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Noumena
(That which is turned into phenomena by the brain)

Graybeard,

I like your explanations—you are a phenom!


MJA,

There are noumena that we humans can’t perceive, such as from the spectrum of the ultraviolet or infrared. Yet, they exist without our senses sensing them and can be measured by instruments, whose recordings we can see. There are probably many noumena that we haven’t discovered and some that we never will—those many other things that exist “between heaven and earth”.

Of course, colors aren’t out there at all they way they appear to our minds (after brain analysis) as phenomenal red, blue, and yellow, but are out there in their noumenal form of waves of different frequencies or interference patterns or whatever—it matters only to scientific research.

Three types of proteins in our retinal cones rotate according to the amount of corresponding primary color waves received, and so the colors are mixed by the brain into the phenomenal colors that we can differentiate as qualia or pre-qualia in our minds.

(These pre-qualia on our minds, if that step is there, could be urther “noumena” of mind waves that consciousness finally paints as colors.)

The selection of these three colors’ frequencies by the retinal cone’s proteins is arbitrary, and any other workable choice would have sufficed to evolve us further.

A cat only sees in shades of gray, but again, the entire spectrum is out there.

A sound or a color in a night dream is an example of a phenomenon without the accompanying noumenon of a sound wave, while a tree falling in a forest with no sound wave receivers around (ears connected to a brain), makes no sound—a noumenon without a subsequent phenomenon. In our waking reality, there is both the noumenon and the phenomenon—of a sound wave leading to a sound.

There is no appearance without anything behind it that leads to the appearance, but many wish this not to be so. Even if we are in a night dream right now, the brain still broadcasts the show.

Some say that all reality is a dream whose parts are as completely manipulatable in cause and effect, and stability over time, as if they were real, even every atom’s influence being somehow micromanaged, but then, this, too, would be real, for a difference that makes no difference is no difference—and is simply just a different kind of noumena broadcasting station, say a 3D hologram laser-lit from a 2D surface. Again, it doesn’t matter but for curiosity of TOE researchers

It’s good for us that the brain puts a better face on, say, wave frequencies, to make color appear phenomenally—it must have been an advantage found through evolution and natural selection.

I suppose that it could have also worked out that a species could have evolved that saw no color phenomena but saw some kind of “density of waves” phenomena that produced a similar sorting out of wave frequencies as our colors do, and perhaps there is such a species of animal.

Some even go further and say that a long DVD is playing somewhere (where?) that not only has optional endings, but optional everything at every point. Still real as real and just a method of nature.

Some say that the physical brain of all people together maintain reality as a dream image that is just as workable as if it were real. Still really real in effect—just a different kind of noumena presentation. (Why isn’t the physical brain just and illusion, too)

Some say that the noumenal dispositions are experiential in nature. Still works as real—the method doesn’t matter.

Some say that all the intricate mechanisms of nature and the brain are just for show, as in a dream, but again, they do operate exactly as if they were real, so this is an odd approach.

Some say the mind and body are complete illusions but offer no means by which all works just as if it were real.

Some say that all is equal or that all is one, since this was a possible though improbable initial state before materialization—and give this as a rather meaningless answer to every question and post. Stating something over and over doesn’t make it so, nor do category mistakes of mixing things like “equal rights” with the other meaning of “equal”. (I have no hard feelings, just saying how it goes over.)

Well, as for all is one or equal in the TOE sense, it could have been that the different fundamental particles and forces were always around, and if they weren’t, then it is immaterial in both senses of the word, for we operate here, not “there”, and “there” cannot be here, plus whatever started the big bang or whatever is over now. Our existence is here in this differentiated place. The “equal” days, if there ever were any, are gone. It is also doubtful that a One, such as some stuff, could even move if there was not another kind of thing—a place to move to or through or a method for doing so.

At any rate, I wouldn’t base my whole life and every word on any unseeable unknowable superstitions (a redundancy, I know, of repeating myself).

Also, claiming a certainty of equal is a very uncertain approximation in the face of all the wonderful diversity around us.

The one certainty is that you will probably say “equal”, but I am used to it by now. People can be just as good and true and meaningful and helpful in an unlabeled world.

Meaning is as meaning comes with the unequal amounts of learning for any of us.