#objective reality

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

An interesting demonstration of how the human brain works.

But also something of a lesson regarding perception, and the unreliability of subjective perspective versus objective reality.

You can be extremely certain about how you perceive the world, your "lived experience," that which you "feel it in my heart." But that doesn't mean it's actually true. And it doesn't mean we have to endorse it, or ignore or outright deny objective reality.

That's a "you" thing, not a "we" thing.

[carionto]

This has probably been transcribed before but I don't know what tags to find it under, so imma just do it again cuz this kind of stuff feels very relevant to know, more evidence that Humans are weird as fuck and our brains just make shit up. [Twitter thread by user named foone as a long image I stumbled upon on Pinterest]: _______________________________

You want to know something about how bullshit our brains are? OK, so there's a physical problem with out eyes: We move them in short fast bursts called "saccades", right? very quick, synchronized movements. The only problem is: they go all blurry and useless during this

Having your vision turn into a blurry mess every time you move your eyes is obviously not a good idea, so our brains hide it from us. Now imagine you're an engineer and you have this problem

You've got some obvious solutions you could do.

make the vision go black during movement. (Some VR games do this!)

just keep showing the last thing we saw prior to movement

Both are good options with different downsides, but OH NO. this is assuming everything makes sense and is chronological and (regular) logical.

Your brain does neither of these options, really.

First, it basically puts your visual system on "pause".

You're not seeing blackness or even nothing, you're just not seeing period.

then when you finish your saccade, it shows you what you now see at the new position. and then it pretends it can time travel.

It seriously shows you the image at the new point, but time-shifts it backwards so that it seems like you were seeing it the whole time your eyes were moving.

And because your brain is not a computer with a consistent clock, this shit works.

You can see this effect happen if you watch an analog clock with a second hand.

Look away (with just your eyes, not your head), then look back to the second hand.

It'll seem like it takes longer than a second to move, then resumes moving as normal.

That's because your freaking visual system just lied to you about HOW LONG TIME IS in order to cover up the physical limitations of those chemical camera orbs you have on the front of your face.

We've known about this effect for over 100 years, it's called "Saccadic masking" and more specifically Chronostasis. Your visual system lies to you about WHEN things happen by up to half a second (!) just to avoid saccades blurring everything.

So while I firmly believe we're basically just overgrown biological computers, we're apparently computers programmed by batshit insane drunkards in Visual Basic 5.

And you might think "hey wait, wouldn't my vision 'pausing' for half a second have all kinds of weird effects on moving objects? why don't they appear to stutter when moving?"

and the answer is simple! your brain has EVEN MORE UGLY HACKS on top of this to avoid you seeing that

If you've got a clock where the second hand doesn't "tick" but instead smoothly rotates, you won't see this. Because your brain recognizes it's moving and adjusts what you see to make sure it sees the "right" thing.

It's only really obvious with periodically moving things like a clock hand, because it's not moving (so not triggering the movement-during-chronostasis hack) but it moves at a set rate, so you can notive that rate appearing to change.

It's tempting to think of your eyes and visual system as a camera just dumping a video feed into your conscious brain but taht's so very, very not the case. What you think you see and what your eyes can actually see are two exceptionally different things.

The big obvious one being the blind spot. Vertebrate eyes are wired backwards so we've got a blind spot in each eye where the enrves enter into the eye. About 6 degrees of your vision in each eye is just not there, as there's no light sensitive cells there.

Do you see a blind spot, right now? No, you probably don't. Close one eye! There's now no way for the other eye to fill in the gaps. Still, no blind spot… Your visual system is lying, and making up content it thinks is there. You literally cannot see what you think you see.

Here's another one: You can see in color, right? (well, some of you can't. Sorry) You can see in color all throughout your vision, it's color everywhere?

Well, most of the cone cells (Which are sensitive to color) are in the fovea, a little spot in the center of your vision.

So outside of that center-of-vision spot, you have very little color perception. There's some but it's very limited compared to your main color vision. But I bet if you shift your attention to your peripheral vision right now, it's in color.

Your vision system is lying. It's remembering what colors things are and guessing and filling in the gaps. It's basically doing a Ted Turner colorization process on your non-central vision.

There's even weird effects like what's called "Action-specific perception". If you get a bunch of white balls of various sizes and toss them at people then ask them to estimate the size of the balls thrown at them, they'll have a certain size estimate, right?

Now repeat the experiment but ask them to try to hit the balls back with a bat, and suddenly all the estimates shift larger. They actually see the ball as bigger because they need to hit it. Their vision is exaggerating it to make it easier to see!

Which just goes to show, like I said, your vision is not a camera. Perfect accuracy is not one of its goals. It does not give any shits about "objective reality", that's not important.

What's important to the evolution of the visual system is any trick that helps you survive, no matter how "dumb" or "weird" it is.

So if you want an accurate visual representation of what things look like? Use a camera. Not your eyes.

In any case the original point was that while you might know this about your eyes being poor cameras that lie to you, you might still think that at least they're consistent, time-wise. They don't screw with your sense of time passing, just to make up for visual defects. NOPE!

If you can't get it don in time, turn back the clock and pretend you did. That's a perfectly good solution when you're the visual system.

BTW @/hierarchon reminded me of a neat trick with saccadic masking: go look in a hand mirror. No matter how close you bring it to your eyes, and how much you look around, you will never see your eyes move. You're blind during those movements. But you still think you are seeing.

She additionally pointed out that your phone's selfie-mode is NOT a mirror, and it has a slight delaye, so you can see your eyes moving in it.

And for fun, here's wikipedia's example of the blindspot. Stare at L with only your left eye, adjust the distance, and the R will disappear. You don't see "nothing" or "black", you see the background, because you expect to.

This is why laser damage your retina can be so insidious. Your visual system already can hide "holes" in your vision, what's one more to hid? So you damage a small spot of your retina and your visual system covers it up.

But since you didn't go "WELL THAT WAS TERRIBLE I BETTER TAKE BETTER CARE OF MY EYES" and stop fucking with lasers, you keep doing it. Eventually you accumulate so much damage that your visual system simply cannot manage hiding it all and your vision rapidly degrades.

The other reason lasers are so dangerous is that they don't necessarily trigger the same responses as regular incoherent light. Your pupil reflex is only triggered by some special cells in the center of your eye, so an off-center laser might not cause your iris to contract.

And infrared laser light is just as dangerous as visible laser light, but can't trigger your blink reflex. Your eyes automatically close when exposed to bright light, but they can't detect infrared light. Despite not seeing it, it still causes damage.

Anyway, back on how amazing and crazy your vision is: There was an experiment back in 1890 where someone wore glasses made with mirrors in them to flip their vision. After about 8 days, they could see just fine with them on. Their vision system had started "flipping" the image.

(I say flipping in quotes because it's not as simple as it started showing the pixels at the top row on the bottom row, cause our vision doesn't work like that) It only took them a few hours to get back to normal after taking these glasses off, though.

The last really fun part about this flipping experiment: your eyes already do it. Based on how our vision is wired, we should be seeing everything upside down.

We don't, but only because our visual system has had a whole life to adapt to this.

BTW, since a few people have brought it up: There's a great sci-fi novel by Peter Watts called Blindsight. In it humans encounter an an alien race they call Scramblers, who can move very fast and precisely, and they exploit saccades.

Because if they only move during saccades, we never see them moving. And since so much of our vision is based on just filling in what we think is there, if they stay out of the direct center of our vision, we'll just visually fill them in, like they were never there.

Check it out if you're into hard SF stories of first contact. It's got some really neat ideas about human vision, very unique aliens, the future of humanity in the face of perfect VR, and vampires. (Really, it has "vampires", while still being hard-SF)

BTW, remember how I said "vertebrate eyes" up there? Guess who has eyes which are wired forwards instead of backwards (have no blindspot), have an internal lens, and can even see polarization of light? Our good friends the Cephalopods!

[privatejoker]

i think sometimes people (mgs fans) read (certain) war novels watch (certain) films and see the character conventions of like hypermasculine bleak funny tough guy and take it too seriously lend it too much credibility when working on their own personal characterizations if you make any of these characters act like rambo i am blowing up a small town

[w-armansky-blog]

Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free

John 8:32

[bogexpert55]

Размышления о концепциях гиперэкзистенциализма и постромантизма.

Размышляя о концепциях гиперэкзистенциализма и депрессивного постромантизма, я обнаруживаю, что меня заинтриговали общие темы, возникающие в этих, казалось бы, несопоставимых движениях. Интересно наблюдать, как и гиперэкзистенциалисты, и постромантики отвергают внешние источники смысла и цели, вместо этого подчеркивая важность индивидуального опыта. Это говорит о глубоком скептицизме в отношении способности внешних сил обеспечить истинное удовлетворение в жизни. Кроме того, оба движения, кажется, отражают отчуждение и отчаяние перед лицом современного мира. Будь то гиперрационализация и технологизация мира в гиперэкзистенциализме или индустриализация и урбанизация мира в постромантизме, оба движения, кажется, выражают глубоко укоренившееся отторжение от мира и его ценностей. Это отключение можно рассматривать как реакцию на быстрые изменения, происходящие в обществе. Интересно что эти два движения имеют схожие темы, несмотря на то, что возникли в разных исторических контекстах. Изучая сходства и различия между гиперэкзистенциализмом и депрессивным постромантизмом, мы можем глубже понять состояние человека и поиск смысла в мире, который часто кажется лишенным его.

Какой в этом смысл? В том что происходит…

Допустим постромантик, постепенно превращается в гиперэкзистенциалиста, вполне вероятно, что он будет воспринимать мир как лишенный внутреннего смысла или цели. Постромантист может видеть мир как мрачное и меланхоличное место, наполненное борьбой и страданиями человеческого бытия. По мере того как гиперэкзистенциалист закончит свой инкубационный период, он скорее всего прийдёт к выводу, что мир в основе своей абсурден и бессмысленен, не имеет внутренней цели или направления. Но также абстрагируясь можно сделать вывод, что это восприятие мира как бессмысленного не обязательно является объективной реальностью, а скорее субъективной интерпретацией мира. Хотя ему может показаться, что мир лишен смысла, в конечном счете это его субъективный опыт и интерпретация. Более того, вопрос о смысле бытия веками озадачивал философов и мыслителей, и на него нет простого ответа.

Иногда может показаться, что мир бессмысленен. Тогда важно оставаться открытым для возможности обнаружения смысла и цели, шанс обнаружить что то иногда заключается всего лишь в смене ракурса видимого что может привести к обнаружению границ а так же выхода за их пределы.

Reflections on the concepts of hyperexistentialism and post-romanticism.

Reflecting on the concepts of hyperexistentialism and depressive post-romanticism, I find that I am intrigued by the common themes that arise in these seemingly disparate movements. It is interesting to observe how both hyperexistentialists and post-romantics reject external sources of meaning and purpose, instead emphasizing the importance of individual experience. This speaks to a deep skepticism regarding the ability of external forces to provide true satisfaction in life. Additionally, both movements seem to reflect alienation and despair in the face of the modern world. Whether it is the hyper-rationalization and technologization of the world in hyperexistentialism or the industrialization and urbanization of the world in post-romanticism, both movements seem to express a deeply rooted rejection of the world and its values. This disconnection can be seen as a reaction to the rapid changes happening in society. It is interesting that these two movements have similar themes despite arising in different historical contexts. By studying the similarities and differences between hyperexistentialism and depressive post-romanticism, we can gain a deeper understanding of the human condition and the search for meaning in a world that often seems devoid of it.

What is the meaning behind all of this? It lies in what is happening...

Suppose a post-romantic gradually transforms into a hyperexistentialist. It is quite likely that they will perceive the world as lacking in internal meaning or purpose. The post-romantic may see the world as a gloomy and melancholic place filled with the struggles and sufferings of human experience. As the hyperexistentialist completes their incubation period, they are more likely to conclude that the world is fundamentally absurd and meaningless, lacking in internal purpose or direction. However, abstracting from this, it can be concluded that this perception of the world as meaningless is not necessarily an objective reality, but rather a subjective interpretation of the world. Although it may seem to them that the world is devoid of meaning, ultimately it is their subjective experience and interpretation. Furthermore, the question of the meaning of existence has puzzled philosophers and thinkers for centuries, and there is no simple answer to it.

Sometimes it may seem like the world is meaningless. It is important to remain open to the possibility of discovering meaning and purpose. The chance to discover something often lies in simply changing one's perspective, which can lead to discovering boundaries as well as stepping beyond them.

[web3-defi-crypto]

The Abstract VR is a virtual reality metaverse project powered by cloud computing, it was developed by Objective Reality Games and has been built for scalability to accommodate an impressive roadmap.  The Metaverse has a very beautiful design, and a lot of work has been put into the visual presentation of the virtual world.

A powerful social virtual reality world powered by cloud computing with the highest gaming specs available.  The Abstract VR Metaverse has a powerful Web3 ecosystem powered by Evergrow Coin as the official metaverse digital currency.  

No more downloading games, or buying expensive gaming hardware and machines, the Cloud provides all the computing power.  Speaking of games, The Abstract VR metaverse provides a large arcade of VR games.  Dozens of games are available with more titles being added in the future, The Abstract VR could very well be the go-to metaverse arcade we've been waiting for.

[axyya]

Objectively there are only 6 colors in the world and yes this is a hill i'm willing to die on

[deepikabatra22]

Best Career Objective for Resume

Creating a killer career objective for resume is a must for job seekers! It's like your roadmap, outlining your professional dreams and the kind of job you're after. To make it stand out, start by clarifying your ambitions, specifying the role you want, and highlighting the skills you bring to the table.

Craft an opening that's not just good but downright captivating – tailor it to the job and company you're eyeing. Show off what makes you unique by shining a spotlight on your strengths.

And here's the trick – find that sweet spot between confidence and humility. Think of it like telling a good story; it should flow smoothly. Sprinkle in those job-related keywords because those applicant tracking systems are picky.

Keep it short and sweet, no need for extra fluff. Wrap it up on a high note by summing up your strengths and letting them know you're pumped about the chance to rock it and contribute to their success. it's Time to shine.

[fishstewarding]

A well produced video...

[thearbourist]

Parental Rights Coalition of Canada - The September Declaration

These principles seem to be formed on the objective material we all share. They are a step in the right direction. Statement of Principles – The September Declaration This document is intended to be a minimal set of principles that are commonly agreed to by all individuals and organizations participating in the Parents Rights Coalition of Canada. While the interests of various participants may…

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

"I feel god in my heart," and "my lived experience." Religions and ideologies.

[toriz0]

art forms ranked

1. music

2. pro wrestling

3. theatre

4. movies

5. video games

6. sculptures and woodwork and pottery omg ^_^

7. graffiti

8. cirque du soleil

9. books

10. sex

11. posts

12. food

13. tattoos

14. animated shows

15. poetry

16. dance

17. clothes

18. paintings and drawings

19. websites

20. philosophy

21. architecture

22. tabletop games

23. comics

24. tv shows

25. cars

26. photography

[bravecrab]

It's wild that transphobes/homophobes think that queer people are delusional and/or mentally ill, when they're the ones who are rejecting a material reality that's right in front of them.

Transgender people shouldn't exist? But they do, so you're wrong. Non-binary isn't a thing? Yeah it actually is. Gay people are just confused? Nah bro. The world is supposed to just be cishet people walking around? Never has been. Maybe you need to get some therapy.

[wandering-neko]

Ooo I like this one

[carolinemillerbooks]

New Post has been published on Books by Caroline Miller

New Post has been published on https://www.booksbycarolinemiller.com/musings/we-are-the-stuff-of-dreams/

We Are The Stuff Of Dreams

I felt as if I’d dropped down Alice’s rabbit hole. The daughter of friends I’d known for years had one name, but I’d called her by another. I even invented a tag to remember it as we seldom meet: “M is for music.”  As it turns out, the girl’s name doesn’t start with “M.” I’m not the only one beguiled by a falsehood. Forty-five percent of Americans think vaccines are unsafe.  Frankly, social platforms make knowing what’s real and what’s not difficult. Even science can be ambiguous. First, it must know what reality we’re looking for–one governed by classical physics or quantum mechanics? Though the question may pose a conundrum, I’m heartened to know our brains are equipped to include both forms of logic. More than a maze of tissue and electrical impulses, the human brain outperforms any computer because it also endows us with creativity and imagination. Most wonderous of all, it bestows consciousness. What consciousness is or where it resides is a mystery. Recent information suggests it’s found in the quantum world.  According to scientists, spinning isotopes in the brain and the heart may form entanglements that lead to that other reality.   Piercing the veil of the quantum connection is complicated because when we seek to observe or measure it, we change conditions such that objectivity becomes impossible. “An objective reality, devoid of the actions of an observer, does not appear to exist in any sort of fundamental way.”  If true, this premise could be regarded as a law of the universe.  If so, scientists wonder if a “hidden” order lies below the quantum flux. If it exists, this underlying order could be the link that unifies quantum and classical physics–not to mention other mind-boggling possibilities. True lies, alternative truths, and fake news could be real in some corner of the universe. Some of us accept that possibility already. More than  3.2 million viewers believe Tucker Carlson’s commentaries are based on facts. One in five Americans is a QAnon follower.   If thinking makes it so,  it’s little wonder that lies are gaining a semblance of respectability. For example, writer Morgan Meaker in “See No Evil,” (Wired, Dec/Jan 2022-2023, pg. 22-23.) reveals one dirty little secret of commerce. When companies pay advertisers according to the number of clicks left on their page, they have no assurance the clicks are from customers or bots. Does it matter? Not really. The illusion of heavy traffic becomes a magnet in itself.    Perhaps I’ll use cybercrooks to generate high sales numbers for my memoir Getting Lost to Find Home once it’s released next November. If accuracy is unimportant, then I can make my dream of writing a bestseller come true.  

[qvincvnx]

that article about interpretation / description has gotten this piece stuck in my head. YOU SIR ARE A SPACE TOO