Comments

  • Anti-Realism
    "If Earth suddenly lost all of its gravity, we wouldn't just start floating. The lack of any forceful gravitational pull would turn humans – and anything else with mass, like cars and buildings – into very fast-moving tumbleweeds. That's because the planet would continue spinning, without exerting gravity to keep objects tied to it.
    A loss of gravity would also mean that the planet would stop pulling down air, water and Earth's atmosphere. That's where the apocalyptic devastation somewhere along the lines of a Michael Bay movie come in. A sudden and significant loss of air pressure would immediately shatter everyone's inner ear. Think about the pressure that builds when you're flying or scuba diving; this would be much more intense and immediate. Concrete structures would crumble as oxygen – an important binding agent – left the planet."
    https://science.howstuffworks.com/science-vs-myth/what-if/what-if-earth-lost-gravity-for-five-seconds.htm

    So we'd spin back against the Earth's direction of rotation if gravity disappeared. But then the air in the atmosphere would also move backwards and downwards against the rotating segment of the earth. Therefore even without traditional gravity there'd still be a downward force exerted on you from atmospheric pressure and Eulur's force.
  • Anti-Realism
    The original brains in vats!
    Kang and Kodos - Simpsons Aliens

    Imagine speaking to a visible brain without a skull in real time!
  • Anti-Realism

    Eiffel 65 -- I'm Blue (Mister Perfect Remix)

    I remember years back I went through a stage of listening to every remix of this trance song. I was even inspired to buy a grey jumper afterwards! Even though the verse's lyrics of "I'm blue da ba dee da ba di" is semantically nonsensical it's still catchy somehow. It adds to its theme of confused wonderment. This emphasises how much the emotional tone is appreciated of whatever is being sung no matter what the actual written content is even if it's ridiculous.
  • Anti-Realism
    Hedonistic and rebellious pop songs can sound even more energetic and intense when it's remixed in another language:

    Sexy B*tch - Versión en español
  • Anti-Realism
    Is colour made of photons or are photons made of colour?
  • Anti-Realism
    Maybe a panpsychist point of view would be that light has colour qualia even before it hits your eyes while a materialist however would say the photons are colourless and it's only added on afterwards where the photons are detected in the eye.
  • Anti-Realism
    If consciousness is located outside the body then it'd be movable instead of being in a constant location within the brain. Therefore the mind could affect the brain in separate areas depending on what part of your perception is being activated and most focused on. Perhaps our own mind is spatially scattered and denser in those sensory regions we're being attentive to.
  • Anti-Realism
    If our own visual screen of all the objects in front of us is larger than the size of our head and yet still remaining equivalent to our consciousness, then it'd seem like the visual phosphenes that make up our sentience is an out-of-body experience so to speak. Then our visual perception could be both 3D and internal.
  • Anti-Realism
    If consciousness were equivalent to empty space then it'd feel like your visual consciousness literally moves forward when you look at something in the distance and it then retreats back when you focus on something closer where the background is now blurry. If you are one with your perception then the most vivid segment of your perception is where most of your flowing consciousness is located.
  • Anti-Realism
    If dreams can be perceived as visually real to our consciousness while lucid dreaming then why don't we have the focus to become lucid in every dream? Maybe it's because there's too many unexpected events in dreams where we're continuously distracted by the changing storyline:


    The Monkey Business Illusion

    "This finding was a particularly dramatic example of "inattentional blindness," the failure to see something obvious when focusing attention on something else."
    https://news.illinois.edu/view/6367/205580
  • Anti-Realism
    "(An) anti-realist can come in a number of flavors. As always the out and out anti-realist might just (be) a skeptic. Or an eliminativist is the term that's often used. I mean somebody just thinks we ought to eliminate this branch of discourse. So for example take say theological talk: some people might believe that there's a God they think God is an element in reality. They're realists about god. Other people might go to the other extreme and say you know all this theological talk is just junk. (That) We should not be thinking in these terms (is) eliminativism. In between there are people who say well i'm not quite so hostile to the discourse, i don't mind people talking and thinking in god terms but you mustn't think in terms of realism. You mustn't think in terms of a three decade universe with heaven up there the earth here and perhaps hell down below. You ought to see god talk in different terms for example poetical, symbolical, metaphorical and religious... Now the claims of anti-realism go beyond gods or theology to where if i were a full-blown anti-realist I might think that the whole world is a construction of my own mind... That's the position known as idealism... That would be a general position usually associated with bishop Barkley in the early 18th century."


    It's also possible to a be an anti-realist about God along with being an anti-realist about the physical world. One way to describe visual anti-realism would be that the quantitative outline of empty space which we see is the same for each of us but our impression of the colours within the objects are individualistic. The colourful empty space I perceive is in a different conscious location to the void that you perceive. Consciousness in this context would be equivalent to the vacuum of empty space.
  • Anti-Realism
    For example there are lots of different regional accents and colloquialisms within the English language that convey slightly different emotions and busy intensities. Some accents might have an impression of humility or industriousness while others are more neutral and geographic.
  • Anti-Realism
    Some of our subconscious metaphysical beliefs are non-verbal. I interpret some of my free will and decision making in an analytical way but there's still an ineffable feel about my baseline consciousness. It's like the way a background beat can affect the tone of the lyrics without actually changing the content of the lyrics. If I could switch my consciousness momentarily with someone else's then perhaps by contrast we could spot immediate differences of sensation in our free will that we previously left unstated and unexamined. Different countries have unique spiritual and religious beliefs about death although for all we know some foreign cultures could have different metaphysical beliefs and implicit tendencies about free will or determinism. It'd merely be that we currently lack an understanding of the nuances of what that would entail and we don't as yet have a full description of the subconscious and unconscious. International societies were historically far more isolated before the advent of modern communication. It took thousands of years for languages to develop which is enough time for metaphysical beliefs to leave an imprint on. If I were perfectly bilingual then maybe I might notice a subtly different shade of personal agency between the two languages. I only know a small bit of French so my experiences are limited. The happier fluent rhythm of French contrasts with the impartial monotone of the English language.
  • Anti-Realism
    A dream is like a remix of a song where events in our past are mixed together randomly and then played out to see what would've happened under different circumstances.
  • Anti-Realism
    Come to think of it I could probably take off my glasses and I'd feel like I was watching some 1970's video. I'm short-sighted and I'd be like one of those dark comedy movies with the unspoken irony. Then I could focus on the colours, time durations, motion blurs, relative velocities, spatial volumes and emotional vibes instead of the spatial resolution. The bokeh of street lights are less dangerous to stare at when the luminous glare is unfocused. The uncertainty principle means the more we know about location the less we know about velocity when it comes to both quantum photons and unfocused images. This is because we can focus on the entire blur of a moving car instead of a detailed part of it like the bonnet in one look. Colours will be brighter during the day and darker during the night. Colour contrast will vary as they diffuse into each other at the perimeter of objects. Depth will shorten in scale into the distance where blurred entities at the horizon will look equidistant and holographic. I might miss all of my tennis shots but at least I'll get to know my opponent better! You only live once!


    Bee Gees - You Should Be Dancing - Saturday Night Fever
  • Anti-Realism
    Understanding why a dream was irrelevant still requires use of your critical reasoning skills. That is to say in order to understand why it's irrelevant you first need to know what would've been more relevant. So having an absurd dream isn't as pointless and time-wasting as it may seem. I'd a non-lucid dream about trying to find these fiery pellets on the ground while trying to avoid being seeing by a snake. That morning I remember myself saying that I couldn't have had a more irrelevant dream. What has that got to do with my current situation? That soon got me thinking, "What actually is my current situation?". So a totally irrelevant dream can actually make you focus on thinking about what would have been a more helpful and relevant dream. Our conscious response to a dream is unpredictable to our subconscious.
  • Anti-Realism
    Evolution is cited as a materialistic and deterministic explanation for the creation of species. But then is psychological romance also a mentally deterministic process? If so, could personality traits that we find attractive be indirectly and subconsciously cemented into our own emotions through romance? Or is it only physical traits that can be important when it comes to evolution while emotional romance is mere recreation? Other species are far less monogamous than humans because without self-awareness romance to them can only be physical.
  • Anti-Realism
    When we vividly remember an event from weeks ago it might feel like our consciousness hasn't moved spatial position between now and back then.
  • Anti-Realism
    "Diffusion is the net movement of anything from a region of higher concentration to a region of lower concentration. Diffusion is driven by a gradient in concentration."

    Perhaps consciousness diffuses as far into empty space as your senses allow.
  • Anti-Realism
    What if the brain itself isn't conscious but that it's perceiving your own consciousness through the senses?
  • Anti-Realism
    What if our mind moves our body in a similar way to a dancer trying to rhyme their motion to the the beat of music; except for us our body moves relative to our thoughts and emotions.

    What if intense beats could force you to dance by possessing you and twitching your muscles?!
    Bob Sinclar - Rock This Party (Everybody Dance Now)

    Kelly Rowland - Commander ft. David Guetta

    There are caveats to this drumbeat possession logic in case we were to all lose the run of ourselves:
    Neo & Trinity Sex Scene - The Matrix Reloaded 2003
  • Anti-Realism
    If you know one depth value then you can work out the rest of your perception to the same scale using familiar size. For example you know the objective length of your body so you know what an arm length ahead of you corresponds to in distance.

    "Familiar size: Since the visual angle of an object projected onto the retina decreases with distance, this information can be combined with previous knowledge of the object's size to determine the absolute depth of the object. For example, people are generally familiar with the size of an average automobile. This prior knowledge can be combined with information about the angle it subtends on the retina to determine the absolute depth of an automobile in a scene."
  • Anti-Realism
    If we're looking in a slanted direction towards an entity then the distance we're see is the hypotenuse and we can infer the depth by approximating the hypotenuse and the width back to a position right in front of you.
  • Anti-Realism
    Each of our eyes has a different degree of perspective since different parts of an object right in front of us will be closer in diagonal depth to one eye over the other other.
  • Anti-Realism

    Pulp Fiction 1994 - Wolf

    Notice how the lower camera resolution in older movies doesn't always detract from the atmosphere and the way the colours appear highlighted can actually increase the tone, flow and ambience of the film. It gives it a subtle and almost indescribably different vibe in how the scenes temporally transition from one to the next. Walking around with sunglasses all day long doesn't have a major effect on your self-awareness but it can alter your visual concentration.


    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_symbolism
    https://www.lomography.com/magazine/339223-the-monochrome-effect
  • Anti-Realism
    Maybe it's possible to combine both options where our perception is in front of our face while our rational thoughts are behind us.
  • Anti-Realism
    Is someone's consciousness invisible and in front of their face in an undetectable manner? Or is it hidden from view behind the face inside the brain?
  • Anti-Realism
    If our visual perception were entirely in our brain, then the further out we look the deeper we are seeing into our brain,
  • Anti-Realism
    We're all living different lives. So how do we know how closely our conscious timelines are located to each other? For all we know another conscious mind might be a full lifetime away relative to our own. It'd be like the physical body and mental sphere were in different temporal realms. Another way to think of it would be that consciousness were like a spirit in the literal sense of the word; that is to say everyone's mind being separated by the oblivion of death.
  • Anti-Realism
    "So if I'm doing the flipping, then the mirror is not. Take an arrow and point it to the right. The reflection in the mirror goes to the right. Point it up, it goes up. Left, it goes left. Down, it goes down. Forward, it goes-- wait a minute. If I point the arrow forward, the reflection goes backward. So the mirror is flipping the image, but it's flipping it in the z direction."


    What if the page she flipped was see-through where we could still see the letters? Then we'd observe the word spelled right to left on the page and it'd be no surprise the mirror reflects the letters in that direction. A mirror would be like having an eye on the back of your head! Sadly I'm a bit angry so I might resort to name-calling anyone who dares to disagree with me a "doof-us"!

    https://www.flickr.com/photos/koons/48205397436/in/photostream/
    Glass buildings can serve as huge mirrors to observe direction reversal of reflections on the street.
  • Anti-Realism
    The image in a mirror is unusual because an object looks to be in the same location but it's horizontally facing the other direction. If our consciousness is looking backwards inside the brain to see an image then it would be like our perception is rotated halfway round a circle in a straight angle of 180 degrees such that it's pointing the other way round at the opposite end of the diameter.
  • Anti-Realism
    If the scene we see in our brain is really a virtual image then when we look in a mirror the objects should actually be the proper left-to-right orientation and it's our own usual perception that's always switched. For example our brain's motor system is contralateral.

    contralateral: relating to or denoting the side of the body opposite to that on which a particular structure or condition occurs.
  • Anti-Realism
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depersonalization

    What is the connection between depersonalisation and religiosity, spirituality or mysticism? In an extreme form depersonalisation can cause severe mental illness and confusion. But what about mild depersonalisation? When people talk about self-transcendence in terms of connecting with others through humility, identifying with a common cause such as a soldier fighting for his country or identifying yourself with a collective identity like a religion, I often feel that would entail reducing part of your own personality in order to incorporate an external entity. As people grow elderly their capacity for spiritual ways of thinking naturally increases. Depersonalisation is not the same as derealisation which is where you view your perception as fake. Depersonalisation is loosely described as a loss of your sense of freedom and lack of ability to control your own agency; as if you were a passive observer of yourself. That sounds similar to the philosophy of determinism but here it seems to be used in a different context. Instead of being determined by the material world, your personality is being determined by whatever are your metaphysical or spiritual views.
  • Anti-Realism
    We measure the length of objects relative to standard quantity such as a metre and not the amount of space it occupies in our vision. I couldn't tell you the actual size of my computer if I compared it only to how much of my vision it takes up. This would always change depending on how far or close it is to me. Therefore there's no way to visualise a true external object without qualia because it doesn't make geometric sense in our consciousness unless it merges to a point of perspective. We can only use shared units in a co-ordinate plane to describe external objects.
  • Anti-Realism
    An infinitude of time would mean that if the multiverse were random like the Boltzmann brain scenario then a deterministic system like our universe is possible to create from of a foundation of randomness seeing as everything conceivable happens an infinite number of times in an infinite universe. We could turn that on its head and say that if the multiverse is both infinite and deterministic then the starting point of subjective time is unknowable due to the immense timescales. Thus the specific beginning of time in our particular universe relative to the multiverse is random or arbitrary. So it's possible to reconcile determinism and randomness through a hypothetical multiverse.
  • Anti-Realism
    How could a deterministic system become random or vice-versa? That's the dilemma at the heart of quantum mechanics. Usually infinities and infinitesimals can render equations undefinable or negligible such as dividing a number by zero or subtracting infinity from infinity. Space in our universe is finite and objective time only stretches back to the Big Bang but what about subjective time? They say an observer in quantum mechanics doesn't have to be human and any detector would suffice. Although in that case could a micro-organism or a fish be counted as a non-conscious observer in quantum mechanics? Then subjective time of parallel streams of life could possibly be interpreted as an infinite quantity. Therefore when it comes to reconciling determinism and randomness we could speculate that subjective time might be infinite even if objective time is not.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Undefined_(mathematics)
    https://www.philforhumanity.com/Infinity_Minus_Infinity.html
    https://www.space.com/whats-beyond-universe-edge
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observer_effect_(physics)
  • Anti-Realism
    Maybe it's possible to create different competing versions of scientific antirealism depending on which variables(s) are perceived in an immaterial way.
  • Anti-Realism
    Panpsychism where photons are equivalent to our qualia could bypass the combination problem of consciousness because our visual perception of external reality would be ready-made before the signals even enter the brain.

    "the combination problem: the problem of how objects, background and abstract or emotional features are combined into a single experience."
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binding_problem
  • Anti-Realism
    The chaotic, random quality of the beat distracts our attention from all of our previous thoughts such that we are more receptive to the lyrics whenever they arise. It temporarily destabilises and relieves the stress of our ordinary thoughts which might be interpreted cathartically. In reducing our concentration for whatever was our previous mental activity we can therefore use the music to refocus with more power on the lyrics. This creates a more potent effect compared to listening to the vocals alone without the background instruments or electric music.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDgU-rMkVNU
    Dj Splash - You Spin Me Right Round (Remix)
  • Anti-Realism
    Only light from our eyes and sensory nerve impulses from the body penetrates the skull.

Michael McMahon

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