You would never pass a test of your understanding of this book. You would flunk big time! If this was a course you would have to take it over, or else fail!!Only if agreement were the criteria for passing the test, otherwise I would pass easily, since I understand what you do not, Lessans was wrong.
It is not contradictory.Liar. I just showed you the contradiction in what you have said. Again: You said the wavelength is there before the photons can travel there. You also said that the wavelength is not there before the photons, so the photons are also there before they can have traveled there. And now you also say that they didn't get there by any means other than traveling. Put these three claims together and you've said that the photons travel to the retina and get there before they have had enough time to travel there. Batshit insane lunacy, seriously. Which of the above contradictory statements are you prepared to retract?
I mentioned before that Lessans idea is (nearly) 2000 years old. (Oddly someone else disagreed with that observation). Here is the proof:If I may interject some information from the book, I'm not sure Peacegirl is capable of explaining it correctly. Lessans never claimed that light emanated from the eye, but Lessans did claim that light was instantly in contact with the retina, when the brain looked out through the eyes. Lessans claimed that descriptive words were projected onto the objects being observed, and these words gave a false impression of the qualities of that object. So the one difference was that lessans did not claim the light from the eyes. Peacegirl has refined the ideas to eliminate distance from the equation. In Lessans description, the eyes were reduced to inert windows that the brain looks out through, and little else. Lessans also went on to claim that vision was not possible till the brain desired to "see" the source of a noise, or other stimuli outside the body. He illustrated this by claiming that if a child were raised in a dark, quiet room with no external stimuli, the person would not be able to see, no matter what age they were, because there would have been nothing to trigger the brains desire to see. Lessans claim that the brain looked out through the eyes was not accompanied by any explanation of how this could happen. I have thought about this some more and in view of your (bolded) statement, Lessans left it up to the reader to fill in the blanks of his assertion that the brain looks out through the eyes. You are correct in pointing out that Lessans did not claim that the eye projected light. But he did not explain how the eye can see a distant object instantaneously either, except that it must be of a certain brightness. So we must consider the possible scenarios and find the one which would confirm Lessans claim. This is the standard procedure of falsification of an unsupported hypothesis. It is not intended to prove Lessans wrong, but to see if he could be right. A benign inquiry and not intended as an outright rejection. The issue of light taking time to travel is acknowledged by peacegirl, but she claims that "if god were to turn on the sun" we would instantly see the sun, regardless of distance. Am I correct in my understanding of peacegirl's claim? As peacegirl rules out "c" in this specific scenario, we have to search for a "revolutionary" method of observation. Thus we must choose between the properties of light travelling to the eye or the eye having the ability to see the appearance of a "bright object" instantaneously. Am I correct so far? IMO, the only remaining option is to consider the ability of the eye to project its field of view (vision) instantaneously over great distances. And then we end up more or less with Plato's interpretation of projecting efferent vision or "seizing the object" by some other means than Aristotle's afferent "intromission" which would involve light travelling to the eye @ "c" from a distant bright object. Thus my observation that this discussion already took place long ago (with minor differences) is correct. So, what is left? An as yet unidentified ability of the eyes or a reversal of known science. Peacegirl does not address the properties of the eye, but she does claim a revolutionary change in our understanding of physics, which would inevitably follow if only we believed Lessans without question. This is the strategy of religion, if you only you accept the notion of a god without question (have faith) you will inevitably find personal salvation, which of course is non-falsifiable. So it seems that if Lessans claim is not falsifiable either and is purely based on faith, where does that leave us? Peacegirl insist that if the right conditions are met, Lessans claim will be verifiable. So what are these conditions? @ Peacegirl, You accuse me of not understanding the issues involved. I am not sure if you are asserting that I am unable to understand the issues or that I am ignorant of the issues. Well, explain to me the "conditions that must be met" and then judge if I am capable of understanding. If you cannot explain them clearly, then I must assume that either you are incapable of understanding or that you argument is one of ignorance, and by extension, Lessans' book is either incomprehensible or based on a false premise in the area of physics and your suggestion that i read the book would not offer any clarification of your ability to understand Lessans either. The ball is in your court.The eye has been the subject of conflicting interpretations since antiquity. Many ancient physicians and philosophers believed in the idea of the active eye. Plato, for instance, wrote in the fourth century B. C. that light emanated from the eye, seizing objects with its rays. More metaphorically, Aristotle's disciple, Theophrastus, wrote that the eye had "the fire within." In saying this, he departed from the ideas of his teacher, since Aristotle was among the first to reject the extramission theory of vision. "In general, it is unreasonable to suppose that seeing occurs by something issuing from the eye," he declared. Aristotle advocated for a theory of intromission by which the eye received rays rather than directed them outward.http://web.stanford.edu/class/history13/earlysciencelab/body/eyespages/eye.html In what way does Lessans proposition differ from Plato?
I mentioned before that Lessans idea is (nearly) 2000 years old. (Oddly someone else disagreed with that observation). Here is the proof:If I may interject some information from the book, I'm not sure Peacegirl is capable of explaining it correctly. Lessans never claimed that light emanated from the eye, but Lessans did claim that light was instantly in contact with the retina, when the brain looked out through the eyes. Lessans claimed that descriptive words were projected onto the objects being observed, and these words gave a false impression of the qualities of that object. So the one difference was that lessans did not claim the light from the eyes. Peacegirl has refined the ideas to eliminate distance from the equation. In Lessans description, the eyes were reduced to inert windows that the brain looks out through, and little else. Lessans also went on to claim that vision was not possible till the brain desired to "see" the source of a noise, or other stimuli outside the body. He illustrated this by claiming that if a child were raised in a dark, quiet room with no external stimuli, the person would not be able to see, no matter what age they were, because there would have been nothing to trigger the brains desire to see. Lessans claim that the brain looked out through the eyes was not accompanied by any explanation of how this could happen. I have thought about this some more and in view of your (bolded) statement, Lessans left it up to the reader to fill in the blanks of his assertion that the brain looks out through the eyes. You are correct in pointing out that Lessans did not claim that the eye projected light. But he did not explain how the eye can see a distant object instantaneously either, except that it must be of a certain brightness. So we must consider the possible scenarios and find the one which would confirm Lessans claim. This is the standard procedure of falsification of an unsupported hypothesis. It is not intended to prove Lessans wrong, but to see if he could be right. A benign inquiry and not intended as an outright rejection. The issue of light taking time to travel is acknowledged by peacegirl, but she claims that "if god were to turn on the sun" we would instantly see the sun, regardless of distance. Am I correct in my understanding of peacegirl's claim? As peacegirl rules out "c" in this specific scenario, we have to search for a "revolutionary" method of observation. Thus we must choose between the properties of light travelling to the eye or the eye having the ability to see the appearance of a "bright object" instantaneously. Am I correct so far? IMO, the only remaining option is to consider the ability of the eye to project its field of view (vision) instantaneously over great distances. And then we end up more or less with Plato's interpretation of projecting efferent vision or "seizing the object" by some other means than Aristotle's afferent "intromission" which would involve light travelling to the eye @ "c" from a distant bright object. Thus my observation that this discussion already took place long ago (with minor differences) is correct. So, what is left? An as yet unidentified ability of the eyes or a reversal of known science. Peacegirl does not address the properties of the eye, but she does claim a revolutionary change in our understanding of physics, which would inevitably follow if only we believed Lessans without question. This is the strategy of religion, if you only you accept the notion of a god without question (have faith) you will inevitably find personal salvation, which of course is non-falsifiable. So it seems that if Lessans claim is not falsifiable either and is purely based on faith, where does that leave us? Peacegirl insist that if the right conditions are met, Lessans claim will be verifiable. So what are these conditions? @ Peacegirl, You accuse me of not understanding the issues involved. I am not sure if you are asserting that I am unable to understand the issues or that I am ignorant of the issues. Well, explain to me the "conditions that must be met" and then judge if I am capable of understanding. If you cannot explain them clearly, then I must assume that either you are incapable of understanding or that you argument is one of ignorance, and by extension, Lessans' book is either incomprehensible or based on a false premise in the area of physics and your suggestion that i read the book would not offer any clarification of your ability to understand Lessans either. The ball is in your court. You claim this has to do with physics, and I say it doesn't. It has to do with the direction we are seeing. If we see efferently, that means light is revealing the object. This is not a strategy of religion. The conditions were explained but to prove to Spacemonkey and you that instantaneous vision is plausible under this account is almost impossible given everyone's skepticism that light does not have to travel to Earth to be at the eye, as a mirror image of the object as long as there is enough light present, and the object is large enough to be within our optical range. He came to this finding indirectly. I'm really not here to convince you. Take it or leave it. This is the beginning of the chapter. It doesn't explain why this finding is important. Decline and Fall of All Evil: Chapter Four: Words, Not Reality The dictionary states that the word ‘sense’ is defined as any of certain agencies by or through which an individual receives impressions of the external world; popularly, one of the five senses. Any receptor, or group of receptors, specialized to receive and transmit external stimuli as of sight, taste, hearing, etc. But this is a wholly fallacious observation where the eyes are concerned because nothing from the external world, other than light, strikes the optic nerve as stimuli do upon the organs of hearing, taste, touch and smell. Upon hearing this my friend asked me in a rather authoritarian tone of voice, “Are you trying to tell me that this is not a scientific fact? " I replied, “Are you positive because you were told this, or positive because you yourself saw the relations revealing this truth? And if you are still positive, will you put your right hand on the chopping block to show me how positive you really are?" “I am not that positive, but we were taught this." It is an undeniable fact that light travels at a high rate of speed, but great confusion arises when this is likened to sound as you will soon have verified. The reason we say man has taste, touch, smell, sight, and hearing is because these describe individual differences that exist, but when we say that these five are senses we are assuming the eyes function like the other four — which they do not. When you learn what this single misconception has done to the world of knowledge, you won’t believe it at first. So without further delay, I shall prove something never before understood by man, but before I open this door marked ‘Man Does Not Have Five Senses’ to show you all the knowledge hidden behind it, it is absolutely necessary to prove exactly why the eyes are not a sense organ. Now tell me, did it ever occur to you that many of the apparent truths we have literally accepted come to us in the form of words that do not accurately symbolize what exists, making our problem that much more difficult since this has denied us the ability to see reality for what it is? In fact, it can be demonstrated at the birth of a baby that no object is capable of getting a reaction from the eyes because nothing is impinging on the optic nerve to cause it, although any number of sounds, tastes, touches or smells can get an immediate reaction since the nerve endings are being struck by something external. “But doesn’t light cause the pupils to dilate and contract depending on the intensity?" That is absolutely true, but this does not cause; it is a condition of sight. We simply need light to see, just as other things are a condition of hearing. If there was no light we could not see, and if there was nothing to carry the sound waves to our ears, we could not hear. The difference is that the sound is being carried to our eardrums whereas there is no picture traveling from an object on the waves of light to impinge on our optic nerve. Did you ever wonder why the eyes of a newborn baby cannot focus the eyes to see what exists around him, although the other four senses are in full working order? “I understand from a doctor that the muscles of the eyes have not yet developed sufficiently to allow this focusing." And he believes this because this is what he was taught, but it is not the truth. In fact, if a newborn infant was placed in a soundproof room that would eliminate the possibility of sense experience which is a prerequisite of sight — even though his eyes were wide open — he could never have the desire to see. Furthermore, and quite revealing, if this infant was kept alive for fifty years or longer on a steady flow of intravenous glucose, if possible, without allowing any stimuli to strike the other four organs of sense, this baby, child, young and middle aged person would never be able to focus the eyes to see any objects existing in that room no matter how much light was present or how colorful they might be because the conditions necessary for sight have been removed, and there is absolutely nothing in the external world that travels from an object and impinges on the optic nerve to cause it. Sight takes place for the first time when a sufficient accumulation of sense experience such as hearing, taste, touch, and smell — these are doorways in — awakens the brain so that the child can look through them at what exists around him. He then desires to see the source of the experience by focusing his eyes, as binoculars. The eyes are the windows of the brain through which experience is gained not by what comes in on the waves of light as a result of striking the optic nerve, but by what is looked at in relation to the afferent experience of the senses. What is seen through the eyes is an efferent experience. If a lion roared in that room a newborn baby would hear the sound and react because this impinges on the eardrum and is then transmitted to the brain. The same holds true for anything that makes direct contact with an afferent nerve ending, but this is far from the case with the eyes because there is no similar afferent nerve ending in this organ.The eye has been the subject of conflicting interpretations since antiquity. Many ancient physicians and philosophers believed in the idea of the active eye. Plato, for instance, wrote in the fourth century B. C. that light emanated from the eye, seizing objects with its rays. More metaphorically, Aristotle's disciple, Theophrastus, wrote that the eye had "the fire within." In saying this, he departed from the ideas of his teacher, since Aristotle was among the first to reject the extramission theory of vision. "In general, it is unreasonable to suppose that seeing occurs by something issuing from the eye," he declared. Aristotle advocated for a theory of intromission by which the eye received rays rather than directed them outward.http://web.stanford.edu/class/history13/earlysciencelab/body/eyespages/eye.html In what way does Lessans proposition differ from Plato?
The brain records various sounds, tastes,
touches and smells in relation to the objects from which these
experiences are derived, and then looks through the eyes to see these
things that have become familiar as a result of the relation. This
desire is an electric current which turns on or focuses the eyes to see
that which exists — completely independent of man’s perception —
in the external world. He doesn’t see these objects because they strike
the optic nerve; he sees them because they are there to be seen. But
in order to look, there must be a desire to see. The child becomes
aware that something will soon follow something else which then
arouses attention, anticipation, and a desire to see the objects of the
relation. Consequently, to include the eyes as one of the senses when
this describes stimuli from the outside world making contact with a
nerve ending is completely erroneous and equivalent to calling a
potato, a fruit. Under no conditions can the eyes be called a sense
organ unless, as in Aristotle’s case, it was the result of an inaccurate
observation that was never corrected."
“Well I say, what difference does it make whether we have four
senses and a pair of eyes instead of five senses? I certainly don’t feel
any different, and I still see you just as before."
Once it is understood that something existing in the external
world makes contact with the brain through the four senses, but that
the brain contacts the various objects by peering through the eyes, it
makes a huge difference, and many things can be clarified.
Our scientists, becoming enthralled over the discovery that light
travels approximately 186,000 miles a second and taking for granted
that 5 senses was equally scientific, made the statement (which my
friend referred to and still exists in our encyclopedias) that if we could
sit on the star Rigel with a very powerful telescope focused on the
earth we would just be able to see the ships of Columbus reaching
America for the very first time. A former science teacher who taught
this to her students as if it were an absolute fact responded, “I am sure
Columbus would just be arriving; are you trying to tell me that this is
not a scientific fact?"
Again my reply was, “Are you positive because you were told this,
or positive because you, yourself, saw the relations revealing this
truth? And if you are still positive, will you put your right hand on
the chopping block to show me how positive you really are?"
“I am not that positive, but this is what I was taught."
Once again certain facts have been confused and all the reasoning
except for light traveling at a high rate of speed are completely
fallacious. Scientists made the assumption that since the eyes are a
sense organ it followed that light must reflect an electric image of
everything it touches which then travels through space and is received
by the brain through the eyes. What they tried to make us believe is
that if it takes 8 minutes for the light from the sun to reach us it
would take hundreds of years for the reflection of Columbus to reach
Rigel, even with a powerful telescope. But why would they need a
telescope?
They reasoned that since it takes longer for the sound from an
airplane to reach us when 15,000 feet away than when 5000; and
since it takes longer for light to reach us the farther it is away when
starting its journey, light and sound must function alike in other
respects — which is false — although it is true that the farther away
we are from the source of sound the fainter it becomes, as light
becomes dimmer when its source is farther away. If the sound from
a plane even though we can’t see it on a clear day will tell us it is in the
sky, why can’t we see the plane if an image is being reflected towards
the eye on the waves of light? The answer is very simple. An image
is not being reflected. We cannot see the plane simply because the
distance reduced its size to where it was impossible to see it with the
naked eye, but we could see it with a telescope.
The conditions were explained but to prove to Spacemonkey and you that instantaneous vision is plausible under this account is almost impossible...No-one is asking you for conditions. We are asking for an explanation. Your account is contradictory, so of course you can't show it to be plausible.
...given everyone's skepticism that light does not have to travel to Earth to be at the eye...We are not being skeptical about that. YOU are contradicting yourself by both asserting and denying that the light at the eye traveled to get there.
These astute observations are valid.Contradictions are not valid.
The conditions were explained but to prove to Spacemonkey and you that instantaneous vision is plausible under this account is almost impossible...No-one is asking you for conditions. We are asking for an explanation. Your account is contradictory, so of course you can't show it to be plausible.
...given everyone's skepticism that light does not have to travel to Earth to be at the eye...We are not being skeptical about that. YOU are contradicting yourself by both asserting and denying that the light at the eye traveled to get there.
These astute observations are valid.Contradictions are not valid. You won! I am conceding to you, not to the discovery. I just can't explain it in a way that you think is plausible, and I'm out of options.
The conditions were explained but to prove to Spacemonkey and you that instantaneous vision is plausible under this account is almost impossible...No-one is asking you for conditions. We are asking for an explanation. Your account is contradictory, so of course you can't show it to be plausible.
...given everyone's skepticism that light does not have to travel to Earth to be at the eye...We are not being skeptical about that. YOU are contradicting yourself by both asserting and denying that the light at the eye traveled to get there.
These astute observations are valid.Contradictions are not valid. You won! I am conceding to you, not to the discovery. I just can't explain it in a way that you think is plausible, and I'm out of options. More fake conceding. You really are pathetic. Why can't you just be honest? Answer a damn question for once.
@peacegirl,
Thank you for making that available without me having to buy the book.
I have carefully read and analyzed both posts with your verbatim quotes from the book and I understand every word of it. OK?
After carefuly considering the proposition and the ilustrative examples in support of the proposition, I was considering responding paragraph by paragraph, but I was so overwhelmed by the inaccuracies and misrepresentations contained in those two pages, that it would take me a week and a about 15 pages to refute nearly everything that Lessans claims proves his proposition. Judging by your past responses to my questions and explanations of how things work in reality, I am not prepared to invest more than this final statement.
Lessans had no understanding of the physics involved in what he was talking about. I am sorry to say that his argument is an argument from ignorance. It would have been neat to find another Einstein, but alas, no such luck. And I can guarantee that no physicist will ever give Lessans’ book the time of day.
He had a creative mind, true. Perhaps in might serve as a good premise in a science fiction story or movie, but it has no place in the library of scientific knowledge.
Be well peacegirl.
Here’s the thing about Peacegirl: Her “model” and Lessans’ “model” do not agree. I’ve pointed this out to her in the past but – as with everything that does not involve complete and utter acceptance of everything that Lessans said and Peacegirl says (even though Lessans and peacegirl do not agree) – she wholly rejected this in her typical style, which may be characterized as a prolonged tantrum.
Sometime during her long stay at FF, she finally bought in, probably subconsciously and inadvertently, to the idea that the photons had to be at the retina to be detected. But she maintained Lessans’ claim that if God turned on the sun at noon, people would see it in the sky immediately, but not see their neighbors until the photons arrived from the sun. Embracing these two propositions creates a logical contradiction, most dramatically illustrated when, at FF, she memorably stated: “I know it’s hard to understand how the photons can be at the eye before they get there.” :lol:
But this is not what Lessans said. His “model” is quite simple: for the light to be seen, it merely has to be at the object – and not at the eye! This is why he can claim that if God turned on the sun at noon, people would see it instantly: because the light would be at the sun. And this explains his second claim: that we would have to wait eight and a half minutes for the photons to arrive to see our neighbors, because only after that period of time, would the light be at our neighbors.
It’s peacegirl that cluttered up this simple “model” by agreeing with others that the light had to be at the eye, and not just at the object. But this was not what Lessans said. It’s what peacegirl says. And as a result, she is left to try to defend the logically impossible: that the light can be at the eye before it gets there.
Now mind, of course, Lessans’ own “model,” different from peacegirl’s, is also wrong, and indeed utterly daft. However, unlike peacegirl’s “model,” it poses no logical contradiction. I suppose, with some effort, we could imagine a counterfactual world in which the laws of physics behave this way (though we’d still need a mechanism to explain how we see light at a distant object without it being at the eye; Lessans offered none). Peacegirl’s model, by contrast, cannot be true at any possible world, because it brings about a logical contradiction. And logically contradictory propositions are false at all possible worlds without exception.
Peacegirl, it seems, is some kind of heretic or schismatic. Maybe she’s like Paul; what we know today as Christianity is really Paulism.
Here's the thing about Peacegirl: Her "model" and Lessans' "model" do not agree. I've pointed this out to her in the past but -- as with everything that does not involve complete and utter acceptance of everything that Lessans said and Peacegirl says (even though Lessans and peacegirl do not agree) -- she wholly rejected this in her typical style, which may be characterized as a prolonged tantrum. Sometime during her long stay at FF, she finally bought in, probably subconsciously and inadvertently, to the idea that the photons had to be at the retina to be detected. But she maintained Lessans' claim that if God turned on the sun at noon, people would see it in the sky immediately, but not see their neighbors until the photons arrived from the sun. Embracing these two propositions creates a logical contradiction, most dramatically illustrated when, at FF, she memorably stated: "I know it's hard to understand how the photons can be at the eye before they get there." :lol: But this is not what Lessans said. His "model" is quite simple: for the light to be seen, it merely has to be at the object -- and not at the eye! This is why he can claim that if God turned on the sun at noon, people would see it instantly: because the light would be at the sun. And this explains his second claim: that we would have to wait eight and a half minutes for the photons to arrive to see our neighbors, because only after that period of time, would the light be at our neighbors..Yes, and this is why I compared it to Plato's proposition that the eye "projects" vision, the only difference being that Plato used light as the mechanism of projected vision. But the assumption that vision is an extramissive function (Plato) instead of intromissive (Aristotle), is precisely what Lessans claims, but he does not even provide a mechanism which would make such a thing physically possible. wiki,
Emission theory or extramission theory is the proposal that visual perception is accomplished by rays of light emitted by the eyes. This theory has been replaced by intromission theory, which states that visual perception comes from something representative of the object (later established to be rays of light reflected from it) entering the eyes. Modern physics has confirmed that light is physically transmitted by photons from a light source, such as the sun, to visible objects, and finishing with the detector, such as a human eye or camera.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emission_theory_(vision) I was surprised to read that the emission (extramission) theory is still popular among college students which of course is by no means proof of the theory. The wiki article is actually interesting reading and illustrates the persistence of this assumption in spite of advances in real world physics. But the concept of extramissive vision has been with us in one form or another for millenia. It isn't new or revolutionary at all and has been thoroughly vetted and found wanting for a mechanism other than the wave function of photons emitted or reflected from the object itself. I found the analogy of the telescope amusing as it purports to bring an object closer to the eye in actual distance, instead of magnifying its size and detail by artificial means. Does the object recede in distance when we use a wide-angle lens? I also found the analogy comparing the function of light waves to sound waves amusing. Lessans said that we can hear an airplane before we see it. We can of course counter this that if the plane is traveling at supersonic speed we can indeed see it before we hear its sound waves. Also, to our knowledge there is no such thing as superluminal travel, except in theoretical particle and entanglement theories, which have nothing to do with "seeing".
Here's the thing about Peacegirl: Her "model" and Lessans' "model" do not agree. I've pointed this out to her in the past but -- as with everything that does not involve complete and utter acceptance of everything that Lessans said and Peacegirl says (even though Lessans and peacegirl do not agree) -- she wholly rejected this in her typical style, which may be characterized as a prolonged tantrum. Sometime during her long stay at FF, she finally bought in, probably subconsciously and inadvertently, to the idea that the photons had to be at the retina to be detected. But she maintained Lessans' claim that if God turned on the sun at noon, people would see it in the sky immediately, but not see their neighbors until the photons arrived from the sun. Embracing these two propositions creates a logical contradiction, most dramatically illustrated when, at FF, she memorably stated: "I know it's hard to understand how the photons can be at the eye before they get there." :lol: But this is not what Lessans said. His "model" is quite simple: for the light to be seen, it merely has to be at the object -- and not at the eye! This is why he can claim that if God turned on the sun at noon, people would see it instantly: because the light would be at the sun. And this explains his second claim: that we would have to wait eight and a half minutes for the photons to arrive to see our neighbors, because only after that period of time, would the light be at our neighbors..Yes, and this is why I compared it to Plato's proposition that the eye "projects" vision, the only difference being that Plato used light as the mechanism of projected vision. But the assumption that vision is an extramissive function (Plato) instead of intromissive (Aristotle), is precisely what Lessans claims, but he does not even provide a mechanism which would make such a thing physically possible. wiki,
Emission theory or extramission theory is the proposal that visual perception is accomplished by rays of light emitted by the eyes. This theory has been replaced by intromission theory, which states that visual perception comes from something representative of the object (later established to be rays of light reflected from it) entering the eyes. Modern physics has confirmed that light is physically transmitted by photons from a light source, such as the sun, to visible objects, and finishing with the detector, such as a human eye or camera.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emission_theory_(vision) I was surprised to read that the emission (extramission) theory is still popular among college students which of course is by no means proof of the theory. The wiki article is actually interesting reading and illustrates the persistence of this assumption in spite of advances in real world physics. But the concept of extramissive vision has been with us in one form or another for millenia. It isn't new or revolutionary at all and has been thoroughly vetted and found wanting for a mechanism other than the wave function of photons emitted or reflected from the object itself. I found the analogy of the telescope amusing as it purports to bring an object closer to the eye in actual distance, instead of magnifying its size and detail by artificial means. Does the object recede in distance when we use a wide-angle lens? I also found the analogy comparing the function of light waves to sound waves amusing. Lessans said that we can hear an airplane before we see it. We can of course counter this that if the plane is traveling at supersonic speed we can indeed see it before we hear its sound waves. Also, to our knowledge there is no such thing as superluminal travel, except in theoretical particle and entanglement theories, which have nothing to do with "seeing". I appreciate your refutation, but there is no point in furthering this discussion. This claim has absolutely nothing to do with emission theory or any other past theory. If you believe Lessans was wrong, that's fine. I gave you one small excerpt and you're tearing it apart like a ravenous animal when you did not read the entire chapter. You are not interested in the slightest whether a test could be done to see if he may have been onto something. Instead, all you are doing is what everyone else is doing, sticking to the standard theory without the slightest curiosity. When discussing telescopes, Lessans did not imply that a telescope brings the object closer to the eye. I don't know where you got that idea from. Superluminal travel? What is that and how does that relate to what he was explaining? Never mind, don't answer. Finally, Lessans was not disputing that objects reflect light. He was disputing that the wavelength/frequency travels through space/time to the eye which is then interpreted as an image. I maintain that he was right and will try to find scientists who will give him the benefit of the doubt to see, through empirical testing, if he was right.
Here's the thing about Peacegirl: Her "model" and Lessans' "model" do not agree. I've pointed this out to her in the past but -- as with everything that does not involve complete and utter acceptance of everything that Lessans said and Peacegirl says (even though Lessans and peacegirl do not agree) -- she wholly rejected this in her typical style, which may be characterized as a prolonged tantrum. Sometime during her long stay at FF, she finally bought in, probably subconsciously and inadvertently, to the idea that the photons had to be at the retina to be detected. But she maintained Lessans' claim that if God turned on the sun at noon, people would see it in the sky immediately, but not see their neighbors until the photons arrived from the sun. Embracing these two propositions creates a logical contradiction, most dramatically illustrated when, at FF, she memorably stated: "I know it's hard to understand how the photons can be at the eye before they get there." :lol: But this is not what Lessans said. His "model" is quite simple: for the light to be seen, it merely has to be at the object -- and not at the eye!That is not true. It has to be at the object but in efferent vision, it would be at the eye because it's a closed system. You don't get this at all.
This is why he can claim that if God turned on the sun at noon, people would see it instantly: because the light would be at the sun. And this explains his second claim: that we would have to wait eight and a half minutes for the photons to arrive to see our neighbors, because only after that period of time, would the light be at our neighbors.It is true that we would see the Sun turned on instantly because it would work in the same way. It was a hypothetical example which pointed out that as long as the Sun, as it was first being turned on, was bright enough (that is an assumption) and within our field of view, we would see it being turned on in real time.
It's peacegirl that cluttered up this simple "model" by agreeing with others that the light had to be at the eye, and not just at the object. But this was not what Lessans said. It's what peacegirl says. And as a result, she is left to try to defend the logically impossible: that the light can be at the eye before it gets there.The light is at the eye in the efferent account. It is not a contradiction. Lessans did not imply that we can utilize light without it having to be at the eye, which wouldn't even make sense.
Now mind, of course, Lessans' own "model," different from peacegirl's, is also wrong, and indeed utterly daft. However, unlike peacegirl's "model," it poses no logical contradiction. I suppose, with some effort, we could imagine a counterfactual world in which the laws of physics behave this way (though we'd still need a mechanism to explain how we see light at a distant object without it being at the eye; Lessans offered none). Peacegirl's model, by contrast, cannot be true at any possible world, because it brings about a logical contradiction. And logically contradictory propositions are false at all possible worlds without exception. Peacegirl, it seems, is some kind of heretic or schismatic. Maybe she's like Paul; what we know today as Christianity is really Paulism.His model never stated that light doesn't have to be at the eye. You are failing to understand why, in the account of vision that he offered, the frequency/wavelength IS at the eye when we gaze at the REAL object (not the decoded image) since we are already in the optical range of the object.
Instead, all you are doing is what everyone else is doing, sticking to the standard theory without the slightest curiosity.The standard theory being that light can't be somewhere before it can get there. And that contradictions cannot be true.
I maintain that he was right...But you won't be honest about it. Instead you'll lie, evade, and fake concede all you have to so as to avoid admitting the truth.
@peacegirl, Thank you for making that available without me having to buy the book. I have carefully read and analyzed both posts with your verbatim quotes from the book and I understand every word of it. OK? After carefuly considering the proposition and the ilustrative examples in support of the proposition, I was considering responding paragraph by paragraph, but I was so overwhelmed by the inaccuracies and misrepresentations contained in those two pages, that it would take me a week and a about 15 pages to refute nearly everything that Lessans claims proves his proposition. Judging by your past responses to my questions and explanations of how things work in reality, I am not prepared to invest more than this final statement. Lessans had no understanding of the physics involved in what he was talking about. I am sorry to say that his argument is an argument from ignorance. It would have been neat to find another Einstein, but alas, no such luck. And I can guarantee that no physicist will ever give Lessans' book the time of day. He had a creative mind, true. Perhaps in might serve as a good premise in a science fiction story or movie, but it has no place in the library of scientific knowledge. Be well peacegirl.I'm glad that you let me know your thoughts, so we don't have to waste each others time.
The reason we say man has taste, touch, smell,
sight, and hearing is because these describe individual differences that
exist, but when we say that these five are senses we are assuming the
eyes function like the other four — which they do not.We simply need light to see, just as other things are a
condition of hearing. If there was no light we could not see, and if
there was nothing to carry the sound waves to our ears, we could not
hear. The difference is that the sound is being carried to our eardrums
whereas there is no picture traveling from an object on the waves of
light to impinge on our optic nerve.
It seems to me that here lies the confusion in Lessan’s ideas: he cannot cope for what really is a difference between the eyes and the other senses: that the eyes allow to picture the environment in ways that the other senses can’t.
- We can taste, but what we taste is in direct contact with our tongue.
- We can smell, but what we smell is already in our nose.
- We can feel, but only then something is directly touching us.
- We can hear: this is already a bit different. We hear if something is close by or far away, from what direction it comes. But we do not get an accurate picture of the environment. (How different it already is we can see that there are several animals that use echo location.)
But in seeing we get an accurate, high resolution representation of our environment: a picture. I think this is the root error that Lessans makes: that the capability to picture our environment should mean that the eyes have a totally different way of working. He seems to think on one side that light is streaming from the sun that lights other objects, but of course that light is scattered: it is just light, not a picture of the sun. On the other side we get a picture from the sun. So there must be some other mechanism that allows us to picture the sun itself.
I have a question, peacegirl. Let’s take the simplest picture-forming device: the camera obscura:
I hope you agree that the picture of the candle can only be seen when the light of the candle reached the screen on the backside of the camera obscura. Right?
Now assume we do the experiment that your father proposes: the sun is momentarily dark, and we put a camera obscura in place and point it to where the sun is. Part of the landscape is also in view of the camera obscura. Now the sun is turned on, and we look at the screen of the camera obscura. The light of the sun needs 8 minutes to reach the camera obscura, so it will take 8 minutes before we see the picture of it on the screen. At the same time, the landscape is illuminated and can also be seen at the screen of the camera obscura. So at the screen we see the sun and the landscape appear at the same moment.
But if we look a the sun and the landscape directly, we see the sun immediately, right? How do you explain this difference? Why do the landscape and the sun appear at the same time at the screen, after 8 minutes, but not if I directly look to the landscape and the sun?
How do you explain this difference, if the optical working of the eye are the same as the camera obscura?
(OK. Others might already have tried to use such examples. But hey, I can give it a try!)
The reason we say man has taste, touch, smell,
sight, and hearing is because these describe individual differences that
exist, but when we say that these five are senses we are assuming the
eyes function like the other four — which they do not.We simply need light to see, just as other things are a
condition of hearing. If there was no light we could not see, and if
there was nothing to carry the sound waves to our ears, we could not
hear. The difference is that the sound is being carried to our eardrums
whereas there is no picture traveling from an object on the waves of
light to impinge on our optic nerve.
It seems to me that here lies the confusion in Lessan’s ideas: he cannot cope for what really is a difference between the eyes and the other senses: that the eyes allow to picture the environment in ways that the other senses can’t.
- We can taste, but what we taste is in direct contact with our tongue.
- We can smell, but what we smell is already in our nose.
- We can feel, but only then something is directly touching us.
- We can hear: this is already a bit different. We hear if something is close by or far away, from what direction it comes. But we do not get an accurate picture of the environment. (How different it already is we can see that there are several animals that use echo location.)
But in seeing we get an accurate, high resolution representation of our environment: a picture. I think this is the root error that Lessans makes: that the capability to picture our environment should mean that the eyes have a totally different way of working.
But your assumption is completely false.
He seems to think on one side that light is streaming from the sun that lights other objects, but of course that light is scattered: it is just light, not a picture of the sun. On the other side we get a picture from the sun. So there must be some other mechanism that allows us to picture the sun itself.
I have a question, peacegirl. Let’s take the simplest picture-forming device: the camera obscura:
I hope you agree that the picture of the candle can only be seen when the light of the candle reached the screen on the backside of the camera obscura. Right?
Now assume we do the experiment that your father proposes: the sun is momentarily dark, and we put a camera obscura in place and point it to where the sun is. Part of the landscape is also in view of the camera obscura. Now the sun is turned on, and we look at the screen of the camera obscura. The light of the sun needs 8 minutes to reach the camera obscura, so it will take 8 minutes before we see the picture of it on the screen. At the same time, the landscape is illuminated and can also be seen at the screen of the camera obscura. So at the screen we see the sun and the landscape appear at the same moment.
You cannot prove this. This remains a theory GdB and all you are doing is parroting what science has claimed is fact.
But if we look a the sun and the landscape directly, we see the sun immediately, right? How do you explain this difference? Why do the landscape and the sun appear at the same time at the screen, after 8 minutes, but not if I directly look to the landscape and the sun?Show me this data. How can you prove this when the light from the Sun has already reached Earth and the stream of light coming from the Sun is not broken?
How do you explain this difference, if the optical working of the eye are the same as the camera obscura?You are not even grasping what Lessans is saying. He never disputed that light has to be at the eye and that objects absorb light which leaves the nonabsorbed photons at the retina. But this has nothing whatsoever to do with traveling photons that reach the eye after long distances through space/time that are then interpreted or decoded in the brain. This is a theory only and for people to give it the status of fact is bad science.(OK. Others might already have tried to use such examples. But hey, I can give it a try!)
You are not even grasping what Lessans is saying. He never disputed that light has to be at the eye and that objects absorb light depending on their properties. But this has nothing whatsoever to do with traveling photons that reach the eye after long distances through space/time that are then interpreted or decoded in the brain. This is a theory only and for people to give it the status of fact is bad science.Is it a theory only that light can't be somewhere before it's had time to get there? Is it a viable alternative theory to say that there can be light at the retina that both did and did not travel to get there?
You are not even grasping what Lessans is saying. He never disputed that light has to be at the eye and that objects absorb light depending on their properties. But this has nothing whatsoever to do with traveling photons that reach the eye after long distances through space/time that are then interpreted or decoded in the brain. This is a theory only and for people to give it the status of fact is bad science.Is it a theory only that light can't be somewhere before it's had time to get there? Is it a viable alternative theory to say that there can be light at the retina that both did and did not travel to get there? That's not the case Spacemonkey, that light at the retina has to be there through millions of miles of travel. THIS IS ONLY DUE TO EFFERENT VISION, which you've never understood and have no desire to understand.
You are not even grasping what Lessans is saying. He never disputed that light has to be at the eye and that objects absorb light depending on their properties. But this has nothing whatsoever to do with traveling photons that reach the eye after long distances through space/time that are then interpreted or decoded in the brain. This is a theory only and for people to give it the status of fact is bad science.Is it a theory only that light can't be somewhere before it's had time to get there? Is it a viable alternative theory to say that there can be light at the retina that both did and did not travel to get there? That's not the case Spacemonkey, that light at the retina has to be there through millions of miles of travel. THIS IS ONLY DUE TO EFFERENT VISION, which you've never understood and have no desire to understand. Are you saying that the light at the retina at 12 o'clock traveled millions of miles to get there?