Re: Just How Blind is the Human Race?

From: jonathan (yell_at_comcast.net)
Date: 07/03/04 

Date: Sat, 3 Jul 2004 04:56:00 -0400

"Christopher James Huff" <cjameshuff@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:cjameshuff-2EB481.11131427062004@news02.east.earthlink.net...
> In article <xPednRmtZ7nRG0PdRVn-gg@giganews.com>,
> "jonathan" <yell@comcast.net> wrote:
>
> > Our eyes and minds are the greatest scientific instruments
> > in the known universe, yet we defer to grossly
> > simplified man-made technological imitations.
> > We have become so accustomed to relying on
> > charts and equations that we scoff at the attempt
> > to better train our eyes and minds to provide
> > first and last order evidence.
>
> Well, we really are practically blind. Our eyes are trichromatic
> sensors, with limited resolution and only capable of giving very crude
> estimates of color, lightness, and size. We can not see spectral
> distributions, we see only activation intensities of a bunch of cone
> cells, each of which has a peak sensitivity at one of three wavelengths
> within a very short band of the electromagnetic spectrum. (sometimes
> there are four cone types, for some women, but that's a different story
> and makes no difference)
>
> Our vision is only useful for judging distances on a scale very near
> that of our bodies. At best, Mars is a tiny disk in the sky, it is
> usually a point of orange light. You can't figure its orbit by standing
> outside and looking at it. Microbes are only visible to the naked eye in
> large masses...looking at a lump of iron ore, you would never guess
> there was life in it. The existence of microbes wasn't even known until
> we started looking at things with those "technological imitations" you
> deride. This is due to simple optics, not a lack of "training" in the
> eyes.
>
> Our eyes are really only suitable for dealing with everyday, nearby
> objects. Using them to identify chemistry is foolish...hydrochloric acid
> looks just like water. The same goes for many other properties: hot
> glass looks just like cold glass, but one of the two can sear your skin
> off.
>
>
> > On earth wherever iron deposits are found so is
> > microbial life. I know there is life elsewhere, I know
> > there is life on Mars. I know this with complete
> > certainty because when I walk out in my backyard
> > and look up, Mars is red.
>
> On Earth, we see microbes pretty much wherever we use our instruments to
> look. That means very little, other than that microbes are ubiquitous on
> Earth. Appearances can be very deceiving...many things look alike, but
> are very different.
>
>
> > Is the human race collectively blind, or is 'modern'
> > science leading us backwards. "Proof' is that thing
> > set between humans so they both will agree.
> > Scientific evidence is that thing that removes subjective
> > disagreements, removes our individuality, removes our
> > ...eyes and minds... from the process.
>

> It removes ego.

Objective scientific methods introduce gross errors into
the process. It treats as static that which is dynamic, it
seeks repeatability in that which is not repeatable.
Little of interest in the universe exists at equilibrium, repeats
or can be determined. That which is interesting, order, life
and intelligence, exists far from equilibrium. And in
an edge of chaos state where the system components
display their maximum level of chaotic behavior...their
least ability to be determined.

The most interesting properties of the universe, life
and intelligence exist in a realm that is the
....least suitable for objective deterministic
methods.

Reality is a persistent storm standing at the
phase transition between subcritical and
supracritical behavior where trajectories
are intractably entangled. So that one
can't determine 'which is which' at any
given time. When is a cloud water or
air? It is neither and both, but kill it
to determine and it is no longer
interesting...no longer a cloud.

So is life, so is intelligence, so is order and
everything of interest in the universe. You can't
determine it without losing it's system
properties. It's most interesting and
defining properties are lost the minute
one deconstructs the system in order
to 'determine' it.

Objectivity as a concept is the source of all
evil. As that concept implies we can out
design nature, that we can determine in
advance the future. It gives us dictatorships
and dogmatic attempts at control.

It gave us the wars and diseases of the
last century. And it's preventing us from
seeing the obvious signs of life at
Meridiani.

> The mind is still required for understanding present
> knowledge, conceiving new possibilities, and devising tests to verify
> those possibilities. The scientific method merely provides a mechanism
> for weeding out the bad models of reality.
>You want to see what "trained
> minds" come up with? Go look up Aristotelian physics. Like many "natural
> philosophers", Aristotle believed truth could be found by simply
> thinking about it, by "training our eyes and minds". It wasn't until
> scientists like Galileo started measuring and testing things that we
> figured out how things really worked.

Initial conditions are completely irrelevant in understanding organized
or living systems...in what is the most important to us.

"A second major discovery made in complex systems such as Boolean Networks
 is that of self organizing criticality. If the Random Boolean Network is in the
complex regime (K=2 or 3), changes in the initial conditions will most of
the times have no affect on the particular attractor that is finally reached."
http://users.ox.ac.uk/~quee0818/complexity/complexity.html

Classical determinism prevents us from understanding how things
'really work'. A cloud, an emotion or an atom all exist in the one
state where determinism completely fails.

As such it is invalid as a method of understanding reality.
Objectivity is, in fact, thoroughly backwards.
Subjective methods leave intact the system properties
and allow a complete understanding. We should train
our subjective abilities.

Then, and only then, will reality begin to make sense.

Jonathan

"Perception of an
Object costs
Precise the Object's loss.
Perception in itself a gain
Replying to its price;
The Object Absolute is nought,
Perception sets it fair,
And then upbraids a Perfectness
That situates so far."

By E Dickinson

s

>
> --
> Christopher James Huff <cjameshuff@earthlink.net>
> http://home.earthlink.net/~cjameshuff/
> POV-Ray TAG: <chris.huff@tag.povray.org>
> http://tag.povray.org/
è

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