A revolution in thought

[LadyShea]

Conditioning is not association. If an experience occurs that causes him to associate a particular smell with that event, then that could easily change his preference if the event was negative in some way, or positive for that matter.

Do you see the difference?

There is no difference to see unless you have redefined the word conditioning.

Define conditioning according to Lessans, and explain how his definition is not idiosyncratic.

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by LadyShea

There is no difference to see unless you have redefined the word conditioning.

Define conditioning according to Lessans, and explain how his definition is not idiosyncratic.

There is a huge difference, and it has nothing to do with redefining the word. You really have to understand the difference so you will be comparing apples to apples. If I taste something and it tastes good to me, it won't matter what negative words are used to describe it. For example, if I love chocolate ice cream, the taste of the ice cream is being received by taste receptors and going straight to my brain. My brain is interpreting the taste as yummy. If my mom tastes the chocolate ice cream and says, "Strawberry tastes so much better than chocolate," this will not change my taste for chocolate if chocolate is my favorite flavor.

I'm not talking about peer pressure that would compel some children to avoid a certain food, or to not want to try it, because they are afraid of ostracism. I am talking about the actual change in how something tastes due to a conditioned negative response.

This is not the same as being conditioned by sight. It is possible to see a particular set of features and after hearing 'ugly' attached to those features (with a negative inflection), the brain can actually be conditioned to seeing that particular set of features as distasteful, not because the features are distasteful or 'ugly' in actuality, but only because of the conditioning that has taken place. A person then believes that this 'ugly' individual exists because a standard has been created by the word itself, and because he now sees this 'ugly' person with his very eyes.

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by LadyShea

So, according to Lessans we can only see "objects" that are large enough to be seen when there is enough light present to see them, and according to you light is not an object? Do I have that correct?

Please define the word "object".

No, light is not an object. Objects reflect light, in order for them to be seen. Light can also be emitted from a light source, with no object being reflected, but this light can still be seen if it is within the visible spectrum.

[LadyShea]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

If my mom tastes the chocolate ice cream and says, "Strawberry tastes so much better than chocolate," this will not change my taste for chocolate if chocolate is my favorite flavor.

What if your mom slapped you and called you stupid every time you ate chocolate ice cream, and hugged you and praised you every time you ate strawberry? What do you think that might do to the taste of chocolate?

Originally Posted by peacegirl

I am talking about the actual change in how something tastes due to a conditioned negative response.

Which of these definitions was Lessans using that would involve changing the actual taste of something due to a conditioned response?

NOUN:
Psychology

A process of behavior modification by which a subject comes to associate a desired behavior with a previously unrelated stimulus.

Noun 1. conditioning - a learning process in which an organism's behavior becomes dependent on the occurrence of a stimulus in its environment

Definition of CONDITIONING
1
: the process of training to become physically fit by a regimen of exercise, diet, and rest; also : the resulting state of physical fitness
2
: a simple form of learning involving the formation, strengthening, or weakening of an association between a stimulus and a response

conditioning /con·di·tion·ing/ (-ing)
1. learning in which a stimulus initially incapable of evoking a certain response becomes able to do so by repeated pairing with another stimulus that does evoke the response.
2. in physical medicine, improvement of the physical state with a program of exercise.

conditioning
[kəndish′əning]
Etymology: L, condicere, to make arrangements
a form of learning based on the development of a response or set of responses to a stimulus or series of stimuli.

aversive conditioning learning in which punishment or other unpleasant stimulation is used to reduce the frequency of an undesirable response.

instrumental conditioning , operant conditioning learning in which the frequency of a particular voluntary response is altered by the application of positive or negative consequences.

pavlovian conditioning.
The concept [of Pavlovian conditioning] had its beginnings in experimental techniques for the study of reflexes. The traditional procedure is based on the work of Ivan P. Pavlov, a Russian physiologist. In this technique the experimental subject is a dog that is harnessed in a sound-shielded room. The neutral stimulus is the sound of a metronome or bell which occurs each time the dog is presented with food, and the response is the production of saliva by the dog. Eventually the sound of the bell or metronome produces salivation, even though the stimulus that originally elicited the response (the food) is no longer presented.

In the technique just described, the conditioned stimulus is the sound of the bell or metronome, and the conditioned response is the salivation that occurs when the sound is heard. The food, which was the original stimulus to salivation, is the unconditioned stimulus and the salivation that occurred when food was presented is the unconditioned response.

Reinforcement is said to take place when the conditioned stimulus is appropriately followed by the unconditioned stimulus. If the unconditioned stimulus is withheld during a series of trials, the procedure is called extinction because the frequency of the conditioned response will gradually decrease when the stimulus producing the response is no longer present. The process of extinction eventually results in a return of the preconditioning level of behavior.

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by LadyShea

That would most likely cause an aversion to chocolate.

There is nothing in Lessans' definition that would involve changing actual taste unless there was a negative experience associated with the taste of a particular item. If a mother said over and over, Yuch, that chocolate ice cream tastes disgusting but this vanilla tastes delicious (similar to a negative inflection when a set of features is seen and a positive inflection when a different group of facial features is seen), the child would not be conditioned, as in sight, to disliking chocolate ice cream in favor of vanilla, if he really liked chocolate ice cream because the taste is a personal preference only. Taste is a sense, therefore there is a direct pathway that goes from the food, to the taste buds, to the brain.

You can call an association conditioning if you want to. But this type of conditioning is associated with a negative experience that would automatically cause a negative response when the stimulus is present. Moreover, I don't think a Pavlovian response of salivating is the same thing as getting an animal to like what it doesn't like by an associative process. The kind of conditioning regarding the eyes is slightly different in that there is no negative experience other than someone uttering a negative inflection everytime a picture or face of a person is shown. Therefore, fear in this case is not what is causing the negative response, which, by the way, is a very powerful motivator.

Seeing a beautiful or ugly person is an actual conditioning of the brain to prefer a certain set of features because of the positive inflection that is associated with them. The person then sees this 'beauty' because of a standard was created by the word itself; therefore when these features are presented, a beautiful person is seen. There is no standard that can be set in the case of taste. As I said earlier, a child could be influenced by his culture to not want to taste a particular food, or a child might not be use to a certain taste because he isn't use to it. That is what happens when children of one culture experience the cuisine of another culture. But a child who likes chocolate ice cream over strawberry ice cream will not be negatively influenced by someone saying that strawberry ice cream is much better than chocolate ice cream, even if they say it 1000 times. This would be a good experiment. Please read this again because it might begin to make more sense.

Here is a smooth white wall in a dark room with nothing on it. I
am dropping a negative plate or slide into the projector, flipping the
switch, and just take a look — there is a picture of a girl on the wall.
But go up and touch her. All you feel is the wall itself because the girl
is not there. We have been doing the same thing with our brain
regarding values. The differences in substance were not only divided
up by the use of words like man, woman, child, etc., but became a
screen upon which we were able to project this value.

Drop a negative
plate or word slide in your brain projector and flip the switch. Well
just take a look, there is now a beautiful girl, a homely man, an ugly
duckling! Turn off the switch (remove the negative plate or word
slide) and all you see are the differences in substance because the
projected values have been removed. Since we were taught that the
eyes receive and transmit sense experience on the waves of light it was
impossible to deny that this beautiful girl actually existed and was a
part of the real world; and when we changed the standard hidden in
the word, all we did was change the screen.

By saying that this person
may not be beautiful physically but has a beautiful soul, we were
allowed to see ugly souls as if they, too, existed externally. Scientists,
believing that the eyes were a sense organ, unconsciously confirmed
what man saw with them because they were unaware that it was
possible to project a fallacious relation realistically. Consequently
everything in the external world will be distorted if the words through
which man looks at what he calls reality are inaccurate symbols or if
the relation which is photographed becomes, as in the five senses, an
inaccurate negative which is then projected realistically upon
undeniable substance.

The word ‘beautiful’ has absolutely no external
reality and yet because it is learned in association with a particular
physiognomy a beautiful girl is created, when no such person exists.
Obviously there is a difference between the shape and features of
individuals but to label one beautiful and another ugly only reveals
that you are conscious of a fallacious difference that is projected
through your eyes upon substance that cannot be denied — which
makes the projection appear real.

By having the words beautiful, ugly,
gorgeous, etc. as slides in a movie projector through which the brain
will look at the external world, a fallacious value is placed upon certain
specific differences only because of the words which is then confirmed
as a part of the real world since man will swear that he sees beautiful
women with his eyes, but in actual reality all he sees are different
shapes and different features. This so-called beautiful girl is not
striking his optic nerve which then allows him to see her beauty but
instead he projects the word onto these differences and then
photographs a fallacious relation.

The brain records all relations,
whether true or false, and since it was considered an indisputable fact
that man had five senses which were connected in some way with the
external world and since four of these were accurately described as
sense organs, that is, they receive and transmit external stimuli, it was
very easy for Aristotle to get confused and put a closure on further
investigation by including the eyes in the definition, which he did only
because he never understood their true function.

[LadyShea]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

No, light is not an object. Objects reflect light, in order for them to be seen. Light can also be emitted from a light source, with no object being reflected, but this light can still be seen if it is within the visible spectrum.

If light itself is not an object, and light itself carries no information for the brain to interpret as an image, how can we see light itself? What are we seeing? Photons are too small to see, correct?

[LadyShea]

You said Lessans did not use an idiosyncratic definition of conditioning. Apparently, he completely made up a whole new meaning for conditioning completely. That is redefining the word, isn't it?

Originally Posted by peacegirl

The person then sees this 'beauty' because of a standard was created by the word itself; therefore when these features are presented, a beautiful person is seen

There is absolutely no reason to believe, or even suppose, that this is true for all people. Again, an assertion for which no evidence or support is provided.

Taste is a sense, therefore there is a direct pathway that goes from the food, to the taste buds, to the brain.

Oh? Can you describe and explain this direct pathway for taste? Also add hearing and tactile sensation while you're at it. I think you'll find they cannot be called anything even close to "direct". Nor can you explain, other than by assertion, how are they senses but sight is not.

You are making less and less sense and sounding more and more deranged and brainwashed, you are aware of that, right?

[thedoc]

Originally Posted by thedoc

??

??

[Kael]

Look, it's really quite simple:

1. Lessans made Astute Observations(TM).

2. These observations are ABSOLUTELY UNDENIABLE.

That's it. Case closed. Anything that you think is contrary to these really isn't. You just don't understand it properly.

There, I have summarized the last 149 pages, and I astutely observe that the next n pages will not substantively change, even as n approaches infinity. I even threw some mathematicals in there for you, so you'd know how undeniable that observation truly is.

[erimir]

Hey peacegirl,

Can your theory of sight possibly explain how 3D movies and similar effects work?

Because I'm pretty sure that 1. you have no clue how they work 2. your theory has no way of accommodating them, because it's retarded and 3. you don't understand why the current theory of sight is perfectly capable of explaining how it works, and that the new methods of 3D imaging that have been created have been predicated on the current model of sight - that is, it's because the scientists and engineers accept the sensory model of sight that they have been able to develop these new 3D movies.

If they accepted your model, they'd be sitting with their thumbs up their asses instead because your model of sight is nonsensical.

[LadyShea]

Contradictory astute observations by rival quack!

The Secret Beyond Matter

When you look out of the window, you think that you see an image with your eyes, as this is the way that you have been taught to think. However, in reality this is not how it works, because you do not see the world with your eyes. You see the image created in your brains. This is not a prediction, nor a philosophical speculation, but the scientific truth.

Because of the indoctrination that we receive throughout our lives, we imagine that we see the whole world with our eyes. Eventually, we usually conclude that our eyes are the windows that open up to the world. However, science shows us that we do not see through our eyes. The millions of nerve cells inside the eyes are responsible for sending a message to the brain, as if down a cable, in order to make "seeing" happen. If we analyze the information we learned in high school, it becomes easier for us to understand the reality of vision.

'Color' as such does not exist in the world; it exists only in the eye and brain of the beholder. Objects reflect many different wavelengths of light, but these light waves themselves have no color

The truth is actually this: a human being is a being that possesses a soul given by God, and with this soul, he can think, talk, be pleased, make decisions, establish civilizations and manage countries.

An increasing number of people are coming to accept this truth, which changes people's fundamental ideas and obliges them to have faith in God. Accepting this truth enables people to love and willingly abide by all the features of that pleasing morality revealed in the Koran, and removes all evil feelings-such as competitiveness, hatred and enmity-and replaces them with love, compassion and humility, which is the true nature of matter. Those who say, "How is it that it took me so long to realize a truth so obvious and simple as this?" are in the majority.

See that peacegirl, just accept the truth of the Q'uaran!

[Stephen Maturin]

gibbering whackadoo slap fight itt!

[LadyShea]

At least the Muslim whacakdoo has actual science in his premises, though his conclusion of "therefore God" does not really follow.

Hey peacegirl, rival quack mentioned a device that would not work if sight is efferent, Microsystem-based Visual Prosthesis

[davidm]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

Categorically WRONG! We see the object not because it magically appears, but because it is LARGE ENOUGH TO BE SEEN.

HOW DO WE SEE IT? WHAT IS THE MECHANISM OF SIGHT?

[davidm]

Oh, and Peacegirl? Can you explain how, if God turns on the sun at noon, people on earth would see it at noon but would not see their neighbor for eight minutes?

[davidm]

Originally Posted by LadyShea

If light itself is not an object, and light itself carries no information for the brain to interpret as an image, how can we see light itself? What are we seeing? Photons are too small to see, correct?

More refutation of peacegirl's bullshit:

Seeing photons

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by LadyShea

If light itself is not an object, and light itself carries no information for the brain to interpret as an image, how can we see light itself? What are we seeing? Photons are too small to see, correct?

I'm not sure what you're getting at. We can see light if the wavelengths are within the visible spectrum. For example, we can see rainbows even though they are made up of pure light, but even here, we are seeing the rainbow in real time. We are not decoding anything in our brain.

Here is a simple definition of photon:

Most of us have also heard tell of photons. None of us have ever seen a single photon... it doesn't work like that. It is beyond the scope of this article to explain what a photon is in detail and how it gets produced. We ony need a few background comments. Look at the lightbulb in your room. Vagaries in local power supply permitting, it appears that the light issues forth in one continuous smooth stream of energy. Quantum theory tells us that its not quite as simple as it seems. Energy comes in little indivisible lumps called photons. Like atoms and matter, light comes in chunks. One photon is one quantum. Your lightbulb is constantly spraying you and the room with little packets of energy. Quite a lot of little packets of energy in fact.

[thedoc]

Hey you guys, stop it.

Keep this up and you're going to spoil the 200 page party, if you make everyone mad and they go away.

Are we there yet?

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by LadyShea

You said Lessans did not use an idiosyncratic definition of conditioning. Apparently, he completely made up a whole new meaning for conditioning completely. That is redefining the word, isn't it?

Originally Posted by peacegirl

The person then sees this 'beauty' because of a standard was created by the word itself; therefore when these features are presented, a beautiful person is seen

Originally Posted by LadyShea

There is absolutely no reason to believe, or even suppose, that this is true for all people. Again, an assertion for which no evidence or support is provided.

There is a lot of evidence. You say it isn't true for all people, but a child growing up in society cannot escape this conditioning. The conditioning taking place is out of one's conscious control. There is a lot of evidence supporting this, and more empirical testing can be done to prove it. I'm surprised you are making such a big deal over it.

Taste is a sense, therefore there is a direct pathway that goes from the food, to the taste buds, to the brain.

Originally Posted by LadyShea

Oh? Can you describe and explain this direct pathway for taste? Also add hearing and tactile sensation while you're at it. I think you'll find they cannot be called anything even close to "direct". Nor can you explain, other than by assertion, how are they senses but sight is not.

When I said there is a direct pathway in, you know what I meant. These four senses are afferent, not efferent, therefore the same conditioning that occurs with the eyes cannot take place.

Originally Posted by LadyShea

You are making less and less sense and sounding more and more deranged and brainwashed, you are aware of that, right?

LadyShea, not you too. Please don't start acting like the others. I don't like being called deranged and brainwashed. I'm neither. If you are not interested in what I have to say, and you're just here to point out errors in my deranged mind, we don't have to converse.

[thedoc]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

LadyShea, please don't start acting like the others. I don't like being called deranged and brainwashed. I'm neither. If you are not interested in what I have to say, and you're just here to point out errors in my deranged mind, we don't have to converse.

WOW! another non-answer, who'da thought?

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by LadyShea

At least the Muslim whacakdoo has actual science in his premises, though his conclusion of "therefore God" does not really follow.

Hey peacegirl, rival quack mentioned a device that would not work if sight is efferent, Microsystem-based Visual Prosthesis

Is this a proven technology?

The microsystems based visual prosthesis (MiViP) visual prosthesis generates visual perceptions well below safety and stimulator saturation limits. These perceptions, called phosphenes, are of reasonably small size and are broadly distributed in the visual field. They can thus be used to convey useful visual information. Psychophysical evaluations are being performed in order to assess the implantee's benefits in the use of the MiViP optic nerve visual prosthesis. In a pattern-recognition task, the performance improved regularly with practice with an increasing score and a decreasing delay to recognition. These observations open the way toward an evaluation of general mobility improvement with the portable system. In conclusion, the results obtained so far still support the potential usefulness of the optic nerve visual prosthesis. A low-resolution artificial vision can be expected from the prosthesis after extensive training.

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by LadyShea

Contradictory astute observations by rival quack!

See that peacegirl, just accept the truth of the Q'uaran!

LadyShea, we're on thin ice if you think I'm just another quack. You obviously have decided to continue where they left off. I'm sure their posts aren't helping either. Please stop, okay?

[Doctor X]

Let me guess, the idiot still has not figured out how a solar eclipse disproves her claims.

--J.D.

[peacegirl]

This is for David.

There's no such thing as evolution. There's no such thing as climate change. And that's the law.

Outrageous as it sounds, this is the situation that thousands of science teachers find themselves in as more and more states pass radical laws promoting the teaching of creationism and climate-change denial in public classrooms.

But in Louisiana, one high school senior is fighting back.

Zack Kopplin is just 17 years old, but he knows what's right: He wants his science teachers to teach him science, not religion. Zack is spearheading a campaign to repeal the Louisiana law that pushes science teachers to deny evolution and climate change.

Zack wrote a letter to the Louisiana state legislature, and 42 Nobel Prize winners have signed it, too. Now, he's asking you to join his fight on Change.org.

Zack's campaign is working: On April 15th, Louisiana State Senator Karen Carter Peterson introduced a bill to repeal the repeal the recent legislation, but Zack still needs help to keep the pressure up.

Please sign the petition today to tell the Louisiana legislature to let science teachers teach science:

http://www.change.org/petitions/tell...-change-denial

Thanks for taking action,

- Patrick and the Change.org team

[The Editor]

Their posts have merely confirmed that peacegirl is a crank, a liar, willfully ignorant, a hypocrite, and, ultimately, a coward.

--Ed.