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What Does It Mean To See?

Started by Solitary, July 09, 2013, 03:58:31 PM

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Solitary

:evil:
There is nothing more frightful than ignorance in action.

aitm

i see what you say but i dont see what you mean.
A humans desire to live is exceeded only by their willingness to die for another. Even god cannot equal this magnificent sacrifice. No god has the right to judge them.-first tenant of the Panotheust

josephpalazzo

Quote from: "aitm"i see what you say but i dont see what you mean.

i see what you mean but i dont see what you see.

AllPurposeAtheist

All hail my new signature!

Admit it. You're secretly green with envy.

FrankDK

>  This is the very reason logic and philosophy are so confusing, because one word can have multiple meanings,

That's the reason language is so confusing.

How many ways can you interpret the sentence, "Time flies like an arrow, but fruit flies like a banana"?

Frank

stromboli

The blind men and the elephant. Perception is often determined by preconceived notions, such as an elephant is like a snake if all you perceive is the trunk. This is why something innocuous like the god particle becomes "proof" to believers, even though it means nothing whatsoever to do with god.

Solitary

#6
:evil:
There is nothing more frightful than ignorance in action.

the_antithesis

To see means to look at shit with your eyes. It's such a primary sense than we use it as an idiot for "to understand" as in "I see you didn't flush the toilet after taking a shit again. I don't see why you keep doing that unless you want a divorce."

This is not complicated stuff, really.

DunkleSeele

Philosophy: the discipline which studies how to unnecessarily complicate straightforward things.

Jason78

Quote from: "Solitary"a)Normally when we say we see an object, what we mean is that we detect with our eyes particles of light called photons, which come from a source of light. b)However, the idea of being able to see by physicist  observing particles that scatter from them is common to particle experiments that study tiny objects like electrons, protons, and my favorite "quarks" (out of which protons are made).

This is like throwing a baseball at an object and watching it build up a pattern that looks like the object. I mean why wouldn't someone think that wasn't seeing the object?  :roll:  This, however, doesn't mean there isn't an object just because it can't be seen by the normal definition we all use to see.

What exactly do you think the difference is between a) and b)?
Winner of WitchSabrinas Best Advice Award 2012


We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real
tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light. -Plato

Solitary

#10
:evil:
There is nothing more frightful than ignorance in action.

Jason78

Quote from: "Solitary"This:This is like throwing a baseball at an object and watching it build up a pattern that looks like the object. I mean why wouldn't someone think that wasn't seeing the object? Your seeing the pattern not the object itself. Photons and light show color, texture, white, greys, blacks, and nuances because they are bouncing off an object that is larger than a photon and the light is composed of waves of different frequencies and values. Solitary

In both cases you're bouncing baseballs off an object and compiling a result.  Try again.
Winner of WitchSabrinas Best Advice Award 2012


We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real
tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light. -Plato

Plu

We always only see a pattern of an object. Watching objects that happen to be roughly on our level of scale gives more information because our brain is wired to be good at looking at those things (since they're relevant to us) but ultimately there's no real difference between any of the ways of "seeing", it's all just interpreting signals.

Color and texture is just our brains giving a more effective visual overview of an object at a special level of scale. I mean; we can't see most photons anyway, there's only a very small band of light that's actually visual to us. We can only see texture if it's within a fairly specific level of granularity, otherwise it just gets lost in the picture.

the_antithesis

Quote from: "DunkleSeele"Philosophy: the discipline which studies how to unnecessarily complicate straightforward things.
No, philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with reality, existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. When dealing with something easy and obvious, it's just wanking.

SGOS

Quote from: "FrankDK">  This is the very reason logic and philosophy are so confusing, because one word can have multiple meanings,

That's the reason language is so confusing.

How many ways can you interpret the sentence, "Time flies like an arrow, but fruit flies like a banana"?

Frank
Language is one of mankind's greatest assets, but it is fraught with pitfalls.  It's the basis of many logical fallacies.  Theists do use "see" in their special way when they say, "I see the light."  They have seen nothing of the sort, well usually.  What they really mean is, "I have divined the unknowable through mystical means," or something or other along those lines.