A revolution in thought

[LadyShea]

Who do you reckon will be doing this thorough investigation? If the scientists and mathematicians here at think it's ludicrous, what are their peers going to think?

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by LadyShea

Who do you reckon will be doing this thorough investigation? If the scientists and mathematicians here at think it's ludicrous, what are their peers going to think?

That's why I said it might take another hundred or even thousand years to validate this knowledge. The bias is built in to a group of scientists who already believe that afferent vision is a fact. Why do you think they don't want to wait for further empirical testing before any conclusive evidence can be drawn?

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by naturalist.atheist

I fail to understand why sight is not a sense organ. It transmits external stimuli the same as any other sense. Why is it not a sense organ? Certainly the neural apparatus used in the brain is the same as that used in hearing. In fact people who are blind often have the parts of the brain used for sight taken over to process sound for spacial clues.

I will cut and paste this part for your benefit. I don't know where you came into this thread but now that the book is no longer online, this is the next best thing.

Our problem of hurting each other is very deep rooted and
begins with words through which we have not been
allowed to see reality for what it really is. Supposing I
stood up in one of our universities and said — “Ladies
and gentlemen, I am prepared to prove that man does not have five
senses, which has nothing to do with a sixth sense,” wouldn’t all the
professors laugh and say, “Are you serious or are you being funny?
You can’t be serious because everybody knows man has five senses.
This is an established fact.”

According to the definition of
epistemology which is the theory or science of the method and
grounds of knowledge especially with reference to its limits and
validity, it is believed that all knowledge is derived through our sense
organs, but there is surprising evidence that the eyes are not a sense
organ. The idea that man has five senses originated with Aristotle
and it has never been challenged. He did this just as naturally as we
would name anything to identify it. But he made an assumption that
the eyes functioned like the other senses so he included them in the
definition. This is equivalent to calling an apple, pear, peach, orange
and potato, five fruit. The names given to these foods describe
differences in substance that exist in the real world, but we certainly
could not call them five fruit since this word excludes the potato which
is not grown in the same manner as is described by the word fruit.
Since we can see this difference, there is no controversy.

Believe it or
not, the eyes, similar to the potato in the above example, were
classified in a category they did not belong. We cannot name the
organs with which we communicate with the outside world, five senses,
when they do not function alike. Aristotle, however, didn’t know this.
His logic and renown delayed an immediate investigation of his theory
because no one dared oppose the genius of this individual without
appearing ridiculous for such audacity, which brought about almost
unanimous agreement. In fact, to disagree was so presumptuous that
nobody dared to voice their disagreement because this would only
incur disdainful criticism. Everyone believed that such a brilliant
individual, such a genius, had to know whereof he spoke. This is not
a criticism of Aristotle or of anyone. But even today, we are still in
agreement regarding a fallacious observation about the brain and its
relation to the eyes.

Those who will consider the possibility that you
might have a discovery reveal their confusion by trying to nullify any
value to it with this comment as was made to me, “What difference
does it make what we call them as a group, this isn’t going to change
what we are. Whether we call them 5 senses, or 4 senses and a pair of
eyes is certainly not going to change them in any way.” However, if
man doesn’t really have five senses, isn’t it obvious that just as long
as we think otherwise we will be prevented from discovering those
things that depend on this knowledge for their discovery?
Consequently, it does make a difference what we call them.

Just as
my first discovery was not that man’s will is not free but the
knowledge revealed by opening that door for a thorough investigation,
so likewise my second discovery is not that man does not have five
senses but what significant knowledge lies hidden behind this door.
Many years later we have an additional problem which is more
difficult to overcome because this fallacious observation has graduated
dogmatically into what is considered genuine knowledge, for it is
actually taught in school as an absolute fact, and our professors,
doctors, etc. would be ready to take up arms, so to speak, against
anyone who would dare oppose what they have come to believe is the
truth without even hearing, or wanting to hear any evidence to the
contrary.

I am very aware that if I am not careful the resentment of
these people will nail me to a cross, and they would do it in the name
of justice and truth. However, it appears that they will not be given
the opportunity because the very moment the will of God is perceived
and understood, man is given no alternative as to what direction he
must travel — which is away from condemning someone who has
uncovered a falsehood. The real truth is that there are thousands
upon thousands of differences existing in the external world but when
words do not describe these differences accurately we are then seeing
a distorted version of what exists — as with free will.

[Vivisectus]

..which boils down to:

Waffle waffle waffle The eyes are not a sense organ, they just are, trust me! Waffle waffle waffle waffle.

[The Lone Ranger]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

The bias is built in to a group of scientists who already believe that afferent vision is a fact. Why do you think they don't want to wait for further empirical testing before any conclusive evidence can be drawn?

Simple. Because every single piece of data we have indicates that vision is afferent. And because efferent vision is not only experimentally disproved, it would violate numerous physiological principles and even physical laws.


The claim that we need "further empirical testing" is laughable -- especially from someone who refuses to read the easily-accessible literature demonstrating that those tests have, indeed, been done.

[davidm]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

You can't learn can you?

Ignore.

Oh, I'm on Pretend Ignore again! Whatever shall I do? Who wants to be Pretend Ignored by a Mental Titan such as yourself?

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by Vivisectus

..which boils down to:

Waffle waffle waffle The eyes are not a sense organ, they just are, trust me! Waffle waffle waffle waffle.

That is a non-answer. You are being totally dramatic.

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by davidm

Oh, I'm on Pretend Ignore again! Whatever shall I do? Who wants to be Pretend Ignored by a Mental Titan such as yourself?

You know what, I have not yet put you on ignore, so please forgive me folks, but I have one question for you david. If you are so right, why are you in this thread? This is a tiny thread in the middle of an entire universe of information. You should leave this thread and get on a board with those individuals who believe that Einstein's SR is important to our lives. I'm really not belittling you; I just don't get it. I don't understand why you are so threatened by this discovery. What is it david? Everyone knows they will not get complete agreement even if what they have to say turns out to be factual, so what goes? I'm not condemning you, or ranting about how right Lessans was, but I do have misgivings regarding your motives. Does SR give you some feeling of importance? There has to be a pay-off for you to get this upset. I know you won't be honest with me but there is too much emotion involved to take you seriously.

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by The Lone Ranger

Simple. Because every single piece of data we have indicates that vision is afferent. And because efferent vision is not only experimentally disproved, it would violate numerous physiological principles and even physical laws.


The claim that we need "further empirical testing" is laughable -- especially from someone who refuses to read the easily-accessible literature demonstrating that those tests have, indeed, been done.

Hiiiiiiii Lone, long time no see. How has your summer been? Getting back to our discussion, I want to reiterate that we are on opposites of the spectrum. Whether all of the tests have been done is questionable, especially when the proof that there is a transduction of photons to signals is lacking. Maybe you don't think so, but this is what we need to focus on for any definitive proof to be established.

[davidm]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

Hiiiiiiii Lone, long time no see. How has your summer been? Getting back to our discussion, I want to reiterate that we are on opposites of the spectrum. Whether all of the tests have been done is questionable, especially when the proof that there is a transduction of photons to signals is lacking. Maybe you don't think so, but this is what we need to focus on for any definitive proof to be established.

[The Lone Ranger]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

Whether all of the tests have been done is questionable, especially when the proof that there is a transduction of photons to signals is lacking.

Good grief! Read a frakking textbook.

The experiments most-definitely have been done. You can easily read up on them if you'd make even a minimal effort to educate yourself. Heck, you could even take a few university-level courses and do them yourself.

Your continual tactic of sticking your fingers in your ears and saying "no they haven't" just makes you look stupid.


That photons are transduced, resulting in electrochemical impulses that are relayed to the brain via the optic nerve isn't in any way theoretical -- it's a repeatedly- and easily-demonstrated fact. It's no more a subject of debate than is the fact that the Earth is a planet. Again, you'd know this if you made a minimal effort to educate yourself on the matter.

[specious_reasons]

Oh, and we're on page 400 now...

Portal 2 - Surprise - YouTube

[Vivisectus]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

That is a non-answer. You are being totally dramatic.

That was all the answer there was in the copy-pasta. Merely that your father was of the opinion that it was so. Not a shred of evidence, not even a good reason to think something else might be going on.

[thedoc]

Originally Posted by LadyShea

Who do you reckon will be doing this thorough investigation? If the scientists and mathematicians here at think it's ludicrous, what are their peers going to think?

This brings up an interesting point, scientific papers are 'Peer Reviewed' as part of the process of being accepted as valid. There has been much dialogue about having Lessans work examined by Scientists and Mathematicians, in order to verify it, or not. If Lessans Book were, in fact, 'Peer Reviewed', it would not be by anyone with these credentials, but by his actual 'Peers' in the Pool Hall and on his sales route. It is very likely that those with an equivalent education would hail him and his work as profound and a breakthrough for humanity. But then we would need to consider the source of this acclaim being the denizens of some local Pool Hall, which must of course be screened for the proper educational achivement, or lack of. Lessans might, in fact, be very successful in an actual 'Peer Review'. We might also consider the opinion of the religious fundamentalists and those riding scooters wearing tinfoil hats.

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by davidm

You are a real hoot david. You were probably an owl in your past life.

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by Vivisectus

That was all the answer there was in the copy-pasta. Merely that your father was of the opinion that it was so. Not a shred of evidence, not even a good reason to think something else might be going on.

That is because his astute observations were so far ahead of everyone else's ability to see that no one can believe they were right.

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by specious_reasons

Oh, and we're on page 400 now...

Portal 2 - Surprise - YouTube

That youtube video would be coming from a skeptic, no surprise there. The problem is... I didn't make it all up. SURPRISE!!

[thedoc]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

That is because his astute observations were so far ahead of everyone else's ability to see that no one can believe they were right.

Well I can certainly agree that Lessans could see things that no-one else could. But I'm still wondering exactly what or who he was observing when he made these 'astute observations'. Having some documentation would help to dispel the doubt that the observations were imaginary.

[thedoc]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

I didn't make it all up. SURPRISE!!

That I completely believe, so it must have been Lessans who made it all up.

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by The Lone Ranger

Good grief! Read a frakking textbook.

The experiments most-definitely have been done. You can easily read up on them if you'd make even a minimal effort to educate yourself. Heck, you could even take a few university-level courses and do them yourself.

Your continual tactic of sticking your fingers in your ears and saying "no they haven't" just makes you look stupid.

I'm not sticking my fingers in my ears.

Originally Posted by The Lone Ranger

That photons are transduced, resulting in electrochemical impulses that are relayed to the brain via the optic nerve isn't in any way theoretical -- it's a repeatedly- and easily-demonstrated fact. It's no more a subject of debate than is the fact that the Earth is a planet. Again, you'd know this if you made a minimal effort to educate yourself on the matter.

As far as I know, this whole area falls into the realm of hypothesis. I just found a pdf that addresses certain obstacles that are yet to be resolved.

The questions we posed and attempted to answer were, how can an enzyme respond to a transmembrane electric field, and what are the conditions with which an enzyme can absorb free energy transmitted through an electric field and convert into other forms of energy?

http://www.bioscirep.org/bsr/009/0013/0090013.pdf

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by davidm

Ah! We are seeing it in the present! So, we are seeing it, when we are seeing it? How profound you are! You should be lecturing at a major university!

But that is not the issue.

If I look at a star four light years away, I am seeing the light itself in the present, obviously. To say that I see light, when I see light, is a trivial tautology. But the light is showing the star as it was four years ago, relative to my clock, because it took the light four years to reach me! Therefore, real-time seeing is false.

If, on the other hand, you have now changed your position simply to state that we see light, when we see light, then no one would disagree with that. But, as noted above, it is a trivial tautology, and it is not what Lessans was saying!

Your entire position is based on afferent vision, so you're not saying anything new. You're just repeating what you were taught. Now back to ignore you go.

[LadyShea]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

As far as I know, this whole area falls into the realm of hypothesis. I just found a pdf that addresses certain obstacles that are yet to be resolved.

The questions we posed and attempted to answer were, how can an enzyme respond to a transmembrane electric field, and what are the conditions with which an enzyme can absorb free energy transmitted through an electric field and convert into other forms of energy?

http://www.bioscirep.org/bsr/009/0013/0090013.pdf

That paper is 23 years old. Are you sure the obstacles have "yet to be resolved"?

http://www.sinauer.com/detail.php?id=1716

This process, called sensory transduction, began to be understood only recently, as a result of the development of the techniques of patch-clamp recording and gene cloning. So much progress has now been made that it is possible to say at least in outline (but in most cases in remarkable detail) how transduction occurs for all of the major sense organs of the body. In nearly every case, the external stimulus is caught by a protein embedded in the lipid membrane of the sensory receptor. This protein then changes conformation, either directly producing an electrical signal (as for touch receptors in the skin or for hair cells in the ear and vestibular system) or triggering an enzymatic cascade and a change in the concentration of an intracellular second messenger that generates the electrical response (as in the eye and nose).

[The Lone Ranger]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

I'm not sticking my fingers in my ears.

Figuratively, that's exactly what you're doing.

Originally Posted by peacegirl

As far as I know, this whole area falls into the realm of hypothesis.

That's because you're ignorant. And you appear to be going to considerable effort to ensure that you remain ignorant in this area.

I just found a pdf that addresses certain obstacles that are yet to be resolved.

How dishonest can you be?

Point One: Note that the authors aren't questioning the observed fact that retina cells transduce light. They're wondering about the exact mechanism by which this is accomplished.

Point Two: The paper is more than 20 years old. [Hint: We've learned a lot about the process in the past few decades.]

[thedoc]

Originally Posted by The Lone Ranger

How dishonest can you be?

Point Two: The paper is more than 20 years old. [Hint: We've learned a lot about the process in the past few decades.]

But Lessans died about 20 years ago, and if it was good enough for her father, it's good enough for her. We wouldn't want to make any progress that might disprove the book, only research and evidence that will validate the book and prove Lessans correct is acceptable.

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by LadyShea

That paper is 23 years old. Are you sure the obstacles have "yet to be resolved"?

A reviewer writes: "Sensory Transduction concentrates firmly on how sensory receptor cells work. Gordon Fain, one of the central players in the unraveling of phototransduction, phototransduction, takes the position that we have now, thanks to some genetics, molecular biology and cell physiology, 'cracked the problem.' His strategy, unashamedly, is to describe cellular mechanisms of transduction, emphasizing a molecular unity and how this links to other branches of neuroscience.

It all sounds very scientific. Do you think that this "cracking the problem" is completely factual? After all, he is trying to describe his observations. Couldn't his assumptions about how the eyes work have influenced what he was observing to make his theories all fit together? In other words, if he already believes that the eyes are a sense organ, his observations and conclusions would be explained in a way that would fit the afferent model. I'm just wondering so please don't get all bent out of shape.