Objective reality

[Physics131]

how we look at things and how something is interpreted maybe depends on our own consciousness.
while the same thing observed by someone else could have a very different interpretation.
i ask how the thing observed has for itself its own interpretation independently of external observations

it is interesting how statements, qutoes, explenations of different things can lead to other thoughts which sometimes correlates with it but is not restricted to that correlation

These quoted thoughts I had were the result of a deep conversation with multiple people in the Nexus chat.
All the other text I wrote below was obtained through further thinking on my own.

The segregation between how something is, its perception, and its interpretation is interesting, in my opinion.
And I think that these quoted statements can be viewed as a sort of framework, providing some examples where these thoughts can be applied.

What color is, its perception, and its interpretation is an interesting example.
Some people perceive color differently than others due to their biological nature.
But I think that everyone interprets color differently because every individual can have their own favorite colors.

The most important question is what color actually is.
What we actually see is the reflection of light on the surface of an object.
That means that we see the light and its spectrum and only indirectly the color of the object.
If the sun had a different light spectrum, the colors would be perceived differently.

One question I have is whether color actually exists.
That's easier to answer, as the light transmitted from the sun has its own light spectrum.
The next question, which is a bit more tricky, is whether objects really have a color or how that is defined.
The color of an object cannot be the result of the surface of the object, as when you scratch the surface, the color does not change.
I do not have an answer to this, but that also implies that color is probably not, or not only, the reflection of light from an object.
These are interesting thoughts that branched away from my initial quote.

Another example is the double-slit experiment.
I am not going to explain the details about the experiment itself.
It is phenomenal how the photons behave depending on external influence.
If they are measured, they behave like particles, and otherwise, they behave like waves.
External observation changes their behavior, and their mechanics are currently unclear.

Another topic is the philosophical opinion on some topic.
We could ask multiple people about their opinion on a topic and get a very distinct opinion from everyone.
The topic itself is how it may be in reality.
The perception we obtain is based on our own experiences, knowledge, and understanding.
And the conclusion is the result of the interpretation of the observed perception.
In my opinion, it is very interesting to get a lot of different views, which extend our horizon.
And I also like the concept shared by lots of different people in the Nexus that it is not about being right or wrong.
In my opinion, it is significant what is actually right or wrong.
And this correlates with the topic of Kantian ethics.

 

[Physics131]

@CosmicLion @ChrisMMcD thanks for the mind expanding communication.
@ChrisMMcD and thank you very much for the review, feedback and editing

 

[fractals4life]

The color of an object cannot be the result of the surface of the object, as when you scratch the surface, the color does not change.
I do not have an answer to this, but that also implies that color is probably not, or not only, the reflection of light from an object.

I don't follow this argument, if you scratch the surface you are simply changing the shape of that surface, the walls of the scratch are now added to the new surface.

The perceived colour might change due to the new shape of the surface scattering light differently, perhaps. Colour is a category we assign to an object, based on the behaviour of light reflected from that surface. You see colour with your eyes, record it with film, and measure it with spectrographic devices. It is primarily an optical category, if you wish.

Which leads to "what is a category" I suppose ... ultimately, "it is what we say it is" with the composition of "we" being the main variable likely to change its objective properties radically... turtles all the way down

 

[fractals4life]

Then again ... the infamous dress photo shows that the perceived colour also seems to be affected by interpretations by our brain of what the lighting conditions were when the photo was recorded. The exact same pixels shown to different people lead to different categorisations. So there is mental context thrown into the mix too.

The Mystery Of Why You Saw "The Dress" As Different Colors Might Finally Be Solved

The Mystery Of Why You Saw "The Dress" As Different Colors Might Finally Be Solved

www.iflscience.com

See also various other very convincing illusions:

BrainDen.com - Color Illusions

Collection of logic puzzles, riddles, optical illusions and games.

brainden.com

Hmm ...

 

[Voidmatrix]

In my skepticism thread I talk about objectivity a bit.

I'm reminded of a quote: Chase after the truth like he'll and you'll free yourself, even though you'll never touch it's coattails. Clarence Darrow.

Now replace truth with objectivity.

As for color, whats funny is you and i can't even show we're actually seeing the same color.

Color gradients are also fun because we only have so much discernment with regard to color.

And while color may be this mystery wherein some may want to say it doesn't exist, we can see differences between what we interpret as color through wavelengths.

One love

 

[fractals4life]

So ultimately we have the situation that now "colour" is just an inadequate handy simplification that works well for most survival situations, and indeed colour perception involves a lot of shortcuts and enhancements added in by our brains which help tune this enhanced survival effect further, but can be tricked by very strange situations into choosing the wrong category.

 

[Voidmatrix]

Then again ... the infamous dress photo shows that the perceived colour also seems to be affected by interpretations by our brain of what the lighting conditions were when the photo was recorded. The exact same pixels shown to different people lead to different categorisations. So there is mental context thrown into the mix too.

The Mystery Of Why You Saw "The Dress" As Different Colors Might Finally Be Solved

The Mystery Of Why You Saw "The Dress" As Different Colors Might Finally Be Solved

www.iflscience.com

See also various other very convincing illusions:

BrainDen.com - Color Illusions

Collection of logic puzzles, riddles, optical illusions and games.

brainden.com

Hmm ...

Some people can switch back and forth between what they see in this experiment.

One love

 

[fractals4life]

I reckon, in the physical world, leaving aside maths and pure logic, "objective" means "reproducible enough to prevent further arguments" ... and is always a temporary situation

 

[Voidmatrix]

I reckon, in the physical world, leaving aside maths and pure logic, "objective" means "reproducible enough to prevent further arguments" ... and is always a temporary situation

Which is funny considering that we have to concede to the assumption that whatever is objective is reproducible, when they may not be the case. The Dao says every moment is novel.

One love

 

[fractals4life]

Some people can switch back and forth between what they see in this experiment.

One love

I have never seen anything other than white and gold, although, if given the question " what colour is this dress " rather than " is it white and gold, or blue and black" I'd have probably started to say "light blue and brown" before realising those are terrible dress colours and that it's a party dress, and therefore probably withe and gold.

Good fun

 

[Voidmatrix]

I have never seen anything other than white and gold, although, if given the question " what colour is this dress " rather than " is it white and gold, or blue and black" I'd have probably started to say "light blue and brown" before realising those are terrible dress colours and that it's a party dress, and therefore probably withe and gold.

Good fun

That's hilarious. I'm one of the weirdos that can see it in both ways, which then makes me think the question should be framed as "what colors does the dress appear to be," rather than "what color is the dress." To a certain extent, we never divorce ourselves from the "appearance."

One love

 

[fractals4life]

Which is funny considering that we have to concede to the assumption that whatever is objective is reproducible, when they may not be the case. The Dao says every moment is novel.

One love

Well maybe the meaning of "reproducible" you are using there is more of a philosophical one entailing "absolute equality" as opposed to "being able to be used in the same way" which is the pragmatic view ( though I'll have to examine what I mean by "the same way" now )

Dao sounds analagous to the "space-time bulk" physics where everything ever everywhere "exists", the real mystery is why we are perceiving a certain path through it.

... I should really get back to my nice abstract definable, reproducible, work programming machines now

 

[Voidmatrix]

I just looked at it again and saw blue and gold...



One love

 

[fractals4life]

I linguistically primed you

 

[Voidmatrix]

Well maybe the meaning of "reproducible" you are using there is more of a philosophical one entailing "absolute equality" as opposed to "being able to be used in the same way" which is the pragmatic view ( though I'll have to examine what I mean by "the same way" now

Indubitably I am! For two reasons: 1. We don't know if reality is strictly "pragmatic" especially considering the low probability (it seems) that anything exists, and 2. Philosophy is the basis for science (which seems to be forgotten more and more as time goes on.)

just looked at it again and saw blue and gold.

In the weirdest way since that's a new pairing

One love

 

[rkba]

If enough perceptional paths among a group of individuals are somewhat aligned, one could call that a culture.

There are cultures on this world to which 'reality' is so drastically different from our "reality", that their 'reality' seems like a fantastical set of stories, yet for them it is as real as ours is to us. And for them our set of stories is just as fantastical. We can, and have in many cases, bend their perceptions to be 'better' aligned with our "reality", but that does not validate our "reality" as an objective reality. It just increased the number of individuals that have the same mass reality.

I have gotten to the point that I fairly firmly believe that their 'reality' is just as valid as our "reality" and that realization opened up a can of worms in my psyche. They are crawling everywhere and I think I just need to observe and accept that there is no objective reality, only subjective reality.

If there are infinite creations of realities and if every moment is novel, then there may not be a singular Reality. It is the spoon we can see, but doesn't exist.

Maybe the worms just need to crawl wherever, and I just need to let it and them Go.

So Flux on little worms, Flux with Joy!

 

[Physics131]

I don't follow this argument, if you scratch the surface you are simply changing the shape of that surface, the walls of the scratch are now added to the new surface.

The perceived colour might change due to the new shape of the surface scattering light differently, perhaps. Colour is a category we assign to an object, based on the behaviour of light reflected from that surface. You see colour with your eyes, record it with film, and measure it with spectrographic devices. It is primarily an optical category, if you wish.

That is an interesting point.
I initially thought about a peace of white chalk which is broken and both surfaces are still white.
Well depending on how the surface is broken and the angle we look at the surface will ofc impact the color in some way.

But I never thought that the surface of an object could change the way how some color is interpreted significantly.
Although I knew the phenomen with the dress as it went viral, i somehow completly forgot about this.
And that phenomen proves exactly that the surface has of course an impact on how color is interpreted.

Which leads to "what is a category" I suppose ... ultimately, "it is what we say it is" with the composition of "we" being the main variable likely to change its objective properties radically... turtles all the way down

Yes i completly agree.

but that also implies that color is probably not, or not only, the reflection of light from an object.

I thought about what I wrote a little more and came to the thought that color is also maybe the result of the atomic structure and/or the composition of atoms in a molecule.
That implies that the color depends on the configuration of an atom (protons, electrons, neutrons).
But maybe not only that.

When we take water as an example then it is transparent as long as it is liquid.
But when its frozen it appears transparent and white.
We can argue that the white material is the oxigen trapped in the solid frozen ice.
And this again proves that surface is important.

But we can also add food coloring to water.
Or color different types of materials without changeing its atomic structure.
But does tinting something change the object on a molecular level?
What I think I can say is that it changes its color.

 

[Physics131]

In my skepticism thread I talk about objectivity a bit.

Yes I remember that one of your responses led me to your skepticism thread.
At that time a lot was very hard to grasp but things start to make more sense after some time passes.
I did not read the whole thread yet.
But after reading some parts again I am sure that I also read some of your own replies regarding objectivity at the end of your thread.
And I also think that not only this part of your thread changed the way how I think about certain topics in a positive way.
That content is very inspirational in my opinion.

I'm reminded of a quote: Chase after the truth like he'll and you'll free yourself, even though you'll never touch it's coattails. Clarence Darrow.
Now replace truth with objectivity.

Very powerful quote. Thank you!

As for color, whats funny is you and i can't even show we're actually seeing the same color.

Exactly this

Color gradients are also fun because we only have so much discernment with regard to color.
And while color may be this mystery wherein some may want to say it doesn't exist, we can see differences between what we interpret as color through wavelengths.

Yes while we can not show that we actually see the same color, color itself can still be measured.

 

[Physics131]

Philosophy is the basis for science (which seems to be forgotten more and more as time goes on.)

 

[Physics131]

Then again ... the infamous dress photo shows that the perceived colour also seems to be affected by interpretations by our brain of what the lighting conditions were when the photo was recorded. The exact same pixels shown to different people lead to different categorisations. So there is mental context thrown into the mix too.

I see the dress as blue and back while being a night owl.
Seems like I fit into this study
While reading the thread I had the thought if this phenomen how the dress appears for someone depends on if the dress is viewed in reality or on the photo.
After reading further in this thread it seems like that the phenomen also occurs when viewing the photo.
Otherwise it would have been an additional layer of complexity considerable.