Phantom Instants, Two-Faced Time, the Empty Bag of Space, and the Illusionistic Nature of Perception by Joel Levinson

Hi Joel, will your novel be available for E readers ?

I wish you good luck with the novel.

Wilhelmus

Hi Wilhelmus,

Yes, the novel will be available as an eBook. I'm working on that presently. Promoting the book is harder than writing it. Not true. I worked on the novel for 16 years. Thanks for the good wishes.

Joel

Hi Wilhelmus,

First, to answer your question, my novel is now available as an eBook.

Second, I went back and tried to read and understand your paper. Either my brain is fried tonight or what you've written is over my head. I may go back and try it again when I'm fresher.

Joel

Dear Joel,

Consciousness is not the easiest subject, I realise that.

My perception is an opening to a I think new science of inter connectivity of everything in our universe.

I am awaiting your comment(s) and rating.

best regards

Wilhelmus

Dear Joel I really enjoyed reading your lucid essay. Unlike some others, the ideas are presented in an orderly convincing fashion.

I completely agree with you about the 'reality' of perception - but then so do most psychologists of vision. Color is just something we perceive in the mind due to the process you described. So is sound, tone, perception of shape etc. If we had no lens in the eye, or the lens was degraded (as my eyes did before my cataract operations) things 'out there' would look strange, blurry and unlike anything I now thankfully see in sharp focus with local color and in 3D space.

It is great that you mention Al-Haytham's pioneering work in correctly describing the act of vision. His role as the father of modern optics and indeed the scientific method itself is rarely given its due. I attach a poster I designed (featuring my Arabic font) in homage to this great scientist.

I am a bit less sanguine about your next two points. Having just read (A Universe from Nothing by Lawrence M. Krauss) with its fine explanation of how cosmologists used astronomical observations to deduce that the Big Bang is in fact a correct description of how the Universe started, I will defer to the experts until I find it somehow contradicts other notions I understand better. Yes it is hard to understand: they say the Universe is several score billion light-years across in size, although it is only 13 billion light-years old!

Where I do agree with you completely is two-faced (or Janus) time. I would go further and say there is no time dimension at all, just a universal NOW state of the Universe. It is only when time is measured from one inertial frame to another that the second aspect of time is perceived. You can add the illusion of time to that of color and sound!

It is wonderful that you have so enthusiastically engaged your community of thoughtful people to discuss issues in physics and related topics. I am curious as to which long held view Geoff Grayer altered after discussing it with you- That a Nobel-winning physicists has such an open mind is an example to put before all of us with hard won but set ideas. Not to mention your courage to keep questioning the experts until you are satisfied with the explanation. Bravo!

With best wishes,

VladimirAttachment #1: Ibn_alhaytham.png

If you do not understand why your rating dropped down. As I found ratings in the contest are calculated in the next way. Suppose your rating is [math]R_1 [/math] and [math]N_1 [/math] was the quantity of people which gave you ratings. Then you have [math]S_1=R_1 N_1 [/math] of points. After it anyone give you [math]dS [/math] of points so you have [math]S_2=S_1+ dS [/math] of points and [math]N_2=N_1+1 [/math] is the common quantity of the people which gave you ratings. At the same time you will have [math]S_2=R_2 N_2 [/math] of points. From here, if you want to be R2 > R1 there must be: [math]S_2/ N_2>S_1/ N_1 [/math] or [math] (S_1+ dS) / (N_1+1) >S_1/ N_1 [/math] or [math] dS >S_1/ N_1 =R_1[/math] In other words if you want to increase rating of anyone you must give him more points [math]dS [/math] then the participant`s rating [math]R_1 [/math] was at the moment you rated him. From here it is seen that in the contest are special rules for ratings. And from here there are misunderstanding of some participants what is happened with their ratings. Moreover since community ratings are hided some participants do not sure how increase ratings of others and gives them maximum 10 points. But in the case the scale from 1 to 10 of points do not work, and some essays are overestimated and some essays are drop down. In my opinion it is a bad problem with this Contest rating process.

Sergey Fedosin

Dear Joel Levinson,

As time emerges within each eigen-rotational quantum in Coherently-cyclic cluster-matter paradigm of universe, the hidden variables of these quanta are the functions of the holon they belong in the holarchy. Thus in a top-to-bottom approach expressional in this paradigm describes a cyclic-time, that expresses the nature of time both as relative and as absolute.

With best wishes

Jayakar

Dear Joel,

I enjoyed you essay. Since you do not rely on the reader mathematical

Ability to carry your points, but his/her common sense, your argumentation is clear.

I have done on Ph.D. on image analysis and visual perception and I read and reflect a lot on this question. I will limit my comments to your first section "THE ILLUSIONISTIC NATURE OF PERCEPTION" which is a description of your "notion of the illusionistic nature of perception".

P1: "we don't actually see what's out there on the world-side of our eyeballs."

P2 "What we think we see out there is really what the complicated process of cognition constructs in here (tap your skull, please)."

P3: "There is something out there but it's different from what we perceive".

P4: "Voila! You 'see' the mountain for a short time with exactly the same detail as before the curtain had descended and yet the view of the mountain is totally blocked by the opaque curtain of lead. Such is the illusionistic nature of perception."

P5:" We inhabit a world of experiences that have some connection with

what's out there, but caution is in order when one says, seeing is believing."

P1 is false if we use the common sense meaning of the expression "actually see". What you seem to actually mean by P1 is P3. P4 is used as an example of a case proving P3. I do not agree. Even though the photon stream is blocked, we effectively see the mountain for a little while and this is not an illusion. What is an illusion is the expectation that the stream will not stop but this has noting to do with viewing the mountain now. Suppose that alpha century is now exploding as a supernova. Astromers knows that their current observations are about 4.3 year old. For a child looking in the telescope and interpreting this image as now happening, it is illusionary in its interpretation but not in the sense of what is really experience right now on earth about alpha century. Small light delay here on earth have no practical consequencex and in a pragmatic sense it is not an illusion to neglect these delay effects. P2 and P5 are uncontroversial true.

Maybe the purpose of this section is to refresh our memory about this but overall I do not see anything in this section that says something new that is true.

- Louis

Dear Joel ,

Lois Brassard's comments led me to your essay. I am glad I have read it.

I can see you taking the same journey of exploration through various ideas that I have also taken and spoken about on FQXi blogs over a number of years. I even remember using a loaf of bread analogy on another site long ago, I think it was Advanced Physics Forums. The participant I was speaking to used a tapestry for analogy instead. I understand that as an analogy for all of the photon particles whizzing about externally like the back of the tapestry and the observer seeing the nice neat design on the 'front'.Which I think is very nice.

I have also thought about colour and sound being the outputs of data processing and not independently existing external qualities. I sometimes contemplate that light is not actually light but we perceive it as such because it allows us to visualise the external environment and navigate within it. Perhaps to a bat its sound echoes are 'the light' that allows it to see in the darkness.

Your essay is very clearly written and the arguments well presented.I feel like shouting "Hey over here, come this way!" but you are doing a very fine job making your own way and describing your personal journey eloquently. So I'll leave it at that. Kind regards Georgina : )

Hi Georgina,

Thanks you so much for reading my entry and commenting so supportively. It was too bad that I was readying for publication my first novel, The Reluctant Hunter, when the contest entries were first published. I wish I had had more time to read other submissions and thereby obtain some more exposure of my thoughts.

I smiled and deeply appreciated you comment "I feel like shouting "Hey over here, come this way!"

Would you like to be added to the mailing list for notices from my science salon called SpaceGroup. We discuss some interesting subjects and there is oftentimes a lively exchange of dialogues between the members. You could quit at any time.

I'll now go to your entry and see what you had to say. Where do you live?

Joel

Hi Joel,

I do appreciate the kind invitation but must decline. I already spend more time than is sensible 'talking' and reading what others have written online, mostly at FQXi. It does not pay the bills or get the housework done! I look forward to hearing your opinions/thoughts related to my essay. Diagram 1., and discussion about it, in the discussion thread might be of particular interest to you.

A.- A very beautiful but isolated and private place.