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Color Perception Question

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Re: Color Perception Question

Unread postby PenultimateManStanding » Tue 17 Jan 2006, 15:01:28

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ashurbanipal', ' ')

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'B')TW, I have set forth a notion about color perception. I'm still waiting for some solid disputation.


If you mean your idea that the color wheel, which attempts an organization of the phenomenal characteristics of color, is fundamentally at odds with the linear organization of the EM spectrum, you have been solidly disputed. They're both inventions of human minds, they both rely on things that human beings measure, and neither is representative of whatever reality might be absent a human mind.
Would you go so far as to say that EM theory is false? To hold science and scientific models up to absolute standards of truth is a prescription for sterility. EM theory is a fine model; to suggest it's not "representative of reality" and of just as little credibility as the erroneous production of a color wheel by the human brain is to miss the point entirely. I use 'erroneously' advisedly, since the color wheel arrangement in the brain is a product of evolution and has no 'obligation' to tell us the truth. It works that way because of three-color perception, apparently. So, for you to say "I have disputed your claim solidly" merely because of some objection that EM theory is not absolute truth is specious.
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Re: Color Perception Question

Unread postby PenultimateManStanding » Tue 17 Jan 2006, 18:12:59

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ashurbanipal', ' ')when we organize the EM spectrum along linear lines, that's just one way of organizing the available data. There must logically be any number of other ways of organizing it such that we would get the same experimental results, but that wouldn't make it conflict with the color wheel.
I don't see how one could accomplish this at all. It's nonsense to argue that EM radiation with it's vast spread from long radio waves to the ultra short gamma rays can be made to fit a circular model. The human brain snips a portion out for special treatment and wraps it around into a circle. Now the objections of The Philosopher that "we cannot know anything about world as it really is absent the human mind" may be true, but that kind of solipsistic nihilism doesn't serve us too well and is kind of pointless.
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Re: Color Perception Question

Unread postby PrairieMule » Tue 17 Jan 2006, 18:43:18

Not to hijack your thread or start a new rabbit hole to chase.

I read a book last year called Trailsafe:Averting Threating behavior. They had a Chapter that dealt with perception and the filters we have built in our minds. It had a interesting experiment that was done on a group of divers. The divers were told to go down to the ocean floor and find the Coca-Cola Can. When they returned they were all asked what color it was. All the divers respondeed that the Coca-Cola Can was red.

The Kicker was at that depth in the ocean the light spectrum made the can appear to be dull green. The divers all responded the can's color was typical red color based on the self imposed Filters of Perception:Long term Memory. They were told to find the coke can and report back but not to specifically notice the color, hence what went off in their minds was "100% of every Coke can I have ever seen is Red, thus that can had to be red".
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Re: Color Perception Question

Unread postby PenultimateManStanding » Tue 17 Jan 2006, 19:13:23

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('PrairieMule', 'N')ot to hijack your thread or start a new rabbit hole to chase.
Hey PM, you're hijacking this thread! 8) I was thinking about this while driving home. I love a good debate. Ashurbanipal would have us believe that a circular model of EM radiation could fit the experimental facts. That's like saying that temperature scales could be made circular, patently absurd. What is the salient fact about circles that applies here? It is that if you measure out far enough from your location you will return to where you started. How could this apply to EM radiation? Whatever property you measure, photon energy, frequency, wavelength, none of them circle back on themselves in any way. You can't move up the energy scale only to return to lower values after you have traversed enough 'distance'.
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Re: Color Perception Question

Unread postby ashurbanipal » Tue 17 Jan 2006, 19:13:55

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'W')ould you go so far as to say that EM theory is false?


What would it mean for EM theory to be false? That its predictions don't correspond to our observations, right? It seems to predict our observations well, so, no, I wouldn't. Then again, the color wheel conforms to our observations as well.

But we weren't talking about EM theory--we were talking about 2 models or organizing visible light--one linear and one circular. I would say that the question doesn't make sense--it would be like asking whether the Russian word for duck was false.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')o hold science and scientific models up to absolute standards of truth is a prescription for sterility. EM theory is a fine model; to suggest it's not "representative of reality" and of just as little credibility as the erroneous production of a color wheel by the human brain is to miss the point entirely.


I never said it was not representative of reality-it is representative of reality. 2 films of the same event taken from different points of view will show different things, but they are also representative of reality.

Both models for representing visible light are credible and useful. They are each meant to answer different lines of enquiry; neither is really better than the other. Nor is either logically necessary to account for our observations. That last part is the critical bit.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I') use 'erroneously' advisedly, since the color wheel arrangement in the brain is a product of evolution and has no 'obligation' to tell us the truth.


Reasoning of the sort employed to get to the linear spectrum is also embedded via evolution; moreover, the specifics of its products are mostly accidental.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I')t works that way because of three-color perception, apparently. So, for you to say "I have disputed your claim solidly" merely because of some objection that EM theory is not absolute truth is specious.


It certainly is not--your claim (if I understood you) was that the linear representation was correct, whereas the circular representation was a product of a trick of perception. I'm saying both are products of perception (though neither is a trick).

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I') don't see how one could accomplish this at all. It's nonsense to argue that EM radiation with it's vast spread from long radio waves to the ultra short gamma rays can be made to fit a circular model.

Depends on what you measure. So long as you measure wavelength, this is surely correct. But (for example), suppose we based our system on amplitude and its distribution in our environment. Suppose we extend physics and posit some other as-yet-undiscovered aspect of EM radiation that we do not now understand (it seems likely we don't understand it completely). Suppose we measure that and use the proceeding data to come up with a different model. Suppose we measure it based on average eigenvalue per unit space. Etc. All of those would lead to different models.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')he human brain snips a portion out for special treatment and wraps it around into a circle. Now the objections of The Philosopher that "we cannot know anything about world as it really is absent the human mind" may be true, but that kind of solipsistic nihilism doesn't serve us too well and is kind of pointless.

It's neither solipsistic nor nihilistic. My point does show that we cannot underestimate the stamp we ourselves place on our own theories.

Imagine, for a moment, that human beings one day, probably millenia from now, make it out into space and colonize the galaxy. We meet an alien race with technology as advanced as our own. Some scientists would claim that their theories would be exactly like our theories. Their observations would be exactly like ours. I think, however, that this is simply arrogant. I think it would be very likely that many of their theories would probably predict many of the same things our theories predict. But would the models they use to represent those theories be the same? Would they divide the sciences up as we have? Would the same problems seem important to them? I think it would be arrogant to suggest this as likely.
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Re: Color Perception Question

Unread postby PenultimateManStanding » Tue 17 Jan 2006, 19:51:58

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ashurbanipal', '
')
What would it mean for EM theory to be false? That its predictions don't correspond to our observations, right? It seems to predict our observations well, so, no, I wouldn't. Then again, the color wheel conforms to our observations as well.

But we weren't talking about EM theory--we were talking about 2 models or organizing visible light--one linear and one circular. I would say that the question doesn't make sense--it would be like asking whether the Russian word for duck was false.
It makes sense if what you want to know is whether our impression that the colors form a circle is an illusion of the brain. Since you concede that EM theory isn't false, the implication is that our scientific linear model of EM radiation has shown the 'true' state of affairs and revealed how our brain deceives us, which is the point of what I'm talking about. The blending of violet into red is a 'trick' of the mind. Real only in the sense that our brains and their workings are real.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '
')Both models for representing visible light are credible and useful. They are each meant to answer different lines of enquiry; neither is really better than the other.
We can perhaps agree on this idea; except it should be said that if you want to understand, for instance, how to build a radio, it would help to be able to integrate visible light into the full EM spectrum and lose the bias of illusion that the color circularity imparts.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '
')Reasoning of the sort employed to get to the linear spectrum is also embedded via evolution; moreover, the specifics of its products are mostly accidental.
I'll bet this idea has been discussed at great length among philosophers. We can only do the best we can to arrive at objective and true assessments of the natural world. The linear EM spectrum model is a marvelous example of the triumph of that endeavor.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '
')It certainly is not--your claim (if I understood you) was that the linear representation was correct, whereas the circular representation was a product of a trick of perception. I'm saying both are products of perception (though neither is a trick).
The circular representation of light is organic but false. Violet and red are as far apart as you can get in those ranges of EM radiation, yet the mind slyly tells us, 'oh, sure, these are about the same!'
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '
')It's neither solipsistic nor nihilistic. My point does show that we cannot underestimate the stamp we ourselves place on our own theories.True, but isn't the goal of science to represent nature conceptually as faithfully as we can?
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Re: Color Perception Question

Unread postby PrairieMule » Tue 17 Jan 2006, 20:36:32

Debate on Physics? Yikes. Anything but Physics! I love to debate, and sometimes a good knock down scrap quickens my blood. One debate in college I argued NAFTA would help the enviroment. I created enough reasonalble doubt on the enviromental issue. It was a swan song I'll never forget.

I do have a theory on methane. I have been told that 23% of the Methane produced on the Earth comes from Cattle. I believe it is highly probable that the othe 77% of methane is produced by Cattlemen. [smilie=5badair.gif]
Do we have the technology to harness this cheap abundant biofuel? And if it becomes a acceptable eco-friendly alternative fuel, will it ever be socially acceptable?

Discuss...
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Re: Color Perception Question

Unread postby PenultimateManStanding » Tue 17 Jan 2006, 20:40:53

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('PrairieMule', ' ')
I do have a theory on methane. I have been told that 23% of the Methane produced on the Earth comes from Cattle. I believe it is highly probable that the othe 77% of methane is produced by Cattlemen.
Shouldn't this maybe, perhaps, just suggesting, don't get me wrong, I like you PM, you are a gentleman and a scholar, go in the freaking sick joke thread?
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Re: Color Perception Question

Unread postby PrairieMule » Tue 17 Jan 2006, 20:42:32

Point well made!

Please excuse my incivility..
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Re: Color Perception Question

Unread postby PenultimateManStanding » Wed 18 Jan 2006, 17:20:17

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('PrairieMule', 'P')oint well made!

Please excuse my incivility..
Not a problem. The Assyrian seems to have tired of the discussion anyways. You read it, PM, so who do you think made the persuasive argument, me or the Assyrian? Think about it carefully and realize that the penalty if I lose is my head goes on a pike on the road to Nineveh.
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Re: Color Perception Question

Unread postby PenultimateManStanding » Wed 18 Jan 2006, 20:31:11

I used to be fascinated by the Assyrians and read up on them. Ashurbanipal, what made you choose that name?
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Re: Color Perception Question

Unread postby smallpoxgirl » Wed 18 Jan 2006, 23:04:55

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('PenultimateManStanding', 'S')cience, as far as I know about it, is concerned to answer very specific questions about what is unabashedly assumed to be real, without any gnashing of teeth about whether it's 'really real'.


If you hook up a Dallas Semiconductor DS1820 properly, it will output a digital voltage signal. If you hook up some more circuits, they can interpret that signal and display it as a temperature. So you have at least five different versions of the same reality. The digital signal from the DS1820, the LEDs that were either on or off. The picture that your eye made of those LED's. The numbers that your brain interpreted from the image, and finally your understanding of temperature based on the numbers. A similar process has to happen if you touch something cold. Little receptors in your finger fire. That gets compiled by the spinal cord, processed in several parts of the brain, and finally comes into your conciousness as your left thumb being cold. It doesn't mean that the understanding of cold, as portrayed by either the DS1820 or by your thumb is fictitious. They are signals produced by sensors in response to physical phenomena. Based on the information you get from those sensors, you make hypotheses and form an ontologic understanding of reality. In most situations your ontologic understanding will not be belied, though it is woefully incomplete. The vision thing is just an example of this. You have a sensor for red light, one for green light, and one for blue light. Based on the activity of those sensors, you experience the world and build an ontologic understanding: grass is green. Bannanas are yellow. In most cases your ontologic understanding won't be challenged, but it is incomplete. A more complete version would be that when sunlight is shown on grass, different amounts of different wavelengths of light are reflected. That too is incomplete because it fails to adequately describe the wave particle duality of light, etc and so on.

I think you have sort of pealed one layer off the onion here PMS. EVERY scientist understands (or should) that what they are measuring is not the whole story. They are setting up a sensor and trying to form an understanding of the universe based on the information that sensor gives them. There is no such thing as the perfect sensor, so every scientific finding is suspect. Someone develops a new sensor that measures some new aspect, and our collective understanding of the universe changes. Nothing in science is "real". It is all approximation.

The color wheel is an asthetic phenomenon. It portrays the range of different possible photoreceptor activities. It's no different than a musical scale or the test page that your printer does to show all it's different fonts.
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Re: Color Perception Question

Unread postby PenultimateManStanding » Wed 18 Jan 2006, 23:49:50

Science is an approximation. Sure, I can agree with that.
Last edited by PenultimateManStanding on Thu 19 Jan 2006, 12:42:23, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Color Perception Question

Unread postby ashurbanipal » Thu 19 Jan 2006, 11:03:24

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I')t makes sense if what you want to know is whether our impression that the colors form a circle is an illusion of the brain. Since you concede that EM theory isn't false, the implication is that our scientific linear model of EM radiation has shown the 'true' state of affairs and revealed how our brain deceives us, which is the point of what I'm talking about. The blending of violet into red is a 'trick' of the mind. Real only in the sense that our brains and their workings are real.


Color itself is a trick of the brain. The notion that there is one correct way to order some set of entities based on one of an unknown number of variables regarding their states could be another.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'W')e can perhaps agree on this idea; except it should be said that if you want to understand, for instance, how to build a radio, it would help to be able to integrate visible light into the full EM spectrum and lose the bias of illusion that the color circularity imparts.


But if you're designing a camera, the exact opposite would be required, wouldn't it?

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I')'ll bet this idea has been discussed at great length among philosophers.


You probably wouldn't believe. But those conversations are generally interesting.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'W')e can only do the best we can to arrive at objective and true assessments of the natural world. The linear EM spectrum model is a marvelous example of the triumph of that endeavor.


No--it's a model we use to denote such a triumph (which was, namely, our discovery and measurement of wavelength). The color wheel is just as much a triumph, it's just based on a different group of discoveries.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')rue, but isn't the goal of science to represent nature conceptually as faithfully as we can?

It may be the goal of people in hell to get some icewater, but they probably are going to find themselves disappointed. I think that's probably what started out motivating science, but after some of the seriously limiting discoveries of the 19th and 20th centuries, it seems more clear that science mainly helps us substitute terms appropriately. This is a much more important function than it might initially seem.
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Re: Color Perception Question

Unread postby ashurbanipal » Thu 19 Jan 2006, 11:16:15

I chose my name because Ashurbanipal the IIIrd was the first historically verified philosopher king. He inherited the greatest empire of its day, though at that time it was ailing. Rather than spend money on conquest, pillage, and murder, he spent his money to help his people. He built the first public library ever. He established the first school of medicine ever. He established the first public charities ever. He gave up personal comfort and wealth to free up money to establish social egalitarianism. Not that he was completely without bias or fault, but he was far better a man than other kings before him, and most after him. He was first in a long line of people who power did not corrupt, who took and used power for the good of all. Such people shine as an example to the rest of us that, in our daily lives, when we have power over another, we should exercise that power not based on our petty whims, but on fairness and sound judgement. That is an ideal that I aspire to. If everyone did that, I think the world would be a far better place.
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Re: Color Perception Question

Unread postby PenultimateManStanding » Thu 19 Jan 2006, 21:01:29

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ashurbanipal', '
')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')rue, but isn't the goal of science to represent nature conceptually as faithfully as we can?

It may be the goal of people in hell to get some icewater, but they probably are going to find themselves disappointed. I think that's probably what started out motivating science, but after some of the seriously limiting discoveries of the 19th and 20th centuries, it seems more clear that science mainly helps us substitute terms appropriately. This is a much more important function than it might initially seem.
"Science helps us substitute terms". What do you mean by this? You speak as though science has been weighed and measured by philosophy and found wanting. I recall reading Richard Feynnman's biography. He lamented the fact that his son was spending so much time with philosophy and Spinoza's monad. Science is ascendant (for now, at least), and philosophy has lost it's former prestige. For good reason, since all philosophy could do after the rise of science is descend into doubt and deconstructionism. Perhaps that is harsh, but I'm no fan of philosophy and I certainly don't share the absolutist mindset.
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Re: Color Perception Question

Unread postby ashurbanipal » Fri 20 Jan 2006, 14:08:32

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '"')Science helps us substitute terms". What do you mean by this?


Think back to roughly 1750, when we were trying to discover what lightning is. We discovered that it is static electricity, and that it's just the same phenomenon, on a larger scale, to the weird prickly thing that happens to a rod of glass when you rub it with silk. We were able to substitute one term for another. Later, on discovering that electricity was a flow of electrons, we were able to substitue that term for those others. And so on.

Now, when we were investigating lightning, we thought that, if we just found enough substitutes, we'd eventually, finally, and completely explain lightning. But do we know, finally, what an electron is? If we can answer that, whatever term we substitute, do we know what that is? I think at this point the problem becomes evident.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'Y')ou speak as though science has been weighed and measured by philosophy and found wanting.


Hardly. Science is remarkably effective at what it actually does. It's just that it does something different than what most people think. And there's a fair bit of philosophizing taking place among scientists, who are natually inclined to understand the meaning of the substitutions they discover.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I') recall reading Richard Feynnman's biography. He lamented the fact that his son was spending so much time with philosophy and Spinoza's monad. Science is ascendant (for now, at least), and philosophy has lost it's former prestige. For good reason, since all philosophy could do after the rise of science is descend into doubt and deconstructionism. Perhaps that is harsh, but I'm no fan of philosophy and I certainly don't share the absolutist mindset.


I think it's more a question of recent philosophy having become very difficult to understand without a lot of groundwork having been laid. It's similar, in this respect, to top flight cosmology or quantum mechanics. Even scientists who despise philosophy seem to be affected by this--most of the conversations I have with scientists end with them dismissing the discussion out of frustration for not being able to understand what I'm explaining. This would seem to be a mistake, in my view. My understanding and appreciation of science has grown with my understanding of philosophy.

That said, not all philosophers would agree with me.
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Re: Color Perception Question

Unread postby Grimnir » Fri 20 Jan 2006, 23:56:40

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ashurbanipal', 'I')f it's a subject you're interested in, I can post what I think is a pretty ironclad argument for indeterminism.


If the argument is ironclad, wouldn't that disprove it? :lol:
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Re: Color Perception Question

Unread postby ashurbanipal » Sat 21 Jan 2006, 10:47:43

Wouldn't it disprove what?
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Re: Color Perception Question

Unread postby PenultimateManStanding » Sat 21 Jan 2006, 12:31:11

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ashurbanipal', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '"')Science helps us substitute terms". What do you mean by this?


Think back to roughly 1750, when we were trying to discover what lightning is. We discovered that it is static electricity, and that it's just the same phenomenon, on a larger scale, to the weird prickly thing that happens to a rod of glass when you rub it with silk. We were able to substitute one term for another. Later, on discovering that electricity was a flow of electrons, we were able to substitue that term for those others. And so on.

Now, when we were investigating lightning, we thought that, if we just found enough substitutes, we'd eventually, finally, and completely explain lightning. But do we know, finally, what an electron is? If we can answer that, whatever term we substitute, do we know what that is? I think at this point the problem becomes evident.
Yes, I see. We explain new principles and ideas in terms of those familiar to us. I bet alot of people have been struck by the similarity of the periodic table of elements and the musical scales. At some point we get into realms so weird that we have nothing to substitute, or the substitutions become very stretched, thin and ultimately unconvincing. It does seem that saying an electron is both a particle and a wave is as much as an admission that we don't have a good grasp of what it really is so much as a working set of rules to manipulate a mystery. I agree with your take on this issue of the deeper mysteries. Feynman said something about quantum mechanics to the effect that if you aren't shocked and disturbed by it, then you don't understand what it is. But if you stand back and consider things not so problematic, there are many terrific discoveries, with the linear EM spectrum being one of the greatest. A pragmatic approach accepts limitations and shies away from the imponderables.
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