Perception and hallucination: Krishnamurti among the neuroscientists

Kinfonet Discussion
81

I haven’t decided anything.

I’m just saying that if I’m not looking at a tree as it actually is, as it moves, as the light moves across it, etc., who is to say? If no thoughts arise as I gaze at the tree, taking it all in, I’m looking at it as it is. If I am not, who is to say otherwise? Krishnamurti, science? If I can’t know when I’m not seeing what actually is, it doesn’t matter what anyone else says because I can only go with what I have to work with.

Perhaps I’ll realize I’m not seeing the tree, no matter how long or how quietly or how effortlessly I look at it.

82

have we said this?
An optical precept is an actual thing, in the sense that it is a visual experience.
But the visual experience is not the object we are saying is “out there” is not the thing it represents surely?

83

Why “surely”? How can I be sure of anything when I give more importance to what people surely more enlightened than I can tell me more about my experience than I can find out for myself?

84

The visual experience is the actual object out there (the thing seen)?
Or I project what I see?

Only one of these seems reasonable to me.

Both K and neurology are saying something akin to the second option, no?

85

Lord have mercy!

How did this tangent begin?

Didn’t we explain all this earlier? There is a science to optical perception - I believe I quoted good old GPT about it. After explaining the difference between the two uses of the word ‘image’ (one from the science of optics, the other from psychology), you yourself (Inquiry) said that it was clear. So I can only assume that you were not clear about it at all.

Is it because you are confused by the science?

Let me repeat what GPT (our virtual wikipedia) has to say:

GPT: In the retina, the process of forming an optical image involves the interaction of light with the eye’s structures. When light enters the eye, it passes through the cornea and lens, which focus the light onto the retina at the back of the eye. The retina contains light-sensitive cells called photoreceptors—specifically, rods and cones.

Cones are responsible for color vision and detailed visual perception, while rods are more sensitive to low light levels and contribute to peripheral vision. When light strikes the photoreceptors, it triggers a series of chemical and electrical signals. These signals are then transmitted through the optic nerve to the brain, where they are interpreted as visual information, forming the basis of the optical image that we perceive. The brain processes these signals, creating our visual experience of the external world.

When the scientists use the word “image” in this context they are talking about the mechanics of vision, how the eye and brain co-ordinate to create the visual percept we call a ‘tree’ :deciduous_tree: .

They are not disputing that there is a mind-independent object ‘out there’ we call a ‘tree’ :deciduous_tree:. Even if we didn’t have a visual percept of a tree we could still touch it, smell it, take shelter under it. So the scientists are only talking about the mechanics of visual perception. For example, colour does not exist in the object alone, but in the collaboration of the way the eye receives light from the object and co-creates the qualia ‘green’ or ‘blue’ or ‘red’.

So when you say

this tells me that you do not understand that when Douglas talked earlier about a visual image he was referring to the open science of visual perception.

But obviously we are not talking about such things when we are discussing a mental image. The two are completely different matters.

86

No Douglas - we have already gone over this. The brain does not “project” a tree. The millions-of-years-old hardware of brain-body perception adequately (not perfectly) perceives the object we call in English ‘tree’. This is the percept.

Aspects of this perception are of course limited, because - for example - the colour bandwidth is just a tiny slice of the electromagnetic spectrum. Moreover the colours we perceive are a co-creation of what there is to be perceived and what our eyes and brain do with this perceptual information.

But the percept is adequate. In any case our brain-body’s percept of the object we call ‘tree’ is the best deal we’re going to get after millions of years of evolution.

But the mental images I have in my mind can interfere in perception. My mind can dilute perception through a flood of mental associations, words, labels, or personal worries. Familiarity breeds contempt. This is especially so when it comes to how we look at things like trees and flowers and clouds.

Moreover these mental images can project - we see this happening in personal relationship all the time.

87

The brain projects a visual experience, it creates the experience of seeing a tree.

88

We are not going to start this whole conversation again, are we Douglas?

89

I don’t get it - I’m not denying that a tree exists out there, nor that I am looking at a tree.

Whats the problem ? How have I broken rank/contract?

90

If the three of us - you, Inquiry, and myself - were sitting in a room together and could just discuss all this, it would quickly be apparent what the issues are. It’s just so labour intensive to go into this stuff over and over again in writing.

@Inquiry seems to have basically misconstrued what you were saying about visual images. Which is why, btw, I said we ought to avoid the language of images when it comes to visual perception. And this has now sent us on a new tangent about how the brain projects a world, which will inevitably create even more misconstruals - which is why I wanted us to be very careful about introducing new words.

We have to be very careful about using scientific language when talking about daily life. Why? Because it is obviously not the case that whenever your dog appears in the room you think to yourself or say to others “The image of the dog that my brain is projecting has entered the room”.

You may talk like this on Kinfonet, but unless you are quite mad, this is not how you talk in daily life. Your dog is not your projection, your hallucination, or a mental image. If you treat it as though it were, then you mistreat it.

Do you see what I am saying?

91

I think its time for a break and yes :

When the dog enters the room I am not aware of the visual process at work, I am not usually thinking about that process - just like I am not aware of the little bones beating in my eardrums.

But I don’t get how I am mistreating you or the world.

If I have made a statement that is incorrect point it out - if you feel upset about some idea we can also discuss that.

92

Right? This is common sense, isn’t it? I am approaching these issues through common sense - as much as possible.

There is of course a language of science, just as there is a language of politics, of artists and musicians, of religious people, etc. But if we use a word like ‘image’ we must clearly limit it to the language game we are currently playing (Wittgenstein talked about language games). So if we want to talk about psychological images, then it will confuse matters if the other person keeps talking about images in the context of the science of optics (as we have seen with @Inquiry - although, having helped to create this confusion he has now disappeared!).

So in ordinary daily life when we look at an actual tree :deciduous_tree: we are not looking at an ‘image’ of a tree. There is no awareness of the brain’s perceptual processing taking place. We just see the object in front of us, which we have agreed in the English language to call ‘tree’. It’s only if we have read about the science of optics that we might refer to a cortical image of a tree when we see a tree. But in actual fact even a scientist does not see the cortical image when he sees a tree, he also just sees a tree in the same way we do: i.e. as a straightforward visual percept. So I don’t think we need to tie ourselves in knots about this stuff.

Anyway, maybe we can move on from this discussion now and talk about something else next time, or another thread.

93

Sorry about that. I had to attend to things I don’t have images of…mental or visual.

I get what you’re saying, James, and I’m not arguing for or against anything. But if the root of “image” is “a copy”, or a stand-in for the thing itself, and if the word “imagine” is not remotely related to a visual image, it will take me some time to get used to the difference between a mental and a visual image. Be patient.

94

Ok, I’m being patient, but I still don’t grasp what the confusion is?

Let us be clear that the same word ‘image’ can be used in more than one context, and this will change its meaning. Right?

In the language of the science of visual optics they use the word image in a technical way, to help describe how the mechanics of the eye, photo-receptivity and light create any visual perception. Right?

This is one usage. It is a technical usage, and because none of us are scientists it makes no sense to go on using it this way.

Then, there is another, quite different usage. In the language of psychology and social science, we create images of each other, prejudices, assumptions, memories stored up from prior experiences, projected imagination: all of these are mental images. Right?

This is what I am talking about, what James is talking about - and, I think, what Krishnamurti is talking about.

The root etymology of ‘image’ is to copy, to imitate, from the Latin and proto-Indo-European roots of the word. So an image of a thing is not the thing itself.

But, obviously, if one is using the word ‘image’ in a scientific context (specifically the science of optics) then this meaning becomes more ambiguous, because in the science of optics the image of the tree is what we actually see when we see a tree.

But this confusion does not arise if we stick to the language game that is relevant for us here. And as we are not opticians or biologists, but people talking about human psychology and ordinary perception in daily life, in the context of what Krishnamurti has said about mental images, we do not need to go down that linguistic rabbit hole. At least, this is how I feel about it.

95

Okay, fine with me. If someone uses the term “visual image” I’ll just chalk it up to their preference for scientific terms over K’s use of layman’s terms.

1 Like
96

Great you speak the talk let’s us dwell more into it as we talk about this topic.

The snake example that you gave, why do you think our eye saw it as a snake even though it was a rope?

Well the answer is that one not being aware but rather viewing life through one’s memory and experience.

Well in the last paragraph you also talked about K referring to finding oneself.

Well why do you think K talking about finding the oneself or looking into yourself?

A child who is born is free or the society dogma,
People also associate themselves first with country they belong to, culture they have brought up, city they have lived in, college they have been to.
We must understand that this is just our association with certain things and the more we associate with something the more it will eat us.

This is true for association with people, with products, that why we run behind brands, we have also created a personality of ourself to associate with and when one has a personality it is always limited to its own experience in life and one who lives and creates his personality cannot enjoy the true nature of this life which is needed.

Well if we leave our association with countires, war, religion then imagine how peaceful the world could be the more the conditioning of the mind the harder it is to change.

And one can change this mind condition and come to the state of nothingness only by looking inward, or rather understand this mind.

1 Like
97

Probably we could have avoided this confusion if I had made clear from the start the difference between

  1. Visual percepts

and

  1. Mental images

That is, the science of optics is concerned with the way the eye and brain - in relationship to the external environment, light, etc - create any visual percept. They are not talking about mental images, which are psychological in nature.

So, @macdougdoug I hope you don’t mind it if in any future conversations we may have we hold to this distinction.

98

Anyway, it seems we have gone off track quite a bit from where the discussion had led us:

Probably this matter is worth exploring on other threads, as it doesn’t have much to do with neuroscience specifically (but rather with our inward psychology and awareness in relationship).

99

Definitely the reason conversations go off track - what I called melodrama earlier on - much more so I’d wager than the word used and its etymology

Imagine if some crazy (aka normal) people got upset and started scolding each other over the word “sound” - are we hearing sounds or are we hearing the thing directly?

100

When I deliberately look at something, it is subject to what I, content, decides about it. But when I find myself gazing at something without a thought, without intention, there is only that which is gazed upon.

Attention is drawn to something and held there until “I” arrives to sort it out.