"The Nature of Objective Reality" .... (according to me, obviously)

[Gnu Ordure]

Hello people,

this is an offshoot of another thread...

(the bubblemonster, in this section; I joined in late, a couple of weeks ago, introducing a digression, which seems to be interesting enough to warrant a new thread)

... and it does actually concern the nature of reality, objective or otherwise...

... and yes, I do appreciate that given that this is the first thread I've started on this Forum, it might have been better to start off with a slightly less pretentious subject....

... oh well, too late now...


... anyway, I can't really summarize the gist of it, sorry, it's too complicated; if you want to join in here, you just need to read 3 or 4 pages of the other thread first, starting with my contribution here..

http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=73672&page=68

... and finishing with my link to this thread on page 71.


At which point , I continue :



hi z,

I'm afraid I'm with zooterkin:


So, no, Gnu... if that's who you are... the perception of the color blue would be subjective. Period.

Are you switching your position on this? Earlier you said :

Well, as I mentioned above, IF we rigidly define blue, then yes, the light is still blue.

You accused me of lazy defintions, z, but I think it's you. I don't know what you mean by 'rigid' definition here, or what the 'loose' definition might be. We're already discussing the subjective and objective definitions of blue light, I don't see how it helps to introduce another dimension.

Unless of course by 'rigid' you meant 'objective', in which case your two statements above are, as zooterkin noticed, contradictory.



zooterkin said :
Originally Posted by Z

"I might be a bit more flexible on the notion of 'is the light blue', since color is a function of our brain's interpretation of certain wavelengths of light. Light has intensity, wavelength, frequency, etc; but until it's been received and interpreted by a brain, it may not necessarily be 'blue'.


Then again, if we apply a more accurate scientific definition to 'blue' - light reflected or emitted in the wavelength of 440–490 nm - then we've reverted it to an objective measurement. So it would be entirely accurate, at that point, to say that the light is still blue, even if no one is present to see it."

Why did you choose to ignore the second part?



Because it had nothing to do with my argument, zooterkin.

My test statement was "The sky is blue". I quoted z in order to confirm our agreement that "until it's been received and interpreted by a brain, it may not necessarily be 'blue' ".

(That's not 'misquoting' or 'cherry-picking', z, - and it's not 'dishonest', either).

Using the definition of 'objective' we're all agreed on ("reality irrespective of observers"), the nature of light before it hits an eye is 'objective'.

The nature (and experience) of light after it hits an observer is 'subjective'.

My test-case ("The sky is blue") concerned what happens to light after it hits an eye, rather than before.

(Can I admit here, that I was playing Devil's Advocate in that part of my argument, and I should have made that clear ? Apologies. I said, as part of the scenario : "By the way, for clarity, this argument depends on the assumption that everyone in the world experiences the sky, on a sunny day, as blue".

When I said that, I knew that the existence of colour-blindness (as opposed than the Chinese, as z suggested), meant that that assumption was incorrect).

So, can we continue the test-case ?

z, we are agreed :

No, it's not "an observation common to all participants", and yes, it would not "still be true with no participants" - so it fails the definition.

So, you want to put it in the subjective categery :

Yes, it's an observation unique to "one or more participants", and yes, it's "not true for all participants" - the experience of 'blue' is different for people in different cultures, so it PASSES the test.

Fair enough. I agree, seeing 'blue' is a subjective experience, so it belongs here.

So your definition rests there, z. You simply put "the sky is blue" in the subjective category, which therefore merely says that when we all look at a blue object, we may not see the same colour.

Fair enough. But not very informative.

I continue with the definition process by adding a sub-definition ("more than one subjective experience"), and then applying the delicate instrument of 'consensus reality' (accurate to 9 decimal places, as I said), which will provide more detailed information about what is meant by "The sky is blue".

But first, another assumption.

I asked a couple of days ago whether there was any evidence that people with normal vision see colours differently. Plenty of evidence that different culures name colours differently, yes, but that's not the same thing. Do human eyes work differently ?

If there are small variations, it doesn't affect my argument anyway.

But for now, I'm assuming normal eyes see colours the same, ok ?

So I make the measurement.

Sample size : maximum

Armed with a big sky-blue card, a few counters, and the full battery of vision-tests which establish the existence of various forms of colour-blindness, I show the blue card to everyone in the world, and count the responses.

I establish, with the assistance of the finest optical physicists available, that 95.643 % of the world experiece that sky-blue card as :

(imagine sky-blue here)

I establish, that 6.09 % of the world (the ones with red-green color-blindness) experiece that sky-blue card as :

(imagine light-green here)

I establish, that 0.41 % of the world (the ones with complete monochrome vision) experiece that sky-blue card as :

(imagine medium-grey here)

.. and so on; there are 8 or 9 specific forms of colour-blindness, apparently..

(Sorry, apologies again; when I say "imagine", above, I'm only talking to people with normal vision, obviously - if you happen to have monochrome vision, it won't make much sense... No offense intended).

So, the reading is made.


The application of a 'consensus reality' category in this example states, as scientifically as any other scientific statement, that if Edith and I are looking at a clear blue sky together, there is a 95.643/100 chance that we are seeing the same colour.

To me, that statement is entirely valid.

And why not ? It acccords with the findings of science, and it's also common-sense; my liver works the same way as yours, my lungs do... why not my eyes ?

Unless there's something wrong with them, of course.



Applying 'consensus reality' provides information.



zooterkin, can I go back to your second, objective definition for a moment ?


light reflected or emitted in the wavelength of 440–490 nm -.. snip .... So it would be entirely accurate, at that point, to say that the light is still blue, even if no one is present to see it.

I beg to disagree, zoot.

On three counts.

First, I disagree that "the light is still blue, even if no one is present to see it".

We are trying to understand light in the absence of observers. Without eyes.

'Blueness' is the experience of a life-form equipped with colour-vision eyes.

In the absence of any such life-form, 'blue' does not exist.

So, in the absence of any such life-form, it doesn't make any sense to describe light of a certain wave-length as 'blue'.

Second,, the numbers; nm is an arbitrary unit of length, (it's part of a Metre -originally 1/10,000,000 of the distance from the equator to the north pole through Paris), invented by observers in order to measure things.

It contains no information other than in comparison to an arbitrary selected standard.



So all one can say of 'blue light' is that it is light of a certain wave-length.

(Mojo, notice I'm agreeing with you here; whatever the word 'metre' refers to, that length exists independently of it; the standard by which one measures it is arbitrary; all one can truthfully say is that a particular length is greater or less than another length.)


So, all we've got left of zooterkin's definition is that "' 'blue light' is 'light of a certain wave-length' ."

Agreed ?


But...


... Light is not just a wave, is it ?

We know this. It's particles as well.

Photons.

Single photons.

(This is a fact, right ? Otherwise my argument's in deep trouble)

So any definition of light that refers only of its wave nature is incomplete.

It ignores wave-particle duality.

Wiki, "Light", front page :

Due to the wave–particle duality of matter, light simultaneously exhibits properties of both waves and particles.

If you look for waves, you get waves. If you look for photons, you get photons.

You can't have both at the same time.

It depends on the observation you choose to make.

... as Heisenberg said (not so pithily, obviously).

So the 'objective' definition of 'blue light' shrinks even further; references to waves or particles have to be disallowed, because of observer dependence...


So, in my opinion...

.... the most we can say of 'blue light', ("irrespective of any obervers"), with any certainty, is that it is: 'light, of a certain kind'.


"Blue light" = "A kind of light".








Gnu.

[Soapy Sam]

Do you feel you have given sufficient consideration to the " I'm a loony" hypothesis?

[athon]

Mental masturbation. All of it. I can't imagine the blisters you must have after such a marathon of verbal wanking.

I'm not even sure where to begin with such silliness. A wavelength is 'objective', as it exists independently of my interpretation of it. A colour is a description of that wavelength. Indeed, there are issues that are raised when we introduce variation in retinal sensitivity and colour blindness, but if you show a chart and say 'this is the colour blue', that same perceived colour will remain defined as blue for all every time I see that wavelength. Hence you won't get '95.6%' or whatever nonsense number you pulled out of nowhere, but you'd get everybody agreeing that that was blue.

(ETA: colour blindness resulting from a reduction in the types of retinal cells means we will confuse wavelengths of light with one another. This is not a subjectivity of the wavelength, but rather a processing problem of light wavelengths. Therefore there are subjective perceptions of colour patterning, but the colour itself as a stimulus is objective enough).

Subjective experience would create disagreement, where my cut off for what I term 'blue' is different to yours, but that's a matter of semantics and not of subjectivity of the nature of colour.

Hell, if you want to define colour as the perception resulting after the photon hits the eye, be my guest. Who cares?

Man, why did I just enter this loony discussion?

Athon

[Gnu Ordure]

Do you feel you have given sufficient consideration to the " I'm a loony" hypothesis?


You raise an interesting point, soapy, in that consensus reality was a important concept in the anti-psychiatry movement of the 60's, which re-defined 'loony' as something less... well... pejorative.

But even this was based on Social Constructionism, the sociological theory of knowledge based on Hegel's ideas, and developed by Durkheim at the turn of the century.

But what do I know, I'm just a loony...

And by the way, thank you for such a positive response to my first thread on this Forum.

I feel most welcome.

Gnu.

[Apathia]

Gnu,

Fine first post. I personally encourage thinking.
See if a mod can move this for you to the Philosophy and Religion section of the forum, rather than the "Woo-Woo We Love to Bash" Section.
These are ideas many times discussed by our forum phillosophs, and you have presented this position with a rare clarity.
Now get it over to the proper department. You'll get some good responses there, but some more tomatos flung your way, as well.

[Gnu Ordure]

Mental masturbation. All of it. I can't imagine the blisters you must have after such a marathon of verbal wanking.



My feeling of belonging intensifies.




Listen, guys.

I started this thread in order to continue an on-going digression on another thread.

If youlre not interested in the discussion, fair enough, go elsewhere.

If you are interested, then you are welcome to join in, as long as you are respectful.

Is that too much to ask ?



By the way, for future reference...

... where I come from, 'loony' and 'wanker' are not terms of respect.



.

[Gnu Ordure]

Fine first post. I personally encourage thinking.
See if a mod can move this for you to the Philosophy and Religion section of the forum, rather than the "Woo-Woo We Love to Bash" Section.
These are ideas many times discussed by our forum phillosophs, and you have presented this position with a rare clarity.
Now get it over to the proper department. You'll get some good responses there, but some more tomatos flung your way, as well.



Hi Hyparxis,

thanks, that's the kind of response I like ...

"rare clarity", eh ?

that's nice...

It's not just you, though. I asked my good wife Edith, and she confirmed that I am indeed rarely clear.




I'm daunted, however, by your referral to forum philosophers and such-like.

I'm a novice in this area, in the sense that I've never 'studied' philosophy, but I'm still aware of the underlying complexities of the arguments concerning consensus reality; and I'm aware I know very little about them.




I only started this thread here because it's the same category of the 'parent-thread', so it was more likely to be noticed by any interested parties.

So I'm happy to leave it here, if that's OK, but I don't mind if it 'ought' to be moved.



Gnu.

[Apathia]

We have a few members who like a philosophical discussion now and then. We also have some who think that anything philosphy is utterly worthless.
So be prepared for both.

We used to have a retired guy called Coberth who shared his philosophical musing here (as with many other forums), but he finally got tired of being the side show freak in a dunking chair. But out of the majority of rotten eggs, he did some jewels tossed his way.

You'll find people here who matter of factly agree with you about consenses reality, and others who insist on something more robustly absolute.
It usually becomes a display of personalities, a fascinating thing of itself.

[Slimething]

Gnu,

I like your style, hate your subject and think you've been spending too much time at K-Mart. Perception threads drive me up a wall and I do usually take my business elsewhere but your posting style is very enjoyable. Welcome to the forum!

[athon]

Let me apologise for making you feel uncomfortable. That's not my intention, so don't let the 'verbal masturbation' thing put you off. You'll get the feel of the place quick enough.

Personally, I find the entire 'is your blue my blue' discussion pointless and silly. Indeed, I probably should have ignored the thread, but it might bring up something interesting, so I figured I'd jump in and stir things.

Hang around. If nothing else, this place always teaches you something new, if you're open to it.

Athon

(ETA: small point - learn to dissociate the post from the poster. I did not, and would not, call you a 'wanker'. I might have said that I feel your material is akin to verbal wanking, i.e. using words in a meaningless manner for a sense of gratification, but I don't know you to be able to extend that into calling you a name. It helps to remember that around here)

[Professor Yaffle]

And I'd like you to know that if NONE of you go over there and talk to me, I will be psychologically devastated by the rejection, and you'll have to live with the fact that you've put my rehabilitation back YEARS, do you hear me, YEARS !!!

Just popping over to bolster your self esteem. However I am very busy at the moment so can't really contribute. It takes all my free time to read Bubblebrain's hilarious ramblings.

[SomeGuy]

The problem is that the light is objectively blue, eventhough we don't know if two people actually see it the same way.

[flimflam_machine]

It takes all my free time to read Bubblebrain's hilarious ramblings.Why bother? From my quick skim through it just looks like yards and yards more tedious, illiterate, arrogant, dismissive, pseudo-intellectual bollocks.

Sorry Gnu, I don't think there's really much of a discussion here. The human population has sufficiently standard visual physiology for us all to have a similar range of vision in the EM spectrum. As someguy implies, "blue" is just shorthand for "having a wavelength around 465nm". If we called that colour anything else ("bleen" for example) it would still look the same. Just think that bees and birds can see in the UV, but we don't perceive any "colour" in UV light, so it's silly to assert that there is any "colour" inherent to blue light.


If the question is "Is our phenomenology of 'blue' the same?" then that may very well be unanswerable, and I can't say that your experiment goes any way to answering it, or that it is very clear. If you hold up a coloured card in front of someone and say "what colour do you perceive that to be?" they'll reply "Errrr... that one" and point to the card that you're holding up in front of them.

A standard test for colour blindness is to see what colours can be discriminated (like the ishihara tests). If you hold up a sky-blue card and a light-green card in front of someone, and they say that they look identical, all it means is that they can't tell sky-blue from light-green. What it absolutely does not prove is that their phenomenology of sky-blue is the same as your or my (non-colourblind people) phenomenology of light-green.

[Cuddles]

I'm with Flimflam here. You appear to be trying to argue something about whether we can know if someone else's experience of a colour is the same as ours or not. This is simply not possible to know. Unfortunately you seem to be confusing this issue with what we define colours to be. If you show people a skybluepink card, they will all agree that it is skybluepink because that is what we have defined as skybluepink. How they actually perceive it is irrelevant. As others have said, "blue" means "wavelength arounf 465nm". How your brain interprets 465nm wavelengths is utterly irrelevant.

I would like to repeat previous requests to have this moved to the philosophy board. The topic has nothing whatsoever to do with skepticism or the paranormal.

[Ichneumonwasp]

Welcome to the forum, Gnu.

'Blueness' is the experience of a life-form equipped with colour-vision eyes.

In the absence of any such life-form, 'blue' does not exist.

Basically, yes, but I'm afraid it is a bit more complicated as several others have mentioned. There is a sense in which both you and the folks you were discussing this with are both correct.

In the radical absence of creatures who can perceive "blue", 'blue' does not exist, properly speaking. That is correct. The perception of 'blueness' depends on the wavelength of light, the functioning of the eye, and the interpretive power of the brain. All aspects must be in place to speak of the perception of 'blue' from the real world into our subjective experience. It is an interaction issue -- this perception of 'blue' that involves the external world. It is also possible for us to internally generate 'blue' in a hallucination, however, in which no external light contributes to the process. This still involves a perception of 'blue' -- internally generated, rather than externally generated. This process does not involve the eye or any particular wavelength of light. It's a pure brain process. So, you need to include the brain in your analysis. We can also see the issue arise in folks who have acquired color blindness, or achromatopsia.

So, that briefly and very inexpertly speaks to the original perception issue. But, as you mention, there is the further issue of our use of the word 'blue' which arises from convention and social agreement. I point to a card that I experience in a certain way and call it 'blue'; you learn to associate that word with that internal experience. So, we agree on what blue is. Some people can participate in this process and some cannot. I assume this issue arose over conflicts in the use of the word 'objective'? If we speak of an objective experience of 'blue' at this stage, what we seem to mean is 'inter-subjective'. It, then, becomes an issue in the use of the word 'objective' as to whether it means largely or completely 'inter-subjective' (does everyone experience exactly the same thing or only a large number of us?). If not everyone can experience the same card in the same way, can we speak of an 'objective' sense of the word 'blue' as completely 'inter-subjective'? Well, no, and this arises in numerous types of debates, so I think it is an important issue to deal with. But, if enough people do experience 'blue' and can reliably pick it out, then the social convention makes sense pragmatically.

There is the further issue that we have, through agreement, defined the word 'blue' also to mean 'light of a certain frequency'. We do this because we find it easy and because most people agree on blue being constituted by light at that particular frequency. Now that definition of 'blue' as light of a certain frequency provides an objective 'truth' -- that light is really of that frequency even in the radical absence of creatures like us. This is another definition of the word 'objective' -- true independent of observation. While the word 'blue' can only derive its meaning through social construction -- that's what language is, after all -- since we have agreed that one definition of 'blue' means light at a certain frequency, then there is an objective measure of it, whether or not everyone can experience it. That word still has that meaning.

There is, unfortunately, a third definition, closely related to the idea of inter-subjectivity (available to other observers, not purely subjective).

So, there are senses in which we can speak of 'blue' in an objective way, but we need to be careful about how we do it. You need to stick to one definition of 'objective' and not switch to another definition in the middle of the discussion. The switch from one definition to another is what usually happens in philosophical discussions that go on for more than a few pages and why many people find philosophy an utter waste of time.


ETA

Or, in other words, we don't use the word 'blue' in just one way and we don't use the word 'objective' in just one way, and this is why we continue to have these discussions, if any of this helps.

[Beerina]

No one knows yet how the subjective experience (the blueness of blue) arises out of the configuration of atoms and energy we call a "brain". We presume it does, and that there's a physics behind it (perhaps undiscovered, perhaps an addendum to our standard physics).

But no one knows, at this point, whether the "blueness" of blue is tied to the frequency in some way directly, or if it's just an arbitrary sensation the brain, via evolution, learned to associate with that frequency (as encoded by the optic nerve).

Are there other colors floating around in "perception space" that the brain never picked up on? Other sense kinds besides the "big 5"? As we don't know how this arises from the brain, we have no way of knowing yet.

Francis Crick (http://www.klab.caltech.edu/~koch/crick-koch-cc-97.html), who got the Nobel Prize for co-discovering the helix nature of DNA, suggests the technology is ripe to begin exploring this in detail.

[qayak]

I'm with Flimflam here. You appear to be trying to argue something about whether we can know if someone else's experience of a colour is the same as ours or not. This is simply not possible to know.

Hmmmmmmmm. . . . . from a slightly different perspective. Automotive painters seem to be able to match a vehicle's colour. Ten different painters will match the car exactly, so obviously they see the colour the same. Even the ones who do not get the match right are awefully close.

There is a limit to the ability of the human eye but we are adapted to living in our little visible portion of the electrom magnetic spectrum.

[flimflam_machine]

If we speak of an objective experience of 'blue' at this stage, what we seem to mean is 'inter-subjective'. It, then, becomes an issue in the use of the word 'objective' as to whether it means largely or completely 'inter-subjective' (does everyone experience exactly the same thing or only a large number of us?). If not everyone can experience the same card in the same way, can we speak of an 'objective' sense of the word 'blue' as completely 'inter-subjective'? Well, no, and this arises in numerous types of debates, so I think it is an important issue to deal with. But, if enough people do experience 'blue' and can reliably pick it out, then the social convention makes sense pragmatically.

Ich, I'm not entirely clear on your point here. I think I agree with you in that "inter-subjective" does not equal "objective", and I'm not even sure from what you would build the argument that the two are the same. I'm also not sure what you mean by "objective experience" since the phrase seems completely oxymoronic.

Could you please clarify what different meanings of the word "objective" you are referring to (metaphysical, epistemological?), and how they relate to different uses of the word "blue" (as a pure perceptual experience vs. as a synonym for "having wavelength about 465nm").

The social construction that "blue" refers to things in the external world that all share a particular physical characteristic seems, to me, to be a fairly unproductive area of discussion. I just think that it's really trivial, our perceptual systems, when functioning properly give us roughly the same experience of the same thing if we see it on two different occasions. If it didn't then consciousness would be pretty counter productive, and language wouldn't be much use to describe things. In a vaguely anthropological sense it might be interesting: different cultures vary in the precision with which they apply certain terms e.g., Japanese people using one term for things that Western cultures might consider blue and green (anyone have a ref for this?).

[drkitten]

I asked a couple of days ago whether there was any evidence that people with normal vision see colours differently. Plenty of evidence that different culures name colours differently, yes, but that's not the same thing. Do human eyes work differently ?

Yes, there's lots of evidence for that, but the differences are extremely small. Look up "female tetrachromaticity" sometime.




I establish, with the assistance of the finest optical physicists available, that 95.643 % of the world experiece that sky-blue card as :

(imagine sky-blue here)




The application of a 'consensus reality' category in this example states, as scientifically as any other scientific statement, that if Edith and I are looking at a clear blue sky together, there is a 95.643/100 chance that we are seeing the same colour.

To me, that statement is entirely valid.

That statement is indeed entirely valid -- and has nothing to do with "consensus reality."

It's a simple statement of probability. Similarly, if you and I independently flip coins, there is a 50% chance we are seeing the same side -- and that has nothing to do with "consensus reality." It simply represents the objective distribution of two independent events.

"Consensus reality" plus probability theory equals probability theory.

Therefore, subtracting "probability theory" from each side, we get

"Consensus reallity" equals nothing

.... which I've been suggesting for a dozen or so posts.

[flimflam_machine]

Gayak, I think you've missed the point a bit, or I've completely missed your point. The fact that people can match colours doesn't prove anything about whether your experience of blue is the same as my experience of blue.

[Ichneumonwasp]

Ich, I'm not entirely clear on your point here. I think I agree with you in that "inter-subjective" does not equal "objective", and I'm not even sure from what you would build the argument that the two are the same. I'm also not sure what you mean by "objective experience" since the phrase seems completely oxymoronic.

Could you please clarify what different meanings of the word "objective" you are referring to (metaphysical, epistemological?), and how they relate to different uses of the word "blue" (as a pure perceptual experience vs. as a synonym for "having wavelength about 465nm").

The social construction that "blue" refers to things in the external world that all share a particular physical characteristic seems, to me, to be a fairly unproductive area of discussion. I just think that it's really trivial, our perceptual systems, when functioning properly give us roughly the same experience of the same thing if we see it on two different occasions. If it didn't then consciousness would be pretty counter productive, and language wouldn't be much use to describe things. In a vaguely anthropological sense it might be interesting: different cultures vary in the precision with which they apply certain terms e.g., Japanese people using one term for things that Western cultures might consider blue and green (anyone have a ref for this?).

Sorry, that was a rush job.

What I was trying to say is that when we use the word 'objective', we may mean one of three different things (there are pobably more meaning, but these are the three I see most frequently and try to parse out).

1. Objective may mean true independent of all observers, as in the earth revolves around the sun indpendent of us observing it or not.

2. Objective may mean intersubjective. I think it really should mean completely and utterly 100% intersubjective to meet the qualification for the way we use the word 'objective', but in arguments over ethics or beauty it frequently doesn't. Or people don't use it properly. So, in this sense 'objective' could only mean "that which we all agree upon and experience in the same way".

3. Objective may mean external to the subject such that others can view it -- and this sense is closely related to #2.

Does that make more sense?

When it comes to 'blue' we refer to the particular frequency of EM light as blue according to def. #1. It is an objective fact that light may be of that frequency. Since we define 'blue' sometimes to be that frequency of light, 'blue' can have an objective truth -- but only by this sort of definition that we all agree upon. So, of course, it is socially constructed and we cannot take this to mean that blue exists independently of us as observers in some greater metaphysical sense. By the way we use the word, though, there is a sense in which it does exist in this way.

As for the perception of blue, which starts the whole process, I'm not sure that we can use the word 'objective' properly because we do not all experience the same color in exactly the same way. There is not 100% concordance amongst us inter-subjectively. So, in that sense, I think we could say that something is 'blue' as a true statement inter-subjectivly for almost all of us, even though there are a few folks who cannot share that inter-subjective experience. The word 'objective' in this instance may not be the most precise. But I also think it is overly pedantic to make such fine distinctions. It's a philosopher's game. If it helps to stop the constant arguing, then fine.

Also, why is it always 'blue'? Why not lime-green for a change?

The social construction that "blue" refers to things in the external world that all share a particular physical characteristic seems, to me, to be a fairly unproductive area of discussion. I just think that it's really trivial, our perceptual systems, when functioning properly give us roughly the same experience of the same thing if we see it on two different occasions. If it didn't then consciousness would be pretty counter productive, and language wouldn't be much use to describe things. In a vaguely anthropological sense it might be interesting: different cultures vary in the precision with which they apply certain terms e.g., Japanese people using one term for things that Western cultures might consider blue and green (anyone have a ref for this?).

Couldn't agree more.

[drkitten]

, Japanese people using one term for things that Western cultures might consider blue and green (anyone have a ref for this?).

What's to refer? It exists. The word is 青, prounounded /ao/ (adjective /aoi/), and it's used in contexts that Westerners use the word "green" as well as "blue." For example, unripe fruit can be "aoi," as is the light that tells you it's acceptable to drive through the intersection.

There's another word used specificaly for "green" (緑 /midori/), but it's a relatively recent innovation. First attested in about 1000CE, it only really started to be used after the American Occupation, and has been generally considered to be a subshade of "aoi" in the same way that "lavender" is a subshade of "purple." (That's changing as well -- chalk it up to American influence, if you like.) Literally, "midori" is the color of honeydew melon, which means that it's not a "basic color term" in the sense of Berlin and Kay.

But part of the issue is exactly that "precision." Most languages have hundreds if not thousands of non-basic color terms, so if you want real "precision," you shouldn't be looking at the Berlin/Kay items anyway. English has 11 color words, but Crayola has no problem putting (and naming) 64 crayons in a box. Why should English be special in that regard?

[flimflam_machine]

Cheers Ich,

1. Objective may mean true independent of all observers, as in the earth revolves around the sun indpendent of us observing it or not.

2. Objective may mean intersubjective. I think it really should mean completely and utterly 100% intersubjective to meet the qualification for the way we use the word 'objective', but in arguments over ethics or beauty it frequently doesn't. Or people don't use it properly. So, in this sense 'objective' could only mean "that which we all agree upon and experience in the same way".

3. Objective may mean external to the subject such that others can view it -- and this sense is closely related to #2.

I'm happy with (1), and (3) seems like the grammatical definition (as in subject verb "object"). If it is not a grammatical term, then I'd say it's very closely linked to (1).

I'm still not sure about (2) and I doubt that it's something that will be resolved here. It still seems to me that intersubjectivity is still either completely trivial or completely unprovable: when you say "that which we all agree upon and experience in the same way", we can all agree that the sky is "blue" (we have a functional shared language), but my blue may not be the same as your blue; our experiences could be very different.

As for the perception of blue, which starts the whole process, I'm not sure that we can use the word 'objective' properly because we do not all experience the same color in exactly the same way.

Precisely.

Also, why is it always 'blue'? Why not lime-green for a change?

Red is quite often used, and the process by which 650nm wavelength light is transformed into our perception is known as "redding"!

[flimflam_machine]

Thanks drkitten, I was just checking that I hadn't hallucinated someone telling me that. Unless of course you're a hallucination... are you?

How is that "precision" part of the issue, does language shape our experience?

[Ichneumonwasp]

I'm still not sure about (2) and I doubt that it's something that will be resolved here. It still seems to me that intersubjectivity is still either completely trivial or completely unprovable: when you say "that which we all agree upon and experience in the same way", we can all agree that the sky is "blue" (we have a functional shared language), but my blue may not be the same as your blue; our experiences could be very different.


I only brought up #2 becuse it shows up in discussions of ethics and beauty and seems to fit some of what Gnu was on about. Yes, if we want to be absolutely precise, it is unprovable, but we can speak in general terms about it -- as in discussions of ethics where we can say that everyone agrees that murder is wrong. I mean, aside from the obvious issue that murder is defined as wrong from the outset. Or do we all agree? I've seen philosphers try to argue that meaning of the word 'objective' in ethics and it always irritates me a bit. I prefer the term inter-subjective for that instance because it is oh so easy to slip into definition number 1 once you have people agreeing to definition 2.

[drkitten]

How is that "precision" part of the issue, does language shape our experience?

Not to any significant and measurable extent.

The reason that precision is important is because there's generally far too much weight placed on the Berlin/Kay experiments when trying to figure out whether colours "look" alike to people. As I said, Crayola has no problem naming 64 different crayons -- in order to make their experiments work, Berlin and Kay were forced to make a very rigorous and exclusive definition of what constituted a "basic color term," essentialy throwing out all of the "shades" of meaning that lead to such interesting intersex discussions. Evidently pantyhose manufacturers have no problem distinguishing "tan" from "taupe" from "nude" --- but can you?

So the problem becomes when people say that "Japanese have one word for blue and for green." Well, yes, they do.... except that they rarely use that word when precision specification is important. You'll never see a Japanese housewife suggest that she wants to paint the kitchen "aoi," any more than you'll hear an American one say she wants to paint it "blue." That's not specific enough. "Sky-blue," "robin's egg," "aqua," "royal blue," "teal," .... now those you'll hear. When you need to specify an exact colour, to describe exactly how it appears, there are "non-basic" colour terms, generally metaphors ("robin's egg blue" -- "the blue of a robin's egg"). Most of the time you see basic terms used are to distinguish between choices -- the red T-shirt or the blue one? The fact that two T-shirts of different shades (perhaps "royal" and "teal") can both be called "blue" (when the other choice is "red") doesn't mean that anyonesee the T-shirts alike. And if I had three T-shirts, one royal, one teal, and one red, I'd probably not talk about the "blue" T-shirt.

[Dancing David]

No one knows yet how the subjective experience (the blueness of blue) arises out of the configuration of atoms and energy we call a "brain". We presume it does, and that there's a physics behind it (perhaps undiscovered, perhaps an addendum to our standard physics).

But no one knows, at this point, whether the "blueness" of blue is tied to the frequency in some way directly, or if it's just an arbitrary sensation the brain, via evolution, learned to associate with that frequency (as encoded by the optic nerve).

Are there other colors floating around in "perception space" that the brain never picked up on? Other sense kinds besides the "big 5"? As we don't know how this arises from the brain, we have no way of knowing yet.

Francis Crick (http://www.klab.caltech.edu/~koch/crick-koch-cc-97.html), who got the Nobel Prize for co-discovering the helix nature of DNA, suggests the technology is ripe to begin exploring this in detail.

Hmm, the mechanism of senation is well studied, how the brain creates perception is not as well understood.

However it is crucial to the development of perception that the organism be exposed to stimuli. If we look at poor Mary who lives in the black and white room for most of her life and one day is exposed to the color red, it depends on her age if she will just see it as grey , or if later she will develop a perception of red.

There are colors that we don't percieve that insects and some critters do. UV and IR so yes there are colors beyond our sensation. Some birds appear to sense light through thier skulls and others detect magnatism as well.

But as for Crick's idea, wll time will tell.

[Dancing David]

To the Op, all humans words, thoughts and perceptions are limited by the boundary of a body.

The communication of a self referencing set of symbols can be valid or invalid to the 'objective reality'.

But there are answers to tehse questions.

If a tree falls in a forest and there is no creature which percieves it through air pressure waves, then there is no sound.

But there is a noise!

[drkitten]

Are there other colors floating around in "perception space" that the brain never picked up on?

Yes. We've proven this via direct neural stimulation. Given the right set of wires, I can cause you to percieve a color that is "universally" described by the subjects as "reddish green." And it's rather definitively not "yellow." Unfortunately, no one has yet managed to figure out how to get a retinal stimulation to produce the same effect.

[Gnu Ordure]

Gosh.

Twenty-odd replies.

My thread has run away from me. In various directions simultaneously.

Which is good, I'm glad it's interesting, and that it's being taken seriously.

Thanks for the various welcomes, and athon, thanks for the apology, no offense taken, and your advice is noted.

I didn't realize that this subject (or the nature of light bit, at least), was discussed so much. Personally, I've never talked about it before, so it's all new to me.

And I have already freely admitted that this far into the discussion, I am very nearly out of my depth, never having formally studied philosophy nor physics.

However, as you may have noticed, my lack of educational qualifications in no way impedes my ability to make authoritative statements about absolutely any subject under the sun.

And, I've belatedly realized that I have mis-named the thread; my starting-point is consensus-reality, rather than objective reality, though the argument necessarily covers the definition of both.

ichneumonwasp, hi.

I don't know if you read the pages on the other thread, but I quoted you in one of my posts there, because my definition of consensus reality seems to be identical to what you referred to elsewhere as inter-subjectivity.

Maybe you could read that one post, and confirm (or not) that I've understood you correctly ?

And all I'm doing is specify the range of the consensus, minimum 2, maximum 6 billion, to which a consensus reality then applies, which can then analysed statistically to provide information.

(And for those of you for whom life is also too short to read the whole 4 pages, this single short post happens to summarize my starting-point concisely).


Just popping over to bolster your self esteem.

Thanks, professor !!

Looks like I was worrying for nothing, doesn't it ?





I'm not sure how to respond to all the arguments, so I'm going to leave it for the moment.

One thought, though. I'm not trying to state beyond all doubt that all people with normal vision have a standard response to a particular stimulus, so I think that part of the discussion is a bit of a red herring.

Or a reddish herring, anyway.

I accept that there may be small variations in normal vision, as some of you said :

eg flim :

The human population has sufficiently standard visual physiology for us all to have a similar range of vision in the EM spectrum.

... as well as a small proportion of people who experience large variations because of genetic abnormality.

So if two people with normal vision look at the sky, isn't it valid to assume that they see the same colour, (with a small probabilty of a small variation ?

So, if we apply the whole battery of colour-blindness tests to the whole world, to find out how normal their eyes are, we'd end up with a set of probabilities as to how a random person would experience a particular colour.

So it's not necessary for my argument that two people with normal vision experience the same colour - similar will do.


And I'm pretty sure we do see colours similarly - otherwise I don't see how colour-blindness tests would work at all. The fact that they are used to identify abnormalities with precision, implies that they indentify normality as well, to the same degree of precision.... doesn't it ?




I have so much to learn.




Gnu.

[drkitten]

So if two people with normal vision look at the sky, isn't it valid to assume that they see the same colour, (with a small probabilty of a small variation ?

That's certainly consonant with our current best scientific evidence. Sure, I'll give you that as a working assumption.


So, if we apply the whole battery of colour-blindness tests to the whole world, to find out how normal their eyes are, we'd end up with a set of probabilities as to how a random person would experience a particular colour.

Yeah. And if we applied a whole battery of tests to a set of dice, we'd end up with a set of probabilities as to how a random person would experience the craps table.

I still don't see how either "consensus" or "reality" enters into this.

[Ichneumonwasp]

I don't know if you read the pages on the other thread, but I quoted you in one of my posts there, because my definition of consensus reality seems to be identical to what you referred to elsewhere as inter-subjectivity.


I'll try and get through them. I looked briefly, but that's going to take a while.

I think part of the problem may be in the term "consensus reality".

Eveyone has their own likes and dislikes about terms. I happen to like the "inter-subjectivity" idea, but that's just me. To me, it is just the degree to which our individual subjectivities mesh.

When I hear a term like "consensus reality" it makes me think more along the lines of the way we use money. The only reality to money, outside of our imput, is that it is made of stuff. But we create a new reality for it as a symbol by consensus. So, by convention, we all treat dollars and/or pounds/ and or euros, etc. as worth something. That, to me, would seem to be a consensus reality.

I don't know. What do you think?

[Gnu Ordure]

I still don't see how either "consensus" or "reality" enters into this.



Because a shared experience can only exist by assumption and agreement, Dr K.

Imagine that I am watching a sunset with my wife.

I am having an entirely subjective experience, aware that I am watching the sunset, and aware that my wife is beside me, also watching it.

Because of solipsism, I cannot be 100% certain that I am not a brain-in-a-vat, and that the entire experience is an illusion.

I can (have to?) choose whether to believe whether my experience is real, or an illusion.

An act of faith, in other words.

Personally, I choose believe to believe that the world is not an illusion. I think I might go mad if I didn't.

So I choose to believe that my dear wife is real and conscious, and that since, as far as we know, we both possess normal colour-vision, we are actually sharing this experience of the sunset. (Not exactly, obviously - but enough for it to be meaningful).



As a result of this assumption, my subjective experience of the sunset changes. It is still subjective (after all, my entire life is a succession of billions of subjective experiences), but it is no longer solitary, it is a consensus-reality experience as well.

It then becomes a real part of me, and a real part of my relationship with my wife. The experience becomes a memory for both of us, a memory we will be able to recall when we want to, and refer to, and talk about.

A memory recalled in different ways, no doubt; but still meaningful to both of us.

So....

... the concept/model of consensus-reality/inter-subjectivity rests on the assumption that other people's experiences are real; if we make that assumption, we can then analyse people's experiences statistically and make statements of greater or lesser certainty about the results.

The wider the analysis, (the bigger the sample), the more meaningful the consensus.

Consensus-reality is an instrument; choose your sample, ask your question, take a reading. Interpret your result.





Here's another example of consensus-reality.

The meanings of words are created by agreement, so they are part of consensus-reality.

I hope we agree that particular combinations of letters do not contain intrinsic meaning.

I hope we also agree that the meanings of words can change over time.

Not to mention that words can't exist without people (observers) to invent them.

So not objective, then, agreed ?



Can the meaning of words be entirely subjective (individual) ? I would say yes, and cite Lewis Carroll's Jabberwocky as an example...

And some couples invent their own private language, with the meanings known only to them. So words can mean what we want them to mean.





But these are exceptions. For most people, most of the time, words mean what we are agreed that they mean, and if we don't know the meaning of a particular word, we consult the results of the most recent consensus-reality reading...


.... otherwise known as a dictionary.



In order to create a perfect dictionary, we simply ask everyone in the world what they understand by every word there is (what is their experience of the word 'X', in all its variations), and collate the results.

A dictionary is a reading of consensus-reality, valid at the time it was taken, until superceded by the next reading, the next edition.

And a dictionary is useful and meaningful because it is created by consensus.




Gnu.

[fuelair]

Hi Hyparxis,

thanks, that's the kind of response I like ...

"rare clarity", eh ?

that's nice...

It's not just you, though. I asked my good wife Edith, and she confirmed that I am indeed rarely clear.




I'm daunted, however, by your referral to forum philosophers and such-like.

I'm a novice in this area, in the sense that I've never 'studied' philosophy, but I'm still aware of the underlying complexities of the arguments concerning consensus reality; and I'm aware I know very little about them.




I only started this thread here because it's the same category of the 'parent-thread', so it was more likely to be noticed by any interested parties.

So I'm happy to leave it here, if that's OK, but I don't mind if it 'ought' to be moved.



Gnu.


I do not have enough data to declare looney - where you run afowl of that call (pun intended) is we have several posters who come up with what they are pleased to call philosophy - in which they have developed their own procedures and definitions almost invariably at odds with those used by people who are actually philosophers in the normal sense and those (hand up) who have studied philosophy.

The problem (for me) is that philosophy may be quite interesting and even fun to play with - especially over good food and drink - but it does precious little (and should not) in the real world. This is where we come to your post.

Physics - a wonderful science - has in it the care and feeding of waves, etc. and the nice, bright, people who have studied them determined real properties of them such as their perception, measurement, detection, length, frequency, speed and such. Based on the measurement of these waves in the range we call visible light, we (they) have determined that a certain group of wavelengths will be interpreted by our eye/brain combo as the color blue, another group red and so forth between blue and red. These can be demonstrated in any number of ways (temperature/heat energy, effects on plant growth just for two). Now, we also know that light also has properties that make it like particles in certain ways/situations - possibly because light energy is transmitted as photons - which move at light speed. Nothing in any of this means that color is purely subjective - unless your eyes are flawed. If it did (in anything more than naming or minor physiological difference) life would be some different.

This is why some of us - even though we know philosophy - do respond poorly to those who develop philosophies that promote the idea that our minds are being played with and there is no reality (we are all Matrixed, we are all just random thoughts in the mind of an: alien, lower life form, animal, Dog, Krsna, FSM or whatever - or only one mind is real usually the OPers).

Do try philosophy section and good luck. Check me in some of the philosophy section to be sure I am being nice here - since you are new and trying to be so!!:)

[drkitten]

Because a shared experience can only exist by assumption and agreement

I don't buy that. By definition, "experience" is singular and happens to one person.



Imagine that I am watching a sunset with my wife.

I am having an entirely subjective experience, aware that I am watching the sunset, and aware that my wife is beside me, also watching it.

Because of solipsism, I cannot be 100% certain that I am not a brain-in-a-vat, and that the entire experience is an illusion.

I can (have to?) choose whether to believe whether my experience is real, or an illusion.

An act of faith, in other words.

Personally, I choose believe to believe that the world is not an illusion. I think I might go mad if I didn't.

So I choose to believe that my dear wife is real and conscious, and that since, as far as we know, we both possess normal colour-vision, we are actually sharing this experience of the sunset. (Not exactly, obviously - but enough for it to be meaningful).

Okay. So you've assumed not-solipsism. So what?





As a result of this assumption, my subjective experience of the sunset changes. It is still subjective (after all, my entire life is a succession of billions of subjective experiences), but it is no longer solitary, it is a consensus-reality experience as well.

No, it isn't. It's still solitary. Your solitary experience simply includes the fact that your wife saw it too.




... the concept/model of consensus-reality/inter-subjectivity

Gnu, I'm still waiting for you to explain what this "concept/model" is.

You have no concept.

You have no model.

You have no content.



rests on the [I]assumption that other people's experiences are real; if we make that assumption, we can then analyse people's experiences statistically and make statements of greater or lesser certainty about the results.

And if we don't make that assumption, we can still do the math and make statements about the results.

Your "consensus reality" adds -- literally - nothing.



Consensus-reality is an instrument

No, it's not. It's a meaningless concatenation of otherwise meaningful words.

If you think there is meaning, then express ti.



Here's another example of consensus-reality.

The meanings of words are created by agreement, so they are part of consensus-reality.

No. They're part of a subjective reality.


I hope we agree that particular combinations of letters do not contain intrinsic meaning.

I hope we also agree that the meanings of words can change over time.

Not to mention that words can't exist without people (observers) to invent them.

So not objective, then, agreed ?

Obviously.



Can t]e meaning of words be entirely subjective (individual) ? I would say yes, and cite Lewis Carroll's Jabberwocky as an example.

Yes. Not only "can be," but "is."



For most people, most of the time, words mean what we are agreed that they mean,

Nope. For most people, most of the time, words mean what we individually and subjectively think they do. if it becomes obvious that my meaning of a word is different from yours, only then does a dictionary get consulted.

A dictionary is nothing more than a statistical summary of many different subjective uses of words. It has no "reality" except as summary statistics of a variety of diffferent subjective experiences.

And summary statistics, while useful, do not constitute a separate kind of "reality."

[Mercutio]

Yes. We've proven this via direct neural stimulation. Given the right set of wires, I can cause you to percieve a color that is "universally" described by the subjects as "reddish green." And it's rather definitively not "yellow." Unfortunately, no one has yet managed to figure out how to get a retinal stimulation to produce the same effect.

Could you lob a citation this direction? This is an area of much interest for me, and I am unaware of this finding.

Ich-Wasp--I actually posted intending to throw a spanner into your "blue" definition (while largely agreeing, of course). Yes, we can define a particular wavelength as "blue" (or rather, "unique blue"--one that has no perceptual hint of green or of red), and get tremendous agreement on it... but we can also mix two or more other wavelengths, neither of which is the one we found before, and also come up with that same color of blue. Color-matching experiments use this process to map spectral sensitivity.

Oh, and one thing we cannot do with normally-sighted individuals is present a single wavelength that will be perceived as "red" (or rather, "unique red"). On one end of the visible spectrum, red is orange-red up to the point of no longer perceiving, and on the other, it is purple-red up to the point of no longer perceiving. So any attempt to define "red" as a single wavelength will fail.

More to say, but I am heading home right now....

[Gnu Ordure]

I do not have enough data to declare looney - where you run afowl of that call (pun intended) is we have several posters who come up with what they are pleased to call philosophy - in which they have developed their own procedures and definitions almost invariably at odds with those used by people who are actually philosophers in the normal sense and those (hand up) who have studied philosophy.


I don't understand, fuelair.

I admitted I'm a novice in this area. I appreciate that you perceive my thoughts on this subject as naive and ill-informed.

Quite right. They are.

But I wish to learn. If you have studied philosophy yourself, please treat me as a enthousiastic first-year student and direct me towards further reading which you think might be helpful to me, given the current state of my ignorance. This is an Educational Forum, is it not ? Please teach me - but only if you want to, obviously.


Physics - a wonderful science - has in it the care and feeding of waves, etc. and the nice, bright, people who have studied them determined real properties of them such as their perception, measurement, detection, length, frequency, speed and such. Based on the measurement of these waves in the range we call visible light, we (they) have determined that a certain group of wavelengths will be interpreted by our eye/brain combo as the color blue, another group red and so forth between blue and red. These can be demonstrated in any number of ways (temperature/heat energy, effects on plant growth just for two). Now, we also know that light also has properties that make it like particles in certain ways/situations - possibly because light energy is transmitted as photons - which move at light speed. Nothing in any of this means that color is purely subjective - unless your eyes are flawed. If it did (in anything more than naming or minor physiological difference) life would be some different.

Agree entirely.

Using the definition of 'objective' we're all agreed on ("reality irrespective of observers"), the objective nature of 'blue' light is only concerned with what happens after it leaves its source, which may include bumping into objects.

And at this stage, in the absence of any eye, it makes no sense to attach the label 'blue' to it; it is merely light of a certain wave-length.

Imagine the universe 4 billion years ago. The Earth has formed, but life has not yet emerged.

Imagine some light shining with a wave-length of 465 wotsits.

In what sense can one describe it as 'blue' ?

Yes, one can say that, given 4 billion years of evolution, a certain life-form might evolve which might develop sense-organs which might experience this wave-length as : ( imagine blue here )....

but how can that be part of the 'objective' reality, 4 billion years ago ?

who knew what kind of sense-organs would develop ?

colour-vision might never have evolved at all. there are loads of life-forms with mono-chromatic vision, or no vision at all; if colour-vision hadn't evolved, what possible sense would it make to label light of 465 wotsits 'blue' ?

'Blue light' is light of a certain wavelength, that's all.

Except it isn't.

As fuelair agrees.

In my first post, I threw in wave-particle duality. No-one's referred to what I said, but I stand by it.

Light's a wave if you look for a wave; if you look for a particle you find a particle.

Entirely observer-dependant.

So therefore no part of an 'objective' definition.




So, all one can say about blue light, with any certainty, is that it is light of a certain kind.




Anything else requires an observer, hypothetical or otherwise, and so can't be objective ("irrespective of any observers").





Gnu.


(Edit plus :

fuelair said

This is why some of us - even though we know philosophy - do respond poorly to those who develop philosophies that promote the idea that our minds are being played with and there is no reality (we are all Matrixed, we are all just random thoughts in the mind of an: alien, lower life form, animal, Dog, Krsna, FSM or whatever - or only one mind is real usually the OPers).

I wasn't trying to 'promote' that idea at all, fuelair...

but I do regard it as a possibility, nonetheless...

[qayak]

Gayak, I think you've missed the point a bit, or I've completely missed your point. The fact that people can match colours doesn't prove anything about whether your experience of blue is the same as my experience of blue.

The point is that obviously they are all seeing the same blue and matching it. For those who do not know, painters often have to tint the paint to get a proper match. Obviously they are seeing the same colour with the same mismatch before they true it up.

That is to say, that given the same colour mix and the same vehicle to match, you will not hear one say "it needs a little blue" while another says "it needs a little yellow." They will both tell you the same thing. Obviously they are seeing the same thing in the colours.

I think your problem is not whether people are seeing the same colour but whether they call it the same thing. That is just a lack of standardization which has been pretty much taken care of. If you have ever seen a Munsel Colour Globe you will know what I mean. Someone had the brilliant idea to give colours dimensions so to speak so that everyone can be on the same page. Simply by giving numbers to value, hue and chroma, colours were standardized. It is still a strange concept until you get used to working with the system but with it any colour can be described.

It was done with weights and measures centuries ago, now it's been done with colour.

[fuelair]

I don't understand, fuelair.

I admitted I'm a novice in this area. I appreciate that you perceive my thoughts on this subject as naive and ill-informed.

Quite right. They are.

But I wish to learn. If you have studied philosophy yourself, please treat me as a enthousiastic first-year student and direct me towards further reading which you think might be helpful to me, given the current state of my ignorance. This is an Educational Forum, is it not ? Please teach me - but only if you want to, obviously.




Agree entirely.

Using the definition of 'objective' we're all agreed on ("reality irrespective of observers"), the objective nature of 'blue' light is only concerned with what happens after it leaves its source, which may include bumping into objects.

And at this stage, in the absence of any eye, it makes no sense to attach the label 'blue' to it; it is merely light of a certain wave-length.

Imagine the universe 4 billion years ago. The Earth has formed, but life has not yet emerged.

Imagine some light shining with a wave-length of 465 wotsits.

In what sense can one describe it as 'blue' ?

Yes, one can say that, given 4 billion years of evolution, a certain life-form might evolve which might develop sense-organs which might experience this wave-length as : ( imagine blue here )....

but how can that be part of the 'objective' reality, 4 billion years ago ?

who knew what kind of sense-organs would develop ?

colour-vision might never have evolved at all. there are loads of life-forms with mono-chromatic vision, or no vision at all; if colour-vision hadn't evolved, what possible sense would it make to label light of 465 wotsits 'blue' ?

'Blue light' is light of a certain wavelength, that's all.

Except it isn't.

As fuelair agrees.

In my first post, I threw in wave-particle duality. No-one's referred to what I said, but I stand by it.

Light's a wave if you look for a wave; if you look for a particle you find a particle.

Entirely observer-dependant.

So therefore no part of an 'objective' definition.




So, all one can say about blue light, with any certainty, is that it is light of a certain kind.




Anything else requires an observer, hypothetical or otherwise, and so can't be objective ("irrespective of any observers").





Gnu.


(Edit plus :

fuelair said

This is why some of us - even though we know philosophy - do respond poorly to those who develop philosophies that promote the idea that our minds are being played with and there is no reality (we are all Matrixed, we are all just random thoughts in the mind of an: alien, lower life form, animal, Dog, Krsna, FSM or whatever - or only one mind is real usually the OPers).

I wasn't trying to 'promote' that idea at all, fuelair...

but I do regard it as a possibility, nonetheless...
Just so you understand - I was NOT saying you were doing those things - I was saying that given what you had written it would be POSSIBLE that you would next develop more in that direction. That is why I started by saying there was not (yet) enough info for me to make a decision re:looney. Nothing you have said in response moves me in the direction of beginning to assume it - i.e. so far, so good!! We just tend to be touchey from the past - after awhile it gets harder not to attack first and ask questions later (look up light-is-life for a prime example). Oh, looneys do NOT get a smiley - from me anyway!!:) :)

[qayak]

I don't understand, fuelair.
Using the definition of 'objective' we're all agreed on ("reality irrespective of observers"), the objective nature of 'blue' light is only concerned with what happens after it leaves its source, which may include bumping into objects.

And at this stage, in the absence of any eye, it makes no sense to attach the label 'blue' to it; it is merely light of a certain wave-length.

You are mistaking a label for the actual colour. A label is used to easily identify a more complex concept. Humans are not equipped to measure the wavelength of light but we are equipped to identify its colour. That its colour is an indicator of wavelength just turned out to be a bonus for us.

Imagine the universe 4 billion years ago. The Earth has formed, but life has not yet emerged.

Imagine some light shining with a wave-length of 465 wotsits.

In what sense can one describe it as 'blue' ?

In the same sense that any light of that wavelength would be described as blue. The question you ask is superfluous.

In my first post, I threw in wave-particle duality. No-one's referred to what I said, but I stand by it.

Light's a wave if you look for a wave; if you look for a particle you find a particle.

Once again you make an error. The wave/particle duality of light is not what light is. It is a model that describes conflicting aspects of our perception of light. Your idea assumes that the model is correct which it isn't as we know. The model is just a way for us to understand things.

[CapelDodger]

Personally, I find the entire 'is your blue my blue' discussion pointless and silly.

Solipsism. 'Nuff said.

One guy's attitude towards a guy that's had his (the first guy's) sister can be compared to some other guy's yadda yadda ... Solipsism is a sorry alternative to the soap-opera going on all around us.

Blue is what the bluebells in my garden look like, and everybody thinks they're pretty.

[Gnu Ordure]

whoops, sorry, I just noticed I forgot to include a link in one of my earlier posts... when I said to ichneumonwasp :

Maybe you could read that one post, and confirm (or not) that I've understood you correctly ?

(And for those of you for whom life is also too short to read the whole 4 pages, this single short post happens to summarize my starting-point concisely).

sorry, I meant to include this :

http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?p=2526007&highlight=ichneumonwasp#post2526007

And I'd like you to know that the sub-editor responsible for this lapse has already been identified, charged, tried, and found guilty, and will never work in this town again.

It's the least I could do....



Gnu..

[Gnu Ordure]

Once again you make an error. The wave/particle duality of light is not what light is.



I didn't say it was, qayak. Wave/particle duality is an idea about the properties of light, it's not light itself, agreed.

(wiki: "In physics and chemistry, wave-particle duality is a conceptualization that all objects in our universe exhibit properties of both waves and of particles")

Which is why I'm saying that it's incorrect to describe 'blue light' as being a wave of a particular length.

It might just as accurately be described as being a stream of particles.



Whether to perceive light as being either wave or particle depends on the decision of the observer.



Therefore, waves or particles can't be part of the objective definition.





As you say, qayak :

"wave/particle duality of light is not what light is".

So tell me (since you seem to know) ...


... without reference to waves or particles ...


.... what is light, exactly ?



Gnu.

[Slimething]

.... what is light, exactly ?

Balsa wood, styrofoam, cork, feathers, dust bunnies, ... That's the best I can do to define light without refering to waves or particles.;)

[qayak]

Whether to perceive light as being either wave or particle depends on the decision of the observer.

Actually it probably depends more on the problem the observer is trying to deal with. Whichever model works better is the one they will use.

Therefore, waves or particles can't be part of the objective definition.

Each observer will see the same thing. The phenomenon is independent of the observer so it is objective. You are getting the model of light mixed up with light itself. You assume that how different observers interpret the information has an affect on the event itself. You and I both observe Young's double slit experiment. You interpret it using the particle theory and I interpret it using the wave theory. It is irrelelvent to the experiment. We both observed the same thing but we are using two different theories to explain it.

As you say, qayak :

"wave/particle duality of light is not what light is".

So tell me (since you seem to know) ...


... without reference to waves or particles ...


.... what is light, exactly ?

A lot better minds than mine have failed at this one. If you were reading the other thread where someone linked Richard Dawkins' talk on somethings in science being "stranger than we can imagine," this is one of those things. We use the wave/particle duality to describe light because we understand waves and particles and they have some features in common with light. However, neither describes all we observe about light so we know neither is correct. Light must be something different yet, but what? Is it too strange for us to even imagine?



Gnu.[/QUOTE]

[qayak]

Which is why I'm saying that it's incorrect to describe 'blue light' as being a wave of a particular length.

It might just as accurately be described as being a stream of particles.


It is not incorrect to describe blue light as being light with a certain wavelength, that is a fact. The stream of particles desription does not explain why the light is blue, the wave description does. That is the reason for the two models, each has advantages depending on the circumstance.

[drkitten]

Could you lob a citation this direction? This is an area of much interest for me, and I am unaware of this finding.

I couldn't find the direct citation, but here's a way someone managed to do it via (abnormal) retinal stimulation (http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1983Sci...221.1078C).

Isn't science cool?

[Molinaro]

Mental masturbation. All of it. I can't imagine the blisters you must have after such a marathon of verbal wanking.

I'm not even sure where to begin with such silliness. A wavelength is 'objective', as it exists independently of my interpretation of it. A colour is a description of that wavelength. Indeed, there are issues that are raised when we introduce variation in retinal sensitivity and colour blindness, but if you show a chart and say 'this is the colour blue', that same perceived colour will remain defined as blue for all every time I see that wavelength. Hence you won't get '95.6%' or whatever nonsense number you pulled out of nowhere, but you'd get everybody agreeing that that was blue.

(ETA: colour blindness resulting from a reduction in the types of retinal cells means we will confuse wavelengths of light with one another. This is not a subjectivity of the wavelength, but rather a processing problem of light wavelengths. Therefore there are subjective perceptions of colour patterning, but the colour itself as a stimulus is objective enough).

Subjective experience would create disagreement, where my cut off for what I term 'blue' is different to yours, but that's a matter of semantics and not of subjectivity of the nature of colour.

Hell, if you want to define colour as the perception resulting after the photon hits the eye, be my guest. Who cares?

Man, why did I just enter this loony discussion?

Athon

Actualy that is 100% wrong. You can verify it with the following experiment:

Part 1

- In a dark room have 3 spot lights, 1 red, 1 green and 1 blue.
- On a black wall place a 1 foot square colored blue.
- Set the 3 lights to equal intensity and shine them on the square, and you will see it as a blue square.
- Use a photometer to measure the light reflected off the blue square and you will see that it agrees with your assertion that the wavelength of the reflected light is in fact blue.


Part 2

- Vary the intensity of the 3 spot lights until the square no longer looks blue.
- The photometer will agree that the wavelength of the reflected light is no longer blue.

Part 3 (the interesting part!)

- Instead of having just the 1 blue square on the wall, surround it with other squares of the same size, that are different colors, such as yellow, green, red, etc...
- Vary the lights so that the photometer registers something other than blue reflecting off the blue square and low and behold .. it still looks blue!

The absolute wavelength of the light reflecting off an object does not determine the colour you see. Your interpretation of the colour of an object is actualy dependant on the colour of adjacent objects, moreso than the absolute wavelenght of the light reflecting off of it.




And, on another note. I don't see your objection at the end of your post as being what is in question. I may call all blue objects blue, just like someone else will always call those objects blue. However, the experience of seeing blue in my mind may well be indentical to what your mind experiences when seeing yellow. There is no way of knowing if our experiences of a particular colour are the same as someone else's experiences.

[Gnu Ordure]

Balsa wood, styrofoam, cork, feathers, dust bunnies, ... That's the best I can do to define light without refering to waves or particles.

Indeed, slimething.

And we're agreed, I hope, that naming the end-result of our vision process (this cork, that feather), does not help us to define the nature of light.

And as qayak says, using waves or particles is inadequate:

However, neither describes all we observe about light so we know neither is correct. Light must be something different yet, but what?


(I don't know, qayak. I was hoping you could tell me....)



We are trying to agree on an absolutely certain objective ("irrespective of observer") definition of 'blue light'.

Molinaro, thank you for contribution, but I'm not sure that it's necessary; I said yesterday :

One thought, though. I'm not trying to state beyond all doubt that all people with normal vision have a standard response to a particular stimulus, so I think that part of the discussion is a bit of a red herring.

Or a reddish herring, anyway.

The point, whatever we each see in response to "light with a wave-length of 465 mn", we see something.. We each have an experience of "465mn-ness".

And for this experience (vision) to happen, it is absloutely necessary for light to enter an eye and then be transformed by the brain into vision.

This experience simply cannot happen without eyes. Without observers.

So the concept of vision (which includes colour) cannot be any part of an objective definition of light, because light is invisible until it enters an eye.


Exactly the same as the tree falling in the forest. When it hits the ground, it creates mechanical vibrations in a medium which emanate from this source. An objective definition of this phenomenom is only concerned with these vibrations, including how they travel and how they interact and bounce off any objects (any object except an ear, that is).

In the absense of observers (no ears+brain), the objective definition of the sound-wave cannot include speculation as to how these vibrations might be experienced, after entering an ear, as hearing.

So, without ears, the forest is silent.


Vibrations (sound-waves) are inaudible until they enter an ear.

Light is invisible until it enters an eye.





Hmm, I'm not sure where this argument is going...

... pause for feedback indicated ...



Light is invisible until it enters an eye.

Is that correct ? Or not ?


Gnu.



PS Editplus - Maybe a better way to put it would be :

"Objects are invisible until light bounces off them into an eye".


That seems to make more sense, doesn't it ? The principle's the same.

[Molinaro]

The main point of my post is that what people were saying was wrong. Just because light of 465nm enters my eye and yours does not mean we see the same colour. You have to also consider what else is being seen, at the same time.

[Gnu Ordure]

qayak, I don't get it...

first you say:

However, neither (wave nor particle) describes all we observe about light so we know neither is correct.

I agree.

But 20 minutes later, in your next sentence almost, you said :

It is not incorrect to describe blue light as being light with a certain wavelength, that is a fact.

First incorrect, then correct...

I guess what you mean is that the second definition is true only in certain circumstances.

If so, fine, I agree.

But that disqualifies it as an objective definition.

[Dancing David]

I didn't say it was, qayak. Wave/particle duality is an idea about the properties of light, it's not light itself, agreed.

(wiki: "In physics and chemistry, wave-particle duality is a conceptualization that all objects in our universe exhibit properties of both waves and of particles")

Which is why I'm saying that it's incorrect to describe 'blue light' as being a wave of a particular length.

It might just as accurately be described as being a stream of particles.


Whoops that is a semantic argument.

The partcicle exhibit a feature reffered to as wavelenth irregardless. the wave partcile duality is a false duality, partciles are waves all the time.

Light appears to exist, it also appears to have a wavelenth by objective standards, it also appears as a smallish particle that is bounded by the Heisenberg Indeterminancy Priciple.

If the consensus of the population is to call a particular wavelenth 'blue' or 'azul', then it is by consesus of the self referencing set of symbols.

However Merc made a very good point. Pure blue may not exist in that there may not be a wavelenth universaly called blue (if I did not misunderstand).



Whether to perceive light as being either wave or particle depends on the decision of the observer.
{/quote]
Arbitary thought construct jammed onto light, it is both a wave form and comes in discrete packets.
[quote]


Therefore, waves or particles can't be part of the objective definition.

If siotropy applies and all observers report the same findings than it is objective. it is both all the time.






As you say, qayak :

"wave/particle duality of light is not what light is".

So tell me (since you seem to know) ...


... without reference to waves or particles ...


.... what is light, exactly ?



Gnu.

Silly question, silly point, light is both objectively you can measure both quantities or qualities regardless of who the observer/ measurer is.

[Dancing David]

qayak, I don't get it...

first you say:



I agree.

But 20 minutes later, in your next sentence almost, you said :



First incorrect, then correct...

I guess what you mean is that the second definition is true only in certain circumstances.

If so, fine, I agree.

But that disqualifies it as an objective definition.

Perhaps you need to stop and think, and read what Merc wrote?

You also need to reread what qayak wrote. Something may not describe all of a thing but describe part of it.

[drkitten]

PS Editplus - Maybe a better way to put it would be :

"Objects are invisible until light bounces off them into an eye".


Only in a world without photographs.

That seems to make more sense, doesn't it ? The principle's the same.

Perhaps. It clarifies what you're saying, but it also illustrates a substantial problem.

I can take a picture of an object without my seeing it. Indeed, I've rigged security cameras and such several times. The object interacts with the light, which in turn interacts with the camera. Later, if there is a need, I can pull the videotape and look at the image -- but if the night has been quiet, I will just re-tape over the old image without ever looking at it.

I don't think that you can claim that the image on the videotape is in any way subjective. I don't think you can claim that the object whose photograph I've captured via remote control is in any way subjective. The reality underlying the image is entirely objective -- only my personal experience of the picture is in any way subjective. And the camera clearly serves to separate the objective nature of the object from the subjective nature of my viewing, since I never actually view the object, but only its photograph.

And again, we're in a position where we can divide the world (in this case, very cleanly) into "subjective" and "objective" -- and once again, there's no room for "consensus." The image on the tape is objective, and my experience of what I saw on it is subjective, even if seven or eight or a thousand other people watched that tape at some point.

Otherwise, there's the following problem:

I make the tape on Sunday.
On Monday, I watch the tape and obtain a "subjective" experience of its contents.
On Tuesday, someone else watches the same and obtains their view of its contents. I hold that these are both subjective experiences -- you hold that somehow, the second viewing shifts the reality of the subjective impression into "consensus reality."

But how does someone else's experience on Tuesday, an experience that I not only do not share, but may not even be aware of -- it might be separated from me by a distance of several thousand miles! -- how does this other person's experience change mine??

[Gnu Ordure]

If siotropy applies....

if what ?



... I told you I was out of my depth...


I'll go and look it up, David, and I'll get back to you if I can make sense of what you're saying.



what is light, exactly ?

Silly question...


I don't see why, David.

Physicists and philosophers have been addressing this exact question for centuries - and we don't seem to have found a certain answer yet... so why do you say it's a silly question ?

As gayak says

A lot better minds than mine have failed at this one.







you then say :

light is both, objectively you can measure both quantities or qualities regardless of who the observer/ measurer is.

... but not at the same time, David, isn't that the point ?

At any moment, you have to choose; one or the other.

And surely, then you also have to specify where the observer is in relation to what is being measured, and particularly how fast the observer is moving.

Because that effects the length of object being measured.

Which in this case, is the length of a light-wave.

Hence the Doppler effect and red-shift, right ?




So the wave-nature of light (or the particle nature) is dependant on the circumstances of the observer.

But I'm interested in the objective nature of light (what it is, irrespective of observers). So models of waves or particles are inadequate.




In other words...



My question is : What was the nature of the universe 4 billion years ago ?

Before life. Before sense-organs.

(I'm assuming no extra-terrestial life exists - if it does, go back another 2 billlion years to before that life evolved).





What did the universe look like 4 billion years ago ?




Now, that's a silly question, David.

At that time, there were no eyes, so the universe couldn't look like anything.

How could it ?

Before the advent of life, the universe was completely dark, (or invisible), inaudible, unsmellable, untasteable, and untouchable.

And so on, for whatever different sense-impressions different life-forms might eventually evolve....

Because all those qualities are a function of life.

And 4 billion years ago, there was no life.



Genesis, Chapter 1, verses 1 and 2 :

"In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth".

"And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep".



Since I'm not a Christian, I would re-state the first verse as :

"In the beginning, the heaven and the earth started in a Big Bang".

Otherwise, it fits what I'm saying. From the creation of the universe 13 billion years ago until the development of life on this planet 3.5 billion years ago, the universe ("the earth") was 'without form'.


So, describing light 4 billion years ago using models such as wave or particle, or invoking concepts such as 'vision', is invalid, because it assumes observers who can perceive light as waves or particles, and who can experience 'vision'.

In fact, there were no observers at that time.

So what was the nature of light, at that time ?


Gnu.

[Wat Tyler]

So, describing light 4 billion years ago using models such as wave or particle, or invoking concepts such as 'vision', is invalid, because it assumes observers who can perceive light as waves or particles, and who can experience 'vision'.

In fact, there were no observers at that time.

So what was the nature of light, at that time ?

Gnu.

The presence (or, indeed, the absence) of 'intelligent' observers possessing eyes and brains to perceive the presence of light has no actual bearing on its objective reality/existence/nature - the presence (or otherwise) of observers only has bearing upon the said observers' subjective perceptions of the phenomenon under discussion.

As others have noted, each of us perceives reality in an entirely subjective manner, and it is not possible to objectively determine whether or not your brain perceives the 'colour' that we have all agreed to call 'blue' in exactly the same way that mine does.

One could take the fact that people have different 'favourite' colours to indicate that we perceive these 'colours' differently, and that e.g. the way in which your sensory apparatus represents the colour that we all call 'yellow' to your mind is, in fact, identical to the way in which my sensory apparatus represents the colour that we all call 'red' to my mind.

But, as noted before, there is absolutely no way of determining whether or not this is the case.

The only way that 'consensus reality' exists is that we all learn to apply the same labels to the same objects/experiences - e.g. 'cat' 'cold', 'blue', etc.

No-one can ever directly experience either anyone else's subjective experience of 'reality', or indeed 'objective reality' itself - all of our perceptions are entirely subjective, and governed by our genetic, cultural, and experiential heritages.

With my apologies to Mr. Donne, each of us is (in terms of perception and experience) an island, unless one is a solipsist, in which case everything and everyone else is merely a figment of his/her fervid mind.
:D

[Gnu Ordure]

The presence (or, indeed, the absence) of 'intelligent' observers possessing eyes and brains to perceive the presence of light has no actual bearing on its objective reality/existence/nature - the presence (or otherwise) of observers only has bearing upon the said observers' subjective perceptions of the phenomenon under discussion.



I agree entirely, wat.

And my question remains... in the absense of such observers, what can truthfully be said about the "objective reality/existence/nature" of light ?


All we seem to have is that 'light' is 'electro-magnetic radiation of a certain kind'.


ie a synonym.


Gnu.

[Gnu Ordure]

If siotropy applies

sorry, David, I did go and look...

but 'siotropy' means nothing to wiki, and googling it produces a mere 7 hits, none of which clarifies it..

you're going to have to explain what you mean in other terms, I think....

(Edit +

...hang on, I just realized you might have made a typo, and googled 'isotropy' - that seems pertinent... is that what you meant ? I still need to go and read about it though...)

[Gnu Ordure]

drK,

I'm not sure what you're trying to say by introducing recording equipment into the equation.

I don't think that you can claim that the image on the videotape is in any way subjective. I don't think you can claim that the object whose photograph I've captured via remote control is in any way subjective




Yes, I can.

The photograph of the reality will be perceived according to the kind of sense-organ that perceives it, just as the reality itself would...

If the sense-organ belongs to another person with normal human vision. it will perceived as you and I see it.

If it belongs to a person with red-green blindness, it will be perceived differently.

If the sense-organ belongs to a dog, it will be perceived in black and white, with some yellow-red diffentiation.

If it belongs to a honey-bee, the compound nature of the eye plus a different colour-vision system produces a very different experience.

The experience of light (or a photograph) depends on the nature of the organ that perceives it.

I call that 'subjective'...




Whereas I'm interested in light prior to perception...


.

[drkitten]

Exactly my point.


The photograph of the reality will be perceived according to the kind of sense-organ that perceives it, just as the reality itself would...

[...]


The experience of light (or a photograph) depends on the nature of the organ that perceives it.

I call that 'subjective'...


As well you should. Because the experience of the photograph is indeed subjective, as any experience is.

But the photograph itself is objecive.

The experience of the photograph is not the photograph, any more than a picture of food is the food itself.


The photograph is entirely objective, as is the object photographed, and as is the light that went into making the photogtaph. There is no possibility of subjectivity, since there's no subject to do the observing and experiencing.

[Gnu Ordure]

We just tend to be touchey from the past - after awhile it gets harder not to attack first and ask questions later (look up light-is-life for a prime example).

hi fuelair...

I couldn't find this reference last week, finally did this morning...

Whoah !!!

I see the problem. I read the first 4 or 5 pages, noting the recommendations that lightislife may be suffering from mental illness, and should seek help...

... as well as noting that there wasn't much of an argument there, because lightislife didn't actually present one.

He did have a very pretty graph, though.

I also noted that page one of his web-site refers to Adam and Eve and the story of the Creation in the Bible. Whoah ! Loony alert indeed...

Not to mention stupid...

What reasonable person, posting on a Physics forum for the first time, would think that it might help his argument to refer to creation myths in religious books... ?



You'd never catch me doing something stupid like that.




Gnu.

[Dancing David]

if what ?

Sorry, isotropy. The priciple that the laws of physics (so called) are universal and applied to all space time at a given moment, there is also isotropy across time after the inflationary period of the Big band Event. It is an axiom of most science.

... I told you I was out of my depth...

That is cool. :cool:, qwe all swim in the pool you are as capable as every body else. perhaps not familiar with the nature of the JREF.

I'll go and look it up, David, and I'll get back to you if I can make sense of what you're saying.

I don't see why, David.

Physicists and philosophers have been addressing this exact question for centuries - and we don't seem to have found a certain answer yet... so why do you say it's a silly question ?

To know the exactr nature of given thing is not possible? We are limited by the constraints of organic existance and the nature of the thing we are trying to study. It would appear that certain things can not be known exactly. In general human thoughts are maps of the reality we appear to exist in. They are approximations of the reality. We can approximate and predict the future behavior of the reality through the process of oberserving reality and testing theories through the methods of science. But the "law of gravity" does not exist, in an exact sense, it is a cognitive model that predicts the behavior of observed reality.

So to question if light is a wave or a partcile is silly, because it behaves as though it is both at the same time. that is what we observe, it is a wave all the time. it has the properties of a particle as well, as limited by the Schoedinger wave form and HIP.

Wave vs. particle is a cognitive construct.


As gayak says









you then say :



... but not at the same time, David, isn't that the point ?

Both all the time, not just at a given moment. We may only measure at one time, but it has the properties (cognitive asssociative groups used to characterise the observed behaviors of 'objects'.) of both a wave and a particle at the same time, all the time.

At any moment, you have to choose; one or the other.

If you want to see something wierd, look for pictures of Bose-Einstien Condensate. You will see that 'solid' things like Cesium atoms in a clump act like they are waves and 'collapse' to a single point. They are particles and waves at the same time. Partcicles are waves, waves are particles all the time.


And surely, then you also have to specify where the observer is in relation to what is being measured, and particularly how fast the observer is moving.

Because that effects the length of object being measured.

Which in this case, is the length of a light-wave.

Hence the Doppler effect and red-shift, right ?

You can measure the frequency (wave) of a single photon (particle). Wavelenth is dependant upon the relative motions of the participants. the speed of light is constant which provides for the frequency shift. But the quanta come in discrete lumps, they have a size limited by quantum mechanics (those are particle properties) and they have frequency and travel through a blobby area of speace and are subject to Schroedinger equations (those are wave properties).

They appear to do so all the time.

So the wave-nature of light (or the particle nature) is dependant on the circumstances of the observer.

No, not really. It is both all the time.


But I'm interested in the objective nature of light (what it is, irrespective of observers). So models of waves or particles are inadequate.

Unknowable, can not be determined, can only be approximated and observed and tested. Photons could be really small monkeys on motor scooters , as long as they follow the observations. (However they would probably break apart in a gravitational field. Which is not observed.)






In other words...



My question is : What was the nature of the universe 4 billion years ago ?

Before life. Before sense-organs.

(I'm assuming no extra-terrestial life exists - if it does, go back another 2 billlion years to before that life evolved).





What did the universe look like 4 billion years ago ?




Now, that's a silly question, David.
No that is not a silly question, and I am sorry there are no silly questions, just silly answers.

I will respond below.


At that time, there were no eyes, so the universe couldn't look like anything.

How could it ?

Before the advent of life, the universe was completely dark, (or invisible), inaudible, unsmellable, untasteable, and untouchable.

And so on, for whatever different sense-impressions different life-forms might eventually evolve....

Because all those qualities are a function of life.

And 4 billion years ago, there was no life.


Good question and it has an answer, or at least an approximate explanation which matches observations.

Light takes time to traverse space, the speed of light appears to be a constant. this is supported by observations of the spectra of distant stars, there is some reason that the spectra would be different if the speed c was not a constant.

So it would appear that c is constant. And so one can assume that certain things we observe about distant objects are also true. Or at least observationaly true, could be the World of Tiers. So the compostion of materials in distant stars is likely to be observationaly true, as is the expansion of the universe and a host of other things.

So if we look at the obect with the deepest redshift z we can observe the light from an object that is very close to the begining of time. And we can make assumptions about the objects that generated that light a very long time ago.

So we can observe events that look as though they occured a very long time ago . I think the deepest red shift z is like 13 billions years old.

That is a very long time ago. The background microwave radiation comes from a time 'shortly' after the Big Band Event. Even longer ago.

Unless we are Brain in Vats.

Genesis, Chapter 1, verses 1 and 2 :

"In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth".

"And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep".



Since I'm not a Christian, I would re-state the first verse as :

"In the beginning, the heaven and the earth started in a Big Bang".

Huh, the Cow came and licked the Ice.

Thoth and Nu got it on.

Otherwise, it fits what I'm saying. From the creation of the universe 13 billion years ago until the development of life on this planet 3.5 billion years ago, the universe ("the earth") was 'without form'.

So the light from teh Andromeda galaxy came from where?

The light from early galaxies came from where?



So, describing light 4 billion years ago using models such as wave or particle, or invoking concepts such as 'vision', is invalid, because it assumes observers who can perceive light as waves or particles, and who can experience 'vision'.

Solipism?

In fact, there were no observers at that time.

So what was the nature of light, at that time ?

the same as it is now. Apparently , a wave and a particle at the same time.


Gnu.

[Dancing David]

drK,

I'm not sure what you're trying to say by introducing recording equipment into the equation.






Yes, I can.

The photograph of the reality will be perceived according to the kind of sense-organ that perceives it, just as the reality itself would...

If the sense-organ belongs to another person with normal human vision. it will perceived as you and I see it.

If it belongs to a person with red-green blindness, it will be perceived differently.

If the sense-organ belongs to a dog, it will be perceived in black and white, with some yellow-red diffentiation.

If it belongs to a honey-bee, the compound nature of the eye plus a different colour-vision system produces a very different experience.

The experience of light (or a photograph) depends on the nature of the organ that perceives it.

I call that 'subjective'...




Whereas I'm interested in light prior to perception...


.

If you wish please continue with solipism please do so.

You can not know "things in and of themselves", or neoumena (sp?) or whatever the word is.

"That is just the way it is, somethings will never change..."
B. Hornsby.

[Gnu Ordure]

hi david,

that's fascinating, thanks - will reply later...

... but for now, you messed up the quote box in your post, so for most of it I appear to be saying what you're saying - I can follow it, but others might appreciate a correction.

The background microwave radiation comes from a time 'shortly' after the Big Band Event. Even longer ago.

If you're going to edit it, David, you might take the oppportunity to expound on this Big Band Event, another term that I'm not familiar with.

I have so much to learn....

You're saying that cosmic background microwave radiation comes from sometime in the 1950's, shortly after Dizzy Gillespie appeared with his revolutionary new format at the Carnegie Hall ?

I didn't know that...

Gnu.

[Wat Tyler]

And my question remains... in the absense of such observers, what can truthfully be said about the "objective reality/existence/nature" of light ?

Gnu.

Self-evidently, the answer to that question is this:
"Nothing - because there is no-one around to say it".

BTW, I love your nom de plume - doubleplusgood!

Slainte,
WT

[Dancing David]

hi david,

that's fascinating, thanks - will reply later...

... but for now, you messed up the quote box in your post, so for most of it I appear to be saying what you're saying - I can follow it, but others might appreciate a correction.



If you're going to edit it, David, you might take the oppportunity to expound on this Big Band Event, another term that I'm not familiar with.

I have so much to learn....

You're saying that cosmic background microwave radiation comes from sometime in the 1950's, shortly after Dizzy Gillespie appeared with his revolutionary new format at the Carnegie Hall ?

I didn't know that...

Gnu.

Sorry about the messed up quote, you appear to be having quite a debate with yourself.

I will try to get it fixed.

the Big Band Event is originaly a typo I made, that I have found to be entertaining and a great analogy.

[Gnu Ordure]

The Big Band Event is originaly a typo I made, that I have found to be entertaining and a great analogy.



uh-huh, David ....

let me see if I've got this right...

you make unintentional typos of words I've never heard of, like isotropy and neumenon, and intentional typos of words I do know, like big bang ...

... which then makes me look stupid when I try to make a joke about what I thought was an unintentional typo, but which everyone else knew was intentional, but I didn't because I'm new here ....

... after already looking stupid for not knowing, unlike everyone else, that siotropy was a typo...

...and I'm also stupid, for having only just noticed that you made the Big Band 'typo' twice in your post, which would have implied a certain deliberation...

... if I had spotted it.




Oh, I get it.... I'm slow, right ?




Sorry, took me a while to get there, because I'm a bit sl...





oh, right...







That really is rather clever, David.... without directly addressing the details of my argument, you have nevertheless managed to conclusively demonstrate my stupidity in three entirely distinct ways...


... sigh ...


I'm waaaay out of my depth in this Forum ...


BTW, I love your nom de plume - doubleplusgood!


What, really ?

or, allowing for typos...

Wat, really ?

I'd like to take your compliment at face value, but I hope you appreciate my caution at this present time.

Especially as I am disturbed by your use of the word 'doubleplusgood', and I'm still trying to understand the significance of this reference to Orwellian mind-control...

Are you trying to tell me something about David ?











.

[Dancing David]

uh-huh, David ....

let me see if I've got this right...

you make unintentional typos of words I've never heard of, like isotropy and neumenon, and intentional typos of words I do know, like big bang ...

Uh, I have to admit I make a lot of typos and I can't spell in general, I am dysphonetic, phonics don't work for me. You will see plenty of typos in my posts, all the time. Even after I proof them.


... which then makes me look stupid when I try to make a joke about what I thought was an unintentional typo, but which everyone else knew was intentional, but I didn't because I'm new here ....

I would not assume that people know what i am doing at all, that is an unwarranted assumption. many people get my sense of humor, many don't. And sometimes I have to ask my wife why something is funny, really, especialy in movies.


... after already looking stupid for not knowing, unlike everyone else, that siotropy was a typo...

I can list all my typos if you like, they are in the hunfreds if not thousands on the board.

I mis-spelled isotropy, and I apologise again.


...and I'm also stupid, for having only just noticed that you made the Big Band 'typo' twice in your post, which would have implied a certain deliberation...

I don't have a problem with that, I have a hard time reading computer screens and with reading in general. I love to read but I am a slow reader and sometimes I can't scan all the data of the screen with my eyes, often I misread stuff in posts as well.


... if I had spotted it.




Oh, I get it.... I'm slow, right ?




Sorry, took me a while to get there, because I'm a bit sl...

That was not my intention, I regret that is your perception of my behavior.






oh, right...







That really is rather clever, David.... without directly addressing the details of my argument, you have nevertheless managed to conclusively demonstrate my stupidity in three entirely distinct ways...


What? I did adress your argument. The nature of the evidence, which is apparent, is that the universe in very old and consistant to a certain degree across time.

I say apparent because we can not garuntee that we are not Brains in Vats.



... sigh ...


I'm waaaay out of my depth in this Forum ...

We are all out of our depth all the time, the 'bottom of the pool is illusion. We can only know the nature of how our thoughts approximate the behavior of observable reality. The 'bottom of the pool' is an illusion. It is very deep and we just learn to not think about it.






What, really ?

or, allowing for typos...

Wat, really ?

I'd like to take your compliment at face value, but I hope you appreciate my caution at this present time.

Especially as I am disturbed by your use of the word 'doubleplusgood', and I'm still trying to understand the significance of this reference to Orwellian mind-control...

It would help the conversation if you use the quote button at the lower right part of the screen. That way you can limit your comments and keep the responses more together. You can also use :square bracket:quote:square bracket: and :square bracket: /quote :square bracket to offset quotes as you noted that I messed up in a prior post. Sometimes these threads will involve three to five seperate conversations and they can be extended.

But feel free to not do so, I do not mean more to make a suggestion and have no desire to boss you around.


Are you trying to tell me something about David ?











.

There is an intimacy that people feel when posting on bulletin boards that lacks the general contextual framing of speech shown by faces and the pace of speech. I meant no slam upon you, if I mean to insult you I will say something like "Your mother was a hamster and your father smelled of elderberry!"

It is best to not take things to personaly on the board, you will find that I apologise more than most.

[Dancing David]

On the use of the Big Band Event:

Usefull analogies and metaphors.

-we can not know what the hall looked like or who was there before the band began to play.

-we can not determine if there was a composer or if the band is just jamming.

-there is a unity to the music which may be intentional or may be a product of the behavior of the individual musicians.

-the forces of the universe may be things like key and meter, they are arbirary and not relevant except for the coordination of the musicans. And they may be illusiory.

-the time it takes light to traverse the universe allows us to listen to the music from the past.

[Wat Tyler]

What, really ?

or, allowing for typos...

Wat, really ?


;)


I'd like to take your compliment at face value, but I hope you appreciate my caution at this present time.


Your caution is understandable, but I did actually mean it as a compliment on your choice of moniker, honest.

It amuses me very much.


Especially as I am disturbed by your use of the word 'doubleplusgood', and I'm still trying to understand the significance of this reference to Orwellian mind-control...


I didn't mean anything by it other than the compliment, although clearly I should have anticipated that its source would effectively imply some sort of veiled insult.

Mea culpa.


Now: did I answer your previous question correctly?
:D

[Gnu Ordure]

many people get my sense of humor, many don't.

me too, david, me too...


for example, my last post was simply an extended joke which really required no further response from you than a simple "Heh-heh", rather than the sentence by sentence reply that you gave it.

but I think you may have missed it...

... (see your quote above)


And I certainly didn't think that you were insulting me, or anything of the sort, OK ?

And thank you for the information on your dyslexia...

(And I liked your Big Band metaphor explanation as well....)


I did actually mean it as a compliment on your choice of moniker, honest.

It amuses me very much.


That's good, Wat. I like to amuse.


And I admit, I like to be amused.


Occasionally I amuse myself. Which is good in terms of the carbon-footprint, as it cuts out the middleman....



... but there's no substitute for a real cyber-friend, is there ?

Now: did I answer your previous question correctly?

I don't know, Wat.

I don't presume to know the correct answer.

I'm just asking.



But your answer, that ultimate truths cannot be put into words, sounds reasonable to me ..




(But those are just my words, of course....)




Gnu.

[Dancing David]

me too, david, me too...


for example, my last post was simply an extended joke which really required no further response from you than a simple "Heh-heh", rather than the sentence by sentence reply that you gave it.

but I think you may have missed it...

... (see your quote above)


And I certainly didn't think that you were insulting me, or anything of the sort, OK ?

And thank you for the information on your dyslexia...

(And I liked your Big Band metaphor explanation as well....)







Tecnicaly it is dysphonia, so the post i responded to was a joke, it helps to have the :) smiley or the ;) wink for us humor challenged. Which post was the funny one?

[Wat Tyler]

But your answer, that ultimate truths cannot be put into words, sounds reasonable to me ..


Actually, my answer was "if no-one is there to say anything, nothing can be said, because no-one is there to say it"....

What is an 'ultimate truth', and does it take salt or sugar on its porridge?
:D

[Gnu Ordure]

Which post was the funny one?

The one you laughed at, David.... all the rest were deadly serious...

Actually, my answer was "if no-one is there to say anything, nothing can be said, because no-one is there to say it"....

Yes I know Wat, but because what you said is a truism, I inferred that what you were referring to was something like the tenet of Buddhism and similar philosophies, that the nature of objective reality cannot be encapsulated in words.

Because words, (and the meanings we necessarily attach to them), are human inventions, symbols which are one step removed from reality.

Hence, Zen teachers ask their students questions (koans) about reality which are meant to be answered non-verbally. A verbal response is wrong, by virtue of being verbal.


Is that what you meant ?

Or am I missing your point ?

Either way, I'm agreeing with David when he says :

It would appear that certain things can not be known exactly. In general human thoughts are maps of the reality we appear to exist in. They are approximations of the reality.


or, as he said, in response to my question about the objective nature of light, that nature is :

Unknowable, can not be determined, can only be approximated and observed and tested.


So, going back to my original point...

I'm saying that all these approximations, observations and tests are a product of consensus reality... even if the individual observations are necessarily subjective, collectively they constitute a more reliable basis for knowledge than just one person's experience.

ie they constitute 'science'.

And so, 'Science' is the best we've got.

But 'Science' can say nothing with certainty about objective reality.



Apparently.




Gnu.