The eye and the mind

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The eye needs light to see. This is a fact. It is the light reaching the eye, this thing we call sight, and even though it feels as if the eye endarts it is in reality exactly oposite. But is light all that the eye needs? What about air. Does the eye need air to see? My immediate answer is yes, and it seems to withstand all attempts to disprove it.

In the process of "reading" light, the eye does not require air, but it requires existence. It cannot see if it does not exist. And to exist it needs air.

When this is said, can we not then safely say that the thought requires air to take place? One thing is to say that I think and it proves that I exist. And that, in turn proves that the world around me exists. That I can see it and think it does not in itself prove anything if we cannot agree that all thought depends on the world around the thinker. It has been said that if the mind did not get input from the senses there would be no thought. This has also been doubted. Strange.

The creature that has the ability to sense and to think is a product of the very environment it senses and thinks about. The ability of thought is in itself a product of the "thoughtmaterial", or the sensoral input. Conciousness has evolved same as opposing thumbs. How then is it possible to doubt that thought is not only dependent on the world it processes, but also an actual part of this very world?

The tendency to put the human being outside of creation is a misconception that is solidly planted in the minds of each individual, and wich in turn leads to a string of other misconseptions. The concept of time, for instance, is turned neatly on its head, and to this day philosophers are still arguing wether the world or the idea came first. The old chicken and egg. All this because of the ego. The concept of self that is so highly regarded in both western philosophy and lifestyle. It is within this very idea that our spirits rest, according to our religion. Made by man but now man's maker. Wich brings me to my question:

Is it a good thing that we worship our egoes in the way our culture urges us to?

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Re: The eye and the mind
Science is our attempt to separate perception from reality. But we hold science with our legs like an acrobat swinging on the trapeze of philosophy; never able to fully let go.

Sorry. Did I miss your point?

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I think science, or common sense, is one foot we stand on. Philosophy and imagination is the other. I'm hopping around on the latter.. Smile

I don't know if there was a point to be missed...

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Cyracuz, I agree completely. I've made the argument many times that consciousness "of the world" depends on an infinite set of circumstances. To have visual consciousness, or awareness, of some "object", there must exist, eyes, brain, heart, skin, etc., and there must exist air, gravity, oxygen, air pressure, temperature within a certain range, etc. There must be a planet to stand on; it must have a sun; there must be a solar system, with galaxies, ad infinitum. Ultimately, "I" see the world with everything, and--partly in that sense--"I" (the perceiver) am everything. But we must also notice that the world which we are is also the world that we are consciousness of. It is circular because it is all a unity. There is no way to stand aside from the world to see it objectively. The illusion of the ego, of a privileged and separate perceiver, is essential for human physical survival (hence, its universality), but it is something we must transcend (use it but see through it) for psycho-spiritual fullfilment.

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I've made the argument many times that consciousness "of the world" depends on an infinite set of circumstances. To have visual consciousness, or awareness, of some "object", there must exist, eyes, brain, heart, skin, etc., and there must exist air, gravity, oxygen, air pressure, temperature within a certain range, etc. There must be a planet to stand on; it must have a sun; there must be a solar system, with galaxies, ad infinitum.

When you put it like that it's suddenly amazing that we can see at all...

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It's all genetics and environment.

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And yet, Ray Charles managed to "see" ...as did Helen Keller.....without a working eye between them.

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Yes, Cyracuz, it IS amazing. Just think: in a sense when I see, it is ultimately the case that the Cosmos or Reality is seeing itself. That's a mind blower for me, but I cannot see it any other way.

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One of the ancient theories of vision held that rays were transmitted from the eye and "felt" the objects they "touched". Although this may seem far-fetched now, such a model is valuable in stressing that perception is active rather than passive. By extrapolation we might also arrive at the reverse of the theistic argument about the so-called "unliklihood" of the spontaneous origins of life, e.g. "The world appears like it is because we are like we are are."

As JLN implies, we should logically take the compromise of neither "passivity" nor "activity" of perception - namely interactivity.
But as "researchers" have found out in fields ranging from quantum physics to anthropology, the problem of studying interactivity is finding an appropriate vantage point to give coherence to the study. Indeed the " seeing your own eye" discussion was central to Wittgenstein's own attempts to investigate coherence and semantics.

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Re: The eye and the mind
I have no doubts that our ability to think is a evolutionary tool. And our senses are the way we interact with external stimulus.
But the "self" - not quite the same thing as the "ego" - is what we are, according to your own perspective. If we were blind, our representation of the physical world would be different. Other animals see the world as something very different from our perspective.
We are part of the physical world, but interacting with it. Our perception has intentionality, our senses give us configurations of external stimulus, and that is what we call "reality" (a bat would strongly disagree with us).
We think with language and, in fact, we perceive things as concepts not things.
There is an human reality that can not be "dissolved" in external stimulus. This has nothing to do with metaphysics: but, you see, you are all humans. When you look to a chair, you are creating a configuration of something external to you, according to the specificity of your eyes and nervous system.
We cannot move "outside" our own condition. It is like we have a software, a program that makes configurations of external stimulations, according to the previous definitions of that software. The fact that we are talking about an evolutionary "software" doesn't change anything.

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Nobody

Leibniz said something like that. But I don't see why you agree with Ciracuz statement: your own position is deeply metaphysical and Cyracuz has a sort of materialistic conception, not far from Lenine's "Materialism and empirocriticism".
I think I am closer to Fresco conception, although I would like him to explain more deeply his position, according to Wittgenstein.

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JLN wrote:

Quote:

Yes, Cyracuz, it IS amazing. Just think: in a sense when I see, it is ultimately the case that the Cosmos or Reality is seeing itself.

That is how I have come to see it also. Perception is essentially communication. I like to call an important part of it listening. Not just with the ears, but by placing oneself in a mental state where one becomes "one" with the object in question. Most things will tell you all about themselves if you just listen.

As for coherence... I get the sense that the people you mention, Fresco, were impatient and proud. Is there not coherencey in nature? It's all an unbroken string of interactions all the way back to where history dwindles in the horizon.

Val wrote:

Quote:

When you look to a chair, you are creating a configuration of something external to you, according to the specificity of your eyes and nervous system.

This brings to mind Plato in the cave. I think one can learn a lot about the world when one learns to think aroud these configurations you speak of. They are more often than not simple predjudices that help you label your surroundings. A simple defense towards uncertainty, but a barrier once you start opening your eyes.

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Val,

In his Tractatus, W said that the eye of the observer was not in his visual field, that is it could not be an "object in the world" in the sense of other "perceived objects". "The eye" here can also be taken to be a metaphor for "I, the observer".

Two related points follow.

1. Reductionist studies of the physiology of the eye and optic system may reveal aspects of the necessary apparatus for "perception" but may fail to encompass sufficient aspects since the non-reductionist (teleological/active) element of perception remains transcendent and elusive.*

2. Later Wittgenstein discussion of "language games" would have much to say about the status of the words "object" and "image" as applied to "the eye". e.g. The concept of a "retinal image" is problematic when compared to a "photographic image" because there remains the philosophical regression problem of "who or what perceives the retina" per se.
(Wittgenstein may or may not have specifically discussed "the eye" in this manner but this argument about "seeing" is parallel to his analysis of other verbs like "having" in phrases like "having a pain" versus "having a dog"......i.e. "seeing a visual image" versus " seeing a photographic image"......for Wittgenstein confusion reigns when "language goes on holiday".)

* but see Green & Swets references on "Signal Detection Theory" for early attempts at modelling the interaction of central and peripheral perceptual processes

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Cyracuz

Quote:

The eye needs light to see.

Yes, though the eye doesn't see. Consciousness or whatever observes sees, (and which as fresco has just pointed out, infinitely regresses) and upon inspection appears to use the eye as a tool.

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This is a fact. It is the light reaching the eye, this thing we call sight, and even though it feels as if the eye endarts it is in reality exactly oposite.

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JLNobody

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I've made the argument many times that consciousness "of the world" depends on an infinite set of circumstances. To have visual consciousness, or awareness, of some "object", there must exist, eyes, brain, heart, skin, etc., and there must exist air, gravity, oxygen, air pressure, temperature within a certain range, etc. There must be a planet to stand on; it must have a sun; there must be a solar system, with galaxies, ad infinitum.

I completely disagree, Smile

Consciousness is not dependent on anything, i.e. it's not an emergent property.

If there are no things-in-themselves there are no causal relations; no hearts, brains, eyes,'until observed'. If a thing such as an eye has to be observed to be what it is (whatever that is), it does not nor can not cause or do anything. We don't need eyes to see, we need eyes to explain how seeing takes place., or how/why it doesn't take place.

There is no universe, planet earth or oxygen or human body etc. They are just part of causal explanations of the uncaused.

(my view)

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Ultimately, "I" see the world with everything, and--partly in that sense--"I" (the perceiver) am everything. But we must also notice that the world which we are is also the world that we are consciousness of. It is circular because it is all a unity. There is no way to stand aside from the world to see it objectively. The illusion of the ego, of a privileged and separate perceiver, is essential for human physical survival (hence, its universality), but it is something we must transcend (use it but see through it) for psycho-spiritual fullfilment.

All of you/I is present in a grain of sand when size has no relevance.

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Cyracuz

I concur that "perception" cannot be viewed independently of "communication". However it also follows perhaps that "cognition" encompasses both of these terms and could itself be an aspect of all those processes we call "life". Psychologists like Piaget have made much use of comparisons between say "feeding" and "perception" talking of a two-way assimilation-accommodation process between internal and external states. Thus the perception/classification of the world into food/not food is dependent on the internal state of the perceiver. As the perceiver changes, so does "the world".

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Twyvel, an interesting notion, that we do not see with the eye; we explain sight with the "eye". As radical as that sounds, I think I understand. In a sense (and everything is "in a sense") we do see "with" the eye, and in another deeper sense we do not. There is seeing. As you say, it just is. In a sense it is an emergent, but only with regard to my implicit explanatory framework. In order to explain seeing we invoke some of the objects we see as explanatory tools. We cannot rationally imagine seeing without eyes. But better still, we cannot explain sight without the construct, "the eye." But I went further to include not just eyes but everything. I was indicating that experience is an emergent of the world AS I IDENTIFIED IT, consisting of constructs such as air, air pressure, gravity, planets, galaxies, etc. ad infinitum. But I agree that my explanation of phenomena does not create, does not give reality to, and in no way "validates" the phenomena; my explanation, or any explanation, does not add anything to the world of experience; it only temporarily removes my confusion, i.e., the mystery for me.

I also agree that perception is (inter)active rather than passive, but is it not possible and useful to distinguish between intentional (purposeful) LOOKING and unintentional (non-selective) SEEING (e.g., Krishnamurti's passive awareness)? I agree that when I open my eyes I cannot help but SEE even though the visual phenomena experienced are essentially formless until I focus or look at (and categorize or identify) the things now intentionally seen.
But now I have to go back and re-read the very deep and difficult arguments made by you guys.

Hail, hail, the gang's all here!

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JLN

Krishnamurti did not dabble in "science" as such, so the key to what he means by "passive awareness" might be found in his discussions with David Bohm the physicist (I've not looked yet).

However, if we allow ourselves to take "one step back" from the perceptual process (as opposed to an absolutist position implied by twyvel) we might argue that different species are "hard wired" to perceive/interact with certain aspects of "their environment". Humans might significantly be able to alter their perceptual processes by "software modification", but "perception" as such is essentually no different to any other interaction between "organism" and "environment".

The absolutist position...that of essential unity between organism and environment...fails to "answer" questions about the "mechanisms of interaction" because this unity is essentially outside "time" which is the backcloth for all "action". However, such a position does draw our attention to the potential arbitrariness of perceptual wiring and programming
and hence the relativist stance with which we should handle concepts like "truth" and "fact". (By potential arbitrariness I mean the theoretical chances of a multiplicity of systems which might have been whittled down by Darwinian selection)

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Fresco, I do feel that we must simulaneously inhabit, like amphibians, our world dualistically and non-dualistically. Dualistically, we need (for practical reasons) to define the objects of experience in terms of their dialectical interconnections (i.e., the relations between agents and subjects and the objects they make and perceive). We cannot function otherwise. Simulatneously we need (for "spiritual" purposes) to intuit the monistic (and absolutistic?) foundation of our experiential being. This is full of non-dualistic, irrational but deeply real and paradoxical, "realizations." These are, as I understand Tywvel, the "objects" of his comments. I cannot see how we can do without both sources of understanding (one conscious, the other more than--not just less than--conscious). I prefer, what I would think is consistent with the Buddha's middle way, to treat neither side as dismissive of the other. To live between them, since ultimately they are only illusions, useful illusions, we hope. The truly real is something we can only experience with as much mustered ignorance as possible and then reflect in our ordinary actions (our very being) and absence of comment.

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JLNobodyIS experience. And so goes all constructs. An explanation is no less an experience then what it purports to explain.

(And unfortunately in normal dualist mode even though we can distinguish between a visual percept and the explanation of it we cannot experience the cup as percept separateareOVER LOOK.

Don't overlook your emptiness.

As Douglas Harding says:

If you cease overlooking
the Nothing at your center
it will explode into Everything

Perception is creative if seeing creates the seen, as amazing as that is. I see K's passive awareness as ceasing to engage or re-act to percepts and mentations, i.e. just observe, i.e. don't spin stories, don't engage explanation etc.

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The eye and the mind

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