our eye the remaining light with a wavelength that the mind interprets as the color red.

This would be IMPOSSIBLE if light was not reflected! Your writer has no ALTERNATIVE explanation of how we see color.

And, happy b-day! 🎂
 
This is an interesting discussion in its own right. We say a rose is red, its thorns sharp, its stem green, and it smells sweet. None of this is true of the rose, qua rose. It is none of these things. These things are all in the mind.

As is conditioning. Light carries information about its source, or of the object off of which it reflects, but no image. The image is made in the mind. It’s a mental interpretation of the information. A child must be taught to name things it sees. A pattern of information resolves itself in his mind as the image of a chair, and he is taught to call it “chair.”

But here is the main point. A pattern of information resolves itself in the child’s mind as a large woman. The information and the image that the mind constructs out of the information is absolutely neutral. But someone whispers to the child, “That is a fat woman and fat people are unattractive.”

THAT is how we get conditioned. It has nothing to do with light. Light carries no values. Humans make up values.

And this part of your author’s discussion, about conditioning, is useful. It is just that he got the source of the conditioning wrong.
 
Peacegirl, when you see a rose, what happens?

Is the rose red? No, it is not. “Redness” exists entirely in the mind, and it is called a quale. Multiple quale are qualia.

Now why does the rose look red? Here is the correct use of the word “wavelength.” Each color we see has a distinctive wavelength associated with it. When we look at the rose, the flower absorbs all of the wavelengths associated with colors OTHER THAN red. It reflects to our eye the remaining light with a wavelength that the mind interprets as the color red.

This would be IMPOSSIBLE if light was not reflected! Your writer has no ALTERNATIVE explanation of how we see color.

And, happy b-day! 🎂
So, I find the question of qualia specifically to be similar, perhaps *identical* to the idea in computer science of *enumerative values*.

In computer science, "enumeration" is taking some complex "name" and reducing it to some kind of transport token used by a system restricted over a modulus of *that set*, with one potential value being "other; expand enumeration".

This is accomplished, practically, by assigning any one pattern of response bits to each logical concept. These are often associated with a paired token mapping.

The question of "does someone else see the same blue" is logically identical, in this consideration, to "does the enumeration of the text/ocular dye family/sound 'blue' map to the same bit pattern for similar people?"

I expect that they probably do, or that there are distinct traits associated with resolving this fundamental enumeration assignment if only because the interpretive logic has no reason form many such enumerations. It complicates the brain with the need to learn them. Then, it could very well be that a need to learn it is helpful insofar as if something goes wrong and something forms badly the system would then be capable of adapting to the mismatch.

Whatever the case, the brain pushes some pattern of flashes in some way that means "blue", no matter if that pattern is to flash in a star shape or a hexagon or whatever at that layer.

If I recall properly, initial research into initial deconstruction of neural SDRs (it's a technical acronym which means "Sparse Data Records" which I am NOT going to explain here other than "it's a raster of data") indicates that features are commonly signified in particular ways by the neural stack of the visual cortex, but it would take a Google search to dig it up.

Anyway, it's the same general concept and I'm pretty sure this suggests that we do perceive "blue" in the same fundamental way, assuming no unstudied atypical enumerative models exist, which is, to be fair, a pretty weak assumption.

We wouldn't be able to answer questions like that if anything was significantly wrong with our model for understanding light and vision.
 
Reverse engineering may show that light travels and strikes the retina, but it cannot show that the light bounces off an object, taking the information with it through space/time. They cannot prove this.

:unsure: You are seriously saying that we can’t prove that light is reflected off of objects??? OMFG there are about a million ways to prove it. You can easily prove it yourself with a flashlight!
I am seriously saying that. A flashlight will only show what Lessans tried to explain. We would see the wavelength of light projected, but we would not see that same wavelength traveling through space/time without the actual object present.

You can see for yourself light being reflected off a mirror, starting at about 1:51 in the video.
I saw the part you told me to go. Reflection only means the wavelength of light that allows us to see ourselves in the mirror as it is reflected back to us, but the light does travel with that image of myself beyond what my eyes can see. If I backed up far enough from the mirror, my image would be too far away to be seen. If my reflection bounced off the mirror, why wouldn't I see it if I was in a direct path of the mirror?
I meant to say the light does NOT travel with the image of myself. Light is a condition of sight, not a cause.

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The light allows us to see the object by its reflective properties, but it does not bounce off of the object, taking the image (or information) with it.
Huh? So the object reflects the light, but the light does not bounce off the object??
Yes. Light is a reflection of the object when we look at it; It reveals what's there. Therefore it does not bounce off of the object and travel with the information to the eye over long distances. There is no time involved in this account. Therefore, it is not a violation of physics.
 
Consciousness is a prerequisite for life itself.
No, it isn't.
It is very hard to define consciousness. All we can do is describe what consciousness is using language that may not be perfect in its description, sort of like defining God.

Conscious awareness is the state of being aware of and able to think, feel and perceive. It is the ability to be aware of your surroundings and make decisions. It is the ability to be aware of your own thoughts and feelings and to interact with the world around you.

Conscious awareness is thought to be a higher level of functioning than simple awareness. It is believed to be required for certain higher-level cognitive functions such as planning and decision making. It is also thought to be necessary for consciousness itself.

There is some evidence that conscious awareness may be a product of interactions between different areas of the brain. For example, damage to certain areas of the brain can lead to a loss of consciousness. This suggests that consciousness may require the coordinated activity of different brain regions.

Consciousness is a complex phenomenon and scientists are still working to understand all its aspects. However, conscious awareness is an important part of what makes us human and it is something that we all experience every day.

 
The light allows us to see the object by its reflective properties, but it does not bounce off of the object, taking the image (or information) with it.
Huh? So the object reflects the light, but the light does not bounce off the object??
Yes. Light is a reflection of the object when we look at it; It reveals what's there. Therefore it does not bounce off of the object and travel with the information to the eye over long distances. There is no time involved in this account. Therefore, it is not a violation of physics.
:rofl:

It’s a TOTAL violation of physics!

Also, light is not a “reflection” of objects; objects reflect light. As to not bouncing off the object, did you notice what light did at about the 1:51 mark of the video I posted? :unsure:
 


Light at the eye/instant vision is not logical.
It actually is. If you read and reread what he wrote, you would have understood more thoroughly why he was so confident in his claim. He did not say light impulses don't do what they do. They do everything science states, from entering the retina to the optic nerve to being transduced into impulses that the brain receives. What does not occur is the brain's ability to turn these impulses into images. Light does not bounce off of objects taking the information with it through space/time. This is an assumption on the part of science, which Lessans refutes. As far as being logical, it's just as logical as any other version of sight.

That's what doesn't make sense. Light does in fact convey information. The brain as an information processor does in fact generate consciousness based on information acquired by the senses that is integrated with memory function to enable recognition.
The brain IS an information processor but this does not explain how we see. Memory is also an integral and essential part of how information is retained and used to connect what is learned in everyday life in order to make sense of the world.
Without memory nothing would make sense because there would be no way to categorize our experiences to be used for later reference. Consciousness is a prerequisite for life itself. Without consciousness, we would be unaware of our very existence or who we are as individuals.

But that does nothing to explain 'light at the eye/instant vision.' What you say goes against the contention.

I hope this helps;

The central nervous system
''Every moment of the day your nervous system is active. It exchanges millions of signals corresponding with feeling, thoughts and actions. A simple example of how important the nervous system is in your behavior is meeting a friend.
First, the visual information of your eyes is sent to your brain by nervous cells. There the information is interpreted and translated into a signal to take action. Finally the brain sends a command to your voice or to another action system like muscles or glands. For example, you may start walking towards him.
Your nervous system enables this rapid recognition and action. ''

Well lets take just one of our senses, vision. Light enters through the cornea, reaches the retina and is converted to nerve impulses by complex chemical reactions (rod,cones, etc) and conveyed by the optic nerve to the visual cortex, from there it is propagated throughout the brain, gathering memory and information before the signals return to the visual cortex and a representation of that information is formed, a conscious image of what we see.

The visual information is interpreted by the various systems of the brain and translated into a signals to take action (visual,auditory,tactile reflexes) and on to the prefrontal cortex region which deal with complex responses, one's social values, cultural expectations, ethics, etc - the seat of one's personality and sense of self. Finally the brain forms conscious thoughts a deliberation and sends a commands to its motor neurons, muscle groups, glands... and the action is undertaken.''


Social Conditioning
''Human behavior is affected both by genetic inheritance and by experience. The ways in which people develop are shaped by social experience and circumstances within the context of their inherited genetic potential. The scientific question is just how experience and hereditary potential interact in producing human behavior.

Each person is born into a social and cultural setting, family, community, social class, language, religionand eventually develops many social connections. The characteristics of a child's social setting affect how he or she learns to think and behave, by means of instruction, rewards and punishment, and example.

This setting includes home, school, neighborhood, and also, perhaps, local religious and law enforcement agencies. Then there are also the child's mostly informal interactions with friends, other peers, relatives, and the entertainment and news media. How individuals will respond to all these influences, or even which influence will be the most potent, tends not to be predictable.

There is, however, some substantial similarity in how individuals respond to the same pattern of influences that is, to being raised in the same culture. Furthermore, culturally induced behavior patterns, such as speech patterns, body language, and forms of humor, become so deeply embedded in the human mind that they often operate without the individuals themselves being fully aware of them.''
Thank you for the rundown. Everything that was written I agree with except the way in which the brain uses the eyes to see the real world, not a virtual image. That's it!


Light at the eye/instant vision is not logical.
It actually is. If you read and reread what he wrote, you would have understood more thoroughly why he was so confident in his claim. He did not say light impulses don't do what they do. They do everything science states, from entering the retina to the optic nerve to being transduced into impulses that the brain receives. What does not occur is the brain's ability to turn these impulses into images. Light does not bounce off of objects taking the information with it through space/time. This is an assumption on the part of science, which Lessans refutes. As far as being logical, it's just as logical as any other version of sight.

That's what doesn't make sense. Light does in fact convey information. The brain as an information processor does in fact generate consciousness based on information acquired by the senses that is integrated with memory function to enable recognition.
The brain IS an information processor but this does not explain how we see. Memory is also an integral and essential part of how information is retained and used to connect what is learned in everyday life in order to make sense of the world. Without memory nothing would make sense because there would be no way to categorize our experiences to be used for later reference. Consciousness is a prerequisite for life itself. Without consciousness, we would be unaware of our very existence or who we are as individuals.

But that does nothing to explain 'light at the eye/instant vision.' What you say goes against the contention.

I hope this helps;

The central nervous system
''Every moment of the day your nervous system is active. It exchanges millions of signals corresponding with feeling, thoughts and actions. A simple example of how important the nervous system is in your behavior is meeting a friend.
First, the visual information of your eyes is sent to your brain by nervous cells. There the information is interpreted and translated into a signal to take action. Finally the brain sends a command to your voice or to another action system like muscles or glands. For example, you may start walking towards him.
Your nervous system enables this rapid recognition and action. ''

Well lets take just one of our senses, vision. Light enters through the cornea, reaches the retina and is converted to nerve impulses by complex chemical reactions (rod,cones, etc) and conveyed by the optic nerve to the visual cortex, from there it is propagated throughout the brain, gathering memory and information before the signals return to the visual cortex and a representation of that information is formed, a conscious image of what we see.

The visual information is interpreted by the various systems of the brain and translated into a signals to take action (visual,auditory,tactile reflexes) and on to the prefrontal cortex region which deal with complex responses, one's social values, cultural expectations, ethics, etc - the seat of one's personality and sense of self. Finally the brain forms conscious thoughts a deliberation and sends a commands to its motor neurons, muscle groups, glands... and the action is undertaken.''


Social Conditioning
''Human behavior is affected both by genetic inheritance and by experience. The ways in which people develop are shaped by social experience and circumstances within the context of their inherited genetic potential. The scientific question is just how experience and hereditary potential interact in producing human behavior.

Each person is born into a social and cultural setting, family, community, social class, language, religionand eventually develops many social connections. The characteristics of a child's social setting affect how he or she learns to think and behave, by means of instruction, rewards and punishment, and example.

This setting includes home, school, neighborhood, and also, perhaps, local religious and law enforcement agencies. Then there are also the child's mostly informal interactions with friends, other peers, relatives, and the entertainment and news media. How individuals will respond to all these influences, or even which influence will be the most potent, tends not to be predictable.

There is, however, some substantial similarity in how individuals respond to the same pattern of influences that is, to being raised in the same culture. Furthermore, culturally induced behavior patterns, such as speech patterns, body language, and forms of humor, become so deeply embedded in the human mind that they often operate without the individuals themselves being fully aware of them.''
Again, all of what was written is absolutely true except how the brain and eyes work. The brain processes all information. This version of sight changes nothing other than seeing in real time, which scientists can map out. There is method to the madness, even though people think it's impossible. If it were impossible, that would be a different story, but it isn't like flying pink elephants.
 
Peacegirl, when you see a rose, what happens?

Is the rose red? No, it is not. “Redness” exists entirely in the mind, and it is called a quale. Multiple quale are qualia.

Now why does the rose look red? Here is the correct use of the word “wavelength.” Each color we see has a distinctive wavelength associated with it. When we look at the rose, the flower absorbs all of the wavelengths associated with colors OTHER THAN red. It reflects to our eye the remaining light with a wavelength that the mind interprets as the color red.

This would be IMPOSSIBLE if light was not reflected! Your writer has no ALTERNATIVE explanation of how we see color.

And, happy b-day! 🎂
Thank you for the well wishes! I appreciate your recognition of my birthday even though we disagree about many things. You’re still my friend. 😉
 
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