A revolution in thought

[LadyShea]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

That is an outright contradiction, and something you want to hold onto because it satisfies both sides of this position. But if you carefully analyze this, you will see for yourself that it's a contradiction, and there's no way out of it except to either accept determinism or accept free will. Since both sides are not satisfactory, compatibilism came into existence to make everyone happy. The only problem is IT'S WRONG.

LOL, you think I want to hold onto this? What makes you think this has anything at all to do with my personal opinions?

Asserting that it's an either/or question does not make it so. Show the contradiction.

[LadyShea]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

That is very true. I'm not debating that. That's what you're missing. When the eyes look in the opposite direction, it follows that light is not bringing the image into the brain. Light is a necessary condition for the eyes to see. When the eyes look at the real object (not the image), it follows that what is at the retina is a mirror image which does not travel, even though light is constantly replacing old photons with new photons.

Of course it doesn't LadyShea. I never said it did. But it does change how we see the world. Just because the eyes work differently than once believed does not mean that light works any differently, but it does change an important fact; namely, our relationship to the external world.

The eyes working differently cannot make light impinge on the retina if there is no light located at the retina. Your exact words were "light can impinge on the retina even if that same light has not reached Earth."

If there are no light photons in the same physical location of the retina, those same light photons cannot impinge on the retina.

Remember the thought experiment with the marble across the room? It still applies.

So again, you can somehow account for the laws of physics and known properties of light in your model, or your model is disproved.

Originally Posted by peacegirl

the fact that the object must be in view, allows for light to impinge on the retina.

Brains looking out through the eyes at things in view does not negate physical distance. Impinging requires physical proximity. Physically get the photons to the retina or you are gibbering nonsense.

[specious_reasons]

Originally Posted by koan

b) Trial by dog. A dog can smell his owner but, Lessans claims, won't know his owner just by sight (give a dog a photo and he'll look at you like 'so what?') He doesn't perform trial by cat, though. Give a cat a laser light to chase around and though they can't smell it or have any other indication the light spot is dancing on the wall... they will go insane chasing it around.

No point talking about how sound and light are both vibrations. It's not as conclusive as trial by dog.

Dogs will chase a laser light, too.

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by specious_reasons

Dogs will chase a laser light, too.

Following a light is not what is being disputed at all. Recognizing facial features from light is at issue here. Are you telling me that after all this time you don't even know what the issue is? Oh my god.

[specious_reasons]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

Following a light is not what is being disputed at all. Recognizing facial features from light is at issue here. Are you telling me that after all this time you don't even know what the issue is? Oh my god.

Was I talking to you?

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by LadyShea

LOL, you think I want to hold onto this? What makes you think this has anything at all to do with my personal opinions?

Asserting that it's an either/or question does not make it so. Show the contradiction.

I already did LadyShea. For you to ask me where the contradiction is when I have been over this with a fine tooth comb, and explained it as carefully as possible, indicates that the problem is not with me.

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by specious_reasons

Was I talking to you?

Oh, so now this is the rule where you can't respond to someone else's post? I think that is not the rule here. Many people respond to other people's posts. Show me where I'm wrong and where I should be convicted?

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by LadyShea

Light cannot be in two places at once. It is a physical impossibility.

No one said that light has to be at two places at once. If something is seen as a mirror image, photons do not get teleported. You are the one that is confused LadyShea, so don't put this on me because of your lack of understanding.

That is very true. That's what you're missing. When the eyes look in the opposite direction, it follows that light is not bringing the image into the brain. Light is a necessary condition for the eyes to see. When the eyes look at the real object (not the image), it follows that what is at the retina is a mirror image which does not travel, even though light is constantly replacing old photons with new photons.

Originally Posted by LadyShea

If the "same light" is located at the retina (required to be "impinging" on it), it cannot also be located someplace other than the retina, especially not on the Sun 93 million miles away or the stars light years away.

Vision being opposite doesn't change the laws of physics.

Of course it doesn't LadyShea. I never said it did. But it does change how we see the world. Just because the eyes work differently than once believed does not mean that light works any differently, but it does change an important fact; namely, our relationship to the external world.

Originally Posted by LadyShea

The eyes working differently cannot make light impinge on the retina if there is no light located at the retina. Your exact words were "light can impinge on the retina even if that same light has not reached Earth."

Light CAN IMPINGE ON THE RETINA, no one is debating this. But if the eyes work differently than what originally believed, the interpretation of what is actually going on changes dramatically. Once again, it is true that light lands on the retina, but only when the object is in visual range. The object cannot be seen if it is not in the field of view of a camera, a telescope, or the naked eye. You are missing the entire refutation and then trying to prove that Lessans was wrong without a full and complete understanding of what he was claiming. That is foolhardy and I cannot talk to someone who is completely ignorant of the facts involved.

Originally Posted by LadyShea

If there are no light photons in the same physical location of the retina, those same light photons cannot impinge on the retina.

Remember the thought experiment with the marble across the room? It still applies.

No, it doesn't apply LadyShea. We're talking the eyes, not light or marbles.

Originally Posted by LadyShea

So again, you can somehow account for the laws of physics and known properties of light in your model, or your model is disproved.

This claim is so far from being disproved, it's a real joke. You will realize in time that there is no contradiction with physics and the fact that light travels.

Originally Posted by peacegirl

the fact that the object must be in view, allows for light to impinge on the retina.

Originally Posted by LadyShea

Brains looking out through the eyes at things in view does not negate physical distance. Impinging requires physical proximity. Physically get the photons to the retina or you are gibbering nonsense.

It actually does LadyShea, not because this observation changes physics, but because the eyes can get a mirror image on the retina due to the direction the eyes are viewing reality. You keep arguing with me as if this changes light's physical properties, which it does not, and Lessans never disputed.

[specious_reasons]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

Oh, so now this is the rule where you can't respond to someone else's post? I think that is not the rule here. Many people respond to other people's posts. Show me where I'm wrong and where I should be convicted?

There's no rules here, so reply to what you want. I wasn't talking to you and it was not directly related to Lessans' rather stupid ideas on vision.

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by specious_reasons

There's no rules here, so reply to what you want. I wasn't talking to you and it was not directly related to Lessans' rather stupid ideas on vision.

For you to say this is stupid is really ignorant specious_reasons. Until you figure out that Lessans was not the stupid one, you will continue to say stupid things.

[LadyShea]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

I already did LadyShea. For you to ask me where the contradiction is when I have been over this with a fine tooth comb, and explained it as carefully as possible, indicates that the problem is not with me.

You've not shown anything, you've simply said it is contradictory, and asserted that it is obvious, and told me to analyze it myself to see this contradiction...all because you do not agree that various different concepts of the term free will are valid.

You are the one playing semantics because you hold that your definition of the terms used are the only correct ones. That is simply not the case.

[Dragar]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

For you to say this is stupid is really ignorant specious_reasons. Until you figure out that Lessans was not the stupid one, you will continue to say stupid things.

Given you didn't even know we can see planes long before we hear them, you're hardly in a position to call anyone ignorant.

(Did you know we can see lignting strikes before we see them too?)

[LadyShea]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

No one said that light has to be at two places at once.

You did. You said "light can impinge on the retina even if that same light has not reached Earth". That statement puts the same light in two locations

Location 1: On the retina, on Earth
Location 2: Someplace other than on Earth, so it can't be on the retina since the retina is on Earth

Light CAN IMPINGE ON THE RETINA, no one is debating this.

Light that is not physically located on Earth and on the retina is not light that is impinging on the retina.

Originally Posted by peacegilr

But if the eyes work differently than what originally believed, the interpretation of what is actually going on changes dramatically.

Gibber jabber blargle snarph. You are weaseling through word salad

Originally Posted by peacegirl

Once again, it is true that light lands on the retina

Location of light = on the retina, on Earth

As we were discussing Lessans scenario of the Sun being turned on at noon, so the light hasn't yet arrived on Earth, how does the light come to be located on the retina if there is no light on Earth?

You said "light can impinge on the retina even if that same light has not reached Earth". This is the same as saying "the marble can be on the table even if that same marble has not reached the table from the chair across the room."

You made a claim about light, and I am asking you to defend that claim.

I won't realize any such thing because there is a huge contradiction with your claims that you can't explain.

Impinging requires physical proximity. Physically get the photons to the retina or you are gibbering nonsense.

[specious_reasons]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

For you to say this is stupid is really ignorant specious_reasons. Until you figure out that Lessans was not the stupid one, you will continue to say stupid things.

No. I'm fairly well informed on the scientific model of vision, and I read Lessans' ideas, and I've made the informed decision that Lessans is full of shit on the subject.

Any person who does not have an emotional investment in his writings will come to the same conclusion.

You have an emotional investment in his writings.

[thedoc]

One of Peacegirls criticisms of afferent vision is her claim that according to afferent vision we should be able to see an object after the object has disappeared from sight. Her claim that this never happens is based on her belief in the efferent claim that we see the object instantly, so if the object disappears our ability to see it would also disappear instantly. However if afferent vision is true we would be able to see an object after it has disappeared but the time for this to be observed is very short, and in practical terms is indistinguishable from instantly. This is probably what lead Lessans and Peacegirl to believe that vision was instant. To help illustrate just how quickly vision happens due to the speed of light, I am proposing a little though experiment that anyoun can do even in reality with the right equipment.

First we are going to illustrate just how fast light travels in a practical way by projecting a beam of light around the earth at the equator. We will be useing a powerful lazer to project a beam of white light but first we must sit down and talk to all the little photons so that they will agree to travel in a curved path around the Earth. It should be easy enough since they are white light photons we will promise them that when they are done they can go anywhere they want and be any color they want, you know how everyone has a favorite color, Just like the time I was in a church choir, but that's another story. So we go to the top of a mountain on the equator so they will miss everything in the way, wait for a clear night, (we do it at night so the other photons from the sun aren't teasing them for going around in circles), and send them off in a tight little group holding hands so they don't stray from the path. When they come back around they will go through a detector that will count how many times they go around the Earth and after 1 second thay are allowed to go. It turnes out that in 1 second they will go around the Earth 7.75 orbits so we give they a little extra time and they make 8 orbits in 1.032 seconds. For all you nit pickers, go pick your nit's, I know I haven't accounted for the altitude but you get the idea, light moves very fast.

Just for fun and comparison I decided to do the same thing with a little burst of sound. So in the same place I just need to build a sound projector that will send a coherent beam of sound in the same orbit as the light took and see how quickly it gets around the Earth. It turns out that the beam of sound (and we do it when it's nice and quiet so the other sounds aren't distracting the beam) takes about 31.29 hours to get around the Earth one time. I had to do this several times and would check to see that the sound wasn't stopping for a snack or a drink somewhere? So it seems that light is a lot faster than sound, though I'm still not finished checking out all the bars along the way. That light is so much faster than sould would accound for the impression that vision is instant and sound is not.

Delayed hearing is obvious under ordinary conditions, but delayed seeing does not become obvious till the distance is much greater that we can achieve on Earth. Indeed the distances would need to be on the order of the distances to the other planets in the solar system, and here the delay does become obvious to any who are willing to look. However at those distances sound becomes undetectable for some unknown reason?

[Stephen Maturin]

Originally Posted by specious_reasons

You have an emotional investment in his writings.

That's the best one-sentence summary of this thread we'll ever see. She's sixty years old and never progressed beyond "My daddy is better than your daddy." It'd be sympathy-generating were she not such an insufferable lying douche.

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by LadyShea

You've not shown anything, you've simply said it is contradictory, and asserted that it is obvious, and told me to analyze it myself to see this contradiction...all because you do not agree that various different concepts of the term free will are valid.

You are the one playing semantics because you hold that your definition of the terms used are the only correct ones. That is simply not the case.

I did not say the various concepts of free will are not defined correctly. As to whether these concepts are valid in the sense that they are compatible with a deterministic worldview is another ballgame altogether.

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by specious_reasons

No. I'm fairly well informed on the scientific model of vision, and I read Lessans' ideas, and I've made the informed decision that Lessans is full of shit on the subject.

Any person who does not have an emotional investment in his writings will come to the same conclusion.

You have an emotional investment in his writings.

That is just not true specious_reasons. If I had any doubt that this was as true discovery, I would never be this confident. Moreoever, just because he was my father does not give you the right to condemn me. There is no basis for this attack on me just because you don't believe anyone could make a discovery of this magnitude.

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by Dragar

Given you didn't even know we can see planes long before we hear them, you're hardly in a position to call anyone ignorant.

(Did you know we can see lignting strikes before we see them too?)

I don't understand your question about lightning. Anyway, one thing has nothing to do with the other. You can be ignorant of one thing and enlightened by another.

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by LadyShea

You did. You said "light can impinge on the retina even if that same light has not reached Earth". That statement puts the same light in two locations

Location 1: On the retina, on Earth
Location 2: Someplace other than on Earth, so it can't be on the retina since the retina is on Earth

Light that is not physically located on Earth and on the retina is not light that is impinging on the retina.

Gibber jabber blargle snarph. You are weaseling through word salad

Location of light = on the retina, on Earth

As we were discussing Lessans scenario of the Sun being turned on at noon, so the light hasn't yet arrived on Earth, how does the light come to be located on the retina if there is no light on Earth?

You said "light can impinge on the retina even if that same light has not reached Earth". This is the same as saying "the marble can be on the table even if that same marble has not reached the table from the chair across the room."

You made a claim about light, and I am asking you to defend that claim.

I won't realize any such thing because there is a huge contradiction with your claims that you can't explain.

Impinging requires physical proximity. Physically get the photons to the retina or you are gibbering nonsense.

You are doing exactly what Spacemonkey does. You are coming from the afferent position (which you don't even realize) that focuses on photons traveling, rather than the eyes seeing. This mirror image on the retina can only be there if the object is in one's field of view and meets the requirements necessary for sight. If any of these factors are not present, then the image will not show up on the retina or film which means the object is out of visual range and there is no resolution as a consequence.

[LadyShea]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

I did not say the various concepts of free will are not defined correctly. As to whether these concepts are valid in the sense that they are compatible with a deterministic worldview is another ballgame altogether.

There are various concepts of determinism too, though. There are definitions of both terms that are not contradictory.

For example what I've said several times is not contradictory at all: Our desires, opinions, beliefs and motives are caused,and our choices in how and whether to act on them are free. Where is the logical contradiction in this statement?

[thedoc]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

This mirror image on the retina can only be there if the object is in one's field of view and meets the requirements necessary for sight. If any of these factors are not present, then the image will not show up on the retina or film which means the object is out of visual range and there is no resolution as a consequence.

Translation - Voila! we see.

[LadyShea]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

You are doing exactly what Spacemonkey does. You are coming from the afferent position (which you don't even realize) that focuses on photons traveling, rather than the eyes seeing. .

I am only coming from the position of the laws of physics as they apply to light and asking you to defend your claims about light.

You are weaseling. Respond to my points. I bolded them above for your convenience.

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by LadyShea

There are various concepts of determinism too, though. There are definitions of both terms that are not contradictory.

For example what I've said several times is not contradictory at all: Our desires, opinions, beliefs and motives are caused,and our choices in how and whether to act on them are free. Where is the logical contradiction in this statement?

You cannot separate your desires, opinions, beliefs and motives and say they are caused in one breath, and then say you have free will in the next breath. Just because nothing is coercing you to choose one way or another does not mean your will is free. If you examine this carefully you will see that the compatibilist definition has been a way to resolve this irreconcilable issue since to make someone morally blameworthy, the people doing the blaming must believe that this person had the "freedom" to choose otherwise. But how could one choose otherwise if his desires, opinions, beliefs and motives are pushing or causing him to act a certain way? Can't you see the contradiction? Don't you see that if someone has the freedom to choose a different alternative than the one that was chosen, then his actions would not be determined. You can't have both. This compatibilist definition might sound good on paper but it has no corresponding accuracy in real life.

[specious_reasons]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

That is just not true specious_reasons. If I had any doubt that this was as true discovery, I would never be this confident. Moreoever, just because he was my father does not give you the right to condemn me. There is no basis for this attack on me just because you don't believe anyone could make a discovery of this magnitude.

You have no doubt it's a true discovery because you have an emotional investment in his writings.

I believe that one person can make paradigm changing discoveries. I don't believe Lessans made a paradigm changing discovery.