Out of Mythic into Rational consciousness, the EX-JW Journey

by jst2laws 123 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  Terry

  Light comes in different frequencies, our mind makes the color, to match different frequencies, we make the color not light. There is no green in light nor red or any other color it is all just frequencies and it is our mind that determine what color our imagination sees it as.

  Well, duh.

  You are confusing language with the reality.

  Our mind doesn't MAKE THE COLOR. We name the part of the light spectrum we see. Our vocabulary for colors, I feel, is rather pathetic. It isn't precise enough. It is mostly a generality.

  If you go to any Sherwin Williams paint store they have a device than can "read" any color sample you bring in and mix paint to match it.

  A well-trained artist can do the same. I can do it as a matter of fact.

  I use to have an etching studio. In California we designed images, transferred them to paper by imprinting them on hand-colored metal plates. They were limited editions. I know color. I was a master inker at one time.
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  toreador

  Ok, to those who replied to my post on color matching especially Auldsoul. I read your reply and I understand what you are saying.

  There are times when I look at a color and if I had to name it I would call it blue while my significant other would call it grey. In other words i would say the predominant color is blue while she would say it was grey. It gets even worse with shade of purple or blue or burgundys. Interestingly enough we both would add the same colors together to get it i.e., blue white, black and maybe a little purple or red oxide depending on the hue. We actually may see the color differently in our minds eye, so yes I agree with you that just because we would both eventually match the color we may in fact see it quite differently. :) Sometimes one of us may match a color quite quickly while the other may have some trouble. One of us may quickly see for instance that we need a little yellow to match while the other one may have difficulty realizing that is what is needed.

  One would think though that since our eyes are built or designed very similar and colors emit different wavelengths that these wavelengths would be interpreted similarly by a similarly designed eye. Of course I could be wrong. I have been wrong once before I think.

  Tor
• 

  Terry

  But from this experience (which is a part of the data) I also learnt that a reasonably working rationality can yield wrong results, depending on the available (or chosen) input. More importantly perhaps, I learnt that not everything, and especially not what I most enjoy, can be backed up rationally. So I accept being only partly rational, iow, being also consciously irrational.

  Every logical system requires a recipe to get us to the precise end we seek. This heuristic must be followed or error results. Rationality has nothing to do with error. It is the recipe we don't follow which trips us.

  Jehovah's Witnesses present a closed system. Within the four grey walls of that system everything works just dandy. That is why the illusion-makers in Brooklyn demand in no uncertain terms we do not stray outside of it. For, if you set one toe outside of that artificial enviornment it is the dissonant reproof of reality which falsifies the claims made and refutes the system altogether.

  Religion ultimately must describe the reality in which our bodies dwell.

  I think we cannot accurately say the machine and the software are running fine if the heuristic contains false instructions. It is a dichotomy richly pregnant with self-delusion. After all, the mind is a tool. Nothing is worse than using a fine tool in a corrupt manner.
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  Terry

  There are times when I look at a color and if I had to name it I would call it blue while my significant other would call it grey. In other words i would say the predominant color is blue while she would say it was grey.

  Context!

  If you hold a cone at a certain angle it will cast the shadow of a circle.

  If you hold a cone at another angle it will cast the shadow of a triangle.

  Is the cone fully described as a three dimensional object entirely by the shadow?

  No.

  We are drawing an unnecessary distinction about color when we are really discussing the machinery of the eye and the data base of the brain.
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  toreador

  terry wrote:

  We are drawing an unnecessary distinction about color when we are really discussing the machinery of the eye and the data base of the brain.

  yes, I agree. If the machinery and data base are the same the different wavelengths should be seen the same by different persons. we can call grass green or purple but it should still register in the brain as the same color no matter what we call it.

  Thats why I said at the end of my post. "One would think though that since our eyes are built or designed very similar and colors emit different wavelengths that these wavelengths would be interpreted similarly by a similarly designed eye."

  Do we agree?

  Tor
• 

  Midget-Sasquatch

  Terry and Six,

  Let me say that I completely agree with you that the inputs we perceive as colour and as sound are objectively real. And as I understand it, our neurological apparatus that senses (rods & cones, cilia), transmits and collates those inputs are the same (normally) for most of us. So our perceptions should generally be constructed the same.

  Yet there are times when I do not immediately hear a sound (that would be within my range of hearing) or even see something that was in my field of view. You both may be there, and say "hey are you deaf/blind?"

  And then sheepishly, I'd have my attention drawn to it. My perception would have changed. I'm not doubting the concreteness of the underlying reality. My perception of it though, is a construct that can vary because the inputs may be filtered differently from one moment to the next.
• 

  Narkissos

  *Crash summary of ontology from Parmenides to Heidegger*

  The "real" in "reality" is that (something) is.

  Science (through perception and interpretation, hence ever open to doubt and reinterpretation) is concerned with what is.

  That there is, is a certainty. Perhaps the only one. But it is not a what. Hence it is not scientific and not even thinkable, except through the admitted inaccuracy of poetical metaphors. Like, the murmur of a spring in the night.
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  LittleToe

  There is an objective reality. We all have apparatus to interact with and record that reality with varying degrees of accuracy, especially as we age. How we subjectively filter (and correspondingly lay down that recording) is another matter, and it can be adjusted through training. This is the main purpose of education, both formal and social, in that it causes us to use certain patterns of thinking.

  What is so often discounted or denigrated is that another person who has all the same apparatus and viewing the same objective reality (i.e. a colour) might accurately perceive something different for them. This is not necessarily due to some lack on their part, but can be due to a different range of education (e.g. as a scientist or painter) and experience in life (i.e. never having seen a cone before).

  I smile at this fact every time I see discussions such as we have on this thread. Whether an individual is a rationalist, materialist, believer, evolutionist, etc., etc.; we all bring our biases to the table to discuss. The point of my amusement is when I see folks so sure that they are right that they neglect the very real possibility that the other person is also right. My yellow could be your green, if all I've ever seen is a paint chart, rather than the light itself.

  I would quickly assert that I don't find amusement in it in a condescending way, but through my own lifes experiences I've come to believe that much is "vanity and a striving after wind". It isn't going to stop my perverse enjoyment of playing the role of devil's advocate, though

  Taking up the subject of Quantum Physics, much of what we previously were trained to believe about the universe seems to be contested. No doubt we will eventually find a way to rationalise it, but meanwhile we flounder. As a human race, I suspect this will be another area where a paradigm shift in our consciousness will yet occur.
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  SixofNine

  LittleToe, the fact that we each percieve things through the lens of our own individual physicality and experience is so effing obvious that it deserves a head pat, for your amusement. I agree with Terry that definitions often need to be set out at the begining of a discussion, but the above is such bloomin' common knowledge that it should go w/o saying. Especially to someone who spent a few years apply 2.5 cc corrections to film transparencies.

  Taking up the subject of Quantum Physics, much of what we previously were trained to believe about the universe seems to be contested.

  I guess my witness lack of training protected me from this, lol. What sort of things are you talking about?
• 

  AuldSoul

  (((Narkissos)))

  (((LittleToe)))

  And to all the rest of the participants in this thread that was started by (((jst2laws))) a big . I like to think. It's fun.