From: ian glendinning (psybertron@gmail.com)
Date: Sun Jul 10 2005 - 11:17:24 BST
Scott,
I stand by the physics criticisms (which was my only criticism) ...
the involvement of our "seeing" (direct or interpreted) is no
different whether we are looking at a tree or a rainbow - my only
point ...
But one of us must indeed have misunderstood what he says about seeing
and hearing ...
He quite clearly says (to me) we literally only hear (sense with our
ears) sounds. We interpret "thrushes singing" in our minds. (Ditto for
sight) And I agree with him, or I've misunderstood him.
We are just talking about the bleedin obvious ... there is an
immediate sense and an interpreted sense involved in any "sensing".
((ie Our aural sense organ responds to 440Hz pressure variations
directly, we interpret middle-C in relation to some scale of tonality
in our brains.)
Ian
On 7/9/05, Scott Roberts <jse885@localnet.com> wrote:
> Ian,
>
> (Note: I sent a slightly different version of this post a few days ago, but
> due to switching ISP's it appears to have been lost. So here it is again, I
> hope)
>
> Ian said:
> Despite claiming to be a fan of Barfield (on the strength of Poetic
> Diction and History in English Words) I hadn't read Saving the
> Appearances until I saw all his "particles" floating past in a couple
> of recent threads.
>
> I couldn't comment so I just had to read it. In fact I've had the book
> for ages, and now recall why I stopped reading it. His physics is
> completely wrong.
>
> Scott:
> From what follows it appears that you are mistaking what he is saying, but
> I'm not sure what you are saying, so...
>
> Ian said:
> He's right that "trees" are more "tangible" than "rainbows" (they do
> more than interact with light for a start). Metaphorically both are
> made of "particles', but quite a different mix of particles on quite
> different physical levels. He's right that we only see light, and we
> only hear sound, everything else is "mental" (alpha or beta thinking).
>
> Scott:
> Actually, he points out that we mainly see trees and hear thrushes, not
> light and sound, though in special cases we could say we only see light
> (example: lightening), or hear sound (something completely new to our
> experience). He does NOT say that everything else, e.g., photons, are
> "mental", though of course it requires thinking and experimenting to infer
> the reality and characteristics of photons.
>
> Ian said:
> But his Netwonian, classical, physics is completely up the creek.
>
> Scott:
> This is a bizarre claim. Isn't he criticizing Newtonian physics for assuming
> that the contents of sense experience have an existence completely
> independent of the observer? Isn't this assumption responsible for the idea
> of Newtonian absolute space and time? I guess I am unclear of what Newtonian
> premises you accuse him of maintaining.
>
> Ian said:
> There is nothing about a rainbow that depends on human (or any
> animalian) eyes seeing, in order for it to exist, individual or
> shared, any more than a tree.
>
> Scott:
> He does not deny the existence of the raindrops, or the light waves (or
> photons) that come about when the sun shines on the drops. All he is saying
> is that the sense experience of seeing a rainbow only happens when an eye is
> focused in the right direction, and that that experience is that of a
> rainbow, not of light waves. Same with a tree, though one can also touch a
> tree. Without the focused eye there is no thing of the size, shape, and
> color that we call a rainbow. So this has nothing to do with good or bad
> physics. In fact, it has nothing to do with a particular sort of physics at
> all. It is about
> distinguishing between what we can talk about supposing the absence of an
> observer and what we call objects of sense perception, like rainbows and
> trees.
>
> Ian said:
> The refracted light from rainbows is
> more "diffuse" and "non-localised" than the reflected light from a
> tree, but the light rays (photon streams whatever) are as real in both
> cases, whether eyes exist to see them or not.
>
> Scott:
> As I said, he does not deny the reality of the light rays. He is only saying
> that we don't experience them as such with our senses.
>
> Ian said:
> (All the stuff about
> where in space and relative to distant hills and hands in your field
> of view is garbage - poetic, but garbage none-the-less.) I can make a
> rainbow between me and this computer screen (or behind it) by blowing
> a raspberry in the right place. And so can you.
>
> Scott:
> How is that relevant? He wouldn't deny that you can create the conditions in
> which a rainbow can be experienced. But the rainbow as a colorful sensation
> requires a nervous system, though the light rays do not.
>
> Ian said:
> His stuff about hearing due to having ears, rather than sensing sound
> waves, is suspiciously close to the same evolutionary fallacy that no
> being could see (sense light) until the eyeball had come to exist.
> Just plain wrong creationist meme.
>
> Scott:
> But we don't "sense sound waves". We hear tones. When the violinist plays an
> A above middle C do you experience 440 events each second? If you sensed
> sound waves, that is what you would experience. But you don't. The 440
> events per second are real, but not directly sensed.
>
> Ian said:
> Should I read on past Chapter 4 (Participation) or does it all depend
> on his erroneous start ? SO So sad. Poor Mr Barfield, such a promising
> poetic start too.
>
> Scott:
> In summary, I am quite perplexed as to what you see his erroneous start to
> be.
>
> - Scott
>
>
>
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