Questions of a philosophical nature.
Discussion
mrmr96 said:
Simpo Two said:
jmorgan said:
Light is light and can be measured (I don't mean there is only one version of light....). That is the way the photons interact with stuff with colour and then your eyes see what is left. But change the colour of the illuminating light or filters bits out and green is not always green. But we do not calibrate our eyes but we can measure colour, but my guess it is not far out considering the differences in peoples eyes and other conditions and the way evolutions has made our eyes.
Waits for the shoot down in flames......
There are three factors here. One is the wavelength of the light, which is precise and definable. Two is what your brain resolves it as (which we cannot know). The third is what you have been *told* each wavelength is.Waits for the shoot down in flames......
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L45Q1_psDqk&fe...
The point is that colour is created by your Phaneron, i.e. your experience of reality VIA your senses.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phaneron
Also, BBC article:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-1442...
BBC said:
The first thing to remember is that colour does not actually exist… at least not in any literal sense.
BBC said:
we see colour through our brains, not our eyes
Edited by mrmr96 on Thursday 18th July 22:43
Like all of these debates it just comes down to semantics. Of course colour exists, it is our description or meter of how we interpret a particular wavelength of EM radiation. Saying colour does not exist is as relevant as saying that (sound) tone does not exist. The compression waves in air are there but if no animals had ears then we would not sense or describe a sound. Just because the interpretation and labeling of a colour is subjective does not mean that it does not exist, as a concept. Nobody thought indigo existed in a spectrum before Newton, most people saw just 6 colours in a rainbow (and still do).
A colour is a meter or measure of the wavelength of visible light, and a very useful one.
Other 'things' that don't exist:
A kilogram (still undefined mathematically unlike colour)
A metre
A person (each person is different from the next and not one of us would exist without the stuff outside of our skin so where do you end and everything else begin?)
A star (where is the boundary of the star and the non-star?)
It's all just silly labels. They are each as relevant and real as each other, in everyday life.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_%28metaphys...
A colour is a meter or measure of the wavelength of visible light, and a very useful one.
Other 'things' that don't exist:
A kilogram (still undefined mathematically unlike colour)
A metre
A person (each person is different from the next and not one of us would exist without the stuff outside of our skin so where do you end and everything else begin?)
A star (where is the boundary of the star and the non-star?)
It's all just silly labels. They are each as relevant and real as each other, in everyday life.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_%28metaphys...
Jinx said:
TheExcession said:
I tried this on PH when I first joined up.
I postulated that the 'subject & object' metaphysics which is the norm for the way we are taught to think is fundamentally flawed.
I suggested that a metaphysics of quality as described by Pirsig was a much better framework on which to hang our understanding of the world around us.
I didn't get very far.... but I'm still a huge fan of Pirsig's work, you can read about it here.
A little Googling will find you the full book in PDF - well worth 10 or 20 reads; I threw out all the Readers Digests, and this is the only book on the shelf in the toilet!
Though I did enjoy Zen and the Art of motorcycle maintenance I came up with the definition below without too much thought:I postulated that the 'subject & object' metaphysics which is the norm for the way we are taught to think is fundamentally flawed.
I suggested that a metaphysics of quality as described by Pirsig was a much better framework on which to hang our understanding of the world around us.
I didn't get very far.... but I'm still a huge fan of Pirsig's work, you can read about it here.
A little Googling will find you the full book in PDF - well worth 10 or 20 reads; I threw out all the Readers Digests, and this is the only book on the shelf in the toilet!
Quality = the difference between a thing and the sum of its parts.
Next question.
Pirsig himeself said "While 'Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance' is a skeleton of a philosophy enclosed within a full-bodied novel, LILA is a skeleton of a novel enclosed within a full-bodied philosophy."
If you haven't read Lila I cannot recommend it highly enough, please read it! It's very very hard work, I don't mean hard to read - it's a lovely tale, I mean it is hard to shift your way of thinking to what he is talking about.
As for "Quality = the difference between a thing and the sum of its parts." - I'm afraid you've completely missed the difference between Static and Dynamic Quality and what would be 'termed' as patterns of Value.
I hope you don't mind me pulling more quotes from the author (sadly R.I.P. now), I'm not just Googling sound bites, but he really does explain it better than I can.
Pirsig says "The Metaphysics of Quality is not intended to be within any philosophic tradition, although obviously it was not written in a vacuum. My first awareness that it resembled James' work came from a magazine review long after “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance” was published. The Metaphysics of Quality's central idea that the world is nothing but value is not part of any philosophic tradition that I know of. I have proposed it because it seems to me that when you look into it carefully it makes more sense than all the other things the world is supposed to be composed of. One particular strength lies in its applicability to quantum physics, where substance has been dismissed but nothing except arcane mathematical formulae has really replaced it"
I suppose that I would sum up the book saying the Author takes apart our subject/object view of the world nit by bit. He then attempts to put it all back together under a new model that describes 'patterns of value' - he postulates you need four and not our two (subject/obect) - his are physical, bilogical, social and intellectual. In fact he claims that if you wrote four encyclopedias names accordingly then no-thing would be left out.
On top of these patterns-of-value he then lays the idea of 'Quality' which drive and latch these patterns. I can't explain in a simple post here exactly what he came up with, you really need to read the book a few times.
It really is worth a couple of reads!
If every action has a reaction that is quantifiable and can (in theory) be measured and predicted, is there any such thing as free will?
Or are the neurons in our brain, affected by almost innumerable external and internal stimuli, simply firing in a way that they were always going to fire?
Or are the neurons in our brain, affected by almost innumerable external and internal stimuli, simply firing in a way that they were always going to fire?
mrmr96 said:
mrmr96 said:
Simpo Two said:
jmorgan said:
Light is light and can be measured (I don't mean there is only one version of light....). That is the way the photons interact with stuff with colour and then your eyes see what is left. But change the colour of the illuminating light or filters bits out and green is not always green. But we do not calibrate our eyes but we can measure colour, but my guess it is not far out considering the differences in peoples eyes and other conditions and the way evolutions has made our eyes.
Waits for the shoot down in flames......
There are three factors here. One is the wavelength of the light, which is precise and definable. Two is what your brain resolves it as (which we cannot know). The third is what you have been *told* each wavelength is.Waits for the shoot down in flames......
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L45Q1_psDqk&fe...
The point is that colour is created by your Phaneron, i.e. your experience of reality VIA your senses.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phaneron
Also, BBC article:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-1442...
BBC said:
The first thing to remember is that colour does not actually exist… at least not in any literal sense.
BBC said:
we see colour through our brains, not our eyes
Edited by mrmr96 on Thursday 18th July 22:43
Art0ir said:
If every action has a reaction that is quantifiable and can (in theory) be measured and predicted, is there any such thing as free will?
Or are the neurons in our brain, affected by almost innumerable external and internal stimuli, simply firing in a way that they were always going to fire?
Are we the hand that rocks Newton's cradle or just one of the balls?Or are the neurons in our brain, affected by almost innumerable external and internal stimuli, simply firing in a way that they were always going to fire?
TheExcession said:
must have had Lila stuck in my back pocket for a year or two before I went back and read ZMM, and I guess I must have read it about 15-20 times before it all finally clicked and that was when I went back to read Zen. I found Zen tiresome and somewhat irritating.
Pirsig himeself said "While 'Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance' is a skeleton of a philosophy enclosed within a full-bodied novel, LILA is a skeleton of a novel enclosed within a full-bodied philosophy."
If you haven't read Lila I cannot recommend it highly enough, please read it! It's very very hard work, I don't mean hard to read - it's a lovely tale, I mean it is hard to shift your way of thinking to what he is talking about.
As for "Quality = the difference between a thing and the sum of its parts." - I'm afraid you've completely missed the difference between Static and Dynamic Quality and what would be 'termed' as patterns of Value.
I hope you don't mind me pulling more quotes from the author (sadly R.I.P. now), I'm not just Googling sound bites, but he really does explain it better than I can.
Pirsig says "The Metaphysics of Quality is not intended to be within any philosophic tradition, although obviously it was not written in a vacuum. My first awareness that it resembled James' work came from a magazine review long after “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance” was published. The Metaphysics of Quality's central idea that the world is nothing but value is not part of any philosophic tradition that I know of. I have proposed it because it seems to me that when you look into it carefully it makes more sense than all the other things the world is supposed to be composed of. One particular strength lies in its applicability to quantum physics, where substance has been dismissed but nothing except arcane mathematical formulae has really replaced it"
I suppose that I would sum up the book saying the Author takes apart our subject/object view of the world nit by bit. He then attempts to put it all back together under a new model that describes 'patterns of value' - he postulates you need four and not our two (subject/obect) - his are physical, bilogical, social and intellectual. In fact he claims that if you wrote four encyclopedias names accordingly then no-thing would be left out.
On top of these patterns-of-value he then lays the idea of 'Quality' which drive and latch these patterns. I can't explain in a simple post here exactly what he came up with, you really need to read the book a few times.
It really is worth a couple of reads!
I'll pick up a copy and read it soon I promise - but don't be too dismissive of my definition - for a start I haven't defined "thing" and each part with have a quality in and of itself?Pirsig himeself said "While 'Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance' is a skeleton of a philosophy enclosed within a full-bodied novel, LILA is a skeleton of a novel enclosed within a full-bodied philosophy."
If you haven't read Lila I cannot recommend it highly enough, please read it! It's very very hard work, I don't mean hard to read - it's a lovely tale, I mean it is hard to shift your way of thinking to what he is talking about.
As for "Quality = the difference between a thing and the sum of its parts." - I'm afraid you've completely missed the difference between Static and Dynamic Quality and what would be 'termed' as patterns of Value.
I hope you don't mind me pulling more quotes from the author (sadly R.I.P. now), I'm not just Googling sound bites, but he really does explain it better than I can.
Pirsig says "The Metaphysics of Quality is not intended to be within any philosophic tradition, although obviously it was not written in a vacuum. My first awareness that it resembled James' work came from a magazine review long after “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance” was published. The Metaphysics of Quality's central idea that the world is nothing but value is not part of any philosophic tradition that I know of. I have proposed it because it seems to me that when you look into it carefully it makes more sense than all the other things the world is supposed to be composed of. One particular strength lies in its applicability to quantum physics, where substance has been dismissed but nothing except arcane mathematical formulae has really replaced it"
I suppose that I would sum up the book saying the Author takes apart our subject/object view of the world nit by bit. He then attempts to put it all back together under a new model that describes 'patterns of value' - he postulates you need four and not our two (subject/obect) - his are physical, bilogical, social and intellectual. In fact he claims that if you wrote four encyclopedias names accordingly then no-thing would be left out.
On top of these patterns-of-value he then lays the idea of 'Quality' which drive and latch these patterns. I can't explain in a simple post here exactly what he came up with, you really need to read the book a few times.
It really is worth a couple of reads!
jmorgan wrote 'There's no such thing as "green". The "colour" you see is just your brains interpretation of that wavelength of light. It doesn't exist except as a perception within your own mind.'
I sort of agree. In fact Descartes quote should be modified henceforth to: 'I think therefore I think I am'. So from now on, your perception of your mind in your brain is also a perception. Hmm..is the brain a perception of the mind as well or vice versa? We live in troubled times...
I sort of agree. In fact Descartes quote should be modified henceforth to: 'I think therefore I think I am'. So from now on, your perception of your mind in your brain is also a perception. Hmm..is the brain a perception of the mind as well or vice versa? We live in troubled times...
MiseryStreak said:
Like all of these debates it just comes down to semantics. Of course colour exists, it is our description or meter of how we interpret a particular wavelength of EM radiation. Saying colour does not exist is as relevant as saying that (sound) tone does not exist. The compression waves in air are there but if no animals had ears then we would not sense or describe a sound. Just because the interpretation and labeling of a colour is subjective does not mean that it does not exist, as a concept. Nobody thought indigo existed in a spectrum before Newton, most people saw just 6 colours in a rainbow (and still do).
A colour is a meter or measure of the wavelength of visible light, and a very useful one.
Other 'things' that don't exist:
A kilogram (still undefined mathematically unlike colour)
A metre
I thought a metre was mathematically defined, albeit in a contrived fashion, in terms of time and the speed of light?A colour is a meter or measure of the wavelength of visible light, and a very useful one.
Other 'things' that don't exist:
A kilogram (still undefined mathematically unlike colour)
A metre
The Wookie said:
I thought a metre was mathematically defined, albeit in a contrived fashion, in terms of time and the speed of light?
It is. It is defined as exactly "the length of the path travelled by light in vacuum during a time interval of 1/299,792,458 of a second." I confused the point I was making by stating just above that the kilogram wasn't even mathematically defined yet.My point was that a metre is not a real thing, it's just a definable quantity, much like colour (a definable wavelength range of EM radiation), but they are still extremely useful - these things that don't exist, these universals.
Gandahar said:
In the past people with scientific views were castigated by people with religious.
Now people with religious views are castigated by people with scientific.
Is this morally right based on history ?
Yep, this weekend we're actually planning burning some theists at the stake. The ones that confessed and survived the torture that is. The corpse of others will just be left to rot on the outside of the village to serve as a warning.Now people with religious views are castigated by people with scientific.
Is this morally right based on history ?
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