THE WORLD OUTSIDE OUR BRAINS - UNDERSTANDING OBJECTIVELY

THE WORLD OUTSIDE OUR BRAINS

UNDERSTANDING OBJECTIVELY

THE McCOLLOUGH EFFECT

Stes de Necker

1 Corinthians 13:12:

“For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.”

There’s a difference between understanding the world objectively (or at least trying to, anyway) and experiencing it through an exclusively objective framework.

Our surroundings can only be observed through the filter of our senses and the cogitations of our minds. Everything you know, everything you’ve touched, seen, and smelled, has been filtered through any number of physiological and cognitive processes.

VISION

There are many different parts of the eye that help to create vision. Light passes through the cornea, that focuses light, or an image, onto the retina. The retina contains special “photoreceptor” cells that convert light into electrical signals. These electrical signals are processed further, and travel from the retina of the eye to the brain through the optic nerve, a bundle of about one million nerve fibers.

Our eyes collect visual information (electrical signals) but we “see” with our brains. 

 

SOUND

As in the case of vision, our body changes the energy in sound waves into nerve impulses which the brain interprets.

Sound waves enter the ear canal and cause the eardrum to vibrate. Theses vibrations pass through 3 connected bones in the middle ear which sets fluid moving in the inner ear.

Moving fluid bends thousands of delicate hair-like cells which convert the vibrations into nerve impulses which are carried to the brain by the auditory nerve where these impulses are converted into what we hear as ‘sound’

As with vision, our ears collect the information (vibrations) but we “hear” with our brains. 

McCollough effect

The McCollough effect is a phenomenon of human visual perception in which colorless gratings appear colored contingent on the orientation of the gratings.

WARNING  - WARNING - WARNING

The McCollough effect is remarkable because it is long-lasting.

McCollough originally reported that these aftereffects may last for an hour or more.

They can last much longer than that, however. Jones and Holding (1975) found that 15 minutes of induction can lead to an effect lasting 3.5 months!

To experience the effect, first look at the following image. It contains oppositely oriented gratings of lines, horizontal and vertical.

Look at the center of the image for a few seconds.

Next, stare alternately at the following two induction images.  

The one image (A) show one orientation of grating (here horizontal) with a colored background (red)  and the other (B) show the other orientation of grating (here vertical) with the coloured background green.

(A)

Each image should be gazed at for several seconds at a time, and the two images should be gazed at for a minute or two for the effect to become visible.

(B)

Stare approximately at the center of each image, allowing the eyes to move around a little. After a minute or so, look again at the first image. 

The gratings should appear tinted by the opposite color to that of the induction gratings (i.e., horizontal should appear greenish and vertical pinkish).

The induction stimuli can have any different colors. The effect is strongest, however, when the colors are complementary, such as red and green, and blue and orange. A related version of the McCollough effect also occurs with a single color and orientation. For example, induction with only a red horizontal grating makes a black-and-white horizontal test grating appear greenish whereas a black-and-white vertical test grating appears colorless (although there is some argument about that). Stromeyer (1978) called these non-redundant effects. According to him, the classic effect with induction from two different orientations and colors simply makes the illusory colors more noticeable via contrast.

A variety of similar aftereffects have been discovered not only between pattern and color contingencies, but between movement/color, spatial frequency/color and other relationships. All such effects may be referred to as McCollough Effects or MEs.

So, depending on whatever images you may have been staring at, may actually cause you to see something quite differently from another person who has not been exposed to this effect. 

So what does means.

It means that outside our brains (outside our eyes and ears) there exist no light or colour or sound!

The world outside our brains is a totally grey, colourless and deadly silent world. Only atmospheric waves and vibrations.

This phenomena also holds true for our other senses such as smell and taste and feeling. We 'taste' with our brains, we smell with our brains and we 'feel' with our brains! 

The universe can therefore only be observed through a brain (or potentially a machine mind), and by virtue of that, can only be interpreted subjectively.

And that is why each and every one of us experiences this world in our totally subjective unique way.

Our subjective appreciation of colour and sound may vary from person to person, but unfortunately the only way you could possibly know this for sure is if we were to somehow observe the universe from the “conscious lens” of another person — not anything we’re likely going to be able to accomplish at any stage of our scientific or technological development.

The true objective quality of our world and our universe can therefore never be observed or known.

It’s worth noting that much of the Buddhist philosophy is predicated on this fundamental limitation (what they call emptiness), and a complete antithesis to Plato’s idealism.

DETERMINISM

The problem that our true objective quality of our world and our universe cannot be observed or known raises another question, the dilemma of determinism.

We do not know if our actions are controlled by a causal chain of preceding events (or by some other external influence), or if we’re truly free agents making decisions of our own volition because we cannot see the universe in its true objectivity and totality.

If our decision making is influenced by an endless chain of causality, then determinism is true and we don’t have free will. But if the opposite is true, what’s called indeterminism, then our actions must be random — what some argue is still not free will.

Compounding the problem are advances in neuroscience showing that our brains make decisions before we’re even conscious of them!

Albert Einstein navigated the twilight turf between consciousness and matter for much of his life. He argued that “Man” suffers from an “optical delusion of consciousness” as he “experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest.”

His cure? “The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious,” he said. “It is the source of all true art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: His eyes are closed.”

“A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.” 

 “The true value of a human being is determined primarily by the measure and the sense in which he has attained liberation from the self.”- Einstein

1 Corinthians 13:9-10:

“For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away.”