Exploring Human Perception: How Do We Communicate?

[gabee]

This is sure true from my point of view but calling our perceptions as not being the reality doesn't suits what I thought about at the start of this thread & I would like to know your comments on this; As in your example
of the person fitted with red lens right from the beginning of his/her life, The reality to such person IS in colour red and the colours blue, green etc. will just have no meaning to this person & they will never exist in natural form to such a person, & the other colours will be an outcome of their intelectual creativity... In other words Reality is itself relative to our perceptions, is what I think.
This is simply proved with your former example of aliens, Those aliens are again part of this universe but they couldn't realize the difference between the three identical objects with different colours, But we can, So its simply understood that we understand reality far more different than those aliens which simply starts the question, how can we be sure what lies behind this relativistic realities, Since there isn't any good probabilty showing we humans see it all the way it is, We are even in doubt if what I see is the same as yours...

When it comes to the colour red I don't agree with you because we are actually talking about the innermost perception of human about the colour red, what I am trying to say is; the way that your brain imagines the wavelenght 400-450 nm is not necessarily the same as mine. On the other hand we can't realize this difference because what we call the wavelenght 400 nm is the same even if the way we see it is different.

I'll be waiting for your further coments on this :)

I think there are two different questions here:

Can humans perceive certain types of information naturally with the senses?
To this, I think most people would agree (and in this thread already have agreed) that human senses are limited in their utility when it comes to understanding types of information we have not experienced and perhaps cannot experience (e.g. extra dimensions).

The other question: Is one human's perception the same as another's?
As in, could what I see as blue appear red to you?
I would say that since humans are constructed in the same way, with nervous systems built in a precise fashion, one person sees red in the same way as the next. And, during development, we are all exposed to the same world with the same physical phenomena. I don't think there is any reason to think otherwise. For example, compare two computers. They have been built using the same materials--not from the same atoms perhaps, but the structure and function between the two is identical.
In humans, retinal cells will respond in a certain way when struck with blue photons and send a signal to the brain, and so on. Just in the same way as our kidneys will remove waste from the blood, or that the alveoli in the lungs will deliver oxygen to the blood, the network of neural cells will process the physical stimuli presented to it. I don't think there is some genetic aberration that allows red and blue to be perceived differently depending on the person.

 

[mubashirmansoor]

I think there are two different questions here:

1)Can humans perceive certain types of information naturally with the senses?


2)The other question: Is one human's perception the same as another's?
As in, could what I see as blue appear red to you?
I would say that since humans are constructed in the same way, with nervous systems built in a precise fashion, one person sees red in the same way as the next.

Excellent questions... These are exactly what we are trying to find out in this thread.

I personally have no problem with your conclusion on the first question.
When it comes to the second one, your reasons don't seem to be satisfying from my point of view due to the following reasons;

There sure is a level of difference between what each person perceives than the other, simply because we are not identical. We far more different than computers simply because we have senses and understand our senses.
We are all very much the same as each and other but still not identical, what you like to eat with a hamburger isn't necessarily the same as mine, as a result we are not exactly the same but look alike. As an example when I was in Moscow I had to wear 2 sweaters and a heavy overcoat to feel a little warmer but right in front of me there were people who were walking with halfsleeve shirts & they thought the weather was okey. What I'm trying to say is at some point we can see the differences between different people... Take your T-Shirt colour for example, Someone might just find it horrible while somone might find it extreamly beutifull.

So we are different and to me these differences are somehow showing us the difference in our perceptions.

 

[mubashirmansoor]

When you come to the conclusion that there is a relativity even in between human, then the question is at what extend this relativity is? in other words how much are we different from each and other?

I'd be glad to know your coments on this. As this was the main question which made me to start this thread.
Thankyou

 

[Marghk]

can you prove that my experience of the colour red is different from your?

Disection of the eye?

I do believe that people's perception is different to the next mans, but to some extent. On average I believe we feel, act, hear, smell etc everything different to others, but to a small extent.

 

[dialmformartian]

I agree with mubashirmansoor, even though it is possible to
Scientifically reason that all human eyes
(Or any other senses for that matter) produces same nerve impulse
But how each brain is going to process that data will change
From person to person.

To illustrate this further let us assume that there are two
Types of scale, natural scale and imaginary scale.
The natural scale defines everything in terms of
Logical explanation, like for example in natural scale red
Color can be defined in terms of wavelengths. Since all logic
Can arrive at only one conclusion everything in the natural scale is
Universal. But the imaginary scale is something that is built into
Every human’s brain. The human brain is designed to work only
In a preprogrammed manner with data in imaginary scale. But what makes
Human brain so unique is that it can connect natural scale data to
Imaginary scale data. Let us say that all humans are preprogrammed
By birth to like only black color on the imaginary scale. But a person
Who likes red color on natural scale somehow connects the
Impulse for red color to the black color on his imaginary scale.
So in effect a people who like red color and blue color both
Perceives red and blue in the same way though both are able to
Differentiate it because we have learned to connect each unique
Color uniquely to the imaginary scale. This in only one possibility that
Exists due to the uncertainty. But there is no way to prove this
unless we understand the brain perfectly, As long as we don’t prove it this
Possibility cannot be ignored.

Although there are still unperceivable data all around us we would
Some how understand them someday, just like we discovered electrons
Though we cannot perceive them directly. This would lead us
To the conclusion that there is still lot of unknown data around us
Which we cannot perceive, for example some people think that
Gold fishes can predict earthquakes (I don’t) this is probably because
They can perceive some data, which we cannot.

 

[Chaos' lil bro Order]

Thats exactly what I was trying to say, But again when it comes to the aliens & the alien scientist; As we show them three different colours which they couldn't recognize the difference, there scientist wouldn't understand the difference when it comes to experiencing the colours, All that the alien scientist would understand is the varying wavelenght between the colours.

I can see your point Mubashir. In my opinion this idea that you pose is too hypothetical to critque. For example, who knows if the aliens could or could not sense the difference between colors, perhaps they have eyes capable of discriminating a 400nm photon from a 700nm photon, we just don't know this. Also, maybe the alien could discriminate between the two photons by feel. After all, humans feel heat from photons in the Infrared region (+700nm photons) and its entirely possible that these aliens could feel the varying degrees of heat of photons between 400 - 700nm.

But as you said and I agree with, the only thing we and the alien scientists could truly agree on is that there are photons of varying wavelengths. That is the beauty of mathematics in my opinion and it is why it has been labelled as the 'Universal language'.

 

[Chaos' lil bro Order]

When you come to the conclusion that there is a relativity even in between human, then the question is at what extend this relativity is? in other words how much are we different from each and other?

I'd be glad to know your coments on this. As this was the main question which made me to start this thread.
Thankyou

In my view this is such a wide open question that it would require a book to answer. The question of how different our perceptions are from human to human varies significantly depending on what human trait or human sense you are talking about. For vision, the average human can see between 400-700nm light, but some humans have a larger range of 380-720nm, while others, as we all know, are completely blind. Some are color blind also. And some have more L-cones (Red) than other humans, so they see red more vividly, while others have more S-cones (Blue) so they see blue more vividly.

Sound and hearing ranges can vary quite widely too. In general the human range of hearing is 10Hz - 20,000Hz and some people with a well developed ear can even differentiate between two sounds separated by only 3Hz (eg. 911Hz and 914Hz sound different to them).

So in my opinion human perception as told by our senses can vary by a lot in extreme cases, but on a whole, I think our senses are nearly identical. And if we do not consider the various maladies of the human brain that can skew our sensory inputss, I think our perception of these senses, from one human to the next human is also nearly identical.

Of course, we are leaving out factors that can change our perceptions like sociology, culture, religion, etc.

 

[mubashirmansoor]

I can see your point Mubashir. In my opinion this idea that you pose is too hypothetical to critque. For example, who knows if the aliens could or could not sense the difference between colors...

correct... But there is one point which makes me a little confident when writing about this relativity in between us, all that you need to do is this simple experiment:

Gather a number of people in a room with a window which has a clear view of the outside environment, in a cloudy day but NOT rainy. When a person enters the room (who is not part of your group), just tell him/her; it has started raining (while it's actually not) and all members of your group previously in the room should agree and say yes to your expression.
The person who has entered the room will not accept this for the first time but as you & your group approve the rainy weather, the person will get a little puzzled and after a couple of seconds gazing the outside environment, he/she will SEE the rain and say " oow yes its raining"

I have tried this quite a lot of times & 60-65% of the cases saw the rain which never existed... How shall we explain this? Isn't this a good example to show the relativity in between human?, we shall discuss on this after your comments :)

About what I said in the Alien case that they couldn't realize the difference between colours was based on one of the previous posts which had this idea as an axiom of its example, otherwise you are right we can't simply understand this as long as we have an alien to do some research on.

That is the beauty of mathematics in my opinion and it is why it has been labelled as the 'Universal language'.

Exactly Mathmatics is beyond this relativity which may be present in between us and this is what makes it logical & acceptable by everyone since it has fixed axioms, unlike philosophy which is mostly based on human logic, And as the relativity in between us is concerned my logic will be different from yours, so we will never reach to a complete agreement on all topics of philosophy as long as the mathmatical logics are not involved. Don't you think so?

 

[Chaos' lil bro Order]

correct... But there is one point which makes me a little confident when writing about this relativity in between us, all that you need to do is this simple experiment:

Gather a number of people in a room with a window which has a clear view of the outside environment, in a cloudy day but NOT rainy. When a person enters the room (who is not part of your group), just tell him/her; it has started raining (while it's actually not) and all members of your group previously in the room should agree and say yes to your expression.
The person who has entered the room will not accept this for the first time but as you & your group approve the rainy weather, the person will get a little puzzled and after a couple of seconds gazing the outside environment, he/she will SEE the rain and say " oow yes its raining"

I have tried this quite a lot of times & 60-65% of the cases saw the rain which never existed... How shall we explain this? Isn't this a good example to show the relativity in between human?, we shall discuss on this after your comments :)

This seems to me a case of persuasion or perceptual sleight of hand. There is no reason for the person to think the group is lying and therefor the person accepts that its rainy outside. The 60-65% of cases that saw the rain are either not willing to disagree with the group of people (arguement avoidance), or their eye vision is not perfect and they just assume its a light rain invisible to them, but visible to the group.
I think its important to note that the person did not sense the rain with their sight, their perception of it raining is due to sociological mechanisms. This is a case of peer group dynamics modifying a 'weak' person's perceptions and actions.

Its similar to a person searching for their sunglasses when they are on their head.

Or a person searching for their house key in all their pants pockets except for the one pocket they never put the key in (which is where the key is).

Exactly Mathmatics is beyond this relativity which may be present in between us and this is what makes it a logic acceptable by everyone since it has fixed axioms, unlike philosophy which is mostly based on human logic, And as the relativity in between us is concerned my logic will be different from yours, so we will never reach to a complete agreement on all topics of philosophy as long as the mathmatical logics are not involved. Don't you think so?

Yes. That is certainly true. :)

 

[Jimmy Snyder]

In that case what enables us to comunicate with 3 billion population on the earth?

Make that 7 Billion.

One thing I don't understand. Are you saying that our perception of color is relative, but our perception of communication is absolute?

 

[mubashirmansoor]

This seems to me a case of persuasion or perceptual sleight of hand. There is no reason for the person to think the group is lying and therefor the person accepts that its rainy outside.

Excellent comment, This is what we are doing, Believing in our stimulies and perceptions... Actually the person who I did the experiment on said he practically saw the rain. As a result we actually see what we really believe in.
This can be easily seen in many of the patients who are psycologically ill and not physiclly, There assumption that they are ill is so strong that makes them totally altered (psycologically I mean), but from the medical point of view they are as normal as they were before.
Or let's take a person on a specific type of diet for example; If he/she believes that the diet is really effective, he/she will keep on saying I'm really getting better, while there is no change in the weight or amount of fats in their body...

There are quite a lot of such examples, but you got my point.

I'll be glad to know your comments
with regards

 

[mubashirmansoor]

Make that 7 Billion.

One thing I don't understand. Are you saying that our perception of color is relative, but our perception of communication is absolute?

OOw thanks for that 7 billion, I didn't know Earth is so crowded. Mistakes happen, sorry

No, I'm talking about the relativity in both perceptions and communication and all other aspects.

 

[Jimmy Snyder]

No, I'm talking about the relativity in both perceptions and communication and all other aspects.

Then the answer to your original question:
what enables us to comunicate with 3 billion population on the earth?
is:

Just as people react to colors the way we expect them to based on our own perceptions, so do people react to communication in the way we expect them to. It doesn't mean that we see colors the same and it doesn't mean that we understand communication the same.

 

[mubashirmansoor]

The reply is given below.

 

[mubashirmansoor]

Then the answer to your original question:
what enables us to comunicate with 3 billion population on the earth?
is:

Just as people react to colors the way we expect them to based on our own perceptions, so do people react to communication in the way we expect them to. It doesn't mean that we see colors the same and it doesn't mean that we understand communication the same.

THIS REPLY IS TO EVERYONE READING THE THREAD, & THE MAIN REASON FOR MY SENTENCE QUOTED BY JIMMYSNYDER;

So you do agree that we live in a complete objective world, if so then how can we expect their way of comunication, This holds true when we are only concerned with 2 people in the whole existence. But when it comes to 3 billion, there is somting I don't understand.

Simply because; when there are only two people anything that the first person points to, & give a specific name to it & whatever this sounds like to the second one, The second person will always call it in a specific way & the second person hears it in accordance, as a result there will be no problem.
When it comes to even 3 people, this theory gets in trouble, since the 3rd person will have 2 different words for every single object, where these two words are like two completely different languages.

I'd be really really thankfull, if you would clarify this problem of mine.
Thanks to everyone contributing to this thread