4 ms·

The good news is that none of our memories, mental representations, or even current perceptions are "real" either.

init2null 3y ago
The even more terrifying part is that they are recreated when we remember. Ask me why I don't value eyewitness testimony.
- kennethrc 3y ago
  TIL memories are .mp3s and not .bz2s
I_Am_Nous 3y ago
>or even current perceptions This is always fun to think about, that there's lag to everything from the time light bounces off an object and travels to my retina to the processing my brain does to understand what it's being shown. So by the time I have processed a visual "reality" it doesn't exist in that state any longer. Add in relativity and I could be experiencing a different time than someone else, AND a different space. If we are fundamentally fluctuations in various quantum fields coalesced into energetic matter that can interact with each other, the lag time between that field fluctuating and those fluctuations interacting with other fluctuations makes me marvel that we can even interact with each other lol
- TeMPOraL 3y ago
  > This is always fun to think about, that there's lag to everything from the time light bounces off an object and travels to my retina to the processing my brain does to understand what it's being shown. It's even funnier (or more disturbing) to think about all the ungodly pile of hacks this processing entails - like using the high-level understanding of how the scene is lit to override color perception (see: tower / checkerboard color illusion), interpolating or otherwise guessing most of what we "see" (see: saccade, blind spot), and lying about passage of time to "cover the tracks" of all the hackery that's going on.
  - I_Am_Nous 3y ago
    I have ADHD and I've noticed that for some reason, color is one of the things my brain will autofilter and remove. I still see color, but I will have times were someone mentions something being a certain color and my vision suddenly updates what I'm seeing to be the "correct" color it was all along. Honestly it's humbling to acknowledge that I have no true understanding of anything that's going on around me and can only survive because our brains are incredibly tuned guessing machines.
adamredwoods 3y ago
In order for visually-guided organisms to operate within an environment, such as humans, we need to have some level of trust in visual representations of actual things that happened. While others point out that our mind recalls are not true representations, nonetheless, they are a construct that we need to put some level of trust in. Learned information from the world around us can also help in establishing a level of trust. AI on the other hand is putting more distrust towards online and computer behavior. Online has always had a level of distrust, it's only getting worse. When people show me their photos taken with their smartphone cameras, I like to tell them that it is probably not what they really saw, as the colors are usually tweaked before saved to computer memory. But it's close enough. This is why I enjoy film cameras, it's an attempt to get as close to the real (visual) moment in time as possible.
- Euphorbium 3y ago
  Film photography is not real either. Different films and different development processes will produce different results, analogous to tweaking colors in lightroom.
  - adamredwoods 3y ago
    It's not about what is real or not, that's binary. I'm talking about a spectrum. It's about how close we can get to the real thing with minimal processing in the capture. It will always be a representation. Besides, digital copies are even further removed. We don't see 1's and 0's. A computer has to process the display to us. On the other hand, we can see light reflecting off chemical structures. One less device in the process.
- Wolfbeta 3y ago
  >When people show me their photos taken with their smartphone cameras, I like to tell them that it is probably not what they really saw Don't be that guy.

The even more terrifying part is that they are recreated when we remember. Ask me why I don't value eyewitness testimony.

kennethrc 3y ago
TIL memories are .mp3s and not .bz2s

I_Am_Nous 3y ago

>or even current perceptions This is always fun to think about, that there's lag to everything from the time light bounces off an object and travels to my retina to the processing my brain does to understand what it's being shown. So by the time I have processed a visual "reality" it doesn't exist in that state any longer. Add in relativity and I could be experiencing a different time than someone else, AND a different space. If we are fundamentally fluctuations in various quantum fields coalesced into energetic matter that can interact with each other, the lag time between that field fluctuating and those fluctuations interacting with other fluctuations makes me marvel that we can even interact with each other lol

TeMPOraL 3y ago
> This is always fun to think about, that there's lag to everything from the time light bounces off an object and travels to my retina to the processing my brain does to understand what it's being shown. It's even funnier (or more disturbing) to think about all the ungodly pile of hacks this processing entails - like using the high-level understanding of how the scene is lit to override color perception (see: tower / checkerboard color illusion), interpolating or otherwise guessing most of what we "see" (see: saccade, blind spot), and lying about passage of time to "cover the tracks" of all the hackery that's going on.
- I_Am_Nous 3y ago
  I have ADHD and I've noticed that for some reason, color is one of the things my brain will autofilter and remove. I still see color, but I will have times were someone mentions something being a certain color and my vision suddenly updates what I'm seeing to be the "correct" color it was all along. Honestly it's humbling to acknowledge that I have no true understanding of anything that's going on around me and can only survive because our brains are incredibly tuned guessing machines.

adamredwoods 3y ago

In order for visually-guided organisms to operate within an environment, such as humans, we need to have some level of trust in visual representations of actual things that happened. While others point out that our mind recalls are not true representations, nonetheless, they are a construct that we need to put some level of trust in. Learned information from the world around us can also help in establishing a level of trust. AI on the other hand is putting more distrust towards online and computer behavior. Online has always had a level of distrust, it's only getting worse. When people show me their photos taken with their smartphone cameras, I like to tell them that it is probably not what they really saw, as the colors are usually tweaked before saved to computer memory. But it's close enough. This is why I enjoy film cameras, it's an attempt to get as close to the real (visual) moment in time as possible.

Euphorbium 3y ago
Film photography is not real either. Different films and different development processes will produce different results, analogous to tweaking colors in lightroom.
- adamredwoods 3y ago
  It's not about what is real or not, that's binary. I'm talking about a spectrum. It's about how close we can get to the real thing with minimal processing in the capture. It will always be a representation. Besides, digital copies are even further removed. We don't see 1's and 0's. A computer has to process the display to us. On the other hand, we can see light reflecting off chemical structures. One less device in the process.
Wolfbeta 3y ago
>When people show me their photos taken with their smartphone cameras, I like to tell them that it is probably not what they really saw Don't be that guy.