Yeah, well I've avoided reading Gramsci, I thought I ought to have a look at some of his writing since his name turns up when I've read about hegemony and so on; lassitude isn't a term he uses, I used it to sum up his attitude to Europe cf with the USA (not the Americas, 'cos he distinguishes quite sharply between South America and the North).
Is there a way of getting competition through cooperation? After all, if I and my friend decide to have a race, we must first decide on the rules, the place and so on; I guess its not a common view though.
Basically, Gramsci was just pointing out Europe had a history to contend with whilst America didn't; I guess it wasn't called the New World for nothing.
@zane: you're welcome; there's little activity in chat, so the more the merrier.
Personally, I think competition and cooperation is like ying-yang symbol...
@ZaneScheepers: I think the subconcious, by mere fact that we call it the subconcious is already implicated in the process of perception before it reached the conscious mind; I'm not sure this is how Freud/Jung thought of the subconciousness as they - as far as I know - which isn't very far as I've read little Freud - are more interested the way it mediates the social life, rather than functions that are tied more closely to our biology such as perception.
Zane Scheepers was asking "Yes, it's obvious that if perception is delayed, now wouldn't be now. We've already established the fact that now is indeed, not now due to delays resulting from the processing of visual images. Is there any evidence which suggests that the subconscious reacts to perceived information, before the conscious becomes aware of the situation?"
@ZaneScheepers: I've taken the liberty of asking your comment/question here - if thats ok with you.
@MoziburUllah that's fine with me thanks. But honestly, I feel like a fish out of water here, or at the very least, out of my depth.
Basically what I'm asking is, is it possible that thoughts occur in the subconscious and our conscious only becomes aware of the thoughts, but perceiving no source for those thoughts, we assume they are a product of consciousness?
@ZaneScheepers: I thought as much; its best not to be intimidated by the language used; I think that is one of the reasons that chat is under-used; people get intimidated by high-flown language or poly-syllabic words and so on.
chat after all is meant to be chatty!
Maybe if I hadn't mentioned Gramisci ...?!
@weissman: I have the impression that you're pretty au fait with Freud - any pointers/remarks on Zanes question?
And how come my icon is not my usual one? it shows a snowflake rather than the bamboo (or 'bash' as we called them in Bangladesh).
@ZaneScheepers I' m basically here for your question... there's some actual cog sci that goes along with it. But it seems you might be confusing perception with conscious awareness? (FYI, I'm aware of the time delays here; and if I don't respond, I myself might be afk for an errand or two)
The problem with the whole idea of Zane is structurally identical with brain-in-a-vat-like arguments: It points towards an important point (in this case: consciousness is the result of processing perceptual data), but in effect, all we get is a doubling of structures we cannot further justify
See e.g. the cocktail party effect (just wikipedia link); note in particular the section explaining driving. Veritasium had a really cool video on what he calls "Gun" and "Drew" (personified versions of automatic reactions versus deliberated ones tying to cog sci)
unconscious responses that become conscious seconds later do not make any more sense than saying that things become conscious after the 300 something milliseconds we can empirically observe, but it needs the very same mechanisms of response, just in a unexplicable, unobservable, unconscious realm
@MoziburUllah Something like that; but what I'm trying to emphasize is that perception is something that doesn't even require consciousness. The philosophical implications of this may be debatable, but there's even such a thing as "post hoc" awareness of stuff you perceived automatically (as if you're reprojecting your conscious awareness into the past)
@PhilipKlöcking: Isn't it Freud that came up with the notion of the unconscious? I'm not sure he was attempting to understand something as basic as perception with this.
@H Walters: do you have a link for 'post hoc' awareness?
Not ready... I recall seeing a video on it; it would take some time to look up. That might be worth it so I'll get back to you in a bit (but it's about time for that errand)
@MoziburUllah: That's the basic flaw of Zane's question imho. The unconscious, for me, is basically like every mystic thing. It serves an explanatory function without having a defining one and without empirical base other than the phenomenon it tries to explain. Fuzzy stuff like that tends to be open to misuse
That's all fine and fair, but we do not need the unconscious as something that is judging. , this would in fact be a category mistake, as judging is a category that includes intention and is hard to think other than conscious
btw, both Freud and Jung drifted into mystic stuff in their writings imo
room topic changed to The Symposium: A Party Space for Philosophy.SE! Both philosophy and mundane chatting welcome. [aesthetics] [epistemology] [logic] [metaphysics] [ontology]
@PhilipKlöcking: sure; but take for example learning how to type; at first I'm focusing where I'm placing my fingers because I don't know where the keys are on the keyboard so I need to focus on placing my fingers correctly; but eventually that becomes part of 'muscle memory' as so in a sense a part of the unconscious - broadly speaking.
I haven't really read Freud or Jung, just picked up stuff along the way...
@ZaneScheepers: Sounds like trying to re-define well-established usage of terms and, as mentioned, a category-mistake, as it applies concepts to mechanistic realms that only work in describing a realm of responsibility
@MoziburUllah: The execution of movements becomes unconscious, not the process of writing as a whole, isn't it? I am an instructor in martial arts and used to dance in the UK, so I know pretty well how important muscle-memory is. Still, the intention as drive behind it never becomes subconscious, does it?
seems like there might be a fundamental disagreeance on the measurability of the subconscious. (coming in late to the party) but it feels like one of the known unknown problems
@ZaneScheepers: According to a friend of mine who is writing his PhD on the limit between knowledge and subconscious, Jung could be an interesting read for you. James did write about that in English as well.
@PhilipKlöcking: I'm not so sure, when I'm typing now I'm not thinking about specific actions but more on what I'm trying to say. If I see what I write is not quite right, say a spelling mistake, I might become more focused on what I'm typing; I think intention is structured for want of a better word.
@PhilipKlöcking: I missed a bit of what you wrote; sure, its 'the execution of movements that becomes unconscious'; but when you're first learning that is what the focus is on.
All I know about Jung is archetypes and even there I'm not sure what he wrote on it; sometimes there is no substitute to go to the original text...
@MoziburUllah not if the usage is misunderstood. For example, my logical proof that "visible light" is not visible.
@PhilipKlöcking thanks but I'm not looking for opinions, no matter how well respected the source. I trust only empherical evidence or logical deduction
the evidence is in knowing how research works; there's no reason to get defensive, no-ones trying to put you down; visible light is called visible light because thats what we see by, we don't see by x-rays or by radio waves.
@DanBradbury yes, I'm wondering if there are any neuropsychological experiments which specifically measure thoughts and when we become consciously aware of them.
@MoziburUllah true, but to most people, the well-established usage implies that the light itself is visible. And that's not true. The term "visible light" is a misnomer
I think the problem might be Libor is an important financial index - thats the first thing I thought when I saw what Philip said. I had to do a double take before I understood what he was driving at.
@ZaneScheepers: yeah, thats so obvious that I wondered why a philosopher as acute as Democritus thought we saw things by rays (rather a film) that came from the eye
If light itself was visible we'd not be able to see anything except light...
@ZaneScheepers: Is that because you got fed up with formal education or is it because you have to pay through the nose where you live - where do you live by the way?
I think I was interested in philosophy at school without knowing the faintest about it; its just the association had with the word wisdom; Its reading physics books that changed my mind since they were always disparaging of philosophy...
I think mistakenly of course.
It seems to be pretty recent since turn of the last century physicists appeared to be well versed in it.
I'm based in London, Uk; I'm a bit tired of the big city vibe - it gets to me when all you can see is buildings as far as the eye can see and further.
That reminds of a short story by Ursula la Guin - I think - she was writing about just how quickly the trees were growing when she was driving along along a road - first they're tiny, and then almost jump inside...
rainbows are good for the imagination and curiosity...
@ZaneScheepers: well, I'm not suprised - I got chased by qmechanic for asking a physics question dressed up as an arts question - they didn't like that; physics people are a conservative bunch.
@ZaneScheepers: well, there is that; usually you need to signal to the community you know what you're talking about; some people in philosophy.SE were trying to hint that I need to do that - to be fair to them there are plenty of trolls; but I didn't pick up on the hint.
@ZaneScheepers: there is that advantage ;).
@PhilipKlöcking: whats your dissertation on - if you don't mind me asking?
@ZaneScheepers: well, people do talk about universities being turned into educational factories; its all because the business paradigm rules supreme...well, mostly
the limits of our ability to define the specific human and how far contemporary objections apply to helmuth plessneer's conception of it. Later in PhD, I plan on extending this discussion to a justification of human rights in general and against objections of different cultural backgrounds
@ZaneScheepers: maybe you'd be suited for art school - they're more flexible like that. They're read Miltons Darkness visible. So they'd have no problems with light Invisible.
@ZaneScheepers: I read in Abdus Salams biography (famous physicist) that Fred Hoyle told him that one of the points of the Cambridge exams were to humble the intelligence - after he'd failed them - I suppose he was telling Abdus not to take the failure to heart and he passed when he retook; but I think the larger point stands, there lots of brilliant, quick students but at the upper reaches the going gets very tough and so its better to find that out first.
@PhilipKlöcking: its sounds very interesting and very current too; I haven't heard of Plessneer - I think I've seen you mention him once or twice before; is he a living philosopher? I've gotten tired of reading dead philosophers.
@PhilipKlöcking: I was at Oxford and Imperial - and the standards were pretty high - I'm not sure how they'd compare with German ones, I think German ones are pretty high all round.
@MoziburUllah: Alas, he's dead. I think he died in the early 80s. The vivid thing about him is that he kind of argued on a level I have seldom seen so far and because of the lack of translations of his works and Arnold Gehlen's doings has been completely ignored by history
@PhilipKlöcking: my brother was at Edinburgh and he complained about the lassitude of the students there; personally, I think because of our muslim background we had inadvertantly hot-housed ourselves...
no play, and all study; we enjoyed it though; it would have been more enjoyable if there were others to share our fascination with the playgound of the imagination and intellect.
@MoziburUllah: I discussed with an Irish guy who had his masters at Durham and he kind of agreed that they do not want much from the students in Kent and that I am more knowledgeable overall than him despite his hard time in Durham
Well, I will have to leave, time for other stuff. Will read and answer tomorrow, so don't hesitate pinging
Alright, first off I haven't had much luck finding that video (which isn't too surprising; it was long ago and very long... videos aren't searchable so scanning through hour long videos for the context is a bit difficult), but I had some luck pulling up basic relevant info
@ZaneScheepers ...but first I have real questions about your positing that we don't see light. Surely if I turn light on in a room, I'm able to detect with my eyes that it's on (or that I need to change a bulb). What more does it mean to you to "see light", such that you would claim we don't do that?
As for relevant information, I've referenced the Cocktail Party effect already; pay attention to the second paragraph in Early Work in that article... Broadbent's filter model of attention is a good read; to really catch up you need to read both the history and at least up to and through the section on Late selection models
In that section there's a simplified example demonstrating that unattended channels are processed, where "Dear - 7 - Jane" is played in one ear and "9 - Aunt - 6" in the other ear. You might want to briefly look here where there's a much more sophisticated version of this
What I was looking for earlier was a reference that goes a bit further, but unfortunately can't find it yet; but in this case one's able to not only swap to the unattended channel but to retroactively pick out information in it (backtracking a short time)
Regardless, with these links at least there's enough evidence that we can process meanings of words without conscious awareness even getting involved
(specifically in unattended channels being filtered during a cocktail party effect)
Another quick note Zane; I may not be in the room, but if you can respond to me anyway; if you "ping me" (mention @HWalters), it will slap up a notification and I'll be able to come in later and pick up on your responses
@HWalters your eyes detect light, that's true, but perceptions occur in the visual cortex. You see, because your eyes detect light. The brain creates representations of objects. Our eyes see nothing. Detecting light is a purely mechanical process, capable of being accomplished without the need for consciousness or conscious perception. A camera can detect light but it sees nothing.
The brightness we perceive in our subjective reality is a representation of the intensity of the light our eyes detect.
We see light (as used in light and dark) not light (electromagnetic radiation).
I think maybe people understand this, including most physicists, but what they actually mean by "seeing light" is simply what I just described; that a sensory apparatus detected light (that would tend to be the physicist perspective)... technically physicists are right to shrug again, because every process in our brain that processes information can be explained ultimately in terms of electromagnetism which at some level involves exchanges of photons anyway
I do see a few physicists from time to time confuse "light color" with the color we see though
E.g., there's this annoying trend to say that "pink isn't a color" and suggest that the brain invents pink, implying that it doesn't equally invent red, simply because red's on the spectrum; this is utterly wrong.
It's more than a few. In fact many believe "red" light is red. You assume that people understand the difference between detection of light and the perception of brightness.
700nm light causes the L cone to send an electrochemical impulse to the visual cortex which is interpreted as a visual sensation we call red. Nothing complicated about it
700nm light "stimulates" both L and M; barely S. But L is stimulated relatively more than M. That difference is detected in ganglial cells and pushes the red-green opponent process towards the red end
I think I know what you're trying to say; you realize that the color of light isn't an inherent property of light. But there are traits of the typical human visual system that are consistent enough and similar enough that they can generally be referenced in order to give a definition of color again, and under those rules, light has color
This is just the wikipedia article on the CIE 1931-colorimetry model
This is a "flattened" view of our color space; roughly, M cone sensitivity goes up and down; L cone sensitivity is towards the right, and S cone sensitivity is adjusted in this slice such that S+L=1 (that is, bottom left is most sensitive for S)
That curve corresponds to pure spectral light in our color space; that's the border of relative cone stimulations that's possible with actual light. The labels here indicate wavelengths.
I've seen the basic chart. I feel its inaccurate. It doesn't take the amplitude of light into account. That's the purpose of rods. The colour spectrum should be a 3 dimensional sphere.
That color chart itself focuses only on hue. Our real color space has three dimensions.
Also, this is a colorimetry chart; colorimetry doesn't delve into perception at all. It's primary concern is to just define the colors we see. It's mathematical, but it's a really good way to define color; specific colorimetric colors correspond to specific stimulations of our cones. So different spectra that can form the same color cannot be discerned.
The curve is a result of the concave surface of the raindrop. Concave mirrors reflect light the opposite side of a mirror. So combined, the raindrops form a circle with your heads shadow in the middle
That would be chromatic aberration; blue and red (pure) light tend to split apart and hit different spots on our retina. There are actual biological mechanisms in our eye that help a lot with this
No problem; I don't usually talk about stuff as if I know everything, but I've delved very deep into color :)
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