Pligget

As far as we're aware, we're surrounded by them. Wherever you look you see light and the things it illuminates. You hear sounds coming from all around you. Our eyes, ears and brain tell us they're all out there. We experience light and sound as things that exist out there, separate from us.

Not true. There's only one place where light and sound exist. In your head. They're your invention.

Think about the night sky on a clear night. Ignoring the stars for a minute, the only source of light up there is the moon. The surrounding sky is black. But we all know the moon's not a light source, it's just reflecting sunlight. For the moon to be able to reflect sunlight, it has to be in the sunlight's path. This means the night sky, which is effectively black, has to be full of what we think of as "light". Just think about that for a minute. The black night sky is full of sunlight. The only reason we don't "see" it is that it's going away from us and not into our eyes. The moon scatters the sun's light in all directions, including into our eyes, and that's when we see it.

So light is only "light" when it enters our eyes. It only exists in our heads. For a blind person whose eyes aren't functioning, it doesn't exist at all.

What we call light is just that part of the electromagnetic spectrum that the chemicals in the cells at the back of our eyes are sensitive to. The full EM spectrum includes radio waves, infra-red, ultra-violet, microwaves, X-rays, gamma rays etc. The only reason we don't see those as well is not that they're any different in nature from "light" - they're just at wavelengths that our eyes' chemicals don't respond to.

The same goes for sound. Compression waves in the air, or water, or whatever medium, ripple out in all directions from things that happen - in much the same way that pond ripples are generated by a thrown stone. These compression waves only become sound when they cause our eardrums to move, setting up a chain reaction in our middle and inner ears that cause us to perceive it as sound. Sound doesn't exist for people whose ears don't work, and it doesn't exist for hearing humans when the vibrations are at frequencies above about 20,000 Hz (ripples per second). It's no longer "sound" when it's at 30,000 Hz, although dogs would disagree with that. Also, there's no sound if there's no medium to carry the vibrations to your ear - like in the vacuum of space.

So the next time someone poses that old chestnut about whether a tree falling deep in the forest makes a sound, you know the answer. Of course it doesn't. It only makes a sound if there's something there with ears to hear it.

The great thing about light and sound being your own invention is imagining what form everyone else's inventions take. I know how I experience the colour blue, or the sound of a violin, and I'd love to know how those things are perceived by other people.

An American surgeon struggles to get women volunteers to test his new orgasm machine.

Yeah - I thought that too. Who on Earth would turn down an opportunity like that? However, it soon becomes clear that the "machine" involves implanting electrodes in the spine, and inserting a pacemaker-like control unit in the buttock. Eeeeuuuwww.

Looks like we men may still manage to cling onto the cliff-edge of usefulness for a bit longer yet, although a device for easing the RSI in these fingers would be a useful innovation.

Lies, Whole Lies, and Nothing But Lies

The Great Communicator posts about a Grauniad article saying we all tell 200 lies a day, on average. She reckons that can't be true, at least in her case. Well, as I commented to her:

We all tell AT LEAST 200 lies a day if you count that little voice in your head. You know the one - the one that just said "What little voice? I don't have a little voice in my head."

We all think and say things that stem from our interpretation of reality. Our INTERPRETATION of reality bears as much relation to ACTUAL reality as my arse does to a hole in the ground. We can't help it. We give things meaning, when in reality there is no such thing as meaning.

Thus whenever we say anything, or just think anything, we're lying.

Sorry about that.

Let me qualify that. It's perhaps more accurate to say that what we say and think is not necessarily a lie - it's just one of an infinite number of possible interpretations of reality that have an equal likelihood of being the truth (and each therefore has an infinitessimal likelihood).

When you get down to it, since we can never know what is the truth, we can never identify (with certainty) a lie. Does this get us off the hook? You bet your sweet bippy.

I'll just go and take the weight off my cerebrum now.

Isle of Wight Photos

Climbing plant at the B&B

Clouds over Freshwater Bay

My son fishing for crabs

Leaves in the garden at Freshwater

Pine tree at Osborne House

In the greenhouse at Osborne House

The Undercliff sand at low tide

Shadows on the Undercliff sands

Cliff steps to the beach

Freshwater stone

Sunset over Freshwater Bay

My son wrote my name with shadows

Freshwater Bay Winkles

Incidentally, if these make you want to visit the Island for yourself, I highly recommend Seahorses in Freshwater as the place to stay.

Reasons to be gloomy, part 3.

I heard Ahmed Chalabi of the Iraqi Governing Council on the Today programme this morning. He was being interviewed about the possible acceleration of western troop withdrawals (to boost Bush's electoral chances?).

Click on the "listen again" link for 8:10am here if you want to hear it for yourself.

He said he couldn't wait for the restrictions imposed by occupying troops in Iraq to be lifted or relaxed. Normally I'd be delighted to see that too, but his reason was chilling. He effectively said he wanted the people of Iraq to have the freedom to rise up and destroy the remnants of Saddam's Ba'athist supporters. I can't help thinking the destruction wouldn't stop there. Oh those poor innocent people. What a mess.

See Hans Morgenthau's second quote top right. *Sigh*

One of the distinctions discussed in the Landmark Education is "being unreasonable" as a positive way of being. All through the course I was aware of a GBS quote along those lines, so when I got home I looked it up. Lo and behold, there was a whole raft of quotes from the great man that go a long way to representing the distinctions of the course - and without the danger of infringing copyright!

on being unreasonable:

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.
Man and Superman (1903) "Maxims for Revolutionists"

on being the cause of your world:

People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don't believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can't find them, make them.
"Mrs. Warren's Profession" (1893) act II

on living a life you love:

This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap; the being a force of Nature instead of a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.
Man and Superman, Epistle Dedicatory

on going forward from the future:

Imagination is the beginning of creation. You imagine what you desire, you will what you imagine and at last you create what you will.

on media coverage of Landmark Education Inc.?:

All great truths begin as blasphemies.

If you are touched, moved and inspired by any of the above, then you should consider finding out more about this amazing education.

Update: The above link should work now...

HBTM, HBTM, HBDP, HBTM..... AMM!

Oh, and by the way - it's my birthday today.

Howard's End (vis-à-vis knowing it from a hole in the ground)

I'm floating in a cloud of power and passion after the Landmark Advanced Course. It was wonderful. The final evening session is tonight, and I can't wait.

Although I've had difficulty shutting up about who I now am, I have noticed a couple of things that have occurred in the world while I was out. It seems that the Tories will be relying on Michael Howard to lead Her Majesty's Opposition into the next election. I'm not clear whether this means the next General Election, or the next Conservative Party Leadership Election, but then I have been away from the news media for over a week.

I heard him say on the radio yesterday that he's a changed man, because he's realised it's not enough just to win an argument. I couldn't agree more, because that's what I've discovered about myself. Until Saturday morning last week, my whole world (at least when things weren't going well for me) occurred to me as "I am right", and I set about winning arguments regardless of the impact on others, and ultimately regardless of the cost to myself.

But enough about me. Let's talk about you - what do you think of me? Sorry, I digress.

The flaw in what Howard said is that he implied he'd won the argument in the first place. If he's the incisive forensic lawyer that Maurice Saatchi says he is in this article in today's Telegraph, then he needs to produce evidence for having won the argument - back when he was the least respected Home Secretary in decades (and before you ask me to produce evidence for that, I'm talking about my (lack of) respect for him). I can certainly detect no evidence for a winning argument.

In fact Saatchi's article starts well, saying that, despite media opinion to the contrary, it is policies that win elections, not personalities. A losing politician like Howard would like to think his policies were right, and it was just his failure to make his intentions understood that cost him the win. What he doesn't seem to realise is this excuse implies one of two things - either he was too stupid to get his point across (making him unqualified for the job), or we the electorate were too stupid to understand it (which is hardly going to endear him to us).

The more likely explanation is that we knew exactly what his policies were, and that is why the election turned out the way it did.

Incidentally, you should read the rest of Saatchi's article for a taste of how fuddled current Tory thinking is. Here's an extract:

In Britain today, where injustice and inequality abound, the Conservative Party has a powerful motive for a crusade to match any in its history. The National Health Service resembles the deck of the Titanic, where the third-class passengers had fewer lifeboats and less access to them. Cancer survival rates for the poorest people are half those of the richest. Yet, incredibly, we live in a mad world where the poor pay more tax than the rich.

So, what is he (a shadow treasury minister in the House of Lords) advocating here? Looks to me like an argument for the return to socialism. Is Michael Howard the best man for that job?

Have you ever considered that there is no light or sound out there?

The Orgasmotron

Lies, Whole Lies, and Nothing But Lies

Isle of Wight Photos

Reasons to be gloomy, part 3.

George Bernard Shaw

HBTM, HBTM, HBDP, HBTM..... AMM!

Howard's End (vis-à-vis knowing it from a hole in the ground)