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The Subjective Nature Of Reality

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MrSnowman

Abominable Snowman
Joined
Aug 5, 2002
Messages
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I had a conversation in work today about colour blindness, and one of my colleagues was telling me about how his friend sees red as green.. you know. It got me thinking though. To someone who is colour blind in this way, or in a different way. X is to us as Y is to them and vice versa. But who's to say that they're the ones with abnormal perceptions? OK, it can be argued.. 'but look at the spectrum of light, it's PROVEN!'.. Proven by who's standards? What happened if we became part of a galactic community tomorrow, and every single lifeform in the universe saw the same way as a colour blind person on Earth did? Would that make the rest of us abnormal? This isn't just about colour blindess. What I may see as pink, someone else may see as what I perceive to be yellow, but there'd never be any way of knowing unless you became that person for the day and saw the universe through their eyes. Does it apply to geometry and emotional perception? My triangle is your circle? It's something that no-one could ever prove, but remains a distinct possibility.

Taken to the extreme, where the universe is not one constant thing, but a mixture of things which everyone sees but perceives differently, it would bring up the ultimate question... just what is the universe like? I was thinking that maybe numbers could be the only constant which do not change between people to people, but can find some holes in that argument as well. Is anything actually real?

Well, I've got that off my chest. It was starting to do my head in on the bus after work.
 
Good idea for a thread. I've thought about the color issue ;) you discussed often.

I've also always wondered what happens when you die. Maybe when you die you wake up. :hmm: This gets to the core of the question of subjectivity I think. Just because you've seen other people die and their bodies become lifeless shells, how do you know that isn't simply part of this dream you're in; something meant to fool you into fearing your own death?
 
I was thinking that maybe numbers could be the only constant which do not change between people to people, but can find some holes in that argument as well.
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I don't know much about math. What are some of these holes, if you don't mind sharing?
 
I also have thought about this. I do colour vision tests, using the Ishihara plates, at work and often wonder this.
 
Bannik said:
I don't know much about math. What are some of these holes, if you don't mind sharing?
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Sorry, I've thought about it and have to contradict myself. I was thinking along the lines of binaries and how there can be variables in sequences of 1s and 0s. But even if they were, the variables would remain constant no matter how you perceived them, because they'd still carry the same values.

Perhaps numbers ARE the only thing we can really rely on. Is the objective universe really just made up of numbers and equations? But then how could an equation make matter form into a subjective concept that is peceived differently by all?

Jesus. My brain is beginning to hurt :cross eye
 
IIRC, the book 'The Origins of Conciousness and the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind' (can't remember the author off-hand), posits one theory that the ancient Greeks seemed to see less colours than we do today. Hence their references to odd colour choices when describing things. Whether this is true or not is anyone's guess - but if it was indeed so, it begs the questions as to whether humans have yet to develop certain sense. Or if they had others in the past which are no longer used.

My point is that how we perceive the world is bound by our senses, and if those senses have extra parts to them (or buried remnants) one could argue that perception itself is subtly changing. Or at least has the possibility of doing so.
 
Mr Snowman said:
Perhaps numbers ARE the only thing we can really rely on. Is the objective universe really just made up of numbers and equations? But then how could an equation make matter form into a subjective concept that is peceived differently by all?
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Maybe *you* can rely on numbers, but I can't! The blinking things make no sense whatsoever to me. I even have trouble keeping them in short-term memory long enough dial a phone number or proof a document at work - which is problem, since I do word processing for a real estate appraisal firm. We have an agreement - they do the math and I do the grammar.

Also, you would not believe the way parcels of property change their sizes during the course of an appraisal!

I was four or five when I realized that there was no way to know for sure that the color I saw when I saw red was the same as the color anybody else saw when they saw red. Nor, to my annoyance, could I articulate the concept well enough to convey it to anyone. So eventually I decided not to worry about it; which is pretty much what you've got to do in order to get along from day to day. You can't re-measure the property every time you mow the lawn.
 
When I worked as a photographer I knew a guy who worked as a colour printer. One day, at college we were given the ishihara test and he discovered that he had a partial colour blindness! However, his prints always had normal colour balance, the same as everyone-else's ( this was before auto colour balance came into use). We spent ages discussing what he saw in place of the colours I did and finally gave up it as totally incomprehensible!
 
Mr Snowman said:
Does it apply to geometry and emotional perception? My triangle is your circle? It's something that no-one could ever prove, but remains a distinct possibility.
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This has bugged me since I was a kid as well, the colours I mean.

Sometime I think in the 50's it was considered a good idea to treat epilepsy by cutting peoples brains in half.
As far as I remember it did cure the epilepsy but had the effect of turning the person into two different people, themselves as according to right brain and themselves as according to left brain.

There were several experiments done such as feeling something with the left hand and then having to pick out the same object with the right. The patients got it wrong!

I am sure the most logical explanation is that, with little communication between brain halves, the person couldn't get it right, but it is still interesting. I mean if you don't have clue then why even try? Why not just say you don't have a clue? Unless what your right brain thinks is a teapot, your left thinks is a bust of Mozart? Maybe!
 
I've wondered this for ages.

When I was a kid I wondered if there were other colours that we couldn't see yet, and what these colours would look like. My brain slowly melted, as it is apt to do when you are 8yrs old and trying to imagine a never-before-seen colour.

Incidently, my Gran has friends over in Virginia in America and one of their friends used to work as a paint mixer in a small family run hardware store many years ago, he's an old man now. His job was, well, to mix paint. Very much like B&Q and places do now, people would bring him the colour they wanted and he would mix them the paint. Apparently his accuracy was incredible and he'd often only need to see a sample once to get the right shade.

It was only when he went for an eye test, after he retired that he was told that he was colour-blind.

I love stories like that.
 
I used to wonder about this too.

I'm no scientist but aren't colours measurable? Doesn't the visible spectrum go from x to y number? I don't know number of what, vibrations or something. And then at the end there's infra-red and ultra-violet or something. Oh no, i remember, wavelengths! that's it! (phew)

So surely this would mean that colours are sort of fixed, the likelyhood is that two people perceive colours pretty much the same as each other.

Some scientist please feel free to step in at any time!

On the other hand, I don't think it can be all as simple as that because when it comes to that weird shade that's in between blue and green I frequently have arguments with my sister about whether it's blue or it's green. So perhaps two other people (say genetic strangers) could have totally different perceptions of colour but without borrowing their eyes you could never find out.



:confused:
 
Just thought about something else -

IIRC, the book 'The Origins of Conciousness and the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind' (can't remember the author off-hand), posits one theory that the ancient Greeks seemed to see less colours than we do today. Hence their references to odd colour choices when describing things.
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Steven Pinker's thoroughly enjoyable book 'The Language Instinct' suggests that colour words develop in pretty much the same way in different cultures. I can't remember exactly but I think it was something like the word for Black first; then Red and White; followed by Blue or something? (that might be all in the wrong order but you get the idea).

In Japanese the Green traffic light is called Blue. But it's still the same colour as it is anywhere else. 'AO' is the colour name which translates into English as Blue but maybe developmentally Blue preceded the distinction Green and so at one point 'AO' indicated both Blue and Green.

If you see what I mean.

Um... not sure if I'm making sense
 
lemonpie said:
On the other hand, I don't think it can be all as simple as that because when it comes to that weird shade that's in between blue and green I frequently have arguments with my sister about whether it's blue or it's green. So perhaps two other people (say genetic strangers) could have totally different perceptions of colour but without borrowing their eyes you could never find out.
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As an aside, I've noticed since I started taking bilberry it seems I've become more aware of different levels of shade of colors. Things seem brighter somehow too; more colorful. Hard to describe since it's so subjective - almost like trying to describe music seems more "musical" somehow when you listen to it on vynil rather than off a CD.
 
Lemon pie:
On the other hand, I don't think it can be all as simple as that because when it comes to that weird shade that's in between blue and green I frequently have arguments with my sister about whether it's blue or it's green.
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Wasn't there a research paper not to long ago that said that some women have four color receptors in their eyes instead of the normal three? I recall that it might make them more able to discern shades of green.



Bannik:
What's Bilberry, and what is it normally taken for? I have heard tell that hallucenogenics in low doses make colors appear brighter.
 
Philo T said:
Bannik:
What's Bilberry, and what is it normally taken for? I have heard tell that hallucenogenics in low doses make colors appear brighter.
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Yes, Brian Ellwood told me that about hallucenogens on another thread. Bilberry is a herb. It's used for various ailments including diarrea, dysentary, scurvy. It's also used to improve vision. I started taking it in November and shortly after noticed an improvement in my ability to perceive color differentiation that I didn't even know existed before then. I didn't even associate this improvement with the bilberry at first because most herbs I've taken don't produce any noticeable effects and so, whenI started to take it, I wasn't expecting much. TBH, I just thought at first it had gotten brighter outside (even on rainy days it seems...brighter somehow). I don't know if it works the same way for everyone. Strangely, my eyes are a little less sensitive to bright light than they were before - I don't feel as much pain in the sunlight.

Edit: I should mention I didn't start taking it for any particular ailment. My parents take it so I started taking it out of curiosity and in the hope that my vision wouldn't deteriorate as rapidly with age than it would had I not taken it.
 
Wasn't there a research paper not to long ago that said that some women have four color receptors in their eyes instead of the normal three? I recall that it might make them more able to discern shades of green.
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Ooh interesting Philo T - any links/ideas where I might find more info?

I just thought at first it had gotten brighter outside (even on rainy days it seems...brighter somehow).
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Bannik - brilliant - (good link) - would you say your eye health has improved or do you think it's more perceptual?
 
Hmmm, it looks like the story hit the news in 2000. I thought that it wasn't that long ago.

Interestingly, apparently, also, some other species have more than three types of color receptors.
For species with four different color receptors, such as many birds, one would use four primary colors.
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The "condition", for want of a better word, is tetrachromaticity. And those affected are tetrachromats.


Over my head, but among other things, this implies that all humans possess four receptors types of, but for most people, their lens / cornea, etc block the short wavelengths! (This ties in well from reports from cataract patients.)
Summary
The architecture of the human visual system, along with that of most animals, is tetrachromatic. The performance of the human system at very short wavelengths is blocked by the absorption of its own optics. Therefore it can be more properly described as a blocked tetrachromat instead of a trichromat. The difference is significant in research.
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Hmmmm, this discussion of colorblindness states that it is possible for a worman to have five different types of color receptors!
Since one X chromosome is inactivated at random in each cell during a woman's development, it is possible for her to have five different primary colors, if, for example, a carrier of protanomalopia has a child with a deuteranomalopic man. Denoting the normal vision alleles by P and D and the anomalous by p and d, the carrier is PD pD and the man is Pd. The daughter is either PD Pd or pD Pd. Suppose she is pD Pd. Half the cells in her body express her mother's chromosome pD; the other half express her father's Pd. Thus half of the red cones in her retina are anomalous, and half of the green cones are anomalous, so she has two shades of red, two shades of green, and blue as primary colors. See also: tetrachromat.
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[edit:]
Actually, upon further reflection, what that source is talking about is inheriting deficits in half of both the red and green receptors. So they have normal green receptors and deficent green receptors, along with normal red receptors and deficent red receptors. Thus, giving "five" different types of receptors, but not covering a broader wavelength range.

The tetrachromats, on the other hand, have a fourth receptor for a distinct wavelength range.
[/edit]

Bannik: You're sure the Bilberry isn't causing you to mutate ?:D
 
lemonpie said:
I'm no scientist but aren't colours measurable? Doesn't the visible spectrum go from x to y number? I don't know number of what, vibrations or something. And then at the end there's infra-red and ultra-violet or something. Oh no, i remember, wavelengths! that's it! (phew)

So surely this would mean that colours are sort of fixed, the likelyhood is that two people perceive colours pretty much the same as each other.
Click to expand...

This is exactly what I mean! The light spectrum does have values attached to it, yes, but how do I know that instead of MY ROYGBIV in the visible spectrum, that you're not seeing, what would be to me, BGRIOYV, there's absolutely no way of being able to say!

The view through infrared goggles to you may be yellow to me, or blue.. or some other colour which I can't imagine!

This is definitely a brain-strain topic ;)
 
Brain strain, and intellectual amusement as well.

Since we have no certain gauge which would allow us to compare the colors each of us see, meeting all the other ETs in the universe and finding out that they are red-green colorblind wouldn't make us abnormal. Because the main thing is, the frequency corresponding to the colors need reach the eye, and the distinguishing is left to our brains. In other words, we all receive the color, it's our brains (and the cones in the eyes) that do the work.

Several animals don't see in color, and in fact, don't even see in 3D. Yet some can "view" other portions of the electromagnetic spectrum which fall out of the range of our senses, and yet is "normal" for them. If bats were to acquire English-communication abilities overnight, they'd probably think it strange that either they can detect ultrasonic sounds, or that we can't.

What is the point of this? It's all about how we see things. (Pun unintended).
 
The point is that, if it can't be determined that the colours we all see are the same, how can we determine if anything else we see is the same? A small paperback book to me might appear ten metres high in your reality, or your dog may look like my crocodile.

If it's not possible to -absolutely- verify that what we all see is exactly the same, then what do things around us -really- look like? Are they just lumps of energy which everyone sees differently?
 
Tetrachromats and eye health

lemonpie said:
Bannik - brilliant - (good link) - would you say your eye health has improved or do you think it's more perceptual?
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"Brilliant" - thanks - that's the word I should use to describe it. Colors seem more brilliant now. I think eye health and visual perception are interlinked, so an improvement in one indicates an improvement in the other. Am I wrong? Although I haven't had my eyes checked since sometime before I started taking the bilberry, IMHO, yes, they have improved in health.

Philo T said, "Bannik: You're sure the Bilberry isn't causing you to mutate?" After reading the "Looking for Madam Tetrachromat" article, no I'm not.;) Am I becoming the first male tetrachromat?:eek: Thanks for all the links.
 
Interesting thread,I've often considered this subject as well.
My wife and I are people who disagree on shades of teal or blue green. What's greenish blue to me is bluish green to her.
There are other colors in the red violet/blue violet spectrum we disagree on as well.
Regardless of the fact that color can indeed be measured,perceptions of it are not the same.If you look at a color wheel with translucent "lenses" of color which overlay other colors you'll see a value given to each color......say 90% cyan and 10% yellow may produce what I perceive as a greenish blue.
Technically speaking I'd be correct,but that doesn't mean someone else won't see the same color as more greenish than blue.
What is considered normal color perception is an average of what people agree upon: as is true with so many other things.
Take temperature for instance,it is a measurable condition but perceptions of 72 degrees fahrenheit may be a bit cool or a bit warm considering the individual's perception.
Individual A and Individual B may be equally accurate in determining the correct temperature as it is measured mechanically but may perceive the temperature as warm or cool respectively.
It is unlikely(not impossible) someone will perceive this temperature as HOT or as COLD as it is a temperature most human beings perceive in the average range of comfort.
Though,temperature,color and other perceptions can be measured exactly by mechanical means(which IS a constant)perception will never be a constant--only a close approximation and sometimes there are radical exceptions to that.
 
So to what extent would it reach?
Who's to say that the people we see look the same to everyone else?
It's said that people suffering with anorexia see themselves as fat when they're dangerously underweight. Is that an example of self-conciously altering your perception of reality over a period of time or visualising a shared space in alternate realities, the reflection being somebody else altogether?
Are people who are tone deaf really hearing sounds as they are meant to be heard?
 
I have heard that different people will describe the same songs at some mid-tempos as fast or slow, depending on how the pace of the song relates to their heartrate.

The problem of perceptual skepticism; asking the question "how do I know that everyone else is experiencing the same things that I am?" is one that has hung around philosophy for a very long time. To my understanding it comes down to the distinction between the public and private world- the things perceived belonging in the public world but the actual sensations of perception in the private one.

One question to ask might be "how do I know to describe the police car lights as blue?" The answer you might offer is that everyone knows those lights are blue, that they are the same colour as other things you have seen that are blue. That ever since you can remember people have been telling you that things of that colour are blue. The way the word "blue" is used in the public world is inseparable from the colour of police car lights, among many other things.

Now supposing that you have a secret internal word for the colour blue, lets call it "crubnubulum" and that it describes only your own internal idea of the colour blue. And let us suppose that your friend has their own internal conception of the colour blue that they call "nibnibrilik". It is impossible to say whether or not crubnubulum and nibnibrilik are the same colour because there is no point of reference in the real world. Supposing one of you sees everything like a colour photographic negative of what the other sees, your internal words might stand for different colour perceptions but without the public language there is no way for you to tell, and in the public language the word both of you would use is "blue".

This means that ultimately the question about individual perceptions is effectively meaningless, because without the points of reference that language gives us there is no way to answer it.
 
Mr Snowman said:
The point is that, if it can't be determined that the colours we all see are the same, how can we determine if anything else we see is the same?
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When I said "What is the point of this?" I was referring to my post, so I apologize if you had to take the effort to type that out. :D

I think your example of colors can be extended to many of the senses. Color has been mentioned already. Sounds could be put in there as well. Have you read about the Taos Hums (and humming noises in other cities). The phenomenon here is that some residents of the city can hear them, but others cannot.





A small paperback book to me might appear ten metres high in your reality, or your dog may look like my crocodile.
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I think that would be taking it a little too far. Philosophically, it can be debated and questioned over and over again. But if this were in fact true, then that would throw the nature of the universe and physical laws out the window (My window looks like an orangutan with wings).

Originally posted by River_Styx

So to what extent would it reach?
Who's to say that the people we see look the same to everyone else?
It's said that people suffering with anorexia see themselves as fat when they're dangerously underweight. Is that an example of self-conciously altering your perception of reality over a period of time or visualising a shared space in alternate realities, the reflection being somebody else altogether?
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Anorexia is psychological.


OK, let me put forth another question for some who have bothered to read this:

Schizophrenics see and hear things which are apparent to them only. Does that make their perceived reality a reality?


(I feel that is a relevant question, considering the title of the thread)
 
BTW, Good thread Mr. Snowman. I'm getting addicted to this forum... :spinning
 
Originally Posted by The FROG
(Schizophrenics see and hear things which are apparent to them only. Does that make their perceived reality a reality?)

In the case of people with mental (perceptual) disorders I think their perceptions are fueled to a greater degree by inner perceptions than by external stimuli than the general population.
Of course we're all affected by inner perceptions that are to varying degrees incongruous with the inner perceptions of others.
But as I stated earlier there are indeed measurable physicalities of reality.
If a voice produces no measurable sound which can be confirmed mechanical means or confirmed by another person then it is originating from within and would be considered a hallucination.
And therefor not in the context of "reality".
Anorexic's inner perceptions override external measurements of what is a normal healthy weight.
When in fact a measurable ratio based on height & weight would show they are below a healthy balance rather than exceeding a healthy balance.
 
One can end up arguing over the hoary old 'zen' question: does a tree falling in a forest make a noise if there is no-one there to hear it?:D As the whole thing becomes a philosophical debate.
I've read that some people occasionally hear the sound of the aurora and also meteors, but as far as I know no-one has ever recorded this sound , so there has been a long standing argument about whether they imagined the sounds. Recently I read that there may be some basis for the sounds being vlf radio waves that have caused an audio response in, believe it or not, peoples' spec frames and earings!
When I briefly worked in textiles I was shown an international colour referencing which involved taking the hue, saturation, and brightness of a dyed colour and expressing these as values on a 3d matrix, thus you could specify a particular dye colour on a fabric and match it anywhere around the world whatever language you spoke. Whether the operators brains 'saw' the same thing is something else.;)
 
dreams as reality and vice versa

I remember reading something once about a woman who was so convinced that her dreams were her reality and they moved in a chronological order and made so much sense that she even got married in her dreams, had a family and a house etc. She actually lived out her life in her dreams rather than in her waking hours. she waited during the day just to fall asleep to take care of her children, go to work, etc in her dreams. I think about that story all of the time and find it quite interesting. and I think maybe that lady was a kook but who knows?
What if our dreams were real and vice versa for our lives, and we just never really remembered our dreams fully, but they made a complete fully connecting alter-life?
OOHhh spooky. i love it.
 
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