A revolution in thought

[LadyShea]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

We are talking specifically about the visible spectrum which has nothing to do with the measurement of light and its properties.

The visible spectrum of light isn't light with measurable properties? If we are talking about light, we are talking about light...and its properties.

Originally Posted by peacegirl

here is absolutely no conflict here, so don't try to make it appear that there is.

There are huge glaring conflicts, such as your insistence that reflected light doesn't travel, and your statements about light being located on camera film on Earth even if no light is on Earth at all as per Lessans newly ignited Sun scenario, you simply can't address them

[LadyShea]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

No, this is not a strawman. In fact, this is pivotol to the afferent model. Let me refresh your memory. It is believed that if we were on the star Rigel and the light that bounced off the object or event finally reached our telescopes, we would be seeing a past event. That means that the object or event could no longer be present LadyShea, which means that light is causing the brain to interpret an old image.

You seem to not be taking relativity into account, so you must now define past and present in the way you are using it.

The Hubble pics prove we can create images from traveling light...due to the distance, yes, we would consider those images of the past as relative to our current location. Note though, that all created images absolutely include "objects"...either the emission source or the reflection source.

[Vivisectus]

The "greater satisfaction" principle: A human being is always driven to choose that which gives him the greatest satisfaction. If unpleasant actions are chosen that give the impression that someone does not choose that which is the most satisfying, then that just means that there was some other motive in play which we did not take into account at the time, and which nevertheless led to more satisfaction than the option of not choosing that action.

The book states that it is part of the laws of the mankind-system, something that describes human behavior in the same way that the laws of physics describe the behavior of the planets and the stars.

There is a big difference between the two, however, and we can demonstrate the problem by following this comparison between the satisfaction principle and the observation of the stars and planets.

When we calculate the speed of the orbit of a moon like Io, we observe the moon at fixed intervals, determine it's distance from us at the time, take the time-delay due to the speed of light into account (as well as a number of other factors), and then come to a conclusion. This conclusion allows us to make a prediction: if the conclusion is correct, then we should observe this moon at location X at time Y.

Repeated observations should bear this out, otherwise we will have made a mistake. Tests of a different sort, such as launching a probe of known speed and direction, should confirm this again.

In other words: we can state that if our idea of the laws of physics work the way we think they do, then the observations should match the predictions time and time again, even when it is tested in a variety of different ways.

Now let us try to apply the same test to the "greater satisfaction" principle. We have a human being, and we are going to test if he will always choose that which leads to the greatest satisfaction. What can we do to achieve this?

We would have to determine beforehand what would lead to someone's greater satisfaction, and then see if a statistically significant number of human beings always make that choice. In fact, the result should be the same every time we observe humans make a choice that we have previously determined to be the most satisfying one.

But how can we determine what a person's preference is going to be before that person makes a choice? To do so, you would need an exact and in-depth understanding of someone's brain-state, on a level that we currently do not possess, and may never possess. And even if we did, we may discover that there are elements to functioning of the human brain that produce unpredictable results. Brain-states could fluctuate, making the result differ based on timing.

The movements of moons we predict based on calculations which lead us to expect an observation that is subsequently checked. The statement "humans always choose that which is most preferable" is a prediction too. In the book it is wrongly used as a proven fact, by the simple expedient of saying after the fact that whatever WAS chosen had to have been what was most satisfying.

Since this is the case, one half of the "two sided equation" is based on pure speculation.

[LadyShea]

Worse than speculation, the "fact" simply defines itself into existence via tautology.

If you chose it, that means it was most preferable because we always choose that which is most preferable.

[LadyShea]

You know, this is a pretty simple thing here, yet you are pointedly ignoring it. Why?

Originally Posted by LadyShea

Here's my argument. Can you refute my premises or conclusion?

-Light travels constantly. This is an immutable property of light that can be empirically observed and measured.

-Light that has encountered matter, but not been absorbed by it, is light.

*Therefore light that has encountered matter, but not been absorbed by it, travels constantly.

All of your "hard work" and the result is a tautology with no explanatory value, so maybe refuting a simple argument will be helpful to you

[Vivisectus]

That is very true: the evidence presented for it being the most satisfying is the fact that it was chosen, and the reason that is presented for it being chosen is the fact that is was the most satisfying.

But I was trying to steer away from the purely circular approach and try to explain in very simple terms why this is a problem, and why you cannot use it as a basis for conclusions.

[Spacemonkey]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

Why do you bring this up Spacemonkey?

Because you asked. I was directly answering the question that you asked. You should try that some time.

Originally Posted by peacegirl

You're missing the fact that, in the efferent account, non-absorbed light, which indicates the color of the object, cannot show photons on the retina without the object present.

That is true but, once again, without the object present, there would be no nonabsorbed light present at the retina from which an image could be made out.

Why? Assume that the object is within visual range so that none of this nonabsorbed light becoming full spectrum nonsense even applies. What happens if the object is removed or ceases to exist during the time that the nonabsorbed blue light is traveling from the blue object to a photographic film? What stops that blue light from still traveling to and hitting the film to produce a spot of blue color?

[Spacemonkey]

Originally Posted by Spacemonkey

YOU don't understand the efferent version of sight which you are still failing to explain. Your account is and remains completely contradictory, as you've proven every time you've tried to answer my questions about it only to contradict yourself in the process. If you think the problem is my lack of understanding, then how am I supposed to overcome this when you refuse to actually answer my questions about how it is supposed to work?

That the light is already at the eye is not the issue. Your problem is that you have no explanation for where that light came from or how it got there. The afferent account can explain where light at the retina came from and how it got there. Your efferent account cannot, and that is why it fails.

Did the photons which are at the retina (at 12:00 when the Sun is first ignited) come from the Sun? [Yes or No]

Were they ever located at the Sun? [Yes or No]

If so, when were they located at the Sun? [State a time relative to the moment of ignition of the Sun]

If not, where did they come from? [State a physical object or location]

Bump.

[naturalist.atheist]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

You're off your rocker NA. I have never seen someone say the same thing over and over again to the extent that you have. You're the one babbling nonsense and you will be viewed as someone who seriously needs his head examined from either a psychiatrist or an MD, because I don't think people can tell whether this is a physical ailment, a mental one, or both. I am seriously worried about you.

My offer still stands peacegirl. Lets go get checked out. There is another mental health professional that just joined this forum.

FYI, I never said "mirror image" was a perfect analogy. But it is close enough for my purposes in explaining this concept.

Indeed. It is Lessans "close enough".

[LadyShea]

There is another mental health professional that just joined this forum.

Yes, Dennis was introduced to because of peacegirl. She joined his home forum and some from here joined there and then he decided to come here to check us out.

He said Lessans writing indicated a thought disorder

[naturalist.atheist]

peacegirl, you complain about a snowball of opinion. You don't understand that the longer you push that snowball, the bigger it gets.

Get help peacegirl, or give it a long rest (at least a few years). Give that snowball a chance to melt. Don't make it any bigger.

Another ten years will turn it into a glacier of opinion.

[koan]

Peacegirl should take her father's advice:

Originally Posted by Lessans p122

Frankly, it makes no difference to me that the eyes are not a sense organ, that our scientists got confused because of it, and that a dog cannot identify his master from a picture.

It's sound advice. Stop caring. Stop defending it. It's not necessary to your argument.

You won't take advice from anyone else but, perhaps, you'll take advice from your Messiah.

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by LadyShea

Yes, Dennis was introduced to because of peacegirl. She joined his home forum and some from here joined there and then he decided to come here to check us out.

He said Lessans writing indicated a thought disorder

You're all seriously guilty of a horrible injustice when it comes to careful analysis. You're trying to excuse your horrible behavior and lack of credentials to puff yourselves up by using a psychologist who didn't have the courtesy to let me explain what Lessans' discovery was? Come on. He offed me the minute I came onto that forum because he compared me with so many others. That is foul play guys. Do you not see this, or are you so bent on squelching Lessans like a worm in your backyard that you cannot see objectively whatsoever. I believe that is exactly what is going on, and I want nothing to do with it. That's why I don't come here anymore.

[thedoc]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

That's why I don't come here anymore.

If you're not comeing here anymore, why are you here?

[naturalist.atheist]

She comes here because it's part of her illness. By now it should be abundantly clear that what she says is irrelevant to what she does.

[Vivisectus]

Personally I would also like to hear about the "extensive research into safety" (just the way that is phrased shouts fraud to anyone with half a brain) that led to the identification of "gaps in safety knowledge in children between 6 and 12" that you are supposed to have undertaken, as well as the qualifications in special education you claim to have.

I severely doubt that someone who has such difficulty grasping even the most basic concepts would have been able to finish any sort of college, shockingly low as US educational standards may be. But even if I give you the benefit of the doubt on THAT front, I would eat my hat if you conducted proper formal research on "safety" like you claim to have done.

If not, then please produce the methods use, the data gathered, and the statistical analysis that supported your conclusion. If you cannot then I have no choice but to consider you a fraud and a liar.

I strongly suspect that what research was done was of the Lessanese variety: no notes to check, no method to verify, no data, no statistics, no nothing. Just the claim of research done, and a conclusion that we can in no way verify.

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by LadyShea

The visible spectrum of light isn't light with measurable properties? If we are talking about light, we are talking about light...and its properties.

Nevermind, you misunderstood me. That's how difficult it is to explain a concept you can't even begin to formulate in your mind because it's so contrary to what you were brought up to believe.

Originally Posted by peacegirl

here is absolutely no conflict here, so don't try to make it appear that there is.

Originally Posted by LadyShea

There are huge glaring conflicts, such as your insistence that reflected light doesn't travel, and your statements about light being located on camera film on Earth even if no light is on Earth at all as per Lessans newly ignited Sun scenario, you simply can't address them

It all boils down to your lack of agreement regarding what you believe to be required for sight. If what is required is that the object must be bright enough to be seen, and large enough to be seen, then Lessans would be right because it would put us within optical range the second we open our eyes, without light having to travel to Earth first.

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by Vivisectus

Personally I would also like to hear about the "extensive research into safety" (just the way that is phrased shouts fraud to anyone with half a brain) that led to the identification of "gaps in safety knowledge in children between 6 and 12" that you are supposed to have undertaken, as well as the qualifications in special education you claim to have.

I severely doubt that someone who has such difficulty grasping even the most basic concepts would have been able to finish any sort of college, shockingly low as US educational standards may be. But even if I give you the benefit of the doubt on THAT front, I would eat my hat if you conducted proper formal research on "safety" like you claim to have done.

If not, then please produce the methods use, the data gathered, and the statistical analysis that supported your conclusion. If you cannot then I have no choice but to consider you a fraud and a liar.

I strongly suspect that what research was done was of the Lessanese variety: no notes to check, no method to verify, no data, no statistics, no nothing. Just the claim of research done, and a conclusion that we can in no way verify.

I actually did a lot of research on safety, enough to write two books on the subject. I had a statistics section in my book, Accident Prevention Awareness Program which I hope to update as products have gotten safer since 1991. There's also a greater societal awareness regarding safety and there are many good organizations out there. But statistics are just numbers; when it's your child, statistics don't mean much.

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by LadyShea

Here's my argument. Can you refute my premises or conclusion?

-Light travels constantly. This is an immutable property of light that can be empirically observed and measured.

-Light that has encountered matter, but not been absorbed by it, is light.

*Therefore light that has encountered matter, but not been absorbed by it, travels constantly.

All of your "hard work" and the result is a tautology with no explanatory value, so maybe refuting a simply argument will be helpful to you

All of those statements are correct, but you're still not considering that light alone, without the object (or the matter) present, will not provide an image of said object. That is what he meant when he said light is a condition of sight.

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by LadyShea

Which means "able to be seen". LOL you just did it again.

You are saying only "If it can be seen it is bright enough and large enough" or "If it is bright enough and large enough it can be seen", but what does that mean? How is brightness and size measured and what measurement is "enough"?

Unless you can determine what is "bright enough" or "large enough" without relying on whether or not it can be seen, you aren't offering any information at all..it is a tautology.

No, nobody has said anything like that. None of us has used the term optical range because it is only used when discussing specific measurements of instruments...like zoom lenses.

No, that is not the definition. Brains are not required as brainless animals have senses. You are putting unnecessary limitations on the word. Even Lessans definition said nothing about brains either

sense: A faculty by which the body perceives an external stimulus

Light is the stimulus and the other senses have different stimuli. So it is "the case" with the eyes just as it is with the other senses.

You have been unable to name any difference between the other senses and the eyes to account for Lessans insistence that the eyes are not a sense organ.

Light is the necessary condition; if Lessans is right it is not the stimulus. It does not relay impulses, like the other senses, whereby the brain can interpret normal vision. It just causes the pupils to dilate or contract. No one seems to care if he could be right. I actually don't know why this discussion is going on and on. I've said over and over that further empirical testing is in order. Why can't people leave well enough alone until there ca be further testing based on his [theory]. I say theory so that people will not be so bent out of shape.

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by LadyShea

Lessans never said anything about field of view or optical range or light ceasing to travel (which is impossible). Those are terms you came up with in trying to formulate a model since he failed to provide one.

I never said light ceases to travel, and if I did, I corrected myself. I said light that disperses to the degree that it no longer provides any resolution on the retina, means that we cannot see objects beyond the point at which objects are within the eye or camera's field of view. Light does not travel beyond that point of resolution with the pattern of the object (or however you want to word this; words sometimes don't accurately describe what you're trying to say so you have to approximate).

It does not have a life of its own whereby it brings information to the brain after the event (the material substance that comprise the object) is gone.

Originally Posted by LadyShea

Light exists separately from the source of emission and has immutable properties that can be empirically observed and measured. Any model you come up with must include these properties, otherwise it is an impossible model you are positing

That's fine with me. I have never disputed that light travels at a finite speed of 186,000 miles a second.

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by LadyShea

You have been unable to name any difference between the other senses and the eyes to account for Lessans insistence that the eyes are not a sense organ.

Originally Posted by peacegirl

Yes I have LadyShea

Originally Posted by LadyShea

No you haven't, in fact the last discussion we had about this you said the following:

Originally Posted by peacegirl

Science has not established conclusively that light brings an image without the object.

Originally Posted by LadyShea

Of course not, because science doesn't claim that light brings and image without an object. This is a strawman of what the scientific claims are.

Yes it does. It's all about the light. That's what allows scientists to conclude that if we were sitting on a star and the light that bounced off of a long ago event, such as Lincoln getting assassinated, finally reached our eyes, we would just now be seeing this event occurring. This would confirm that afferent vision is correct because light, even with the event long gone, would be bringing this image to our eyes, whereas Lessans' claims light does not cause sight; it is a condition of sight, which changes everything.

[Spacemonkey]

Originally Posted by Spacemonkey

Because you asked. I was directly answering the question that you asked. You should try that some time.

Why? Assume that the object is within visual range so that none of this nonabsorbed light becoming full spectrum nonsense even applies. What happens if the object is removed or ceases to exist during the time that the nonabsorbed blue light is traveling from the blue object to a photographic film? What stops that blue light from still traveling to and hitting the film to produce a spot of blue color?

Bump.

[Spacemonkey]

Originally Posted by Spacemonkey

Bump.

Bump.

[koan]

The only injustice in the threads you've created is that after people, myself included, have not only read the entire book you're promoting but can find a relevant quote within minutes we are being told we haven't read it thoroughly enough and don't understand it. The book claims that you will find the logic indisputable if you read the whole book. Obviously that is not true. If we have not understood it's because your book fails to say what it intended.

Go back and make it better.