Seeing Is Believing: How the Brain Interprets Vision

[DnDEntertainmentOk]

Then what he is saying is subjective as well.

[MsSandmaster]

He reminds me of mr burns from simpsons srsly! O.o

[beenthere888]

what is happening

[Kalaslk]

erm...

[tmccart]

so what exactly is omitting these wavelengths? I am some what comprehensive of eyes decoding reflections..but what is distributing these frequencies? 

[killuminati91112]

@tmccart I think it's light our eye's pick up the waves that causes you to see colour and your scens's pick up what you have been told is assosiated to that image and as we know light is all around us thats why we have night and day and so on.

[DeePhlat]

He needs a laser pointer

[martiangrundy]

Come on Beau, turn it in M8.

Put yer chest away, me old darlin.

He must get warm under the lights, he always has his shirt half done up:-)

He is pretty good though, I quite like his style and delivery.

[ELLEONTHEJUDA07]

True! this may not be directly connected but, think about how our brain processes the senses of taste and smell, in conjunction with our eyes. For example, in this one Restaurant , you eat blind folded while in complete darkness. The result is a more dramatic savoring experience. Our brain learns from what it sees. Cool vid!

[acr08807]

If you're blindfolded, what's the point of keeping the restaurant dark?

[ELLEONTHEJUDA07]

You might cheat and see what they bring you. I think you give them a list of your top 5 fav dishes and , tell them if you are allergic to anything, when you make your reservations. The waiters use head flash-lights. Pretty cool huh?

[acr08807]

Why would anyone go there then cheat?

[ELLEONTHEJUDA07]

LOL! Why getting on a roller-coaster knowing what's going to happen to your blood preassure?... I don't know acr...Our brain is full of mysteries right?. I'd be more than glad to find this place for you or just watch the Travel-Ch.

Later.

[chopin65]

So if what we see is based on what we have seen, then it would follow that a blind person would be helpless for some time on regaining his or her sight?

[martiangrundy]

Yes it seems that's just how it is.

We don't tend to realise, because we learn it at a very young age. But yes a baby has to learn how to see, as it were. Or rather learn how to interpret the signals received from the eye.

An example is, our eyes are merely a simple lens, thus the image is actually inverted, our brains re invert the "image" in our heads, and we're non the wiser.

It never ceases to amaze me, when I hear people talking about how "seeing is believing", and "trusting ones eyes".

[justforwatchingcraps]

reality is a mystery...way stranger than anything we can imagine, i love this stuff

[stevegrello]

another example would be when the spanish ships approached the coasts of mexico, they could not see the ships because their brain had nothing to match the images against in their known world. If effect, they could not see a galleon that was on the horizon until the shaman told them what was appearing on the horizon and describing it to them. These shamans developed the image matches from the shamanic visions they encounter thier trances and in their other states of consciousness.

[m0nkeybl1tz]

Excellent analogy.

[m0nkeybl1tz]

No, his point is that we don't actually SEE anything. Or, rather, everything we see, we interpret.  Which means even what you see with your own eyes is subjective, and prone to bias.

[stevegrello]

Yes even what we believe as good or true is open for interpretation, obviously.

Each one of us has our own perception of things. thanks

[stevegrello]

you see information, everything your brain encounters, sight, smell, touch, etc is just information and your computer interprets them and uses your software, like culture and your previous experiences to inrepret the situation etc.

[stevegrello]

yes you are right I was actually trying to add another point that he really did not discuss.. I am so proud of myself, LOL

[stevegrello]

The point is that there are other things to see that are right in front of you that you cannot perceive, but just because you can't see them does not mean they are not there. ie: other dimensions, ghosts, ufo's entities, even other colors such as infrared. We know infared exists but we cannot see it, get it????

[mattghtpa]

Interesting, you are expounding on the very concept by which the speaker is trying to subtly convey, that such things as what is commonly describe as unexplainable or paranormal events i.e. ghosts, shadow figures, ufos, things that might be very real, yet technologically undetectable because these events are not only far outside our physical perception, but that out brains are lacking the necessary adaptations to process the additional senses required.

And you were down voted.

Sad.

[xBuscopanx]

cool stuff! Just as with "seeing" purple: a purple wavelength does not actually exist, so what we perceive as purple, actually isn`t

[acr08807]

Please, save the bad science for creation science meetings.

We perceive light in the 400 to 450 nm range as purple. So purple wavelengths do exist.

[xBuscopanx]

I thought they range between blue and red, and that the "color circle" is not actually closed but so interpreted by the brain

The creation science meeting comment hurt

[xBuscopanx]

I did a short wiki search and apparently there is a difference between violett (the color we perceive at the lower spectrum ~400 nm) and purple (a mixture of red and blue wavelengths).

Duh.

[acr08807]

Could you point me to a picture of a purple object for which no single visible wavelength can reproduce the purple color?

We have red and blue receptors in our eyes, but no purple receptors. Pure purple light activates both the red and blue receptors. That's why we can't distinguish pure purple light from mixed red and blue light using only our eyes. Nevertheless, there are pure purple wavelengths, and we perceive them as purple.

Duh.

[felixthehuman]

There is a difference between color (in general) and and the specific colors which correspond to wavelengths of light. The difference between the two is the non-spectral colors, of which purple (in its technical sense) is one. Since purple is also used a generic term for purple+violet, I'll give you another example:

white

duh.

Which is not to agree with the idea that a color doesn't exist just because it doesn't correspond to one particular wavelength of light.

[acr08807]

We weren't discussing white. Or black or gray. All other colors, however, including purple, are in the spectrum.

I think I understand why we disagree, now. You're a moron. Duh.

I'll gladly apologize for calling you a moron if you'll simply point me to a picture with a shade of purple that can't be reconstructed using a single wavelength of light. If I'm wrong, why is that so hard for you to do?

[felixthehuman]

I know what you were discussing, you were discussing purple which, as I mentioned, technically refers to those colors obtained by mixing red and blue/violet wavelengths, so do not correspond to just one particular wavelength. All this info is readily available, for instance in the Wikipedia article on either purple or spectral color, along with the pictures you so futilely demand we produce in a text only environment.

[acr08807]

Lord, save me from Wikipedia scholars.

felix, you are blowing smoke out of your ass, The concept of the color purple has been around a lot longer than the concept of the spectrum. And there is a single wavelength that can reproduce the color of any mixture of visible light of two other wavelengths.

It is futile to ask for a picture, because one doesn't exist. 'Plus, even if it did--and it doesn't--you're too dense to figure out, in a text only environment, how to point someone to it.

[acr08807]

I took a look at some of the references cited in the Wikipedia and, sure enough, there are purples that don't correspond to a single wavelength of light. As I promised, I apologize for calling you a moron. Turns out I'm the moron.

[HalfFullYeah]

He's got a great name!

Beau Lotto!

Saw him on TedTalks...

Interesting, but lack of practical examples, which probably explains Bilpayne's «Who cares» comment.

[bilpayne]

who cares

[diomedes39]

this talk was pretty pointless. why is it surprising to some people that any of this is the case? isn't all that obvious?

[Michigan1985]

Wow. Crazy. Very interesting stuff.