What Is It??...Where Is It??

[cabinetman]

With all the threads lately questioning what's real, or simulated, I've got one I need answers to.

I can say to you...imagine (I'm using an inanimate object because this is a family forum) a cheesburger. Visualize the upper and lower buns with the meat hanging out, lettuce edges showing, and you can see the cheese, maybe even a slice of tomato, and there could be onion too, some sauce or ketchup dripping from the edges. Now the questions:

WHAT Is It? - This question is directed to actually what are you seeing? I know you are saying its a mental image, a graphic thought, a picture in the mind. BUT, what are you actually seeing? It's not like you see it with your eyes.

WHERE IS IT? - This question is directed to where the heck is that picture? I know, you're saying its in my mind. BUT where does that image actually exist? Is it like nowhere in particular, but you can see the cheesburger in all its glory, in full color. You can bring up that image any time you want... from where? Hey, that image may be good enough for you to smell that cheesburger.

[mschrank]

You been in the finish room without ventilation again?

[cgallery]

what are you seeing?

Giant hooters.

[ragswl4]

Giant hooters.

A room full.

[scorrpio]

Description like that, I see an ad for some fast food chain - could be McD, could be BK. It is on a big poster in the window of the place as I pass by.

[Stytooner]

I'm no brain Doc, but the artist side of me has been using this picture since I was about 3 or 4. Most people do. It's visual memory that you are accessing. A blind person that had been so for life would have only a vague idea of what this image might be.
I also included a little imagination in with your decription and my bun was toasted golden brown with sesame seeds on top.
There is also sound, smell, touch, and taste memory as well as perhaps deja vu. The blind guy would have just as good a grasp of the concept using the memory of those senses. Probably even better.

[Ed62]

[QUOTE=cabinetman;289629]
WHERE IS IT? QUOTE]

What I want to know is where in h*ll's the party!

Ed

[dlminehart]

Heck, when you actually see something, where does that image actually exist? (Let's assume that the "thing" is "really" out "there", so we can get over this philosophical hurdle.)

I saw an image in a modern text on vision that was made by feeding a monkey some radioisotoped chemical used in metabolism (glucose?), clamping the monkey's head so it couldn't move, displaying a bullseye-type target in front of it for a period of time, then killing the monkey, dissecting its brain, and making a slice through the visual cortex. When placed on a sensitised photographic material, the radiation exposed the film where the lighter parts of the image had caused more brain activity and therefore more absorption of the glucose.

Result: a photographic image of the target! In other words, the virtual image on the retina was transported through the optic nerve to a corresponding physical mapping on the visual cortex. I was really surprised by this.

[sparkeyjames]

What are those pills your taking and can I have some?

[LCHIEN]

Heck, when you actually see something, where does that image actually exist? (Let's assume that the "thing" is "really" out "there", so we can get over this philosophical hurdle.)

I saw an image in a modern text on vision that was made by feeding a monkey some radioisotoped chemical used in metabolism (glucose?), clamping the monkey's head so it couldn't move, displaying a bullseye-type target in front of it for a period of time, then killing the monkey, dissecting its brain, and making a slice through the visual cortex. When placed on a sensitised photographic material, the radiation exposed the film where the lighter parts of the image had caused more brain activity and therefore more absorption of the glucose.

Result: a photographic image of the target! In other words, the virtual image on the retina was transported through the optic nerve to a corresponding physical mapping on the visual cortex. I was really surprised by this.

WOuldn't a digital camera be easier?

[leehljp]

I took a test a long time ago on imagery, daydreaming and imagination and the outcome was that I spent way too much time there!

This very fact makes movies VERY bland as compared to reading the book!
There was a movie that came out about 4 or 5 years ago called "Small Soldiers". Shucks I had those images and imagination 50 years ago. The childhood imagery of "Swiss Family Robinson" in my (book reading) mind was far superior to the movie.


On TV: We got our first color TV around 1962 or '63. I walked into the house and a mickey mouse cartoon was on - in color. My sister said: "Look, its in color."
I stated: "It has always been in color!"
We got into an argument. I couldn't figure that out for a few months, then it finally dawned on me that I was projecting the colors from comic books (and a few times that I had seen the cartoons at the "picture show") into my mind as I watched the B&W TV.

The visual effects of the (my) imagination are far superior to any Stephen Speilburg or Disney movie. And I don't NEED any pills or stimulants for that!

The real world is bland by comparison to a good imagination, but that is where I have to live in REAL-time!

[Bruce Cohen]

Business must be slow, Cab is getting philosophical once more.

If I remember correctly from one of the few non-design classes I took in college, René Decartes wrote about the existence of self. Like how do you know that what you're seeing is really there, or is it just occurring in your mind.

I mean, that right now I envision myself sitting at the computer typing this continuation to Cab's thread. Is this really taking place in "real time/real world" or am I just having a hallucination created by my own mind.

It's like "If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to witness it, does it really make any noise. It all boils down to one's perception of the space around us, thank you Allen Ginsberg!

I think a lot of us experienced this in the late '60s and early '70s with the help of an abundance of various medications.

"Keep on trucking"

Bruce

[L. D. Jeffries]

I really have to agree with "leehljp" insofar as the images that are generated by just reading..rather than seeing the same subject/s projected for you. Of course the "images" you generate are guided by your past experiences. If you had never seen a "hamburger" you would be hard pressed to mentally conjour up one! Ever since I can remember I have been a traveller around the world/cosmos; one of the wonders of reading is that you can be anyone-anywhere! Books are the magic carpet..even if you do not "see" the same picture as the author may have intended.