Visual Perception - What are we really seeing?

Visual perception takes place all around us we just do not notice it or pay attention to think about it. Let me give you a for instance, is grass really green? We do not truly know. We can also see through one of the visible spectrums which is visible light. There are others that we know of and probably some that we don't. Infrared, Ultraviolet and X-ray are all examples of different spectrums of light. So what is the colour of grass in these various spectrums? I do not know personally but I can tell you that it isn't the colour we see with our very own eyes. The same thing goes for people and animals who are colour blind, they can not see past the various shades of grey, certain animals have themselves some unique outlooks on the world. Kestrels for instance see urination spots of voles in bright fluorescent yellow so that they can track where the vole has been to stalk its prey, everything the else the Kestrel sees is in black and white. Bats themselves as well as moles and various other animals cannot see at all, they are naturally blind and so use sonar or other tracking devices such as smell and small receptors in their whiskers or antlars. There is a certain disease which can affect humans which influences the brains and eyes of the humans which does allow them to see in full colour and see everything a normal human being sees but they cannot tell objects. They can only see a bunch of colours and shapes and lines they cannot tell that they are an object of any sort. For instance a man with this disease said that every morning that we woke up and looked in the mirror he knew he was looking at himself but just could not tell with out having somebody tell him. Which leads me onto my next point about the brain


This all has to do with things we can or can't see with our eyes but a main perception comes from the brain. The brain tricks the eyes in what it sees. Various pictures and diagrams may show some things to be different to what they truly seem like. So it is not only our eyes that create this perception. For instance take a look at this picture.

Your eyes see it as it is but your brain doesn't. At first glance you may think that some of the lines are not straight but sloping a bit making the squares a bit off. But in fact if you look very closely you will find that all the lines are perfectly horizontal and parallel, it is just the position of the squares which is tricking your mind.

Natural Sciences

As human beings we are always trying to find a formula or solution to everything that takes place. This is all thanks to our human inquisitiveness and our human need for everything to connect together. We do this using the Natural Sciences.
From the discovery of new things in the 21st century to the "Big Bang" everything has to be able to be explained eliminating any religion, mysticism or magic. There are three sections to the natural sciences section: Physical Sciences, Biological Sciences and Social Sciences. Yes a lot of people even explore fro reasons why people act as they do to try and fit you in a formula that describes people. But Basically the sciences can all be narrowed down to a simple rule. Biology goes to Chemistry and Chemistry goes to Physics. So basically whoever didn't take Physics for their IB could have saved a lot of work.
Lets take evolution as an example for a moment. Many people would not want to believe Darwin's crazy theory of evolution because the church had the power in those times denying any theory that doubted Christianity and the creation of earth and the human beings. They first said that the earth was flat and that the earth was at the centre of the universe and humans started from Adam and Eve.
So Evolution got struck down even though he had much evidence to support. But nowadays everybody has pretty much taken evolution to be the right answer atleast all the scientists have. Some schools in the USA actually don't teach Evolution as they actually truely believe that humans were born from Adam and Eve.

Memory - How much do you really remember?

A memory may not be a memory after all. Memory does hold up a particular space inside the brain but can be influenced by many other things that may have something to do with memory but not your own personal memory. Photos are one thing. Yes once you look at a photo you may remember what it was about and what you did. Though that may be the case it is the photo that revokes the memory which you probably would have forgotten if the photo was not there. This can also be done in many ways through, for instance, memories from somebody else, videos and diaries. If you think about it many memories especially from your childhood are told to you by your parents and therefore you are basing your memory on their memory so you do not actually remember the memory itself, if you understand what I mean.

There are two main types of memory and these are short-term memory and long-term memory.

Short-term memory is only the memory from up to a minute before. There it stays in your mind and so you can easily remember it. Things just over that time you will not be able to remember very well, for instance when you wake up suddenly you normally forget about the dream you were having no matter how good or bad it was you just cannot remember it. There are people who have a very good short-term memory however who can remember the random order of a whole deck of cards only a minute or so after it is shown to them

Long-Term memory can store a lot more and bigger amounts of memory, even for a whole life-time of memories. This normally stays in your head through constant repetition of the memory. For instance, short-term memory can remember a phone number for only a few seconds, but through constant repetition of the number you can remember it for a lot longer and it can stick in your head for a very long time. This is a very useful ability to have as it can help you remember for a test or just in general. There have been great examples of long-term memory amongst human beings, for instance, a 40 or so year old man who since getting hit in the head really hard by a baseball at the age off 11 he now remembers the weather on everyday of the year since the accident. It is because he can now access places of his brain that most of us can't contact at all. So if you want to be able to remember a lot - just get a friend to take a swing at your head. (But really don't do that, as I can not afford to be sewed right now).

String Theory - Do we really have the answer to everything?

String Theory, the latest discovery in the world of Physics. The theory which leads us towards the ultimate truth and the answer to everything. Supposedly at least. Many people have supposedly come up with this idea throughout the 20th Century. In fact I do not really know who did come up with it. Einstein used some of it in some of his theories, Theodor Kaluza is said to have suggested it in finding a fifth dimension, Oskar Klein gave a demonstration on the unobservable dimension using circles. Many people are involved in the discovery of this fantastic theory. I could take all day to name just a few of the mathematicians, physicists and philosophers that took part.

The overall factor about this amazing discovery is that it can explain everything. The thing is though that with our current technology and probably with the technology we will have for the next 100 years we will never be able to prove this theory as the so called "strings" are so small that they no where near be seen with the strongest microscope we have at our disposal. So we cannot state it to be a discovery just yet as we cannot prove it so it is only a theory at this stage. This is where most physicists have the problem with this theory as it is not physics, but philosophy. In fact this has been such an argument that a new group has been established to study this theory called the "Theoretical Physicists" which combines quantum Mechanics with General Relativity. In one of his books in which he called string theory a failure Jim Holt said:

"For more than a generation, physicists have been chasing a will-o’-the-wisp called string theory. The beginning of this chase marked the end of what had been three-quarters of a century of progress. Dozens of string-theory conferences have been held, hundreds of new Ph.D.s have been minted, and thousands of papers have been written. Yet, for all this activity, not a single new testable prediction has been made, not a single theoretical puzzle has been solved. In fact, there is no theory so far—just a set of hunches and calculations suggesting that a theory might exist. And, even if it does, this theory will come in such a bewildering number of versions that it will be of no practical use: a Theory of Nothing."

Now these strings are said to be within the electrons, neutrons and protons of all atoms and are the source of the energy within the sub-atomic particles. There are meant to be millions of vibrating strings of all shapes and sizes through out the inner space of the sub-atomic particles. They continually vibrate moving around inside. Not too long ago many scientists thought that the atom was the smallest thing on this planet and then just over a hundred years ago in 1897 J. J. Thompson discovered the electron, which was at that time what was then though to be the smallest thing in the universe. Then came the discovery of the photons, then the nucleus which was split up into protons and neutrons and now this. Many years from now, whether String Theory is proved or disproved they will find something even smaller.

In conclusion, I will take the side of the proper scientists and not the theorists, if it is eventually proved then yes i will trust that truth, even though knowledge is still all a lie.

Comparing Reason and Imagination

Reason and Imagination are normally considered opposites in the scientific world. Many scientists choose to believe in reason instead of imagination as it offers answers while imagination offers ideas and theories. All of this returns to the theme of knowledge. A great scientist called Albert Einstein once said:

"Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world."

I stand by this reasoning. Many discoveries would not have been made if there were no imagination. For instance, many people thought the world was flat and they stuck by it. Those who contradicted this statement where believed to have been crazy to have thought the world was round. They couldn't prove either of these theses as no one had sailed around the whole world or been to the edge of the world. Imagination lead to the ultimate fact that the world is in fact spherical. Once a point is made out of imagination then reason is added so as to make the point make sense. Imagination is a key part of our lives. Many movies are made about the future and how we imagine it would be like, because we cannot say for sure exactly what will happen in the future.

Reason is very different. Reason is for people who want and need answers. In science only reason is used otherwise it would not considered science but philosophy. This is one of the great problems that is facing the world of Quantum Mechanics at the moment. The new theory of String Theory has been announced and it has lead to some argumentation and discussion. You see this theory is almost impossible to prove as the strings themselves are so minuscule that we can not see them under any form of equipment or test the in any way. This theory though may be the answer to Life, the Universe and Everything. It has been accepted by many scientists even though it cannot be proved. It takes some imagination to come up with this answer and it has hardly any reason behind it meaning that scientists are turning on their own principles and choosing to believe in this theory because it seems as though it could be correct and it makes everything make sense and has a very simple answer.

To form some sort of conclusion i believe that imagination is so much more important then reason, not necessarily within the natural science world but within the human world. Imagination has lead us as a race to so much more then just finding out things and what they do. Imagination has evolved us as a species and has lead to important discoveries throughout the various regions of our planet. Reason is important yes, but for me it is meaningless compared to Imagination.

Knowledge - What is it really?

When I looked up what knowledge meant in the dictionary I found at least nine definitions but the two that really stood out were the following:

-Knowledge is the body of truths or facts accumulated in the course of time

-Knowledge is the fact or state of knowing; the perception of fact or truth; clear and certain mental apprehension.

Now I thought that this was interesting as both of these statements said that knowledge is truth or fact. Now as i see it all facts are meant to be true at least so we are taught. Many, so called, facts were disproved over the years and in the end found as fiction. This has taken place over the many years since humans sought an interest in the world around them and how it worked. Such examples include the fact that almost all humans believed that the Earth was flat and that if you came to the end of it you would fall off into outer space. We now know that the earth is not round but sphere-shaped. But the thing is do we really. We came up with a hypothesis that so far hasn't been proven wrong. How do we really know that the world wasn't round maybe 2,000 years ago? How do we truthfully know the same today?

I typed in "knowledge" into the Google search bar and then clicked on images. One of the first ones i saw was this one:

Now this seems very complicated I'm sure, and it is. People have tried to categorize knowledge. This actually works quite well, but again you can find the circle "Facts" which links in with "Data" and "Information". The great Albert Einstein once said: "Information is not knowledge" and I believe him to be correct. Now yes you do collect data and you can get information but not knowledge. A fact is just a theory and theories can never be proven right but can be proven wrong. Now yes even Albert Einstein has recently been found to have had one of his theories proven wrong, the thing is we do not know about it because it was never published even though the man has been found correct. People do not want knowledge to change because that means that they studied something that was completely useless information.

Let me throw some facts at you. Nowadays information is being mass produced. It is estimated that a week's worth of the New York Times newspaper contains more information than a person is likely to come across in a lifetime.It is estimated that 1.5 exabytes (thats 1500000000000000000) of unique new information will be generated world wide this year. That amounts to more unique new information found in the last 5000 years. The amount of new technical information is doubling every 2 years, which put into studying terms means that a student starting his or her first term at college will find out by his or her third term that half of the information she learned in her first term will be outdated. The amount of technical information in 2010 is estimated to double every 3 days. (Facts taken from Shift Happens movement). If all of this is true, which it isn't as it is estimated, then all of this is happening for no reason as information is not knowledge.

(To view some more facts press on Shift Happens Video)

This all links in with Theory of Knowledge. The fact that we have theories that so far match what might be happening in and around us but this could all change and soon many "facts" will be disproved and we will be forced to find new solutions. Even if we find all the solutions we can possibly find we will never be able to know everything there is to know about everything.

Many of you who read this may disagree with me and thats okay. If you have a point to make please feel free to post a comment.

Thank You