Reality

basically 'giberish' trying to maskerade as 'suedo science';

light doesn't really exist; it is an interaction made apparent by a feedback system evolved in biological phenomina using only a minute part of the 'visible' spectrum. [thus one could say, if god is light, then god does not actualy exist - which is pretty consistent with my 'observations!]

and dark is even less 'substantial', being simply the absence of 'light'.

my view of the universe is that of an evolving phenominon, measureable in terms of light and time (which end up being more or less the same thing); which, while it might seem to deify the 'yardstick', is more, in my head, a defining of actual 'reality'.

But "everything" is in our head.

truth
A good string of statements of principle (pardon my paraphrases):
BGW: "Light doesn't really exist [by itself]; it is [the product of] interaction..." (see Fresco's Interactionism).
"...the universe is an evolving phenomenon...measureable [in terms of] a yardstick...in my head...a defining of actual 'reality."

C.I.: "...'everything' is in our head." (I would stress that what is not "in our head" is not part of our view of the world. Yet the content of our consciousness is the product of the interaction between our culturally and genetically constituted neurological systems and the mysterious noumena of reality.

F: "perception is active," We are not looking at the world "out there" and seeing "it" as it really is (naive realism), as if viewing passively through two ocular "windows." And we must realize the difference, as Fresco put it elsewhere, between utility and actuality. Culture, pragmatic philosophy and science are concerned mainly with utililty, with the functions of 'knowledge', while transcendtal philosophy and mysticism are concerned mainly with the actuality of things, with little or no concern with the utility of their "knowledge.".

Guys I am confused .... isn't the C^2 in E=MC^2 representative of the speed of light squared? If not then what gives with Albert? I have been under the impression that the speed of light was a constant only affected by a huge gravity anomalie as in a black hole.

S'up?

truth
Gel, I wasn't referring to light as conceived by the physicist; I was referring to the phenomenonal EXPERIENCE called "light".

"I wasn't referring to light as conceived by the physicist; I was referring to the phenomenonal EXPERIENCE called "light"."

Surely there is a connection between how we experience things and physics. They are not two totally seperate things afterall. One is used to explain the other ( It can work both ways round).
An experience of light, must be connected to the logic behind it, or that experience wold not exist. In this way evry experience has a reason- emotions, colours etc. It is all effected by the circumstances and facts that surround the reality we create for ourselves.

spectrumoflight

Welcome to the reality game !

As you can see we are on page 17. Much has been said already about the status of "logic", "conventional science" and "explanation" and points have been made about contemporary problems with physics in using traditional methods to "explain" cosmological and microcosmic "data". The focus has consequently turned to the nature of consciousness, perception and ultimately life itself, and the stance taken by myself and others is that "reality" is about the nature of "interaction" or the co-existence of inner and outer states neither of which is a priori. Scientifically this position is epitomised by Heisenberg, Piaget, Capra (et al) and philosophically it is the essence of a nondualist postion.

We are in agreement that for everyday purposes we act for the most part as though there is an objective external reality ( or "existence"). Such is a consequence of "languaging" which relies on socially agreed persistance of "objects" and concepts (common paradigm) , and is successful to the extent that we are "same species" with "similar cultural backgrounds". However outside this limited and shifting domain of "languaging" we are obliged to turn to metalanguages such as mathematics, or personal experiential "evidence" transcendent of language, to provide "coherence" for our concepts of interaction. Such coherence is essentially "metalogical" in that "truth values" cannot be "empirical" from an interactionist position.

I think this is a reasonable summary of the nondualist position.

Gelisgesti

Einstein's "constancy of speed of light" enabled him to move on from and delimit the applicability of Newtonian mechanics, but its utility/status has recently been challenged by cosmologists investigating the "amount" of matter and energy in the universe. This perhaps illustrates the point that all concepts have their "reality" bounded by interactional utility. (Note for example that nobody has ever "seen" an atom).

fresco, for our physical sense of sight to be rooted in reality would require that photons be as real as are we and, hence, our eyes?

Fresco, I've edited my last statement for your enjoyment.

Gelisgesti

No.

The "reality" of photons is about the status of the data obtained from certain types of optical experiment (types of interaction). Other experiments do not support the particle nature of light, and ancient explanations held that vision was a type of "tactile feeling" by the extension of a beam FROM the eyes. (This is not very far from a concept of "active perception" !)

Note also that the eye is necessary but not sufficient for "vision". Our extension of "the eye" to the "visual system" does not define the limits of what must be included in such a system for "sufficiency" (of explanation).

SCoates.

Thanks for the entertainment.
For me "truth" is negotiable, and "meaning" is "use" (Wittgenstein).

truth
Spectrumoflight, point well taken, but my reference to the "mysterious noumena of reality" included those realities unconvered by physics and other disciplines (and some that don't exist yet). I was just trying to note that the experience of light must include "internal" functions (i.e., cultural condtioning and physiological functions) which INTERACT with the so-called external or objective processes in the external world studied by physics.
Fresco, yes that was a VERY reasonable summary of the non-dualist position.

I think the problem here is that you don't understand dualism, fresco. There is not simply "objective reality" for senses to "work on". There is a whole network of things that happen in reality, some of which we can perceive through various mechanisms. Electricity similarly is a bit more complicated than just "electricity" and the means by which the light bulb works is also not simple.

Stop patronizing everyone for once. No one who claims to be interested in philosophy sees the world so simply.

truth
Rufio, I don't mind the fact that you most often either do not understand what others are saying or you misinterpret them in order to have a strawman to attack. You are only human. But PLEASE do not patronize those you do not understand. That's just plain obnoxious.

rufio,

Look back and note that you were the one who commented my reply to another post without fully understanding that reply. You often do this thereby reducing the orignal intended impact. You can expect such "interference" to entail a curt or impatient reply, or for your own reply to be ignored. I freely admit I am less patient than JLN.

SCoates,

Apologies if the last reply was too brief. It is axiomatic to the dualist position that "realty" is about "truth", but as soon as you allow for "truth to be negotiable" then "reality" slides towards "rationality" and "purpose for observation".
The nondualist "scores" at this point because he attempts to re-establish "reality" as transcendent of both the observer and the observed. In discussing the dualistic tautology we should note that "logic" itself is independent of "truth values" which are established by appeal to "reality". Your argument is therefore circular.

Wouldn't 'unreal photons' produce 'unreal images' and thereby an illusin of reality? Where does reality begin and end?
How does a brain know to invert the retina's image?

The reality of a photon

truth
Fresco, unlike many dualists, I take your often dense statements as opportunities to sharpen my reading skills. When I don't understand them immediately, I make an effort to do so. Most often I come to grasp their meaning. In other words, don't let the lazy press you to talk down. When Rufio accused you of patronizing her, she was totally wrong. If you talked DOWN to her, THAT would be patronizing behavior.
When I used in my last post the phrase, "those realities UNCOVERED by physics," I described the process as passive, as if physical truths were just lying about awaiting discovery, as opposed to being creatively "negotiated" into theoretical existence by purposeful efforts.

Gelisgesti

I am not saying that "photons" or "the eye" are "unreal", only that "their reality" does not stand alone and can only be understood as part of an equiry procedure in which they stand as "structural nodes" in a web of other related nodes. Thus the enquiry procedure which gave the concept "photon" has an interactional history involving the nodes "wave" "quantum" etc, and this is different from the interactional history surrounding the eye and its anatomy. The existence or otherwise of "photons" is in fact irrelevant to explanations of funtioning of the eye at the gross optical level, and may have no explanatory significance whatsoever for general "perception" except within a "signal detection theory" approach (ref Swets) which involves "central control" over "peripheral processes" in situations of low "signal to noise ratios".
Without getting too deep here I think you can see that what constitutes a "signal" must be functionally agreed between observers. (all "information" is with repect to some guiding hypothesis).

Of course as paradigms shift they generate different modes of enquiry.
For example the neuron has taken on various "exlanatory modalities" from "switch" to "analogue to digital converter" to component in a "finite state machine (see generative grammar) to the current "site for the operation of quantum consciousness". And yet other "shifts" do not see single neurones as significant at all !

I should point out that this position does not go as far as twyvel's transcendent "all boundaries are illusiary". That move requires the removal of "time" in which such "enquiries" take place, and the "observers" who make them......but the undertanding is there.

...sorry... slightly carried away........your questions re: "inversion of image" and "boundaries of reality" are purely "pragmatic issues". (Printers read laterally inverted type face because they need to. Similarly theists may consider "God " as "real" as this chair because they need to.)