Late night wanderings that keep me up

[chipbgt]

Ok so my brain wont let me sleep some nights...here is tonights version:

Our eyes are our instruments of vision. they detect different lighs patterns and transfer them to our brain which interprets them for us......so, is what we "see" really just in our head and not the actual world around us?

you know, its a pretty simple concept but sometimes my brain just can't wrap itself around the simplest of concepts and I end up half the night.

Here is another thing; I once heard we never actually "touch" anything. The magnetic forces associated with our fingers and say, an orange, repel each other and what we feel is that resistance translated into texture.

hmmmm....

[Warthog]

Our "residual self image". Woah.

[originel]

here's a proposition: what we see is real...but how we see it is simply interpretation.

The not really touching anything is true. If we ACTUALLY touched something then that means the subatomic particles in our fingers would be touching the subatomic particles of the object and BOOM...atomic blast. In fact the way little man worked was it took a slug of uranium and fired it at very very high speeds into another slug of uranium (greatly simplified of course).

[brandon184]

I have a feeling that you people do this because you WANT my brain to explode.

[Uncle Bob]

Originally posted by brandon184
I have a feeling that you people do this because you WANT my brain to explode.

Hey guys he's on to you.

[Uncle Bob]

Originally posted by chipbgt
Ok so my brain wont let me sleep some nights...here is tonights version:

Our eyes are our instruments of vision. they detect different lighs patterns and transfer them to our brain which interprets them for us......so, is what we "see" really just in our head and not the actual world around us?

you know, its a pretty simple concept but sometimes my brain just can't wrap itself around the simplest of concepts and I end up half the night.

Here is another thing; I once heard we never actually "touch" anything. The magnetic forces associated with our fingers and say, an orange, repel each other and what we feel is that resistance translated into texture.

hmmmm....

You could concentrate on the age-old question; "How high is up?"

[no1_vern]

"so, is what we "see" really just in our head and not the actual world around us?"

Fairly correct. In fact we "see" only visible light. basically a small percentage of the full light spectrum. And each and every thing you see is "viewed" upside down! The brain, through experience, learns to convert the image to a "corrected version" so what we are able to understand what we see.

[Theophylact]

Question: "Do 'I' 'really' 'perceive' 'things'?"

Looks to me as though there's a whole bunch of questions here...

There's a wonderful novel, Thinks..., by David Lodge, that lays out a lot of the arguments very amusingly. I recommend it heartily.

[John Prophet]

Quote---> Our "residual self image". Woah.

Hehe, that reminds me of when someone says they are "beside themself".

"hey, if you are looking for me i'll be standing here beside myself"

but not related to when someone is "out standing in his field"

[RayH]

I think. Therefore, I am!