Out of Mythic into Rational consciousness, the EX-JW Journey
by jst2laws 123 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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Terry
Color: when we talk about COLOR we need to distingish between the actual wavelength of electormagnetic wave/particles and the part we receive in our eye and interpret with our brain according to the functionality of our equipment.
There needs to be a distinction made when any discussion is ongoing.
We often CONFUSE our perception and ability to perceive with reality.
If it were IMPOSSIBLE for humans to interact ACCURATELY with reality (such as the colors above) we could not measure reality AS WE DO.
It is possible. It is what careful science does.
Training ourselves to speak, to think, to juggle, to dance or to do maths is a matter of skillset. It is not a matter of reality.
Can we all agree on that?
We blur the edges of our communications here when we don't agree on fundamental realities.
Reality simply IS what it is. After that, it is a question of measuring it by commensurable standards. After that, it is a question of referencing the reality meaninfully by SKILLSETS of words, numbers, charts, graphes, etc.
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AuldSoul
Terry: If it were IMPOSSIBLE for humans to interact ACCURATELY with reality (such as the colors above) we could not measure reality AS WE DO.
Then, please, bluntly state your case.
Is color a property possessed by reality, or is color simply a perceived concept of the mind (frequencies/wavelengths interpretted through ocular input) to which agreed upon labels have been attached through meme?
If the latter, it is conceptual not real. If the former, where is your objective proof that it is real?
Respectfully,
AuldSoul -
AK - Jeff
But we applied reason to the data and a whole new perspective resulted. Yes we got angry and hurt as a result because this sudden new view of our world drew us to a single and depressing realization: WE HAD BEEN DUPED!
Welcome back Steve.
I liken it to having seeing the world thru a prism, after the Tower had filtered the light for us. Didn't we break the prism and start to look at the raw light completely differently? I did, and do.
I remember when Wifey and I were first 'coming out' of the borg, you [or perhaps Joy] shared a list of potential reading material with me by email - there were caveat-comments that perhaps some of it 'we weren't ready for yet'. That statement proved to be true - but now I could read any of those materials with much clearer vision than at the time. I had begun to break the filter - but was 'blinded by the light' [wasn't that a song?] for a time.
Jeff
Edited to add that I had not read any of the thread other than the intro when I posted. Then turning to the posts just before mine I see that we are sharing some wavelengths here now about color at least. [Still haven't read the entire thread]. Found that interesting.
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Terry
Then, please, bluntly state your case.
Is color a property possessed by reality, or is color simply a perceived concept of the mind (frequencies/wavelengths interpretted through ocular input) to which agreed upon labels have been attached through meme?
If the latter, it is conceptual not real. If the former, where is your objective proof that it is real?
Is your name a property possessed by you or is it simply a way of individuating you from others?
We as humans can't fit the universe inside our head so we take bites out of it sampling the flavor.
As long as the sampling we do matches the reality it is good enough to interact with reality and bring ourselves advantages.
We know enough about the cosmos that we can build heavier than air machines and send them in complicated trajectories to other heavenly bodies and bring them back. We use the data for practical purposes.
We can use our knowledge about light to play CDs, DVDs, fix bad eyesight, remove unwanted hair, perform medical procedures, etc. The practical aspect of our measuring and quantifying is what PROVES the case.
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frankiespeakin
Terry you seem to be missing the point AS is trying to make you see. Let me try.
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.
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Narkissos
Terry,
Re: your first post, I think a bit of definition (as you advocate in the next post) is in order.
When I used "rational," saying 'I was not less rational as a JW than I am now,' I was speaking about the basic logical working of my mind. The computer and the software, if you want, not the data input. The latter was wrong, biased, partial, etc., hence the results were false. But neither the computer nor the software was to blame.
By this definition (which may be debated, admittedly, I use it conventionally), the WT doctrine strikes me as highly (not perfectly) rational. An answer to each question, optimal imaginary consistency, avoidance of paradoxes, mysteries and formal contradictions, ubiquitous either-or and tertium non datur formulae. Rational, but wrong.
I have not forsaken this kind of rationality since. I have entered fresh data for it to process, and I welcome more. 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.
I think this is actually inevitable, because one thing I have found (empirically and inductively) is that the more data I enter into the rational process the less assured practical results I get from it. Or, as Nietzsche and Cioran would approximately put it, the more I know the less I want. And whatever I do want, I know I don't want it because of what I know (lol). So perhaps the only choice we have (and this is probably not even a choice) is between being consciously or unconsciously irrational, besides of rational.
Now if I think of my former JW rationality from there, I understand that my choice of input was irrational. The problem was not the computer or software indeed, it was me, as irreducible to ratio. For obscure reasons I wanted it that way. I can now rationalise this irrationality, but back then I couldn't. I was unconsciously irrational. To an extent, I have grown to be consciously irrational as well as rational.
Ain't that fun?
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SixofNine
"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."
That's like saying "there is no such thing as the song She's A Rainbow; this band who we think of as the Rolling Stones sings this song that they have labeled 'She's a Rainbow', and no one questions that, in fact they all sing along and try to get the lyrics right, but it isn't "real", our individual imaginations actually make the song."
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frankiespeakin
Six,
Not quite, but take alittle time and think about it (some people get it and some don't it seems). Try and think of color as a interpetation of light frequencies the mind uses, or think about people who are color blind it is all in the mind, either thier mind supplies the color or else they are color blind, I don't know how many ways I can say it to make you get, the fact that we make the color up in our mind, light frequency has no color in it.
OK I will try a again when we see blue does that mean the photons hitting our retina are blue, and when we see red it is red photons? No it is light waves of a certain lenght (lengths of waves are not color), that cause our minds to assign them the color, or if we are color blind,, shades of black, gray or white.
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SixofNine
It's not that I don't "get it", it's that I think you and AuldSoul are insane.
(lengths of waves are not color),
A "dodge truck" is not a dodge truck, it's merely two words that label what we have come to know as a dodge truck, built by a company which has taken on the label "dodge".
A blue ray dvd is not ever going to be made using a red light source. You can get a group of yahoos together, perhaps on JWD, and start talking about this cool new "red-ray dvd" technology as some sort of short school bus object lesson, but the engineers and Sony corporation are going to have to keep using light in the blue spectrum to succesfully make their products work.
Try and think of color as a interpetation of light frequencies the mind uses
Try to think of the song "She's a Rainbow" as an interpretation of sound frequencies the mind uses.
OK I will try a again when we see blue does that mean the photons hitting our retina are blue, and when we see red it is red photons? No it is light waves of a certain lenght (lengths of waves are not color),
When we hear "she comes in colors everywhere", does that mean that Mick Jaggers voice has actually touched our eardrums, his tongue in our ear? No, it is a vibration of a certain wavelength (lengths of of waves are not sound.... er...wait..)
The "blue" photons are behaving distinctly different than the "red" photons.
Do you have some problem with the following definition?:
definable in terms of the observer or of the light, as:
- The characteristics of light by which the individual is made aware of objects or light sources through the receptors of the eye, described in terms of dominant wavelength, luminance, and purity.