During sleep we are detached from reality and disconnected to our body. We lose awareness of bodily sensations like touch and balance as we drift asleep. In a state of oblivion all we have left to connect with is our memories. Free from external stimuli our subconscious can hyper-focus on arbitrary recollections.

Maybe we don’t actually lose consciousness as such during sleep; we forgo a sense of continuity.

https://www.colormatters.com/color-and-design/are-black-and-white-colors
The darkness of our eyelids contains all colours while we’re asleep!

If colour is internally emitted then the multicoloured phosphenes would neutralise at a black colour as black absorbs all light.

“One world is a enough for all of us”, The Police

One world is a enough for all of us — Richard B

If we were each living in a world of our own, then there’d be 7•9 billion unique perspectives within our planet’s population!

“It's a subject we rarely mention
But when we do we have this little invention
By pretending they're a different world from me
I show my responsibility” The Police

when we do we have this little invention
By pretending they're a different world from me
I show my responsibility — Richard B

There isn’t the same qualia problem for our sense of touch as there is for colour vision. My red might look different than yours. Athough a red apple probably has a similar texture and haptic feel for both of us. Touch is a more simple sensation than vision. An entity is either hard or soft, fluid or viscous. The pressure of an object against our hands is more describable through science than colour qualia. Our material world is the same and our visual world is definitely similar though maybe not identical.

“Suppose everyone had a box with something in it: we call it a “beetle”. No one can look into anyone else’s box, and everyone says he knows what a beetle is only by looking at his beetle. Here it would be quite possible for everyone to have something different in his box. One might even imagine such a thing constantly changing. But suppose the word ‘beetle” had a use in these people’s language? If so it would not be used as the name of a thing. The thing in the box has no place in the language game at all; not even as a something: for the box might even be empty. No, one can “divide through” by thing in the box; it cancels out, whatever it is.

That is to say: if we construe the grammar of the expression of sensation on the model of ‘object and designation’ the object drops out of consideration as irrelevant” Wittgenstein , PI

“I don't want to bring a sour note
Remember this before you vote
We can all sink or we all float
'Cos we're all in the same big boat” The Police

Cos we're all in the same big boat — Richard B

One way of looking at it is that people could speak long before the invention of writing. Therefore many of the mental constructs we use are based on sound. Likewise braille are tactile messages. Writing on the other hand is a more visual means of communication. How loud a voice is will be a shared perception. Audio is a longitudinal pressure wave through the air. The sense of touch also concerns the movement of pressure. My sense of hearing won’t be too dissimilar to someone else’s. Hence the sound of a singer will the same for both of us.

Nonetheless sound and touch still have traces of ethereal features such as proprioception. Sound is non-spatial yet we can detect where a noise is coming from. That locus of proprioception is unique and different for me relative to someone else’s proprioceptive direction. Our body has an irregular shape with a centre of gravity that fluctuates as we walk. Thus my sense of balance will be different to another person’s. However light travels much faster than sound and it’s spectrum is far more diverse. So maybe there’s more deviation in our visual perception compared to other senses like sound and touch along with their derivative forms of communication.

Ever been in a room where people couldn't agree on whether the temperature was too cold or too hot?

The sense of touch also concerns the movement of pressure. My sense of hearing won’t be too dissimilar to someone else’s. Hence the sound of a singer will the same for both of us. — Michael McMahon

Some people are much more discriminating when it comes to certain sounds that they've spent a lot of time understanding. Take the musical instruments a musician is familiar with. They often can hear things in a song the average person who doesn't play those instruments is unaware of. I heard about a cricket researcher who could discriminate all sorts of cricket sounds which sound the same to most everyone else.

Same idea with things like wine tasting.

Ever been in a room where people couldn't agree on whether the temperature was too cold or too hot? — Marchesk

Temperature is multifaceted. Infrared radiation is heat even though its technically invisible light. Pressure and convectional currents are the more tactile versions of heat. Latent heat is where an object changes state; from solid to gas (sublimation) or melting ice into liquid and boiling water into vapour. This consumes energy even though we don’t detect it. Therefore heat perception is more ambiguous than the other senses.



“Heat moves naturally by any of three means. The processes are known as conduction, convection and radiation.”
https://www.google.ie/amp/s/www.sciencenewsforstudents.org/article/explainer-how-heat-moves/amp

Some people are much more discriminating when it comes to certain sounds that they've spent a lot of time understanding. — Marchesk

Same idea with things like wine tasting. — Marchesk

Indeed. Although doesn’t this disparity in our thresholds of perception hint at elements individuality in our senses more so than materialism?

“Habituation occurs when we learn not to respond to a stimulus that is presented repeatedly without change, punishment, or reward.
Sensitization occurs when a reaction to a stimulus causes an increased reaction to a second stimulus. It is essentially an exaggerated startle response and is often seen in trauma survivors.”
https://courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless-psychology/chapter/biological-basis-of-learning/

Indeed. Although doesn’t this disparity in our thresholds of perception hint at elements individuality in our senses more so than materialism? — Michael McMahon

I'm not defending materialism against consciousness. I'm pro-consciousness.

Habituation occurs when we learn not to respond to a stimulus that is presented repeatedly without change, punishment, or reward.
Sensitization occurs when a reaction to a stimulus causes an increased reaction to a second stimulus. It is essentially an exaggerated startle response and is often seen in trauma survivors.”
https://courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless-psychology/chapter/biological-basis-of-learning/ — Michael McMahon

This sounds like a stimulus-response model of perception A bit outdated, considering the wide range of Gibsonian-influenced models of perception ( O’Regan and Noe, for instance) that have emerged over the past few decades. Expectation plays a fundamental role in perception , which is why the concept of qualia is incoherent when applied to perception.

The choice between “realism” and “anti-realism” should be decided based on ethical and/or practical consideration rather than some decision of the veracity of a metaphysical picture. If my fellowing human being is just a mere projection, would making them suffer carry any consequence in ones mind. If the charging lion is attacking me, would or should the mind care about the inevitability of the pending doom?

If you say, the mind would react as if real, this distinction then seems useless: thus let us commit it to the large pile of useless ideas that have littered humanity’s long intellectual history.

The choice between “realism” and “anti-realism” should be decided based on ethical and/or practical consideration rather than some decision of the veracity of a metaphysical picture. — Richard B

People say that physical determinism is the most objective stance. Determinism might lend to a stoic attitude of accepting our faith. We can’t control our fortune or misfortune. There will always be a few events that are beyond our control. Some accidents cannot be avoided. We can’t go back in time and change our mistakes. However I tend to believe free will is superior when it comes to being proactive. We can take the initiative and pursue our goals uninhibitedly. When we view ourselves as free agents we can take responsibility for both our virtues and vices. Free will is intimately entwined with antirealism because realism implies materialism which in turn connotes determinism. Free won’t also entails elements of antirealism though not to the same extent as it’s also compatible with aspects of materialism. Free won’t can be viewed as a middle ground in the debate!

If something isn’t material then it can logically only be either empty space or else temporal and spiritual. So free will could be view as a temporal phenomenon occurring in each of our unique histories where my timeline is located separately to your conscious experience. Maybe your consciousness is all the empty space you perceive!

“The third world breathes our air tomorrow
We live on the time we borrow
In our world there's no time for sorrow
In their world there is no tomorrow
One world is enough
For all of us
One world is enough
For all of us
Lines are drawn upon the world
Before we get our flags unfurled
Whichever one we pick
It's just a self deluding trick” The Police

A distant star illuminates the vast empty space directly between you and the star. Or else starlight is itself the white empty space between you and your own perception of the star.

https://www.google.ie/amp/s/theconversation.com/amp/when-you-look-up-how-far-back-in-time-do-you-see-101176

The starlight we see are light years away. This means we’re not seeing the real stars as such but a perception of them as they were years ago. Likewise we perceive close objects nanoseconds in the past. Yet we’re physically travelling through time at the same rate as those nearby objects. The image of our own body and hands are a nanosecond in the past. In other words our view of objects is not always based on the actual matter behind the photons but just the photons themselves. If we’re receiving a 2D image in our eyes, then perspective is akin to length contraction and demagnification. We could interpret our retinas as being transparent whereby light passes through our light-sensing cells without fully blocking the photons. Then the image we perceive is in fact still travelling at light speed! Then there wouldn’t be a time lag between your present moment and the room your in. Visually speaking you are at one with the photons you see! Sorry if I’m nitpicking but yourself and the room might both equally be a nanosecond in the past!

“This constancy of the speed of light means that, counter to intuition, speeds of material objects and light are not additive. It is not possible to make the speed of light appear greater by moving towards or away from the light source.”

That might also be the case if visual perception were internal. Thus our sense of vision would be distinct from the external material objects that our visual perception is based on. If vision were 2D, then perhaps our perception of light would appear static in the third dimension. What would happen if photons moved at 0m/s? Then a potential photon is stuck to every tiny piece of space. Is a photon sent out of a torch the same photon one second and 299 792 458 m later? If a photon was like a pixel then any individual pixel is motionless and its apparent motion is in fact separate pixels. Is a photon being “pushed” out of the torch or is it the opposite direction where the torch “pulls” photons from any object in its path? Maybe light could travel through empty space because the oblivion of black is itself a colour and so light “is” an excitation of empty space.

The speed of light number accidentally came up as link in my last post. Wouldn’t it be cool if someone had the speed of light as their own phone number!

“The starlight we see are light years away. This means we’re not seeing the real stars as such but a perception of them as they were years ago.”

This is a bizarre “anti-realist” way of putting.

Let me put it like a typical scientist would “The starlight we see is light years away. This means we see these stars as they were years ago.” “Real” and “Perception” is drop out because they are superfluous.

“Real” and “Perception” is drop out because they are superfluous. — Richard B

Yes your entitled to your point of view. But many stars appear not just younger than they truly are but also in a different location to wherever they’re currently situated. So the light is not just older but also misdirected from the real star in present time. That is to say there’s no mass directly behind our visual perception of many stars in different galaxies. That mass is now in another location somewhere. Scientists have to work out the real coordinates of stars indirectly through red shifting, laws of gravitation, stellar parallax and brightness.


“if that star is hurtling away from us, all those absorption lines undergo a Doppler shift and move toward the red part of the rainbow. This is what we call a redshift. For stars heading toward us, the opposite happens, and the lines are shifted toward the blue end of the spectrum; they are blueshifted (generally, astronomers only use the term redshift to simplify things, and just put a negative sign in front of it if it’s a blueshift). By measuring how far away the lines are located from where they’re supposed to be in the spectrum, astronomers can calculate the speed of a star or a galaxy relative to Earth, and even how a galaxy rotates: by measuring a different redshift for one side of the galaxy compared to the other, you can see which side is moving away from you and which side is moving toward you.”
https://earthsky.org/astronomy-essentials/what-is-a-redshift/

“when you look at a star, you are actually seeing what it looked like years ago. It is entirely possible that some of the stars you see tonight do not actually exist anymore.”
https://www.wtamu.edu/~cbaird/sq/mobile/2017/04/02/since-a-stars-light-takes-so-long-to-reach-us-how-do-we-know-that-the-star-is-still-there/

“when you look at a star, you are actually seeing what it looked like years ago. It is entirely possible that some of the stars you see tonight do not actually exist anymore.”

Yeah, like if I watch a movie tonight and see a group of actors. It is entirely possible that some of the actors I watch in a movie tonight do not actually exist anymore.


“One world is enough
For all of us

It may seem a million miles away
But it gets a little closer everyday

One world”

The Police

“If an object is placed inside the focal length of a concave mirror, and enlarged virtual and erect image will be formed behind the mirror. The cartesian sign convention is used here.”
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/geoopt/mirray.html

We often view the retina as a sensor but what if the brain interprets the curved retina like a concave mirror? There’d be a virtual image in the brain.

Is our sensation of anger or happiness the same as other people’s? There’s certainly some overlap because we can distinguish between positive and negative feelings. However our rationality came through the growth of childhood while our emotions are deeper. The sensation of frustration has been with us since the evolution of the first humans. How are thoughts and emotions related? Are they interdependent where they both guide each other? Emotions are more complex than our thoughts and they’ve a genetic basis. For example, reports of feral children raised without much communication will be unable to learn language but they’ll still experience emotions as they’re an innate and evolved response. We can describe our thoughts through language but some of the experience of emotions are not readily describable. Therefore how our nuanced rationality interprets the ups and downs of emotional qualia will be slightly unique for each of us.

“ We can describe our thoughts through language but some of the experience of emotions are not readily describable.” The first part of the sentence sounds like I have thoughts and once I have a language then by some inner observation can describe them. I think what you mean is “through language we express our thoughts”, which is quite different. The second part of this sentence is equally confusing. As children, we have many emotions that we can not articulate with words. However, when we react similarly to the adults around us in similar circumstances those adults will try to train us to express this nonverbal behavior into words. So to say that something internal to yourself that is not readily describable leaves one wondering what you are talking about at all. However, if you would like to add that sometimes we react to situation unlike those adults who have trained us to express ourselves in particular ways, then I believe we start to have a situation where we just can’t relate to that person.

So to say that something internal to yourself that is not readily describable leaves one wondering what you are talking about at all. — Richard B

What I was getting at is that there might be a non-real or spiritual aspect to emotions. It’s like our language allows us to express 90% of those emotions. Maybe foreign languages might capture certain states of mind better than English. For example French has a more fluent sound which might increase closeness and familiarity between speakers. Anyway my emotions are fine-tuned differently to someone else’s. There are lots of different varieties of the same emotion. Just think of how many synonyms there are of happiness: bliss, contentment, relief... Unless we’re Shakespeare we can’t fully articulate the subtle differences in an emotion. If someone asks me how I am then I usually respond in a brief sentence as a formality but also as a cognitive inability to reply in long poetic verses! Think of words like quixotic and machiavellian that can be used as adjectives even though they carry multiple connotations because they refer to whole works of historical literature.

I think what you mean is “through language we express our thoughts”, which is quite different. — Richard B

Indeed. Sometimes an emotion can create thoughts. For instance being bored can make your mind wander. Other times thoughts create emotions like where realising a mistake was made induces stress and confusion.

The first part of the sentence sounds like I have thoughts and once I have a language then by some inner observation can describe them. — Richard B

Most of our thoughts do occur semantically and logically. Although it’s possible to have visual thoughts apropos of nothing. I could close my eyes and think of a forest. I’ll momentarily see vague outlines of tress in my mind’s eye. But the flickering image is automatic and I don’t have to semantically state how many trees there’ll be for the imaginary scene to arise. I suppose my subconscious just loosely amalgamates previous memories and pictures of forests. Remembering is a form of thinking even though it can refer to nonverbal experiences.