What is "real"?

[Kid Afrika]

I wear glasses or lenses to see, but how do I know that I am seeing things as they are meant to be seen?

Colors are the residual effect of light bouncing off of objects in our world. But, the light source must have some influence on color, so what is the true color of anything? Afterall, everythig is black, in the dark.

[Ken'sPen]

the answer is:
either there is no true color to anything.
or the color it is by an accepted standard ie. seen with pure white light in a vacuum.

[Hey Ladi]

I asked myself the same thing once, after a weekend of :fuggin: :fuggin: :fuggin:

[SLASH]

Afterall, everythig is black, in the dark.

Ever try smiling once in a while? :roflmao:

[Keyser Soze]

Don't you think that such intricate science proves the existance of some kind of higher power?

[virgingrrl]

beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
i just got my new glasses and contacts yesterday...and i now have x-ray vision

[2 tired 2 give N F]

i just got my new glasses and contacts yesterday...and i now have x-ray vision

And to answer your question Kid I'd have to quote the man in your sig :thumbs-up:. Actually though reality can't be what we see, feel, taste, touch, and smell because what if you're not seeing, smelling, etc. the same things I am. Then I'm in my own reality and you're not in the same one as me. So I think society tells us what reality is based on a consensus of what the majority seems to be seeing, smelling, etc. which is why I believe they put people, who can't tell the difference between their reality and the socially acceptable reality, in institutions.

[Ken'sPen]

looks like 2 tired has philosophy 101 this semester.

[TheGMANN]

to quote something of an Incubus song "New Skin" : "untill the 20th century , reality was everything humans could touch, see, smell, and hear, since the initial publication of the charted electromagnetic spectrum, humans have learned that what they can touch, see, smell and hear is less than one millionth of reality"


care:

[Doc]

::puts on Mr. Peabody hat::

OK, the light that we see has it characteristic color and brightness for a reason. Ty to follow me here, I'll try not to go too fast

OK, all atoms have electrons. They are these little tiny charged particles that whiz around the nucleus of every atom. One thing about all electrons, they have an "energy state". Think of it kind of like the amount of gas that is in the electrons fuel tank. All electrons in an atom have some amount of the energy, and this energy level determines what orbital the electron is in. An orbital is strange concept...I can explain it further if you want, but it might jsut confuse you now...but think of the orbital as a circular orbit (which it really is not) around the nucleus, just like the orbit of the Earth around the Sun.

If an electron has more energy, it moves into a higher energy level, it moves into a higher energy orbital. This would be like the Earth jumping from it's orbit now to one in a different place that is for higher energy planets.

Still with me?

OK, so what happens when light hits something? The answer is it smacks right into an electron. A tiny photon (the little packets of energy that light is made of) is actually absorbed by the electron. One thing that is important to realize is that light is made of tiny packets of energy, not like a continuous stream, but lots and lots of discrete little packages of energy that all come so fast that it LOOKS like there are continuous...but I digress

So, the electron absorbs this photon...what happens to the electron? It "gains" the energy that the photon had since no energy can be created or destroyed. So, what happens when an electron has more energy, it jumps to a higher energy level.

The problem is, electrons don't like being in places they shouldn't...they REALLY don't like it. So, as soon as the elctron jumps up there, it gets all uppity and wants to move back done to it's old home...but it can't, it has too much energy. It has to get rid of that energy somehow. What does it do, it releases that energy in the form of a photon. Yup, the electron emits it's own little packet of energy so it can move to a more comfortable place.

IMPORTANT THING: The color of a photon is determined by its frequency.

The trick of it is, it doesn't always release a photon of the same frequency. It might release two photons that have the same energy as the one that hit it. Sometimes it absorbs some energy and turns it into kinetic energy (speed or heat). So, you can get an electron that releases light of a different color than what hit it. The frequencies of the light released by electrons vary from one type of atom to the next, so different types of material may emit different kinds of light.

That is how an apple emits red light and an eggplant emits purple light when you shine a "white" light on both.

So, the colors that you see are frequencies of the light that the electrons on the atoms that are on the surface of the thing you are looking at.

If you want me to explain how your eyes "sees" color, give me some time, carpal tunnel is killing me now :crackhead:

[Maynard]

and i now have x-ray vision

Oh yeah? So then what color underwear am I wearing??? Huh??



Gee, thanks Doc. Now I have an aneurysm. uicide:

[Keyser Soze]

to quote something of an Incubus song "New Skin" : "untill the 20th century , reality was everything humans could touch, see, smell, and hear, since the initial publication of the charted electromagnetic spectrum, humans have learned that what they can touch, see, smell and hear is less than one millionth of reality"

Fellacious cognitions spewed from television do mold our decisions.

Doc, well done sir, I am enlightened. What color am I?

[Doc]

Doc, well done sir, I am enlightened. What color am I?

Depends what color (frequency) light I shine on you. I can even shine light on you that you can't see, but you can see what you emit.

That's how "black lights" work. You can't see the ultraviolet light that the bulbs give out because it is beyond the spectrum that your eyes can detect. But after it hits something like a white cotton T-shirt, the emitted color is at a frequency that makes it appears as bright white/purple

[Grumpy]

Hey doc, you lost me after you put on the hat. I too busy laughing at how retarded you look.

Afterall, everythig is black, in the dark.

So does that mean we're all African American after 9 PM? No wonder I can't get a cab at night.

[Doc]

I too busy laughing at how retarded you look.

Pot, meet kettle

[Sloatsburgh]

Well, if you were actually red and not black, then we would be calling you a Fucking Rougger

[Kid Afrika]

And what if, our perception is limited by our senses? What of theories that humans only use such a small percentage of our brains and thusly our level of comprehenson is quite small. Remember, that people once thought the world was flat. As our knowledge grows, so does our perspective. Science is all based on theory. A theory that is limited by the language and the people trying to convey it. I propose that even in our self-professed advanced intelligence, we lack a true knowledge of the world in which we live. There has got to be something that is more intelligent than us. Or, as my more sci-fi side believes, more intelligent beings might realize that flesh existance is futile and choose to exterminate their race to live in "spirit" form for eternity. Not that I believe in ghosts, but I can't believe that humans, as stupid as we are sometimes, are the most intelligent beings ever.

By the way doc, you are always good for the scientific explanation of things. I just tend to question the validity of "scientific fact". But, can you explain the phenomena of gyroscopes? How in the hell do they defy gravity?



Edited By Kid Afrika on April 12 2002 at 2:01

[2 tired 2 give N F]

Philosophy and English courses suck here cause it's a Tech school and those are liberal arts type classes.

I got most of the ideas for what I said from an English class though.

But, can you explain the phenomena of gyroscopes? How in the hell do they defy gravity?

[attempt at intelligence]Gravity is just a theory. Maybe, they disprove it.[/attempt at intelligence]



Edited By 2 tired 2 give N F on April 12 2002 at 2:07

[Grumpy]

ya know - I hate to turn serious on a thread (especially one of Kid's) but since we're diving into conceptual theories, here's a little bitty that a friend once tried to ponder.

He theorized that we are all actually already dead. What we perceive as being alive is actually our brains reinacting what WAS our life. His thought was that we live life at a speed that is conceptually quicker than what we think it is and that our brain functions even after we die. In essence, we are not conscious of our acts during our actual lives but instead our brain is catching up and revisiting what we did. What we say and what we do today has already been done and seen in a time frame before we died. So in essence, we are all already dead.

[2 tired 2 give N F]

That's kind of depressing Grumpy. I mean if I've already responded to this thread and my brain is just now catching up to type to you then why would I want to write this response. I mean if everything has already happened then I have no reason to truely consider choices and make decisions because they've already been made and so it's pointless to worry about it.