A revolution in thought

[thedoc]

Seymour Lessans had a vision of a 'Golden Age', perhaps some wisdom from a previous time might be in order.

All that glitters is not gold;
Often have you heard that told:
Many a man his life hath sold
But my outside to behold:
Gilded tombs do worms enfold.
Had you been as wise as bold,
Young in limbs, in judgment old,
Your answer had not been inscroll'd:
Fare you well; your suit is cold.

You might heed the last bit of advice, but come to the party, at least for entertainment.

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by The Lone Ranger

Note that we took photographs of Supernova 1987a -- a supernova in another galaxy -- within minutes of it becoming visible. Let's give you the maximum-possible leeway and assume that it's much, much closer than all the measurements say it is.

Remember, it was photographed within minutes of becoming visible.

If it were only a few light-minutes away, then it would have destroyed the Earth. In fact, it would have killed everything on Earth if it were any closer than 20 light-years or so. So we can be pretty darned sure that there would be a gap of at least several years between the supernova becoming visible and it becoming photographable, if your notion of vision were true.



Out of curiosity, does efferent vision work for all light sources?

Suppose we send an expedition to Mars. Now suppose we put a great big LED light in Earth orbit and point it at Mars.

Would the astronauts on Mars see it the moment it came on, or would they have to wait several minutes for the light to traverse the Earth-Mars distance so that they could see the LED come on?

If the LED light was turned on from that great distance, they wouldn't be able to see it because the conditions have not been met: the light (coming from the source) has to be bright enough or large enough to be seen. It seems like there is no possibility for a supernova to be that close to us for us to see it in real time and not burn us up, or for a camera to take a picture of it at the same time a person sees it in real time because of the time differential for the light minutes to reach us, therefore it doesn't seem like I'm going to win here. I can feel people filled with satisfaction at having defeated me.

The only way to solve this apparent discrepency is to do more empirical testing on the eyes and brain. This is not over by any means. The other point I want to make is that if Lessans turned out to be wrong regarding seeing the sun instantly the minute God turned it on, that might discredit this one aspect, (especially if there is no possibility that the mathematical calculations or any of the present theories could be askew, thus affecting the outcome), which I could accept because I'm not driven by faith. Besides, this one observation (which was an afterthought) does not automatically discredit efferent vision, no matter how wrong you think he is. The only thing it will do is make it much more difficult for me to communicate about anything else the book has to offer (which is the reason I didn't want this to be the main topic of conversation) because you will now assume that everything he wrote about is wrong. It will give everyone renewed vigor to attack his first discovery with a vengence, using false logic to bring him down. As I said, with that kind of attitude no one will get anything out of the book or even be able to see its scientific merits. I'm not going to invest my effort and time in here if that's the case. The sad part about all this is the most important message being conveyed has been totally lost in this debacle of a thread.

[erimir]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

I can feel people licking your chops just waiting to get a piece of the prey...ME .

[The Lone Ranger]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

If the LED light was turned on from that great distance, they wouldn't be able to see it because the conditions have not been met: the light (coming from the source) has to be bright enough or large enough to be seen.

What if it's a really big and bright LED, one that easily puts out enough light to be visible from Mars? We already have the capacity to make lights that are literally bright-enough to be visible over that distance.

Or maybe a laser would be preferable. Since it's directed light, it doesn't spread out like light does from a bulb. We already make lasers that are bright-enough that they should be visible from interplanetary space.

Would astronauts on Mars be able to see the light the moment it was turned on?

We could always put our hypothetical astronauts closer. What if they're only one light-second distant? (That's closer than the Moon, and well within the visible range of artificial lights that we produce and use here on Earth.)

Would astronauts one light-second from the Earth be able to see a bright artificial light the instant that it was turned on?

[davidm]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

How can a telescope be used if there is no light hitting the mirrors? Obviously, you are not following my reasoning one whit.

An ignoramus for the ages! There needs to be an Ignoramus Hall of Fame, just so you can be the first inductee.

Your own prediction is that what cameras photograph in space, and what we see with the naked eye or aided by a telescope, will be different.

But, they are not!

[LadyShea]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

The only thing it will do is make it much more difficult for me to communicate about anything else the book has to offer (which is the reason I didn't want this to be the main topic of conversation) because you will now assume that everything he wrote about is wrong.

peacegirl, indeed you are correct. I can't imagine ANY non-insane person of average intelligence being able to discount hundreds of years, and hundreds of thousands of man hours, worth of scientific inquiry and knowledge regarding how light behaves in order to get past the section on efferent vision. This will be the stumbling block for every person you present this to.

Had Lessans stuck to the psychological and philosophical aspects of his ideas you would have a way easier time in general. There is plenty of room for debate and differing conclusions in the free will discussion, as well as for conditioning and blame; this is not the case for the speed of light.

[davidm]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

The other point I want to make is that if Lessans turned out to be wrong regarding seeing the sun instantly the minute God turned it on, that might discredit this one aspect, (especially if there is no possibility that the mathematical calculations or any of the present theories could be askew, thus affecting the outcome), which I could accept because I'm not driven by faith.

Besides, this one observation (which was an afterthought) does not automatically discredit efferent vision, no matter how wrong you think he is.

You stated earlier that if Lessans were wrong on this point, his whole case for efferent vision and everything else collapses. Those are your words.

[davidm]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

... therefore it doesn't seem like I'm going to win here.

And that's the sad part. You want to win, not understand. For you, if "winning" means denying reality and logic itself, you're OK with that.

I can feel people filled with satisfaction at having defeated me.

Pure projection on your part, yet again.

[thedoc]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

No, it is not refuted. How else can a camera take a picture David unless lightwaves have reached the lens? Tell me Mr. knowitall. You are saying the lightwaves are from the past. I am saying the lightwaves are from the present. The supernova could still be far enough away from the Earth so the Earth is not burned up, but close enough to where those lightwaves do not take 168,000 years to reach us. You are so entrenched with this way of thinking, that it might take a new generation to even consider the possibility that this theory is no more than a myth.

I for one object to your improper use of the word 'Myth' as if to imply that it is something false. This shows a common but complete lack of understanding. Your fathers work in his book was a grand fiction, a nice, but imposible, plan with no basis in reality. This clearly illustrates the danger of working alone with no-one to look over the work and check for possable errors and gaps in the logic and reasoning.

[thedoc]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

[
I can feel people filled with satisfaction at having defeated me.

The only satisfaction on my part is the preservation of the integrety of human knowledge, and that obvious fiction has been exposed for what it is. There is a great sadness that anyone could be so lost in this fiction as to have no understanding of reality, and to be robbed of the ability to think clearly and to reason coherently.

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

The only thing it will do is make it much more difficult for me to communicate about anything else the book has to offer (which is the reason I didn't want this to be the main topic of conversation) because you will now assume that everything he wrote about is wrong.

Originally Posted by LadyShea

peacegirl, indeed you are correct. I can't imagine ANY non-insane person of average intelligence being able to discount hundreds of years, and hundreds of thousands of man hours, worth of scientific inquiry and knowledge regarding how light behaves in order to get past the section on efferent vision. This will be the stumbling block for every person you present this to.

It's not over until the fat lady sings. That's all I have to say.

Originally Posted by LadyShea

Had Lessans stuck to the psychological and philosophical aspects of his ideas you would have a way easier time in general. There is plenty of room for debate and differing conclusions in the free will discussion, as well as for conditioning and blame; this is not the case for the speed of light.

I'm not changing anything. Take it or leave it. It's changed my life, and it would change yours, but you won't give it a chance. I'm tired of trying to convince people in here that he has something extremely valuable to offer. His first discovery is not just philosophical in nature. If you can't get past this idea, then obviously you won't read the book and that's fine with me. This thread just died.

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by thedoc

The only satisfaction on my part is the preservation of the integrety of human knowledge, and that obvious fiction has been exposed for what it is. There is a great sadness that anyone could be so lost in this fiction as to have no understanding of reality, and to be robbed of the ability to think clearly and to reason coherently.

You don't have a clue as to what his first discovery is doc, so don't play this integrity game with me, okay?

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

No, it is not refuted. How else can a camera take a picture David unless lightwaves have reached the lens? Tell me Mr. knowitall. You are saying the lightwaves are from the past. I am saying the lightwaves are from the present. The supernova could still be far enough away from the Earth so the Earth is not burned up, but close enough to where those lightwaves do not take 168,000 years to reach us. You are so entrenched with this way of thinking, that it might take a new generation to even consider the possibility that this theory is no more than a myth.

You are the kind of person I don't want to read the book. How dare you call this a myth? You were the first one that jumped in to condemn this work, and you will probably be the last. His claim of efferent vision has not been disproved, (but I cannot prove it in the way it is being argued). It is not surprising you are the first to call this fiction because you were one of the first to jump on the "let's bring Lessans down" bandwagon. You will never understand the book with this attitude, because it will only reinforce the very thing you want to be true.

Originally Posted by thedoc

I for one object to your improper use of the word 'Myth' as if to imply that it is something false. This shows a common but complete lack of understanding. Your fathers work in his book was a grand fiction, a nice, but imposible, plan with no basis in reality. This clearly illustrates the danger of working alone with no-one to look over the work and check for possable errors and gaps in the logic and reasoning.

You have no idea what you're talking about. You are immediately rejecting the entire book because I stumbled? Wow, what a huge rush to judgment. You have no idea what his first discovery is about. I've read your posts, and you were the least person who grasped the first two chapters. So much for your opinion doc, because it means nothing.

[davidm]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

This thread just died.

Not until the 200-page party.

Besides, you'll never leave this thread, because this is the only place on the Web that won't lock the discussion.

[davidm]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

His claim of efferent vision has not been disproved, (but I cannot prove it in the way it is being argued).

It has been disproved in so many ways they are beyond counting.

Hey, peacegirl, YOU said the eye would see the light from the nova in real time, but the camera would see it far in the future, when the light rays arrive. That is not what reality shows. That is the end of your claim, and Lessans claim, right there.

[davidm]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

I'm not changing anything. Take it or leave it. It's changed my life, and it would change yours, but you won't give it a chance.

Accept the LAWD into your heart, LadyShea, and He will change your life!

[peacegirl]

I wanted to share this with everyone. It is really amazing.

Giraffe Birth at the Memphis Zoo

[The Lone Ranger]

So, if vision works the way that Lessans claims, this would allow real-time communication (and thus, exchange of information) over essentially any distance.

Let's say that we've got some astronauts in a spacecraft that's orbiting Mars, and we want to communicate with them right now. The problem is that when Mars and Earth are closest, they're still a bit more than 5 light-minutes apart. So radio waves will take more than 5 minutes to reach the spacecraft and its astronauts.

Maybe some technician was going over the last telemetry data from the spacecraft and noticed a critical failure was in progress. Based on his evaluation of the data, the spacecraft will explode and kill everyone on board in just 30 seconds' time.


Well according to all of modern physics, the astronauts are out of luck, because the minimum time it will take to transmit information from Earth to the spacecraft in Mars orbit is more than 5 minutes.

But if Lessans were correct, we could easily communicate with (that is to say, exchange information with) the astronauts in real time. All you need is a bright-enough light. That's not a problem; we already make light emitters that should be visible to the naked eye from Mars orbit.

If that seems like too great a distance, for some reason, that's okay. We'll just relocate the astronauts to the Moon. We definitely have light emitters that are bright-enough to be seen by the human eye from the surface of the Moon -- quite a lot of them, in fact.


In any event, if Lessans were correct, we could easily communicate in real time with astronauts, simply by using a bright-enough light emitter. Put a similar light emitter on the astronauts' spacecraft and we could have a two-way conversation in real time, even if the spacecraft were several light-minutes away from Earth.


After all, using coded pulses of light for communication is a technique that is centuries old. The astronauts and ground controllers could communicate in Morse code, if nothing else.

If we see a light being turned on in real time, then it's necessarily true that we can communicate in real time, because we can communicate with light.

There's no escaping this, because if nothing else, merely turning on the light can be a means of communicating information. Let's say that the astronauts have been told: "If you see a white light, that means there's a problem with your engines; if you see a red light, that means there's a problem with your life-support system; if you see a blue light, that means the Dodgers have won the pennant." So the mere act of turning on the light conveys information to the astronauts.



So let's say that a ground controller here on Earth sends a message via pulsed light to the astronauts on Mars, a message that says "Hey! I've just discovered that you need to turn off switch 27-X RIGHT NOW or you'll be killed!"

Note that the ground controller is sending information from Earth to Mars. According to standard physics, it should take more than 5 minutes for the astronauts to receive the information. In which case, they're doomed.

But if Lessans were correct, they'd receive the message immediately.

Note that regardless of how the information is actually transmitted, if Lessans were correct and we saw in real time, then it would be easy to transmit information in real time, without having to worry about the limiting factor imposed by the finite speed of light.

***

Now then, why does this illustrate the impossibility of efferent vision, as proposed by Lessans?

That information cannot be transmitted instantaneously -- by any means -- isn't just some theoretical notion, it's a fact. In order to understand why, you should keep in the mind that in order to move something, you need a source of energy.

In order for information to travel between two points, something must carry it. That "something" might be light (photons), or it might be matter of some type (a courier, perhaps) -- but something must carry that information between the two points.


In order to move something, you must supply it with energy. In the case of matter, the faster you want it to go, the more energy you must put into it. Light is a bit different, since light travels at a set speed. Making it more energetic doesn't make the light go any faster, it just alters the wavelength (and thus the frequency).



So: If we see in real time, then we can transmit information in real time. And something must carry that information. Photons, protons, electrons, carrier pigeons -- take your pick.

But if information is somehow moving between two points in no time at all, that necessarily means that the information is moving infinitely fast. Which would mean that whatever is carrying that information must be infinitely energetic.

Actually, it's worse even than that, since it would take an infinite amount of energy to accelerate even the tiniest particle of matter "merely" to the speed of light. To make it go even faster would require infinitely more energy than that, if the concept even makes any sense.



Anyway, whatever is transmitting the information -- whether it's light or carrier pigeons or whatever -- must be moving infinitely fast if instantaneous information transfer is occurring. And vision is transfer of information (visual information, if nothing else) from one place to another by definition. So real-time vision would require the instantaneous transfer of information from the object being seen to the eyes.

It doesn't matter whether the visual information is being carried by light or if light is only a "necessary condition for seeing" and the brain itself somehow "reaches out" and acquires the information. The point is that if we see in real time, then there must necessarily be instantaneous movement of information between 2 points.

But that would necessarily mean that whatever's carrying that information must be infinitely energetic. And, rather obviously, the Universe does not contain an infinite amount of energy.

Thus, it is not -- and it never can be -- possible for information to be transferred between two points in space instantly. There's always going to be some delay. And efferent vision, as proposed by Lessans, requires the instantaneous movement of information. Thus it is impossible even in theory, much less in practice.

[davidm]

@ Lone Ranger.

All of The Lone Ranger's post, btw, peacegirl, is something you would have realized, if you had bothered to study the theory of relativity. You have heard of E=Mc2?

But of course, you explicitly declared that you did not need to know anything about relativity theory.

ToR isn't JUST about light speed and simultaneity; it has important things to say about matter, energy and information, as TLR just described, and it comports precisely with the way the world is observed to work. As mentioned, it makes instantaneous seeing, or seeing in "real time" impossible even in principle.

In fact, relativity theory proves that there is no "Real Time," even in principle.

Lessans, again, is as wrong as it is possible to be.

[thedoc]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

How dare you call this a myth?

You are immediately rejecting the entire book because I stumbled? Wow, what a huge rush to judgment.
.

I did not call the book a Myth, I called it fiction which is what it is, a Myth is something different which you do not understand.

I did not immediately reject the book or rush to judgment, I read it first, understood what Lessans was trying to say, and then rejected it.

So on several counts you are just as wrong as your father. I'm sorry that after our conversations on Dissident you must have thought I would just roll over and support you. Again I'm sorry that you got the wrong impression, you seem to be getting a lot of things wrong.

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by The Lone Ranger

What if it's a really big and bright LED, one that easily puts out enough light to be visible from Mars? We already have the capacity to make lights that are literally bright-enough to be visible over that distance.

Or maybe a laser would be preferable. Since it's directed light, it doesn't spread out like light does from a bulb. We already make lasers that are bright-enough that they should be visible from interplanetary space.

Would astronauts on Mars be able to see the light the moment it was turned on?

We could always put our hypothetical astronauts closer. What if they're only one light-second distant? (That's closer than the Moon, and well within the visible range of artificial lights that we produce and use here on Earth.)

Would astronauts one light-second from the Earth be able to see a bright artificial light the instant that it was turned on?

What are you getting at Lone. This is not the time for games, okay?

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by thedoc

I did not call the book a Myth, I called it fiction which is what it is, a Myth is something different which you do not understand.

I did not immediately reject the book or rush to judgment, I read it first, understood what Lessans was trying to say, and then rejected it.

So on several counts you are just as wrong as your father. I'm sorry that after our conversations on Dissident you must have thought I would just roll over and support you. Again I'm sorry that you got the wrong impression, you seem to be getting a lot of things wrong.

On Dissident? I was hardly there because there were just a few people and I couldn't spread myself that thin by going back and forth from this forum to that forum. Doc, with all due respect, I don't expect anyone to roll over and support me, but I expect people to give Lessans the benefit of the doubt, which he has never been given. All I want is a chance to do the empirical testing other than the "accumulated knowledge in astronomy." I could care less whether you call this a myth or a fiction. It's all semantics and meant to discredit Lessans in the most public and raw way. I got the right impression doc. You want to keep the integrity of science, right? So that leaves Lessans out, according to you, which is the whole reason you brought this up.

[Stephen Maturin]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

This is not the time for games, okay?

That much is undeniably true. It won't be game time for another fifteen pages.

[davidm]

Originally Posted by Stephen Maturin

That much is undeniably true. It won't be game time for another fifteen pages.

Just keep your you-know-what out of the potatoes this time, buster.

[LadyShea]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

What are you getting at Lone. This is not the time for games, okay?

Did you miss the post where he detailed exactly what he was getting at? Here it is