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What does reality look like?
What would "reality" look like outside the brain?:
Variations in Perception and their Significance
Ever had a conversation with a friend that goes something like, "How can you eat that?," you ask as she piles ketchup and mustard on her french fries, “How can you not? It tastes great!” she replies. Or, ever wonder why people look disgusted when you claim to actually LIKE eating something like, say, brussel sprouts? Ever have an argument with someone over whether two colors match or not? Do people compliment you on your abilities to paint a realistic picture of a sunset?
The more we understand about the nervous system the more these type of exchanges make sense. We experience and make sense of the world via our nervous system. Our nervous systems differ from one another—differences that may be due to a lot of things, including genetics, experience, random events. Because our brains are different, we therefore experience the world differently.
Let’s look at a few cases where differences in perception can be directly related to nervous system differences among people. Then let’s talk about how we might generalize from these and what it all implies about the notion of “reality”.
Seeing: Color Vision, or Is color in the world or in the brain?
What is light? Light is electromagnetic radiation. It is emitted from the sun (pure sunlight is called "white light"). White light is a mixture of waves of varying wavelengths. When it hits an object, what object absorbs some of the lightwaves and reflects the rest. The light that is reflected is what our eyes detect.
The retina on the back of each eye contains neurons (photoreceptors) that respond (via electrical signals) to light. Among the types of photoreceptors are rods and cones. Cone cells are the first step in the nervous system that gives rise to the experience of color (phototopic vision).
There are three types of cone cells in the eye, each of which is tuned to respond most strongly to a particular wavelength: short-, medium-, and long-wavelength cones (S-cones, M-cones, L-cones, respectively).
S-cones respond to light around 400-550 nm in wavelength, with the highest sensitivity around 445 nm. M-cones respond to light around 400-675 nm, maximally at around 535. Finally, L-cones respond at around 450-700 nm, maximally at 575 nm.
From HyperPhysics
The important things to note are that the absorption range of each type overlaps with the others so most wavelengths of light activate not one but two or more, and that all a single cone essentially does is capture light and report something about its relative wavelength. A single cone does not tell you anything about color. So where does color come from then?
The experience of color comes first from the combined activation of all three types of cones. A wave of a particular length will activate a unique ratio of short:medium:long cones. For example, light of wavelength 535 will yield a maxium response from medium wavelength cones; however, both short and long wavelength cones will still respond, just not as intensely.
People experience colors differently, whether only slightly or drastically, due to variations in their nervous systems. One way that this can arise is differences from one person to another in the absorption ranges and maximum peaks of wavelengths that cone cells respond to. That is, a light wave of length x will yield a different ratio of responses from short-, medium-, and long-wavelength cones.
In the illustration above, the same lightwave (579 nm) is reaching the woman’s and man's eyes. However, due to differences in their cone cells, they may experience different colors. The woman might say "I see a bright green color", while the man might say "I see a green color tinted with blue".
Colorblindness
Is someone who is color blind, really color blind? No, because color is experienced by the brain. Color is not a property of the material world. Wavelength is, but color is not. People who are red-green color blind, for example, simply experience the same wavelengths differently.
It might seem that trichromats (normally sighted) are superior to dichromats (red-green color blind, among other types). When shown a color photograph, trichromats may be able to more easily discern certain objects. In a black and white photo, or to dichromats, certain objects may be difficult to discern if an object's luminance is similar to the background or if the illumination casts random shadows. In this case, normally sighted individuals are advantaged. However, there are certain cases where being a dichromat may actually be advantegous. Colorblind individuals have been thought by some to be superior at penetrating camouflage, whether in military combat or in the natural world. The first study that empirically tested the idea that colorblind individuals may be more advantaged in certain ways found that dichromats were superior to trichromats at detecting texture and shape than a normally sighted group.
Tasting: Supertasters
We all have food preferences, food we like to eat and food we don't. But is this a matter of preference or do foods actually taste different to different people? It seems that at least part of our preference actually has to do with different taste sensations and resulting from differences in the nervous system. But how are these preferences influenced by our own unique experience of taste? Research on tasting has revealed that taste is more varied than once thought. Scientists have designated three categories based on subjective reports of taste sensation as well structural differences in peripheral anatomy: non-tasters (25% of the population), tasters (50%), and supertasters (25%).
The perception of taste begins in the tongue. Our tongues contain hundreds of bump-like structures called fungiform papillae. Within these are our tastebuds, stuctures that contain gustatory receptor cells. These receptor cells transduce signals and send information to peripheral neurons. Each receptor cell has a hair-like structure that protrudes from the taste pore and binds molecules in the saliva. When a food molecule comes in contact with a hair, the receptor cell signals information (via neurotransmitters) to neurons leading to the central nervous system and into the cortex.
The term supertaster doesn't imply that food necessarily tastes better (or super), rather it means that supertasters seem to experience more intense and nuanced sensations in response to particular compounds (or flavors) in food. Put another way, they have a heightened sensitivity to taste relative to others in the population. Researchers have found a correlation among supertasters and the reported sensitivity to a compound called propylthiouracil (PROP). PROP is frequently used as a test for supertastering. It is flavorless or mildly bitter but still tolerable to most people (non-tasters and tasters) but is perceived as very bitter and intolerable (think gag reflex) to supertasters.
Propylthiouracil (PROP)
A few of the common foods that supertasters find aversive are coffee, broccoli, brussel sprouts, and dark chocolate. One super-taster writes:
I am not a freak. I am not picky. I am not hard to please, inflexible, or timid. I am… a supertaster. Foods like coffee and mustard literally make me gag... I am always willing to try new foods, and I eat all sorts of strange things (snails, calamari, oysters, pop tarts, kipper snacks). I love different ethnic foods (Chinese, Italian, Lebanese, Greece-y) and am not a restaurant snob. However, there have always been certain foods that I cannot eat. Not "will not" eat... cannot eat, at least not without having to control the gag reflex... [T]here is a list of foods that I cannot eat. I regularly revisit this list, just to see if things have changed, and they never do.
Supertasters have been shown to have a higher density of fungiform papillae their tongue, and hence tastebuds, which are located within the papillae. Taste, bitterness, sweetness, and so forth, then, is not an inherent property of compounds that elicit such sensations, rather taste sensations are made up by the brain. Differences among individuals (the number of tastebuds being only one example) lead to differences in taste perception.
Touch: Insensitivity to Pain
Would it be reasonable to think that people also experience differences in touch? Yes, in fact a well-documented case is that of insensitivty to pain. The most common and studied case is congenital insenitivity to pain with anhidrosis (CIPA). This arises when an individual inherits from both parents a mutated gene that is involved in nerve growth and survival. The insensitivity to pain is accompianed by a conscious insensitivity to temperature, as well as an unconscious one which leaves the body unable to regulate its temperature. Receptors in the skin include mechanoreceptors (being hit, pinched), thermal receptors (feeling something that is hot or cold), chemoreceptors (itch, acidity) and finally noicioreceptors. Nocioreceptors are the receptors that respond to "noxious stimuli", feelings that the brain consciously perceives “painful”—aversive and damaging to the body. In a particular case of CIPA, invidiuals are lacking these receptor cells. Thus, no peripheral neurons to detect changes to the skin means no sensation of pain in the brain.
Other variations in experience
Color vision, tasting, and pain perception are two examples of obvious differences among individuals for which there are well-described and correlated variations in the nervous system. There are many other ways individuals seem to experience the world differently, and we can imagine that they too are in some way a result of differences between nervous systems. With research into these areas it is likely that such differences will turn up.
People experience differences in hearing, for example. As we age, we become less able to detect higher frequency (pitched) sounds. There are also clear differences between people in how sounds are perceived. Oliver Sacks writes in his book Musicophilia:
Sir Frederick Ouseloy, a former professor of music at Oxford, for example, "was all his life remarkable for his sense of absolute pitch. At five he was able to remark, 'Only think, Papa blows his nose in G.' He would say that it thundered in G or that the wind was whistling in D, or that the clock (with a two-note chime) struck in B minor, and when the assertion was tested it would invariably he found correct." For most of us, such an ability to recognize an exact pitch seems uncanny, almost like another sense, a sense we can never hope to possess, such as infrared or X-ray vision; but for those who are born with absolute pitch, it seems perfectly normal.
Despite what you may have learned in school, there are other ways to experience the world than through the five senses of seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, and touching (see Perception: From Five Senses Through Synesthesia and Beyond). Proprioception is an example of another way we experience the world, and in particular, ourselves. Proprioception is what allows us to balance ourselves when we stand up, walk, and run. Propioception also allows us to sense where our body is. If you close your eyes, you still know how your body is positioned. This body sense arises from a number of sensory parts, including the vestibular system (the vestibular appartus in the inner ear), mechanoreceptors, and even your eyes. The vestibular apparatus gives a feeling of "up" and "down" (relative to the earth) because it senses the pull of gravity. Thus, you know if you are upside-down or right-side up. It also produces the sensation of movement and the spatial orientation of the head. Mechanoreceptors in joints and muscles respond to pressure and distortion or angle of the joint or muscle, and allows you to know how your body is positioned.
You may be wondering, how could people possibly differ with respect to proprioception? Have you ever gotten car sick? Or maybe you've never experienced motion sickness? Car sickness may occur in some people particularly when they are reading. As the car is moving, the inner ear detects that your body is in motion. However, your eyes, fixated on the book, register the book as not moving. This conflict of sensory input to the brain is likely what causes the feeling of uneasiness. What is interestng of course is that some people get car sick and others do not. Do you know someone who is very clumsy? Uncoordinated? What about someone who is very adept at physical activities, like gymnastics or pole vaulting? Can you imagine that these differences are at least somewhat traceable to varities in parts of the sensory nervous system contributing to proprioception?
A phenomenon that occurs among astronauts is space sickness. If you were in orbit you might feel disoriented because the vestiublar system senses the pull of gravity, but in orbit there is no gravity. Therefore, your brain isn't getting any information about your body's position. When asked to close their eyes, astronauts cannot say which way is up and which is down because they then have neither input from the visual system nor the vestibular system. Even under extreme circumstances like being in space, differences exist between individuals. Some astronauts experience intense sickness including vertigo and violent vomitting, others experience only mild headaches, and still a small percentage are apparently immune to space sickness (see Mixed Up in Space).
Thus far, we've discussed how people differ with respect to a particular sense. That is, while one person may experience a color as "more blue", someone else might experience it as "more purple". What if someone said they experienced it as both blue and salty? You might be thinking “Huh?”. But for some people the notion of experiencing a single stimulus in more than one sensory modality makes perfect sense. Synesthesia is "the mixing of the senses" and occurs when a stimulus (light, for example) involuntarily elicits a sensation in another sensory modality (sound, for example). A synesthete might see the color orange in his or her field of view when in pain. Another synesthete might taste chicken as pointy. The neurobiological underpinnings of synesthesia haven't yet been fully described, but comparing synesthetes demonstrates how much variation there can be among people.
Reality outside the brain?
All perception and experience is a function of the brain and the rest of the nervous system. Since nervous systems differ among people, people perceive and experience things in different ways. My “reality” is much different than your “reality”, whether in subtle or extreme ways.
But is there a way to know what “reality” is really like? What would the physical world be like if perceived outside of the framework of the brain? That is, how would things look (taste, sound, feel like) if our brains did not construct our experience? Since color is a construction of the brain, would the world look colorless? Without a brain to construct our worlds, would reality be “a bloomin’ buzzin’ confusion”? Or perhaps noisy?
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| Colorless? | A bloomin' buzzin' confusion? | Noisy? |
There isn’t any way we could get outside our own brain and view the world, but maybe some perceptions more accurate or truer than others? Maybe some better than others?
There is much more to the physical world than what we as humans experience. Consider other species and their nervous systems. Some fish and other aquatic animals have evolved to sense electric fields, some for prey detection and others for finding mates. Some animals, such as sea turtles, bats, and lobsters, sense magnetic fields. Because we as humans do not detect electric fields or magnetic fields does not, however, make them any less a property of the physical world or one sense better than another. Different senses have evolved due to both random chance as well as how much a particular sense has allowed an animal to thrive in it’s own environment. As an example, the fact that salt water is a better conductor than air may have influenced the evolution of electrosensitivity in some fish and other aquatic organisms.
One might be tempted to consider color vision better than blindness, maybe because color blindness is much less common than color vision. Does a trichromat have a more accurate perception of reality than a dichromat? Maybe the concept of “reality” should be done away with because all that “there really is” is the physical, material world. A trichromat’s experience of light is not any truer or more accurate than a dichromat’s experience because color is not out in the world but rather in the brain.
There many properties of the outside world that we don’t understand or we're not aware of simply because the sensory systems to sense them have not evolved. Indeed, there are an infinite number of ways to sense, experience, and explore the world that have not (or not yet) evolved.
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 ...???? |
What is reality like? Is one person’s experience more real or better?
Maybe these questions are meaningless. The only way in which we can know the world is through our personal experience, which is a function of our own, unique brain and nervous system. Other organisms get along with brains and their perceived worlds, which are all different from each other. This implies that the same is true of ourselves–the worlds which we construct differ, sometimes radically and sometimes subtely, from the world constructed by others. There is not in principle a correct or superior way to perceive and experience the world.
Imagine that we could experience the world outside of the brain. Perhaps what we would find wouldn’t be very interesting. Maybe it would just be a bunch of noise, and noise wouldn’t be interesting because it inherently has no meaning. It is the brain that makes meaning out of noise and everything else. And what is meaningful thus depends on one’s unique brain and nervous system.
The bottom line?…
The world as we experience it is necessarily a function of the brain.
And even our conceptions of what the world, or “reality”, would be like are themselves in the brain.
Continuing research into variations between nervous systems
Neural Pathway Missing In Tone-deaf People (ScienceDaily), see also Tone Deafness: A New Disconnection Syndrome? (J of Neurosci)
Variations in Perception of Bitter Go Way Back (New York Times)
Posted by Laura Cyckowski and Paul Grobstein, Jul 8 2009.
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Comments
Wow
Lol, where to start... Um, out brain constantly creates something out of nothing. Ever catch a baseball? How did you know where it was? Not because it was where was. It takes time for your brain to process everything, and the baseball isn't stopping, so where your eyes told the brain it is, is wrong. It's actually ahead of that, and your brain knows that, so it redraws the image in your vision to where it actually is. Duh.
Color is real? Lol, so only the defined colors exist because that is a real property? Lol. So tell me them why fish who can see into the ultra violet, have designs and patterns that can only be seen in the ultraviolet wavelengths? That doesn't exist because our eye can't see it,? And the different frequencies of ultraviolet light they reflect are not different colors to them? And fish didn't evolve to see in the ultralight spectrum? Even though ultraviolet light is the only light around below a few feet of water?
And hello, cameras and ccds and photo paper don't display colors automatically, the spectrum is programmed, Einstein. And developing fluid was made to show colors the same as we see them by pigments in the fluid. Ever notice an adjustment called hue? You can change green to red, and blue to brown just by adjusting that . How is that possible? You think zero means display the inherent color? No, zero is programmed to show a certain color that matches what color or brain tells us it is.
Before you spout more stupidity, look up color film processing and cc'd construction and led display color generation. Color an inherent property,? Hahaha! The real world seen as it is isnt very interesting, folks. Just black and whites without degrees of brightness.. How about this -look up optical color illusions. A painting of a yellow translucent surface. Then tell me color isn't created in the brain. But I think you already know this, and are just being a troll.
Wow
You need to take a science class. Because nothing you stated is even remotely true. If you want to correct people make sure to actually do some research before attempting to do so. Color is not real. It's a wavelength. Its does not exist. And your brain makes around 30 billion calculations per second. It does not run slow. We only receive Information thats necessary.
Black and white
Black and white do not exist either. Black is the absence of reflected light and white is all the spectrums of light at once. But if unable to turn the wavelengths into an image in our brains. Then neither black or white exist....only wavelengths. Or maybe only white? Still working on this its pretty amazing to think about this at all.
The difference between you and me
the idiot affirms, the smart man questions
The idiot can only understand within the confines of his perception
The smart man understands his perception is limited, therefore, SUBJECTIVE
We can't see infrared with our own eyes, yet it still exists.
Nice article.:)
reality
If we could perceive the world the way it really is we would only see sub atomic particles spread-out in space-time. If we could perceive the world the way it really is, we would see through objects and human beings, and see all space-time in one fell swoop. Nothing actually moves through time. Einstein said motion is an illusion. The universe is not expanding. What changes is our conscious perspective as our consciousness moves through space-time.
Our consciousness is not a physical entity. It can't be measured or detected. There is no way we can prove it exists. There are no words to describe it. There is no physical evidence for its existence.
Nothing we experience when we hear, smell, taste and feel exists in our material universe. There may be objects, people and animals that exist in our universe. And they may be the source of our sensory input. But what our brains create with this sensory input is very different from the signals the signals that reach our sensory organs, and are very different from the reality that generated those signals.
Moreover, we only experience one 3-D spherical slice of the universe at a time. As we move further and further from the big bang, the size of that 3-D spherical slice (frustum) increases because the universe is a 4-D sphere. Perhaps it is infinitely more complex than that. But we observe it as a 4-D sphere. This is Einstein-Minkowski's eternal block universe taking our belief that the universe is expanding into account.
If we could see our fellow humans beings as they actually are as nothing more than protons, neutrons and electrons they would scare the sh*t out of us. We live in a virtual reality based on our sensory input. Nothing we experience is real itself, not even our perception of time.
We perceive time as something distinct from space when in reality there is no such thing as time and there is no such thing as space, there is only space-time. This is the reason physicists have such a hard time understanding quantum mechanics. Every measurement we take is a lie.
The wave-function can't collapse. It doesn't collapse even if it appears to us if it does. There is no such thing as "now," even though we perceive the universe as a succession of "nows" or "frames" of a movie. Every frame of a movie is a lie because every frame of a movie took place over a period of time. There is no such thing as an instantaneous photograph. The shutter of a camera must be open for a certain length of time to capture any image. Every particle in the universe is a world-line spread-out over all space-time. It may not be evenly spread-out through space time. It may have a greater density at some places than it has at others.
Physicists will never solve the paradoxes of quantum mechanics until they understand how our conscious observation of the universe distorts reality, distorts our observations, and misleads us with false results from our measurements.
We believe two entangled particles can exist very far away from each other. Einstein didn't believe at spooky action at a distance. Even though two particles my seem to us as though they are far apart, that is only because we can't see our 4-D universe. If we were able to see our 4-D universe, we would see entangled particles are not separated at all in our four-dimensional universe.
Imagine if most people on Earth could only see straight ahead. Imagine they couldn't look up or down. Now imagine there was a way to instantly tunnel through the Earth to reach any other place on the surface of the Earth. To the people with tunnel vision who could only look straight ahead, it would look like other people were disappearing and magically popping up all over the surface of the Earth without traveling through the intervening space. Imagine sub-atomic particles traveling through worm holes from one place in our universe to another place in our universe.
Likewise when we view quantum tunneling, we observe particles magically pass through, or tunnel through a solid wall or barrier without traveling though the wall/barrier or any of the intervening space. It just magically disappears from one-side of the wall and magically appears on the other side.
In reality, those particles tunnel through, or pass through a pathway in the forth dimension to get to the other side of the wall or barrier. Only we can't see or perceive that because it takes place in the fourth dimension. This is analogous to the poor, 2-D critters living on a piece of paper in Edwin Abbot's "Flatland" who can't see up or down.
These 2-D critters can't understand why if they travel far enough in one direction they come back to the point where they started. This is because the piece of paper they live on has been shaped into a cylinder with one edge of the paper joined to the opposing edge.
Imagine if our universe was only the surface of the planet Earth, and we could not look up to see the sky or look down to see the Earth. Now suppose we are stymied on journey because we have confronted a wall. Now, suppose we could see in three-dimension, we could dig a tunnel under the wall to get to other side. But to the rest of humanity who could not look up or down, it would appear as if we had disappeared from one side of the wall and magically appeared on the other side.
Our consciousness travels in space-time away from the Big Bang through ever larger concentric, space-time spheres of reality. This give the illusion of motion and change, when in reality there is no motion and the universe is unchanging.
We are all space-time travelers. Even if the matter of our bodies; even if the electrons, protons and neutrons of our body don't travel into the future, our conscious minds do travel into the future at a constant rate of speed in sync with our static universe.
Imagine if we traveled through a tunnel at a constant rate of speed and as we traveled through this tunnel, it started getting wider and taller. Would we say, the tunnel is expanding or inflating? Or should we say we have just moved to a different part of the tunnel.
"Don't think outside the box, think outside the tesseract and the hypersphere."
Perception
Hi everyone: just came across this debate. To end this disagreement right away, perception is one of the paramount aspects in life; a very large portion of your personality can be derived from this alone. It sounds like I'm on a different spectrum--english, philosophy; you guys, the science side--so I won't be using any science terms. By bringing perception into the conversation and discussing it in terms of science is a mistake from the get go. Perception is unique to each individual.We are each born with something, but throughout the years, our adult version solidifies with time. There are many ways to do this, but I'm trying to think of the quickest.
The nexus of perception lies with (in a basic sense) how open minded are you? Do you look at your front door and see deadbolted security? or do you see it as only a passageway with a door in front (installed by a man/woman, just as easily taken apart)? Transient, I would say. Those of you intrigued with this article probably wonder what it would be like to lay on your back in the cool summer grass, and even have a ten second glimpse through a small chasm in the wallpapered sky, and what an experience it would be! Now the other side on the discussion is providing theory, statistics, impossibilities, etc. This is actually a textbook example of the differenes between those with more open-minded pereption vs. the more close-minded. Both have strengths and weaknesses.
If you haven't read or studied William Blake, begin there. A couple quotes from him. (I'll just list three: 1757-1827)
1) "If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, Infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro' narrow chinks of his cavern."
2) "To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour."
3) "What is now proved was once only imagined."
So that's it...I'll go on to say that Blake was and is even more so today the most highly thought of intellectual from 1750-Present. Last thing I'll write is the dividing point. This is also why there is bantering back and forth in the train of responses. My Dad is a pHD ChemE. You ask him to do some byzantine calculation, maybe proofs, research, whatever...and he'll ace it all! Afterward you ask him to do anything at all not by the book, not with calculator, something not generalized, hopefully with imagination/creativity. Forget about it. Then on my side, its the opposite spectrum: I may churn out 3 poems in an hour and start working on a story, but I had already lost a tennis shoe before I started, and now that hour has past, I'm completely shoeless and I jogging aroung looking for one of my socks.
Thats the difference in perception. I call the extremes Cynical vs Dreamer. That should put a lot in perspective. I guess two more was to qualify Blake is that the band The Doors took their name from Quote #1, and if you've seen the movie Red Dragon, Blake painted that. Peace.
perception
You can only perceive what is in your field of view,look at an object with one eye shut,then do the same with the other and the object seems to be in a different place,open both eyes and the object shifts again. every persons interpretation of where the object is will be different due the way their own eyes receive the information,you can do all the tests you want including exact measurement but that also requires individual interpretation.You could even go out of view of said object while a friend stands in front of it and explains its distance to him and how they perceive it.Of course the only thing you will perceive is your friend telling you this,your friend and the way you interpret him is also unique only to you.No perceivable information of the object can pass from it to you friend then on to you,the only thing you will interpret is your friend.So one might say you reading this can some how perceive me and the other person in front of a tree discussing this,well you cant as no interpretable information can pass between fist object,my friend,me then your computer.The only thing you reading this can interpret is the text on the screen on your computer which in turn is also has to be in your personal field of view to interpret.
The guy is correct
I agree, MickeyD is delusional, I never saw a physicist telling that "brightness is invisible heat", this is a bull that Mickey is inventing.
External reality.
David Eagleman's recent TV programme (BBC4) about reality and the brain described the virtual reality the brain constructs using signals from external reality. He talked about the EM radiation and pressure waves that our senses passed on to the brain.
At the end he posed the question as to what reality really is. The answer was disappointing: he said reality is whatever your brain tells you it is! What a cop out!
So what can it be like? Electromagnetic radiation. Tons of it. Emitted and reflected. Of all wave lengths.
There must be pressure. There must be molecules. Otherwise sound and taste sensors would not work as they do.
Some groups of molecules must stick together better than others because they give us the illusion of solid objects. But most of an atom is empty space delineated by electrons which can't be pinned down to anywhere in particular, so even groups of molecules are mostly empty space.
Very hard to even begin to imagine.......
Light
Since light is only sensation that our brain creates, is it dark outside.
E FERRETT
E FERRETT, who told you this bulls*** that light is sensation the brain creates? It is obviously NOT. Someone been lying to you.
Your brain is telling
Your brain is telling absolutely nothing. Reality is what it is. Objective and not affected by your perception.
You just perceive it.
Excellent article
I am impressed you understand the relationship between perception and external reality. Most people cannot comprehend the concepts you discuss, as is evident from many of the comments above.
The only part of the article I would change is the 'visual spectrum' (from hyperphysics) diagram. Instead of labelling the cones as red, blue and green, I would simply label them as 1, 2 and 3. Plus I would remove the colour shading underneath each frequency response graph. The cones simply respond to different wavelengths of electromagnetic radiation.
I too, would love a glimpse of the 'noisy' true reality :) I installed an app 'Architecture of Radio' that is very interesting in this regard - I'm not associated with the author in any way, but I think you'll appreciate its significance.
Could you please let me know if you have any further insights on this topic,
Warm regards,
Jonathon.
color is objective, so is all of our perceptions
"due to differences in their cone cells"
that's all.
the brain is only the observer.
everything happens in the eyes.
color is objective.
the way we perceive with our cone cells is relative to our biology.
Color and brightness does not exist outside the mind of a being.
It seems difficult for even physicists to wrap their head around this idea that color and brightness do not exist outside of the mind. It seems to take a certain type of wiring in a persons brain to understand this. Many physics websites do not explain this correctly and many simply do not address it from the point of view of it being a "perception". Most websites about the EM spectrum and human eyes do not take our perceptions into account for simplicity's sake as that is not what they are trying to convey or explain. I've never seen a science website about visible EM spectrum radiation that even takes into account the fact that brightness and color is only a perception of the mind. Try looking up "brightness perception", "color perception" or "color qualia" for more information.
Most people simply don't get it. I'll attempt to explain from my own view.
First a note about "wording". I will refer to "light" as "invisible radiation from the Sun or any other emitting source". Noting that Light itself contains no brightness or color. Light waves are simply "unperceived radiation".
2nd - I will refer to Brightness as the "brightness" we perceive from a light source. Noting that "light" radiation does not contain brightness as a property.
3rd Rod and cone receptors in our eyes have been discussed so I'll not get into that in detail.
Radiation from the Sun when not perceived by a living being is completely "invisible". Without eyes and a brain to perceive color and brightness the universe looks like what our leg would "see", which is nothing. No brightness, darkness or color.
This radiation from the Sun causes Photosynthesis to occur in plants. Objects like rocks also retain heat from this radiation. This solar radiation is visually undetectable without eyes and a mind to perceive it. Noting that we can also feel it as a perception of heat.
When we look towards a light source the only thing our eyes receive are "invisible" fragments of radiation that contain no brightness or color.
Our eyes and mind process those "invisible" fragments of information into brightness and color. Different wavelengths are interpreted into different colors and brightness's. When we look at the Sun many of our rods detect and many cones fire giving the appearance of varying degrees of brightness. When we look at the Sun we are effectively looking at "all colors combined" from one end of the human visual spectrum to the other so it appears "bright".
The images we perceive as the world and universe only exist in the mind. It "plays" in our mind similar to a movie or a dream. Our eyes are not "windows" that we look through to view reality. Our visual perception of reality is: our eyes and minds ability to convert "invisible fragments of radiation" into brightness and color images that only exist in our mind.
Note: I'm not saying what we perceive is not there at all. Since we perceive our world via several senses I take it on faith that the solid objects we perceive are actually there. However Color and Brightness are not properties of the natural universe. They are 100% a "dream-like" image that "plays" in our mind. How this occurs in our mind "as far as I know" is currently unknown. It's a totally amazing process. I assume it's an evolutionary process as that is currently our best hypothesis or theory.
I think our sense of "feeling/touch" is our most basic sense. I think it's the most reliable. I have faith that the objects we can feel or touch do exist. This includes the moon because we've been there. It includes the Sun, stars and planets because we have good evidence that they exist.
Note: My perceived reality does not include gods, fairies, ghost, spirits, an afterlife existence, leprechauns or various monsters that people claim to perceive. I can't justify the existence of something without good evidence of it. Visual and auditory hallucinations are so common that it's considered normal by the psychiatry field to have them. This is what I attribute to the perception of some people that believe they "see and/or hear" gods, spirits, ghost, monsters and experience things like alien abductions. It's simply my view that such perceptions are phantom productions of the mind. The information that actually enters our eyes and mind is actually very little. Most of what we perceive is a construction of our mind. It's known that our minds are fully capable of constructing realities that are false. I assume that such false illusionary realities would be disjointed and confusing.
If I see Santa and his reindeer land on my roof I'm not going to run to tell the world about it. I'm going to have someone drive me to the hospital to see what's wrong with me. My rational thinking mind can differentiate between something real and something that is an illusion of the mind. I can understand how people with some type brain defect may not be able to understand the difference. I imagine schizophrenia would be very disjointed and confusing. Just a guess. I've never been there.
I would love to hear your replies. Please don't nit pick about semantics too much. I do understand that semantics is an issue and hopefully you can realize when it is. For example; the word "light" can be interpreted in different ways.
Response to mickey d.
I actually have 3 irrefutable proofs that light/brightness exist outside of your "mind", and that color is 100% real outside of you (subjective reality is not objective reality). And you can't do nothing about it. (I shouldn't be showing evidence if you had a brain to understand the OBVIOUS fact that light exists independently of you, but since you like to make a fool of yourself, and since there are still people who believe that the earth is flat, I have to show proof, because it seems that we are still living in flintstones era..
First light..
1. How do you explain a new recent discovery that a form of octopus can sense britghness with Its own skin? (without brain or eyes or humans needed) ? [search google]
2. Then you believe that when you close your eyes, your "mind" is also creating the "appearance" that there is brightness outside of you to "trick" you. Wow, nice mind trick.
3. You are utterly finished here.
Take your phone or a camera without adjusting the ambient light to the camera, now take a pic without any person around, reveal the photo in matte paper, If your camera wasn't adjusted to the ambient light you'll see a lot of brigthness (glares, halos or starburstings of light) in the revealed photo, because you didn't adjusted the camera to the ambient, yes, you will see it in the matte paper. Now tell me where is the subjective part here? Where were your brain needed to create brightness in the matte paper? This is direct evidence dude, deal with it, light has nothing to do with "created by your mind," This is a Lie. Hands down.
now colors...
1. As we know (basic physics) brightness is actually all colors mixed (and cannot exist without colors), because light IS color, (basic science), and OBVIOUSLY brightness is proved to exist outside of us (octopus, a closed eye and the camera example), so we conclude that color is real outside of the brain.
2. a blind person from birth can't dream in images, only someone who experienced colors first can dream in images, already proving that subjectivity depends on the objective world. your brain depends on the objective world to create Its own dreams. the brain can't create something out of nothing, If this was the case, someone blind from birth would know how a color looks like.
3. thus proving that color is 100% real outside of the 'mind'. And that people differ from perception because of the 'rods and cones', not because of your 'mind' (basic biology)
.
Deal with it.
nothing exist
Guys. Let me add to this conversation. Outside the human mind or any biological minds there is just information. That is all that exist. no light or darkness just information. Now what brings forms or objects or things or our biological minds. Remove the biological mind and all that you know disappears, space, time gravity etc. Sorry. Now with this information the great architecture can make a fantasying array of biological creatures that have their own grand experience of life.
you aren't adding jack shit.
you aren't adding jack shit.
I actually have 3 irrefutable proofs that light/brightness exist outside of your "mind", and that color is 100% real outside of you (subjective reality is not objective reality). And you can't do nothing about it. (I shouldn't be showing evidence if you had a brain to understand the OBVIOUS fact that light exists independently of you, but since you like to make a fool of yourself, and since there are still people who believe that the earth is flat, I have to show proof, because it seems that we are still living in flintstones era..
First light..
1. How do you explain a new recent discovery that a form of octopus can sense britghness with Its own skin? (without brain or eyes or humans needed) ? [search google]
2. Then you believe that when you close your eyes, your "mind" is also creating the "appearance" that there is brightness outside of you to "trick" you. Wow, nice mind trick.
3. You are utterly finished here.
Take your phone or a camera without adjusting the ambient light to the camera, now take a pic without any person around, reveal the photo in matte paper, If your camera wasn't adjusted to the ambient light you'll see a lot of brigthness (glares, halos or starburstings of light) in the revealed photo, because you didn't adjusted the camera to the ambient, yes, you will see it in the matte paper. Now tell me where is the subjective part here? Where were your brain needed to create brightness in the matte paper? This is direct evidence dude, deal with it, light has nothing to do with "created by your mind," This is a Lie. Hands down.
now colors...
1. As we know (basic physics) brightness is actually all colors mixed (and cannot exist without colors), because light IS color, (basic science), and OBVIOUSLY brightness is proved to exist outside of us (octopus, a closed eye and the camera example), so we conclude that color is real outside of the brain.
2. a blind person from birth can't dream in images, only someone who experienced colors first can dream in images, already proving that subjectivity depends on the objective world. your brain depends on the objective world to create Its own dreams. the brain can't create something out of nothing, If this was the case, someone blind from birth would know how a color looks like.
3. thus proving that color is 100% real outside of the 'mind'. And that people differ from perception because of the 'rods and cones', not because of your 'mind' (basic biology)
.
Deal with it.
100% false
that's 100% bs and you know that. reality is no matrix. matrix is a movie
Reply to the guy that states "nothing exists".
This gets down to a "belief". We don't know if reality is a simulation or not. Myself, I don't "believe" that it is a simulation/matrix. I'm not religious but to have an opinion on this you can only take it on "faith" that reality is what we perceive. I "believe" the objects we sense like trees, Sun, starts, rocks, cars, people, houses, et cetera are actually there. We have several senses that convey to us that the objects are there. We have reasonable evidence for that, in my opinion. That is my opinion, not something I know as fact.
Maybe at the most basic level objects, atoms, molecules and other particles are made of information of a sort. We don't know what is beyond the quark, Boson, Higgs and Gluon. I take it on "faith" that the objects we perceive are there.
Our senses create what we perceive as reality by processing information. Our senses only take in information. If you want to "believe" something exists beyond that you have to make a leap and take in on "faith" that our what our senses detect is actually there. Based on what our senses tell us I choose to take that leap while at the same time keeping my mind open to new evidence and other possibilities.
The information our senses receive from objects external to our bodies does not contain touch/pain/feel, taste, color/brightness, smell, or sound. Our bodies and mind process this invisible/unperceived information and that gives us a perception of what we know as reality. That information does not contain things like color, pain and sound. Light waves do not contain color in the same way an "air pressure wave" does not contain what we perceive as sound. That's also why you can't hear a cell phone signal until it's processed by your phone to create an air pressure wave. Electrical information traveling through the air does not contain sound as a property. The air pressure wave coming out of a cell phone speaker does not contain sound as a property.
Example. when a tree falls it causes air to move. If you define sound as "a moving wave of air" then in a roundabout way you might say that sound exists. That is how the dictionary defines sound (as an "air pressure wave"). That's just semantics. I take it on "faith" that the "air pressure wave" is there that is responsible for our perception of sound. That pressure wave results in our ears and mind converting the pressure wave into sound. Sound does not exist external to the mind of a living being. Only the "air pressure wave" exists. And even that you have to take on "faith", based on our senses/Perceptions. What is beyond our senses always comes down to a "belief", "faith" and to a degree what manufactured instruments can detect.
The guy that stated "nothing exists", ummm I don't know what to say there. I guess that means he doesn't think he exists. Apparently he doesn't have "faith" that he does actually exist. It's like a belief in a gods, leprechauns, afterlife and spirits. When it gets down to it we really have know way of knowing if anything exist or not. It's left up to individual opinion and faith based belief. My beliefs are based on the available evidence and remain open to change.
our senses do not create anything
we perceive with our senses. what is already there.
senses will only "create" something out of the blue when you're on drugs. and there's a profound difference
Reply to Guest 2:
1. The octopus does not sense "brightness" at all. It's sensing invisible/unperceived heat radiation from the Sun. Humans and other beings "only perceive" the invisible heat radiation as brightness. In whatever you were reading it's not the author's objective to explain that wheather he understands it or not. When people talk about the Sun's radiation they tend to put it in common terms that most of us understand which is "brightness". The Sun emits a radiation wave in the form of heat. Rocks retain heat, plants capture the heat energy (photosynthesis), animals/humans eat the plants then the "heat energy" is transferred into the animal. Brightness and color is not a property of that heat energy. Beings consume the heat energy from the Sun via their bodies (mouth) "by eating" and absorbing the heat energy via the skin. It's similar to a television getting it's power/energy from a wall outlet. Some of that energy is eventually converted back into visual perceptions by our minds.
Our bodies/minds use somewhere in the ballpark of 30% of our calorie intake and around 30% of our "brain" to produce visual images, color and brightness. If color and brightness were already present in the natural world/universe it would not consume so much of our body/mind systems energy to produce color and brightness perceptions. Beings have to feed their mind with large amounts of energy to reproduce this information into visual perception in the same way a television gets power from a wall outlet.
After animals and plants die that energy in our bodies is dispersed back into the world in a non-cohesive manner since there is nothing to hold the energy together. This explains why there is no such thing as a "soul". After we die there is no vessel to hold the energy in our bodies together. The energy that makes up our "self" or our "consciousness" would simply disperse back into the world in a non-cohesive manner. Our "self" or " our consciousness" cannot exist without our mind/body as a vessel to contain it and keep the energy cohesive. Ok, I'm getting a bit off the primary subject a bit.
The Sun's waves do not contain color or brightness as a property. Sun radiation contains invisible information "wavelengths" that our eyes and mind convert into brightness and color. Our bodies intake the energy required to make our brain/consciousness function. Our bodies are the power plant. That energy originally comes for the Suns radiation. Without our body/power plant to feed us energy we can not exist as a conscious being.
Cameras also capture invisible radiation, not color or brightness. A television does not actually output color or brightness. The TV and camera "like a prism" does not output color or brightness. They output invisible information in the form of radiation wavelengths. Our eyes and mind convert that invisible radiation into color images.
2. When you close your eyes some radiation information still makes it through to your eyelids if you are around a sufficient radiation source. People born with a detached optic nerve or detached retina do not see anything. They see what your nose sees, which is nothing. No black, no brightness, no white, no static no color. Without eyes and a mind to perceive the Sun's radiation the world and universe does not "look like" anything. Without a living being present the Sun's radiation is simply "unperceived". In the unperceived state there is no color or brightness. Visual perception of color and brightness is unique to living beings.
Yes, blind people that have perceived color before they were blind can store that converted-information/perception in their mind and recall it after they are completely blind. I also believe you are correct in that people who are blind from birth do not dream in images since they were never able to convert this invisible/unperceived information into a visual image. They have no concept of what a visual image is. They have no stored images in their mind to start with. I believe people who are blind from birth dream in sounds, smells, tastes and feelings. I'm not sure what you're point is there. This 100% agrees with what I'm stating.
Here's another way to look at it. Look at your television system. Do you see any color or brightness coming in thru the satellite dish, antenna, cable or power cord. No. There is no brightness or color going into your television system. Look at a satellite dish, notice there is no color or brightness streaming into it. Your television system is receiving information that is invisible and processing it further into more "invisible/unperceived information" that your eyes and mind can eventually interpret as color and brightness. A television works somewhat like the mind but the television is only capable of processing invisible/unperceived information and converting it to another form of invisible/unperceived radiation. The information your dish/cable/antenna is receiving can be digital information. Your TV system converts the digital information back into analog invisible/unperceived radation wavelengths that come off your TV screen. Then our eyes and mind can further process that information into color and brightness. A television does not output color or brightness. Our minds only perceive it that way.
Again, your cell phone signal does not contain "sound" as a property. Just like the Sun's radiation does not contain color or brightness as a property. The cell phone converts the invisible/unperceived information into a pressure wave that propagates via the air and our ears/mind convert that pressure wave into sound. Sound only exists as a pressure wave before it's perceived by a mind and converted to sound. A cell phone single propagating thru the air does not contain sound just like the Sun's radiation does not contain color or brightness.
The question "if a tree falls in the forest does it make a sound" is a bit ambiguous and confusing. Partly because the word sound in the dictionary is defined as a "pressure wave". To me the pressure wave is one thing that is outside the mind and sound is another that only exists within the mind. However since the word "sound" is defined as a "pressure wave" in the dictionary the statement can be interpreted as "sound being something that exists outside the mind". The answer simply depends on how you define the word "sound". Either way "a pressure wave exists in the world outside the mind" and "what we experience as sound" only exists within the mind.
I am writing this "on the fly". If see something that is incorrect or unusually confusing I'll try to correct it the next time.
Are we not splitting hairs
Are we not splitting hairs over semantics here? Yes, 'colour' (as we perceive it) does not exist in external reality but the varying wavelengths of light which give rise to our perceptions absolutely do. Any machine/ animal/alien with the requisite sensors can detect these differences. It's only logical to then label/catalogue/differentiate those frequencies internally to rationalise the wall of 'noise' surrounding us. I guess the analogy is AR, we see the world through a filter (the brain) to pull the most relevant information visually to us for day to day life.
Brightness is varying intensities of light/radiation. Much of that may be invisible to us but it is still very real as any astronaut/nuclear physicist will attest. Where we are tuned to 'see' daylight brightness is a product of intensity of those photons. In that sense brightness is an artifact of the biology of the human eye but it is nonetheless an accurate guage of what is happening in our environment.
No mate, perception is not
No mate, perception is not reality.
If color wasn't totally real, there would be no perception.
For you to perceive something, it must be real before you perceive.
You CAN'T perceive what is NOT already there. Or what is "half there"
Your brain cannot fanthom a new song or create a new color our of the blue.
Blind people from birth CANNOT imagine in color.
Because they didn't see color once in their lifes
This is not debatable, this is NOT something you wanna accept, but it's the truth nonetheless.
You either deal with it or not. Cut off your Kant obssession and your religious woo.
I disagree Mickey D
I entirely disagree with you my dear friend Mickey D. We know that brightness is entirely physical and independent of any human being, and not dependent of our eyes, much less of our brain, on the contrary, our pupils react to brightness, and in dark environment, our pupil naturally expands to allow more light in)
I have a disease called photophobia, basically is high sensibility to light. In daytime I have to use sunglasses because everything is too bright for my eyes. In front of computers with bright screens I tend to close or squeeze my eyes in order to see clearly. I have been told that the problem is in my retina.
This is a proof that brightness is outside, because if not I would never have any problem with brightness outside of me.
and about colors..
we have proofs of colors outside, look chameleons, tropical birds and thousands of other species that use color in their very life reliant uses...
btw, white light is actually all colors mixed and there is no other way that light could exist without colors, light was here long before us. (so yes, colors are real either)
Here's a good video on the subject: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0DYP-u1rNM
Reply to "Guest".
Your eyes actually don't react to "brightness". Your eyes react to heat-radiation from the Sun or any other radiation source. That radiation is "invisible" until it is perceived by a mind.
Your eyes are sensitive to "invisible radiation" not to "brightness". An optometrist or ophthalmologist is not going to explain that to you and may have never even consider it that way. Even if he understands it, it would confuse most people to explain it that way. That's why you won't usually find that type of explanation in typical information. If you dig for it you can find it.
Here is another simple way to view it:
Look at someone sitting next to you. Notice you don't see streams of color or anything else flowing into the person's eyes. That's because the Sun's radiation does not contain color or brightness as a property. If it worked the way you think all your eyes would see is a myriad of color flying around everywhere. When radiation reflects off an object it does not contain color or brightness. If it worked that way you would see color streaming into the person's eyes next to you. Assuming you could see the person at all with all that color flying around in the atmosphere. It just doesn't work the way you think at all.
Your eyes and mind process this colorless radiation into color and brightness. Different wavelengths are processed into different colors and the amplitude of the "invisible" waves determine the amount of "brightness" that your mind creates. The radiation from a "light" source is "invisible" much like the radiation/signal from your cell phone is "invisible". Your cellular system and phone process "invisible", "inaudible" information into sound in a similar way that your eyes and mind process radiation in the visual spectrum into a visual image. Sound is not a property of your cell phone signal in the same way that "brightness" is not a property of light. I assume you can't hear your cell phone signal without a phone. If you can you should go get checked out by a psychiatrist.
Your mind uses a high percentage of it's power to process this "invisible" information into visual images. It's the most single demanding function of your brain. Your body also uses a high percentage of it's calorie intake just to create the energy it takes to process visual images. Processing brightness and visual images is a very demanding task for your mind and body to perform.
The same part of your mind that creates dreams also creates your visual perception of the world around us. Our eyes are not like windows that we look through to view the world. They are more like a satellite dish LNB that receives "invisible" information. The satellite dish is like our retina, the coaxial cable is like our optic nerve (The optic nerve and retina are an extrusion of our brain/mind), the cable box is like our mind and the television is like our "mind's eye" where we view the processed visual information. Note that color and brightness is not a property of your incoming TV signal via "air" or cable.
It's believed that the images of the world that form in our mind are formed from "past stored memories" and not from what we are actually looking at in that moment. Our eyes and mind processes these small fragments of "Invisible" information into brightness and a visual color image that plays in our mind similar to a dream.
Mikey stop preaching pseudoscience here
"Sun radiation contains invisible information "wavelengths" that our eyes and mind convert into brightness and color"
This is bullshit.
"Cameras also capture invisible radiation, not color or brightness. A television does not actually output color or brightness."
This is also bullshit
Dude , what you're arguing here makes no sense. You are arguing that your mind "creates brightness and color" which is utterly and absurdly bullshit, just like solipsism, you are arguing that your "mind" have the power to create something outside of you. NO, Brightness and color is totally and utterly objective, I not only proved this, but I will prove it again.
you just perceive them, it has NOTHING to do with your brain.
"The octopus does not sense "brightness" at all. It's sensing
invisible/unperceived heat radiation from the Sun."
Are you fuc**** blind? Can you read?
"Its skin is not detecting contrast and edge but rather brightness" B-R-I-G-H-T-N-E-S-S.
"As part of the experiment, Ramirez shone white light on the tissue, which caused the chromatophores to expand and change color. When the light was turned off, the chromatophores relaxed and the skin returned to its original hue. This process, Ramirez noted, suggests that light sensors are connected to the chromatophores and that this enables a response without input from the brain or eyes. He and his co-author, Todd Oakley, an EEMB professor, dubbed the process Light-Activated Chromatophore Expansion (LACE)."
http://www. msi. ucsb .edu/news/seeing-without-eyes (REMOVE SPACES)
Stop avoiding this fact and calling it "invisible heat radiation" this is nonsense unscientific crap that you are babbling here. Go to a physicsforum, or a skepticforum and go post your nonsense there, and watch your ass being debunked there.
What you are telling me that when you close your eyes the brain creates the brightness in your eyes? HAHAHAHAHA, For what purpose? What It is this magic that the brain does creating the sense that there is light outside when you close your eyes? Are you telling me that your brain is creating reality outside you? Haha, Are you a solipsistic dreamer? MY fucking God, you argue for something retarded.
DO THIS FUC***** TEST, Take your phone or a camera without adjusting the ambient light to the camera, now take a pic without any person around, reveal the photo in matte paper, If your camera wasn't adjusted to the ambient light you'll see a lot of brigthness (glares, halos or starburstings of light) in the revealed photo, because you didn't adjusted the camera to the ambient, yes, you will see it in the matte paper. Now tell me where is the subjective part here? Where were your brain needed to create brightness in the matte paper? This is direct evidence dude, deal with it, light has nothing to do with "created by your mind," This is a Lie. Hands down. this is absolute proof of brightness/light, now tell me where is your brain involved in this process? Unless you are a solipsistic defensor, Your belief can only lead you to schizophrenia. (delusional beliefs)
--
and not only brightness is obvious objective. color is the same.
another nice article to debunk your brainless brain: colors-do-exist. blogspot. com. br (REMOVE SPACES)
Reply to Guest:
Here is some information from several sources: The first section is from the Brain Games Program. There is video and written information on the page/link below if you click and view the first video and read next set of information on the page. This is in an easy to understand format.
Keep in mind that - Light/brightness is color. Color is light/brightness. Brightness and color perception is due to the variation of electromagnetic waves in the form of "invisible" unperceived radiation. ~~~~~~
From the National Geographic "Brain Games" TV program:
Think you understand the colors you see every day? Think an apple is actually red, or a leaf is really green? Think again. This episode of Brain Games puts your brain to the ultimate test with a series of interactive games and fascinating experiments that will REVEAL A SHOCKING TRUTH - COLOR IS JUST AN ILLUSION CREATED BY YOUR BRAIN. We'll show you how some colors can make you fly, reveal ghostly colors that don't actually exist, and if you play along you’ll see how color helps keep you alive.
In recent years, neuroscientists have used brain scans to investigate where and how color is perceived by the brain. A study published in 2010 in The Open Neuroimaging Journal suggests that it may be a pretty complex process that takes place in several areas, including a region of the visual cortex known as the fusiform gyrus, or V4.
"Color amounts to a beautiful illusion"
The Science of Color:
Primates, including humans, have pretty good color vision compared to a lot of other animals, which probably gave us and our hairier cousins an evolutionary advantage in hunting and in finding wild fruit and other plant-based food. But whether we're looking at blueberries or at a painting from Pablo Picasso's "Blue Period" in a museum, WHAT WE ACTUALLY PERCEIVE IS ELECTROMAGNETIC ENERGY, emitted by a source such as the Sun or an electric light fixture, and then reflected off other objects in the environment. But we can't see all the energy that's bouncing around in our environment. Visible light amounts to only a narrow swath in the middle of the electromagnetic spectrum—frequencies between 400 and 700 nanometers. "At the most basic level color is light and light consists of electromagnetic waves," explains Yale University.
http://bg3.nationalgeographic.com/episode/1/
**************
Here it from a physicist. Color is 100% a creation of your mind. This video is a nice easy to understand format.
This Is Physics Channel: Color only exists in your brain:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQczp0wtZQQ
*************
Researchers have studied vision more thoroughly than the other senses. Because people need sight to perform most daily activities, the sense of sight has evolved to be highly sophisticated. Vision, however, would not exist without the presence of light. Light is electromagnetic radiation that travels in the form of waves. Light is emitted from the sun, stars, fire, and light bulbs. Most other objects just reflect light.
People experience light as having three features: color, brightness, and saturation. These three types of experiences come from three corresponding characteristics of light waves:
•The color or hue of light depends on its wavelength, the distance between the peaks of its waves.
•The brightness of light is related to intensity or the amount of light an object emits or reflects. Brightness depends on light wave amplitude, the height of light waves. Brightness is also somewhat influenced by wavelength. Yellow light tends to look brighter than reds or blues.
•Saturation or colorfulness depends on light complexity, the range of wavelengths in light. The color of a single wavelength is pure spectral color. Such lights are called fully saturated. Outside a laboratory, light is rarely pure or of a single wavelength. Light is usually a mixture of several different wavelengths. The greater number of spectral colors in a light, the lower the saturation. Light of mixed wavelengths looks duller or paler than pure light.
In the universe | In your mind
Wavelength ——> Color
Amplitude ——> Brightness
Complexity ——> Saturation
http://www.sparknotes.com/psychology/psych101/sensation/section2.rhtml
****************
Visual Processing in the Brain:
After being processed in the thalamus and different areas of the brain, visual signals eventually reach the primary visual cortex in the occipital lobe of the brain’s cerebrum. In the 1960s, David Hubel and Torsten Wiesel demonstrated that highly specialized cells called feature detectors respond to these visual signals in the primary visual cortex. Feature detectors are neurons that respond to specific features of the environment, such as lines and edges.
From the visual cortex, visual signals often travel on to other parts of the brain, where more processing occurs. Cells deeper down the visual processing pathway are even more specialized than those in the visual cortex. Psychologists theorize that perception occurs when a large number of neurons in different parts of the brain activate. These neurons may respond to various features of the perceived object such as edges, angles, shapes, movement, brightness, and texture.
Color Vision
Objects in the world seem to be brightly colored, but they actually have no color at all. Red cars, green leaves, and blue sweaters certainly exist—but their color is a psychological experience. Objects only produce or reflect light of different wavelengths and amplitudes. Our eyes and brains then convert this light information to experiences of color. Color vision happens because of two different processes, which occur in sequence:
•The first process occurs in the retina and is explained by the trichromatic theory.
•The second process occurs in retinal ganglion cells and in cells in the thalamus and visual cortex. The opponent process theory explains this process.
These two theories are explained below.
http://www.sparknotes.com/psychology/psych101/sensation/section2/page/3/
*************
Mickey
This site he mentioned didn't separated universe and your mind.
The site mentioned SAID exactly it. wavelenght IS color, amplitude IS brightness, complexity IS saturation. totally independent of your brain.
sparknotes. com/psychology/psych101/sensation/section2.rhtml
Wavelength ——> Color
Amplitude ——> Brightness
Complexity ——> Saturation
the site never mentioned "your mind"
Reply to rude visitor.
Why don't we just post the whole section of the article. It states the same thing I did in my past post and the same thing this site states if you read it all in context. I added in a couple words for clarification in my previous post for those that may not understand what they are stating. You conventionally rewrote it out of context.
To be clear it states in the article below:
(quote) "People experience light as having three features: color, brightness, and saturation. These three types of experiences come from three corresponding characteristics of light waves:" (end quote.)
People "experience" light as having color based on "characteristics of light waves". In other words radiation from the Sun does not contain color as a property nor does it contain color as it enters our eyes. Radiation waves have "mathematical characteristics". The human mind "experiences" these "mathematical characteristics" of reflected radiation as having color, brightness and saturation.
The color we perceive is a function of the distance between the wave peaks of the radiation. There is no color involved there. Only information. "The distance between the peaks of the waves". ~~~ Our eyes and mind convert this information into the perception of color.
The height of the radiation wave ~ determines the brightness created in our mind. Height of a radiation wave is only information. The "Height" of a radiation wave does not contain brightness or color.
In other words: Our "eyes and mind" are using mathematics to calculate what the world and universe "looks like" based on reflected radiation. Our mind takes that calculation and displays it as a visual color image within our mind. A television or computer screen basically works the same way except that a TV or computer screen can not create color. The TV and computer screen only output more information that our eyes and mind can interpret as color and brightness. Nothing in this world is capable of creating brightness and color except the mind of a living being. It's not fully understood how these images form in our minds eye.
I really don't understand why some people act upset that color is only a perception. It's nothing to get rude about. Color really exists in our mind as a perception. It just doesn't exist outside of the mind.
Article below:
*************************
Researchers have studied vision more thoroughly than the other senses. Because people need sight to perform most daily activities, the sense of sight has evolved to be highly sophisticated. Vision, however, would not exist without the presence of light. Light is electromagnetic radiation that travels in the form of waves. Light is emitted from the sun, stars, fire, and lightbulbs. Most other objects just reflect light.
People experience light as having three features: color, brightness, and saturation. These three types of experiences come from three corresponding characteristics of light waves:
1. The color or hue of light depends on its wavelength, the distance between the peaks of its waves.
2.The brightness of light is related to intensity or the amount of light an object emits or reflects. Brightness depends on light wave amplitude, the height of light waves. Brightness is also somewhat influenced by wavelength. Yellow light tends to look brighter than reds or blues.
3.Saturation or colorfulness depends on light complexity, the range of wavelengths in light. The color of a single wavelength is pure spectral color. Such lights are called fully saturated. Outside a laboratory, light is rarely pure or of a single wavelength. Light is usually a mixture of several different wavelengths. The greater number of spectral colors in a light, the lower the saturation. Light of mixed wavelengths looks duller or paler than pure light.
Wavelength ——> Color
Amplitude ——> Brightness
Complexity ——> Saturation
Give up
"Keep in mind that"
No, YOU keep in mind, you are the wrong here dude, not me.
1. The video that you quoted in braingames, the guy says that color is an "illusion" created between your brain interacting with the properties of luminescence reflectivity and shadow" 0:13
(more like a ecological property), It is both objective and subjective (Something that you fail to grasp)
Start with this IDEA that color is an illusion 1:10
He clearly says here that color maybe is not something that is 100% objective, but it is more like subjective-objective. Both.
Even though, IMO, even that idea is wrong, IMO, Color is 100% objective. This is a scientific fact and a objective fact. Science already explained it, you need to study more my dear friend, start with color light refraction or Light, Color, and Atmospheric Optics
2. "WHAT WE ACTUALLY PERCEIVE IS ELECTROMAGNETIC ENERGY, emitted by a source such as the Sun or an electric light fixture, and then reflected off other objects in the environment. But we can't see all the energy that's bouncing around in our environment. Visible light amounts to only a narrow swath in the middle of the electromagnetic spectrum—frequencies between 400 and 700 nanometers. "At the most basic level color is light and light consists of electromagnetic waves," explains Yale University."
Yes, and? What do you think electromagnetic waves is, dude?
Go study basic physics first and stop making a fool of yourself, You're fucking wasting my time here.
3. The video that you quoted 'Color Only Exists In Your Brain', is incorrect, read the comments from the people in the comment section, they debunked it. the guy from the video is not a real physicist he is a new-ager moron trying to say that 'color is an illusion' to diminish racism, but this is pseudoscientific nonsense and wrong.
4.
?? They just proved my point here, and the obvious.
5
- "David Hubel and Torsten Wiesel demonstrated that highly specialized cells called feature detectors RESPOND to these visual signals"
(It responds, It doesn't magically create anything)
- "From the visual cortex, visual signals often travel on to other parts of the brain, where more PROCESSING occurs"
(It processes, It doesn't magically create anything)
-" These neurons may respond to various features of the perceived object such as edges, angles, shapes, movement, brightness, and texture."
(And again, RESPOND to -- the external brightness, shapes, movement and so on)
6.
"Objects in the world seem to be brightly colored, but they actually have no color at all. Red cars, green leaves, and blue sweaters certainly exist"
They acknowledge the fact that green, red and blue CERTAINLY EXIST..(which is obvious)
"but their color is a psychological experience"
What they mean here is that the color experience is SUBJECTIVE, It is not only objective, If that was the case, colour blindness wouldn't exist, problems in rods and cones makes on color blind, the person doesn't respond to color very well. The same with any problem in the vision.
"Objects only produce or reflect light of different wavelengths and amplitudes (Brightness)
"Our eyes and brains then convert this light information to experiences of color."
Yes, rods and cones respond to color, If they are working properly you should see what is objectively in front of you.
•The first process occurs in the retina and is explained by the trichromatic theory.
•The second process occurs in retinal ganglion cells and in cells in the thalamus and visual cortex. The opponent process theory explains this process.
YES.
-
stresses me so much to know that there are some
dumb people discussing if color is real or not, if the world is flat or not, you just waste my fucking time and time from those who still have a brain.
Colors are real.
Colors are real, The brain cannot 'magically' create something. I might say that color is an illusion of light, light has no colors, but the object has properties that when light reaches it, colors appear, so color exists out in the world only when there is light, but nothing to do with the brain creating it. Colors are completely independent of your brain to Its existence, but dependent of light.
That doesn’t mean color isn’t subjective.. it’s neither subjective or objective really, it’s relative. Relative to your biological hardware that evolved to see color. Such as your cone cells.. If you have more red cones than someone else, you’re going to be able to see more shades of red. If you’re lacking green cones, you’re not going to be able to see green. That’s how light works.. It strikes an object and reflects back the corresponding wave length. Infrared and UV light waves are not light waves that interact with an object’s color, rather other properties. Such as a flower petal having a surface that is able to reflect UV light. Your cone cells have actual pigment in them.. Red pigment in red cones, green in green cones, and blue pigment in blue cones. Each individual cone cell has countless pigments in it, each with varying degrees of concentration. So when you’re looking at some green grass, sunlight is hitting it and reflecting back a very specific wave length. The grass is green, but the light wave reflected back isn’t actually green in color (because waves has no colors), but it will only be able to pass through a specific concentration of green pigment in a green cone cell.. and when it passing through that, it sends the color to your eyes/retina/photoreceptors to the brain where is perceived.. If you don’t have any green cone cells, there will be no green pigment to allow the light wave that corresponds to green to pass through. So there is green color to grass, a colorless light wave reflected back that corresponds to green, and then green pigment in your cone cells that matches the light wave reflected back by the grass that sends the green color to your eyes, with the rest of the image. Color exists out in the world.. but how we perceive it is relative. Luckily for us, through our evolution we’ve developed full color vision. Although, your brain can really jack up the signals being interpreted.. such as synesthesia, or brain isn't creating, it is interpreting. Remember too that light energy can be separated via a prism and that's why there are colors through light.
Colors do not exist.
Colors do not exist outside the brain. They can't be measured. Objects do not have color. They merely absorb and reflect different wavelengths of light due to the number of electrons, and the configuration of the electrons in their most outer electron shell. Electrons don't have color. And when we look at an object all we see are photons that have been emitted by the electrons in the outer orbit of that object. Every electron is exactly the same as every other electron The only thing we can see, hear, feel, smell or touch are electrons.
Our eyes send an electrical signal to our visual cortex. There is no color in that electrical signal. Our eyes do not create color, they only generate an electrical signal. The colored cones in our eyes are only sensitive to certain frequencies of light which we associate with different colors because those frequencies of light cause our brains to manufacture a certain color every time those cones detect that frequency of light.
Humans evolved color vision because it makes it easier for us to tell the difference between different objects. And different objects do normally reflect certain wavelengths of light. NASA falsely colorizes their Black and White images to make it easier to see certain features.
There is no way to know if the color you see as red is the same color I see as red. Someday, we may be able to ensure we all see the same the same color when we look at an object. But that day is long off. Everything we see is virtual reality inside our brain, created by our brain, based on our sensory input taken from the real universe around us.
Humans can see color even if they have no eyeballs. Some people dream in color.
nonsense
"Colors do not exist outside the brain"
False. It does exist. Right now you are seeing a bunch of colors that are outside and around you.
"They can't be measured. Objects do not have color."
Color is a result of the object interacting with light.
"Electrons don't have color"
Electrons have absolutely nothing to do with colors at ALL.
"And when we look at an object all we see are photons"
Hmm, lemme see, NO, we see color. :)
"There is no color in that electrical signal."
NO SHIT SHERLOCK :O
electrical signals only makes us perceive (UNDERSTANSD) the color which is outside of us.
Colour blindness PROVES IT. And you can't do anything about it.
"Our eyes do not create color"
NO SHIT SHERLOCK :O
Color is not created in your eye, dumb****. it is created in light interacting with an object.
"they only generate an electrical signal"
false;
"The colored cones in our eyes"
cones are not colored, but they do perceive color.
"People evolved color vision because it makes it easier for us to tell the difference between different objects"
False, the very fact that planets over a ridiculo distance do possess color, already discards this false possibility, people do not "evolved" for any of this nonsense.
"There is no way to know if the color you see as red is the same color I see as red."
Yes, there is. apple is red, and If you have good eyes, you see exactly as it is, despite the fact that our cones can differ, and we may see in diff shades of red, but the apple still red.
"Someday, we may be able to ensure we all see the same the same color when we look at an object. But that day is long off. "
There is no "someday", you are talking a bunch of gibberish.
"Everything we see is virtual reality"
sci-fi nonsense. This isn't matrix. wake the fuck up idiot.
"created by our brain"
The only thing created by your brain is your mind and your own consciousness (which itself is IN reality, which is not matrix, nor is a dream)
"based on our sensory input taken from the real universe around us"
Yes, there is a real room around us, and our senses detect exactly as it is. That's why we know how to differ hallucination from drugs (mental creation of our subjective mind) from REAL REALITY around us that we perceive with our senses (light, color, shapes, objects, etc)
"PEOPLE can see color even if they have no eyeballs."
If the person already saw before, yes, they can imagine colors and even dream in colors.
"Some people dream in color."
Blind people from birth cannot dream in color.
"Is someone who is color
"Is someone who is color blind, really color blind? No, because color is experienced by the brain. Color is not a property of the material world."
"Is someone who is color blind, really color blind?"
Yes.
"No, because color is experienced by the brain."
color is PERCEIVED in the brain
"Color is not a property of the material world."
Color is in fact property of the object, when there is light there is color in the object, color is not dependent of you to exist, but to see colors you need the organism to see it.
The entire site is misleading in information. Pure misinformation.
THERE IS COLOR
THERE IS COLOR.
To avoid misinformation I will clarify all of this.
THE TRUTH ABOUT COLORS YOU FIND WITH ME. HERE (I'M PhD NEUROSCIENTIST AND RESEARCHER ON THIS FIELD)
Colors exist independent of us, colors are caught by the eyes, what Frank Heile says is correct, the brain just perceives, qualia (is what tell you that what you are seeing IS red, not blue), people with a disease in the part which processes color in the brain can't PERCEIVE and understand what color is, they can't process color in the brain (can't understand color), but still seeing color with their eyes, yes, color is caught by the eyes, and perceived in the brain. Colors are caught by the eye, colors are caught by a camera and everything that reflects light. IT'S NOT DEPENDENT OF A BRAIN TO "create" the apperance. the appearance of color is ALWAYS in the object, and I will repeat again, ALWAYS in the object.
Blue/Gold dress is all about how people react, because of slight differences in their rod/cones, different contrasts resulted in differences in the dress (if you understand photoshop you'll understand it), but the objective color in the dress remained the same, the dress is blue and gold.
It's all dark in the brain, only electricity, no images, no color, NOTHING,
We need the objective world to create a subjective one, Our minds don't create if not by the objective reality (blind as an example), for we can not fathom a new color, or imagine a completely new and alien sound, unless without experiencing it first. The world is full of subjective illusions, yet the objective world itself isn't. We see exactly how it is. Without color existing first we would never see the appearance of color later.
Even Jellyfishes who has only eyes (don't have a brain) can see color, and changes color to attract their prey. another example are the chameleons, why do chameleons bother in changing their colors? because colors EXIST objectively.
obviously if they lack rod/cones they won't perceive reality how it is, It's relative to your biological hardware that evolved to see color. Such as your cone cells.. If you have more red cones than someone else, you’re going to be able to see more shades of red. If you’re lacking green cones, you’re not going to be able to see green (such as colour blindness). Color exists out in the world.. but how we perceive it is relative. Luckily for us, through our evolution we’ve developed full color vision. Although, your brain can really jack up the signals being interpreted.. such as synesthesia, our brain isn't creating, it is interpreting.
Color me unimpressed
After a such a long and articulated explanation that it is your brain that, after a long evolution, translates wavelengths as "color", you still don't understand that color does not exist outside our brains.
versus, your evolution hypothesis is flawed
versus, your idea is flawed, if your theory about color created in the brain after years of evolution were true, then why our brains made some people look 'black' and other 'white?, if that were true, we would be all the same color, planets are also a good example, distant planets wouldn't have to appear as 'colored', because planets has nothing to do with our survival, thus, this idea is impossible.
Colors are pretty much objective.
Versus wrong
Versus, of course color exist, as a physical property totally independent of the brain (wavelenghts) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8_fZPHasdo
But how we perceive is subjective. That's all.
To versus
"After a such a long and articulated explanation that it is your brain that, after a long evolution, translates wavelengths as "color", you still don't understand that color does not exist outside our brains."
NO, YOU are the only one who didn't understand. our brains CANNOT "magically" create the appearance of color, stop insisting in this woo woo, because this is obviously bullshit.
And evolution has NOTHING to do with it. If this were true, distant planets (which has nothing to do with us) would never have any 'color', chameleons would never change color, etc, etc..
Any photographer, even a pointer-shooter, understands the differences between perceived and "objective" (recorded on film or CCDs) color. If we want to follow your retarded logic through to conclusion, there is no light, nor any reality, because all is perception. Which is clearly bogus.
And the colorfull case of brain achromatopsia proved that all colors are objective, clearly proving your idea to be wrong.
what the heck are you talking about Versus?
Versus, do you really understand physics? I don't think so..
No, It's not our brains that "translate wavelengths into colors", is our PHOTORECEPTORS, and achromatopsia and brain achromatopsia PROVES IT (And even if it was, colors would still be totally objective, cuz your brain can not fathom a new color, or imagine a completely new and alien sound, unless without experiencing it first... but, as I said, even if it is formed in the brain color still 100% objective, like these 2 videos explains:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8_fZPHasdo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZsUWZRiTE1A (at 5:37)
And watch this video of a physicist explaining why colors are objecitve,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Um0ZXhrQUJ4&list=UU7DdEm33SyaTDtWYGO2CwdA
And watch this video of Phil Moriarty (one of the best physicists alive) explaining that ALL COLORS are OBJETIVE)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8DGgvE6hLAU
Then, my advice is, watch these videos and stop stop babbling nonsense.
Misinformation is really bad.
ALL COLORS ARE 100% OBJECTIVE.
The article is wrong, there is color
"because color is not out in the world but rather in the brain."
There is a definitive color in the objects, what changes is if someone has different cones they will perceive color WRONG. Color is not just "wavelengths" without appearance. (the coloured object has the appearance of color, that's why we see appearance of color) , without the color appearance existing in the object first, you would never see it later, that's how it works, any place which reflects light, will reflect the whole image already with color (with or without eyes to catch and brains to "perceive") If you have a disease in the brain's part of perception of color, you'll never perceive/understand the color that eyes are seeing.
Color, is caught by the eyes (and then perceived in the brain. The brain does nothing, just perceives/processes. I'm studying this area and I know a lot about it, I'm ready to get my PhD. and really upsets me when someone says about color/wavelenghts and objective world, without really understanding it. and knowing the difference about perception/reality.
Obviously color do exist in the objective world, without color existing first we would never see the appearance of color later. It's all dark and electricity in the brain, there are no "images" in the brain, the brain can't create something from "nothing", It NEEDS the objective reality and all appearances.
There is clearly only 1 color in every object. and if you have all of your cones/cells working properly you will see the world as it is.
1. Why do chameleons bother changing color if it doesn't exist?
2 If colour is only something perceived and doesnt actually exist, then what about colour pigmentation?
3. What about objects absorbing light and then reflecting what hasn't been absorbed as a certain colour?
this article should be edited to avoid spreading misinformation on the Internet.
I agree color exists, but it
I agree color exists, but it exists as a figment. What the author is getting at is not that there are not different wavelengths of light, but how we interprate color is completely subjective. There is not such thing as color as you describe it. Your chameleon argument just misses the point, chameleons don't change color to match environment anyways, you're thinking about octopi. More importantly, the color change octopi use is designed to mess with pattern recognition, it just so happens that most animals have the same way of interpreting patterns. There is no such thing as color.
wrong
who wrote this article?
for god sake
of course color is on the object
of course with light, but color is always objectively.
and we do perceive everything direcly
reality is not "fuzzed"
this is mumbo jumbo as its best
Colors DO EXIST, AND IS NOT ONLY PERCEPTION
WRONG, colors exist outside the brain. First of all, colors aren't formed in the brains, colors are formed in the EYES and PERCEIVED in the brain, And this has been proved over and over, COLORS ARE FORMED IN THE EYES (achromatopsia and colour blindness PROVES IT, retinal problems), so you are wrong. without colors existing objetively we would never see color first, the brain CANNOT create something from nothing. You are seeing the world (colors, shapes, etc) with your eyes and PERCEIVING it with your brains.
So, update this article, because It's totally WRONG. There are no doubts of color existing.
wrong philosophy
This article is nonsensical at Its best.
Sorry, but you don't have a clue about what you're talking about.
this is a complete misunderstanding of physics/neuroscience and reality.
About colors, No one has even told us that color does not exist, and you know why? Because colors do exist. Without color existing first we would never see any colors at all, our brains can't create something from nothing (I explain it in more detail later), people who has the disease called 'colour blindness" doesn't have a problem in their 'brains', actually they lack of cone cells in the eyes(which is used to translate reflected 'coloured' wavelength of the object and fill the image formed in your eyes, to become coloured)
This whole “does something exist without an observer” mindset is lame. Color exists outside our minds, if color didn’t exist, then why did color vision evolve? There needed to be water for fish to evolve, there needed to be land for fish to evolve into amphibians on up, there needed to be air for wings to evolve, there needed to be things to see for eyes to evolve.. and so on. Just like there needed to be color in the world for color vision to evolve. That’s how evolution works, adapting to what is there..
That doesn’t mean color isn’t subjective.. it’s neither subjective or objective really, it’s relative. Relative to your biological hardware that evolved to see color. Such as your cone cells.. If you have more red cones than someone else, you’re going to be able to see more shades of red. If you’re lacking green cones, you’re not going to be able to see green.
That’s how light works.. It strikes an object and reflects back the corresponding wave length. Infrared and UV light waves are not light waves that interact with an object’s color, rather other properties. Such as a flower petal having a surface that is able to reflect UV light. Your cone cells have actual pigment in them.. Red pigment in red cones, green in green cones, and blue pigment in blue cones. Each individual cone cell has countless pigments in it, each with varying degrees of concentration. So when you’re looking at some green grass, sunlight is hitting it and reflecting back a very specific wave length. The grass is green, but the light wave reflected back isn’t actually green in color, but it will only be able to pass through a specific concentration of green pigment in a green cone cell.. and when it passing through that, it sends the color to your brain. If you don’t have any green cone cells, there will be no green pigment to allow the light wave that corresponds to green to pass through. So there is green color to grass, a colorless light wave reflected back that corresponds to green, and then green pigment in your cone cells that matches the light wave reflected back by the grass that sends the green color to your brain for processing with the rest of the image. Color exists out in the world.. but how we perceive it is relative. Luckily for us, through our evolution we’ve developed full color vision. Although, your brain can really jack up the signals being interpreted.. such as synesthesia, or brain isn't creating, it is interpreting. Remember too that light energy can be separated via a prism and that's why there are colors through light.
So, We do know that you directly see reality and colors exactly how it is, If we can't see one color, is because we lack cone cells to perceive it..
If still in doubt...there are thousands of people who experience NDE (brain dead) which they could see color outside their brains, even blind people could see for the first time...
Concluding, our eyes works almost like a camera, yes, you have a direct picture of the world, thankfully, your eyes are a more powerful engine, and working together with the brain (which perceive motion more accurately, we can have a perfect image of reality that we see directly.
Here's an example:
----------------
Now about how would be "reality outside the brain" ?
hahahha, This is a joke? You already are in the reality "outside" the brain, the brain is part of the reality you are directly experiencing, I don't have words to describe how nonsense is this.. To think otherwise is to believe in "solipcism" which is indeed bullshit.. If everything in the "real reality outside the brain" (LMAO) were Fuzzy, so only you are real, can you handle that?
Dude, Pay attention, I'm gonna say only one time, either you are a solipsist (believing that your consciousness is the only one that exists and the rest of us are just characters in your dream) or there must be other consciousnesses out there (assuming there everything is "fuzzy". there's no "out there" how can there be other consciousnesses?
dreams are another proof of an objective world, because only only people with sight can dream, dreams are memories of the objective world, blind-people can't dream, that's another proof of an objective world first..
There has to be an objective world, for if it is all an illusion than it wouldn't be nor make sense. We need the objective world to create a subjective one and the same vice versa, Our minds have limitations to our physical and objective being, for we can not fathom a new color, or imagine a completely new and alien sound, unless without experiencing it first. The world is full of subjective illusions, yet the objective world itself isn't. Again we need subjectivity to have objectivity and vice versa. In world of no objectivity will only create a world of nothingness and only conscious without being able to produce a single thought; thus, we would simply not exist. In a world of no subjectivity will only create a world of beings with no consciousness and no perceptiveness; therefore, we would simply as well not exist nor evolve and etc. We need one to meet the other for this simulation our body perceives of the objective world to even be. You brain isn't creating, the brain is interpreting objective reality according with our eyes/other senses. whatever it is in front of you that your eyes are seeing are the way they are.
Taking about the fact that the only way we can interact with the physical world is through our senses (supported by neuroscience) and extending it to say that everything outside must be "different" (is not supported by neuroscience). We interact with matter every day in very real ways; if we couldn't actually interact with matter, we'd all starve to death. Actually, no, we'd die of dehydration. Actually, no, we'd suffocate instantly. And there's the problem that if everything exists inside the brain, where does the brain exist? It's just existential navel-gazing.
YOU PERCEIVE REALITY DIRECTLY . PERIOD.
re: Daramantus
THIS PERSON WAS ACTUALLY ASKING A VERY LEGITIMATE QUESTION. WHAT IS "OUT THERE" IS NOT WHAT WE PERCEIVE IT TO BE. THE FACT IS THERE IS NOTHING OUT THERE. AND THIS IS FACT. REALITY IS A CONSTRUCT OF OUR COLLECTIVE IMAGINATION. THIS IS ALL A DREAM!
Reality is not fuzzed, nor is a dream
Your "Illusion" makes no sense Visitor. Reality IS NOT a dream. If you can't differ reality from a dream, then It's time to take your meds.
The illusion is an illusion. In your illusionary world is there anything to compare it to such as "no illusion" or "illusion free zones"? If the illusion is all there is in that world, with nothing other than illusion to be compared to.... the grand illusion singularity... then the illusion must be real or what is often termed "reality". Furthermore, in this equasion, if/when the illusion is real then it must be true that the many sights and sounds we see and hear every day are real sights and sounds. The sensations from the 5 or six senses we have are real and feelings of hunger and puking are real........ if everything is an illusion and its the only game you got going it might as well be real because there's no other option.
Our brain adapts to the congruencies and consistencies it derives from the surrounding, very real, physical environment.
The brain just "perceives" the objective reality. Without objective reality existing first, we would never see it later.
Air, Water, Food. Color, Objects. ALL EXTERNAL.
THere is no space for "Fuzzed reality" or "Reality without colors"
THE ARTICLE IS TOTALLY FLAWED.
then prove It is all
then prove It is all "illusion"
REALITY OUTSIDE THE BRAIN AND EYES
I LIKE YOUR ARTICLE. IT TIRES ME WHEN MOST SCIENTISTS ESPECIALLY MOST PHYSICISTS ASSUME THEY KNOW THERE IS NO COLOR ACTUALLY IN THE WORLD; MAYBE NO LIGHT AND NOTHING BUT DARKNESS AS SOME EVEN THINK. MAYBE THEY ARE CORRECT; HOWEVER THEY JUST ASSUME IT BY ASSUMING THE NATURE OF LIGHT, ELECTROMAGNETIC ENERGY ETC. TO BE SO WELL UNDERSTAND BECAUSE THEY ARE UNABLE TO THINK OUTSIDE THE BOX, SO TO SPEAK. IF COSCIOUSNESS ARISES AS IT APPEARS TO FROM OUR ELECTROMAGNETIC SOUL; THE BRAIN BEING A HOUSE FOR IT; THEN I WOULD CERTAINLY THINK THAT ELECTROMAGNETIC ENERGY CAN POSSIBLY PRODUCE COLOR IN REALITY. MAIN STREAM SCIENCE NEEDS TO RE VAMP ITS THINKING; THEN WE MIGHT FIND A WAY TO PROVE THINGS AND NOT ASSUME THINGS. ONCE AGAIN A GREAT ARTICLE. TIM AUPERIN.
Mindfullness
This is exactly what lord Buddha thought us 2500 years ago.
are six internal-external (organ-object) pairs of sense bases:
eye and visible objects
ear and sound
nose and odor
tongue and taste
body and touch
mind and mental objects
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayatana
There IS a correct and a superior way to perceive the world.
It is called MINDFULLNESS
Mindfullness is an attentive awareness of the reality of things.
great
but what about some example in the sense of smell?
Shaekespear : " ... what about a rose by another name? would it smell different ?..."
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