m1469 wrote:
So, I learn that I am of a certain "height", or learn a certain visual perspective, only because I can feel my feet on the ground?
Yes.
Consider a newborn baby. To him the whole visual world is right there on his face. He has no experience of depth. Newborn babies are not blind (as many medical doctors believed before Frederick Leboyer proved otherwise in the late 1960s), but at the same time they have not yet learned how to “see”. The experience to them is like having ever-changing shapes on a plane that is right on their faces. They do not see mother approaching. They see a dot that grows and grows until it becomes a face. They do not see mother distancing herself. They see her face decreasing in size, becoming a dot and disappearing altogether. Then they cry. Observe a very young baby (1 week – 2 months) They are constantly using the hands trying to grasp something right in their faces. They are trying to grab the images in their eyes – which they wrongly believe is right there. Soon they realise that the moving plane in their faces (which we can call the visual field) is not plane at all: it has
depth. And they discover that and experience that through the sense of touch: by trying to grab the images and not being able too unless they move where the images are. The experience of depth is not visual at all. We cannot see depth. It is that simple. However very soon we learn how to interpret what we see as “perspective”. What we see are ultimately distortions. Learning to interpret such distortions as perspective is of course essential to survival, so we learn it pretty quickly. Then we convince ourselves that what we see is reality. It is not. It is a distorted
model of reality.
As a consequence, we are easy prey to visual illusions. It is really easy to manipulate one’s perception of reality by manipulating visual input – something magicians excel at.
Here we must go back to the question I put to xvimbi. For all his scientific upbringing he seems unaware of it.
Is grass green?
The way this question is verbalised implies that the colour green is a quality of grass. His answer shows that he swallowed my verbal trick and accepted the assumption that green is a quality of grass.
Now, listen very carefully because on this everything hinges:
Green is not a quality of grass. Green is a label: it is the name we give to the (visual) sensation we experience when we look at grass. Green has nothing to do with grass: it has everything to do with us. The consequences of this statement are so staggering and so far-reaching that I feel discouraged in expanding on it.
But I must expand because otherwise we will not understand the incredible wrong turn that xvimbis’s version of science (which is not science at all) took, and the even more incredible wrong turn that religion (in the version exposed by some posters) has also taken – this is not religion at all.
When someone looks at grass, he has an amazing internal experience. It is mindblowing, it floors you, it should leave one speechless. And yet it is a completely and utterly personal experience. It cannot be shared. It cannot even be endorsed by others. It is totally private.
You look at grass and you turn to the person to your side and say: “Wow! Did you see
that!!! What was that?!” The other person replies: “yeah, I saw it too. It is called
green”. So you reply: “Amazing! Green! I must remember that”.
Now let us think carefully about this. Imagine for a moment, that for some weird reason, when you look at grass, you actually see the colour red. And when you look at a fire engine, to you it is totally green. Now as a child you will lern very early on that grass
is green. This means that you will name the red you see every time you look at grass as “green”. You will also learn that the (visual) sensation you get when you look at a fire engine is called “red” (even though what you actually see is green). Because there is no way to enter someone else’s inner consciousness and see through their minds, there is no way to check if the labels actually match. Notice that we are not talking daltonism here (a frequently voiced objection) since daltonism is an inability to see colours, and can be easily detected. What we are talking about here cannot be detected at all. A person who switches consistently read and green, will function absolutely normally in society: he will stop at the red lights (he sees them as green, and has learned to call the green that he sees as “red”. He has also learned that he must stop at the “red” lights).
This leads us to an earth shattering possibility: that no one sees the same colours. Since colours are not a property of things, but internal experiences triggered by what we look at, the only thing that creates the impression that everyone has the same internal experiences is language: as long as we have a name for an internal experience we will believe that we have experienced the same things.
We say the same words, but it is highly unlikely that these words label the same internal experiences. In fact we are quite prepared to accept that in emotional subjects, but we are not supposed to expand this concept to include the whole of language. That would be too subversive.
Now let us go one step further and talk about what misguided scientists believe to be the ultimate unshakeable ground: Observation itself. Over the last one hundred years, philosophers of science have demonstrated that science cannot be based on observations. Yet, scientists (and a lot of religious people who want to point out the weaknesses of science) insist in the observation phallacy. Don’t these guys read? Science is not based on observations except in a trivial sense. But to explain that fully will take too long, and I simply do not care enough for this sort of discussion (just read Karl Popper to start with).
However there is a point that is very relevant for this discussion, and this is the matter of models.
I once had a friend who was crazy about these little plastic airplanes that came to be an exact replica of the original. He was always asking me round to show his latest model. On one occasion I was with a low tolerance threshold, so when he enthusiastically asked me: “Look at this airplane: Isn’t it is just like the real thing!?” I replied matter of factly:
“No, it is not at all like the real thing. For a star look at its size, for crying out loud! The real thing is at leas 2000 times bigger. Next this is made out of plastic, the real thing is made of metal and glass and other stuff. This thing in put together with glue, the real thing is put together with screws and soldiered. And look at this pilot: it does not have anything belly down: it is just shoulders, head and arms. And look at his uniform: it is part of him, you cannot take it of. Besides the real thing will cost $ 10 million, while this pathetic model cost $15. And where is the engine? Where are the bombs and ammunition? The lights? This is nothing like the real thing!”
As I said I once
had a friend…
This little story however shows us the three basic processes involved in modelling: generalisation, distortion and deletion. Deletion: certain things that exist in the real thing are not present in the model (the pilot’s lower body; the bombs, the petrol tank filled with petrol, the engine). Distortion: certain things that are in a certain way in the real thing are portrayed quite differently in the model (the size, the plastic material). Generalisation: taking the part for the whole (we see the pilot’s upper body and assume that there is a lower body; we see the petrol tank cap and assume that there is patrol tank and maybe even petrol).
It is important at this point to say that there is nothing, absolutely nothing wrong with modelling. Modelling is of the utmost importance: it simplifies the real thing and makes it manageable. The problem, the real problem is when you start confusing the model with the reality it portrays.
Anyway. Any process that displays distortion, generalisation or deletion
is a model of reality, not reality. Do you really think that “seeing is believing?” Think again. The image formed in your mind through the medium of vision is not a picture of reality, but rather a
visual model of reality. There is no discusiion here: vision has distortion (it is two dimensional – reality is not), it has deletion (we cannot represent visually most of the electromagnetic spectrum – nothing below infrared and nothing above ultraviolet) and it has generalisation: you see a house and you assume the other side (even though you cannot see all sides at once).
The same goes for all senses. Therefore,
sense perception is a model of reality, it is not reality. We do not have direct access to reality. All we have is a sensual map of it. So observation (impartial or not) is a myth. Whatever you are observing is not reality, but a map of reality.
And if you now go back to the “grass is green situation” you will realise that whatever consensus there is in terms of observations is actually an artificial construct – and mostly a delusion created by language. As such
your language structures your perception of reality. The consequence is that people with different languages perceive reality very differently.
No one sees the same green. But everyone believes so because there is a linguistic label for it that creates the delusion of unanimity.
Language itself is a model, arguably the most powerful model ever created by mankind. Language does not model reality though: it models our perception of reality (which is itself a model of reality) and it models language itself (when instead of talking about sense perceptions, it talks about itself as I am doing here).
This means – for practical purposes – that this forum is already twice removed from reality. My words (and everyone’s else) is simply a model of the model.
However, we are not restricted to sense perceptions to assess reality (as many uninformed scientists and even less informed religious followers seem to believe). There are other models that are actually far more powerful.
(cont from my statement above)
However, depth is only an internal feeling that exists because there are three dimensions "working together" (which are also internal sensations and only exist because dimension 1 was joined at a straight angle by dimension 1, creating dimension 2, and then joined by another dimension 1, creating dimension 3)?
Yes. There are two currents of thought in this matter: One says that reality does not exist, it is all a product of our minds. The other says that reality actually exists, we just do not know what it looks/feels like. I happen to side with the second current. I believe that reality exists, but it is ultimately unknowable. All we can hope to know is our models of reality. However we can improve these models and approach reality infinitesimally. So yes, the sensations we have are caused by reality.
Is this because there is nothing outside of it that can give accurate perspective on what purpose any isolated dimension is serving (sorry, I am not sure that this question will make any sense, but at present I don't know how else to ask it)?
No. The reason to put it that way is to clarify the language so that you are not led to the wrong conclusions because of a linguistic trompe l’oeil.
Do these dimensions boil down to consciousness?
No. The dimensions exist (as does reality) independent of consciousness. Consciousness is what allows us to experience the sensorial models of reality, or in this particular case the sensorial models of dimensional movement: When moving in the thirds dimension we experience a sensorial model we label “depth”; when moving in the fourth dimension we experience a sensorial model called “time”, and when we move in the fifth dimension we experience a sensorial model called “emotions” (notice that “emotions” is already a generalisation and therefore a model).
Strictly speaking we are all already in the sixth dimension, so nothing actually moves. What moves is consciousness, through limited sensorial models which allow only sections to be perceived. So as you look at your body in a mirror, you are seeing a bidimensional visual distortion of a three dimensional section of a fourth dimensional body, whose totality you will only be able to grasp at the moment of death (by superimposing and overlapping all of your three dimensional sections). This fourth dimensional body of which you may become conscious at death is itself only a four dimensional section of a fifth dimensional body and so on and so forth.
Both religious people (the usual religious peoples – there are exceptions) and scientists (the usual scientists – there are exceptions) are of an utmost mediocrity and shyness in their thinking. The universe is far stranger than any of their narrowminded theories can suppose.
To me, this suggests (I am now skipping several steps, and assuming some things) that what we experience and percieve as information coming from external influences, is actually only an illusion. What is actually occuring is a working out from dimensional consciousness and, we experience what we are conscious of and take for granted its origin (internal, not external). This also suggests that there is nothing that is truly "external", and for that matter, "internal" also loses its supposed meaning. There becomes no difference between them and all that we truly experience is dimensional consciousness.
There is something external, but we have no idea of what it is. But we do have - at this moment in time – some pretty good models. But they are far too timid. They are not even scratching the surface (I am mostly talking about scientific models although there are some really good metaphysical ones out there as well). The main problem at this moment in time is that there is a confusion between models and reality (partly because some of the models have been so successful)
I will stop here for now. Is this anywhere close to what you are suggesting (as far as you can tell)?
You are showing a lot of promise.
Best wishes,
Bernhard.
Topic: What is eternity?