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zomgmouse	1048833.  Fri Jan 17, 2014 6:29 pm So we perceive what isn't there - so what? We perceive it, therefore it is there. To us. Hallucinations exist and don't exist at the same time - depending on whom to.
Leith	1048847.  Fri Jan 17, 2014 7:33 pm gruff5 wrote: the perception by us of white light is interesting. Our brains have evolved so that when all the colours of the spectrum are there, we perceive it as a neutral, non-coloured, light. Neat trick. The nature of colour vision is endlessly fascinating but, if anything, our designation of neutral colours* seems logical to me in a way that our perception of other colours isn't. If our system of vision has evolved to detect differences in light levels between one frequency band and another, then it feels natural that the default 'no information' cases should be those in which each of our different types of colour receptor is equally stimulated or equally unstimulated. Constrast this with the baffling complexity of attempting to identify physical properties that correspond to an object being perceived as 'red' or 'green' with such remarkable consistency across our species. * I'm assuming that treating black and white as neutral colours is a universal trait, though I don't know for certain that this is true across all cultures.
gruff5	1048861.  Sat Jan 18, 2014 12:44 am zomgmouse wrote: We perceive it, therefore it is there. Descartes couldn't have put it better! zomgmouse wrote: Hallucinations exist and don't exist at the same time - depending on whom to. Interesting philosophical point. Is the existence of the colour red a mass hallucination by the (non-colour blind) human species?
alexander	1048918.  Sat Jan 18, 2014 8:49 am [quote="gruff5"] zomgmouse wrote: We perceive it, therefore it is there. Descartes couldn't have put it better! Does that mean that things we do not perceive are not there? What about zero? Zero is something we have "invented" but I am not sure that we fully understand it. Or, what about a being without start or end? Do we perceive that? And if we can't perceive the "no start" and "no end" parts, do we admit its existence or we discard it altogether? Until recently, other than the three known dimensions were out of the question.
GuyBarry	1048933.  Sat Jan 18, 2014 10:01 am Interesting discussion, but why is it in the "QI Games" section?
zomgmouse	1049035.  Sat Jan 18, 2014 7:42 pm alexander wrote: Does that mean that things we do not perceive are not there? What about zero? Zero is something we have "invented" but I am not sure that we fully understand it. We can perceive the absence of something and can categorise it as such. e.g. a hole, or a pit. We can say "there is a hole", but we can say this because a hole is defined by the lack of something.
alexander	1052500.  Fri Jan 31, 2014 8:58 am Hi guys. I've been away for a while. I actually came to a rather sad conclusion. There is so much misery around me, that I decided to DO something about it rather than exercising cheap philosophy. So, if you have the chance to help someone, just do it. Sacrifice that little spare time you have to HELP someone. A useful quote. "As I'm getting older, I stop listening to what people have to say, and start noticing what they actually do". just a friendly advice. King regards Alexander
WordLover	1055001.  Tue Feb 11, 2014 2:43 am alexander wrote: Does that mean that things we do not perceive are not there? What about zero? Zero is something we have "invented" but I am not sure that we fully understand it. No more than, say, two. You can perceive two pens or two knocks on the door, but you can't perceive two.
gruff5	1055029.  Tue Feb 11, 2014 5:12 am 2

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