DarkCore> ALthough I do agree with aspects of what you said, harassing Omega is not justified. First, she is right that you need to defend your point of view with evidence and logic. Also: ANY scientist knows more about their own field than another (there is just too much out there for any one person to know). I happen to be a biologist. I don't know ANYTHING about the physics that Omega studies...
Yeah, when it's a few days old.
Edit: Answer to all this shit. It has been said in Revolutions:
"It's just a word"
Every word is a description of some sort of reaction at the atomic level. Simple enough. But for those who still don't follow:
Apple = a word used to describe a mass of atoms that forms a fruit which is created through a reaction.
Black = a word to describe a specific wavelength. But other people call this Noir, or Nur or whatever language they speak.
JediHDM> You can find me here, too http://ipsapp009.kluweronline.com/ips/frames/toc.asp?J=4779&I=50 with a colleague. 🙂
It’s a little hairy, it’s post-graduate physics stuff. But it’s the kind of physics I do.
TheOneHimself> 😄 Yeah, that’s me. And I agree 100 % with professor Hawkings. The scheme of my thesis was actually to set up a way of DISPROVING time-travel. (And just to make you happy F=ma ✅ )
Travel to the future is theoretically possible. Travel close to the speed of light and you’ll travel into the future RELATIVELY to everyone else. That’s not a problem. By time-travel we physicists always mean BACK in time.
BioLogos> Yes, it’s true that we’re TAUGHT that “that” wavelength is called red, and that wavelength is called blue. But I see no reason to believe, that nature goes to the trouble of making differently working receptors for each of us – and minute alterations, genetic faults etc. is a difference which we can see.
As you say, our brains probably interpret the wavelengths in the same way. Until a neurologists tells me differently I don’t see why our brains should WORK that different. We’re all homo sapiens, and our ability to corporate show that either we do really perceive in the same way -–or, if we do not, it is of no real concern to social interactions, work, life and so on 😄
And as for experiencing pressure as colour: Isn’t it so (I don’t know, I’m not a biologist) that I actually apply pressure to the colour-sensitive cells, who then TRANSLATE the pressure as colour?
As far as I can tell, the anomaly (that is downloaded in Neo’s brain, even when he’s unplugged), allows him to perceive the electromagnetic signals emitted by every machine connected to the Source. It does bear SOME resemblance to EM-patterns.
So just as the bee can see UV-light from birth, the new coding in Neo’s brain (the anomaly), gives Neo the ability to see magnetic fields and electric currents and energy.
DarkCore> Carl Sagan once said: “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.”
Where IS your proof? What BioLogos said is NOT what you said, no matter how much you try to change your original post (which is there for me and everyone else to read).
I’m not obliged to ”Figure out” what you mean. YOU are, however, obliged to put some proof on the table:
Prove that colours do not exist.
Prove that sound is a wavelength of the electromagnetic spectrum and that it does not exist.
Prove that one person’s red is another persons blue.
Prove, that touch does not exist, because if it did my fingers would MELD with the stuff i touched.
If you can't, get your teacher to supply me with proof. I've proved I am who I am. So come on...
Just to add to my post which I made yesterday:
Science is not hard to understand as I said, but what IS hard for some people is learning the new "words" which have been created to describe something which would otherwise take a paragraph or even a whole paper. This, is one of THE reasons The Architect uses the English Dictionary to precision. If he was to use "standard" English then it probably would have took him about 20 minutes to say what he said in only a few.
Here is an attempt (probably insufficient!) at clarification:
The absorbance by our eyes of a wavelength corresponding to “red” sets of a set of chemical reactions leading us to “experience” the color red. However, while the light is “real” and the set of chemical reactions is “real”, the experience “red” is a creation of our brain as it interprets these chemical signals that eventually end up as nerve impulses traveling through our optic nerves from our eyes. You see colors when you press on your eyes in the dark because these same chemical signals get turned on (unintentionally, I think) as the result of the pressure.
So, I guess I have to try to take a middle ground here. I agree that all humans who can see color most likely experience color in the same way (barring small differences). This supposition is based on the obvious fact that brains are extremely complicated, and any brain that was wired differently enough to experience color differently (due to mutation or developmental defect) would likely be pretty “messed up” in other ways as well (not able to communicate, etc., as Omega suggested).
>>However, color as an experience is a construct of our brains.
Omega suggested that when you see colors from pressing on your eyes, this is because the pressure is translated into color. She is correct. However, the main point that I am trying to make is that absorbance of light is ALSO “translated” into the experience of color! This may be hard to swallow, but here is something to consider – dolphins can “see” with their sonar. This is obvious, because they can distinguish different shapes, even objects of different densities, with their eyes blindfolded, and can navigate through mazes without sight. What do they “see” when they are using their sonar? For all we know, their brains interpret these sonar signals as a type of color, or at least a type of vision. I have NO idea whether there is any evidence for this, but the point is that there is no necessary connection between the type of stimulus and the experience.
So, to get back to The Matrix: I find it quite reasonable that some unique machinery/coding in Neo’s brain (the anomaly, although I have to admit that I am confused about how this is there when he is not plugged in) could allow him to perceive magnetic fields/electric currents and have this “translated” into the experience of light. I would imagine these fields/currents would look quite a bit different than they appeared in the movie (Omega could tell us more about this) but I will cut the Brothers some slack on that problem.
Oh well. I have to go ponder the wonders of microtubule dynamics. I would rather go to the movies… 🙁