What Color Is The Dress?

[r0ckyreed]

If half the world see the dress as white and gold and the other half sees the dress black and blue, then who is right?

Can you see how contradictory this is? What if your awakenings are like you seeing a white and gold dress when in reality the dress is black and blue?

You see, we cannot trust our senses even though our senses are all we have of reality. It is our rationality and contemplation that tells us that our senses deceive us. And even our own rationality is deceptive. Discovering what is true is like trying to best yourself in a game of chess.

https://www.wired.com/2015/02/science-one-agrees-color-dress/

Edit: It is a self-referential problem because we are using our senses to discern that our senses are truth/false.

Edited June 12 by r0ckyreed

[Someone here]

@r0ckyreed  it is not up to you to trust direct experience..you have no other choice. 

 When your mind goes skeptical of direct experience.  ..and Why is direct experience the criteria for truth? Because based on direct experience one can only ever be certain of the content of his own experience. And cannot validate or invalidate the existence of a third person objective world behind the surface of appearance. 

Point one thing.. Just one fucking thing that exists outside of your direct experience right now.. You might say "well the pyramids in Egypt they exist there and they are not in my direct experience now".. No!  There is no pyramids and no Egypt and no "there".. All that exists in actuality right this moment is whatever you are experiencing right now + the belief or ideas that there is something existing outside of that which is actually occurring (the belief) inside of that. 

Take out your hand and look at it.. And recognize that your hands are actual. They are Real. They are the absolute Truth.

And recognize that all your concepts about Truth in your minds(thoughts) are not the Truth. 

Compare all your thoughts and concepts with the sensation of your hands.. Notice that your hands are Truth. While all your thoughts (without exception) are nonsense. 

TRUTH VS  FALSEHOODS exist only on the level of thoughts.. Where there is relative truth. You could say some thoughts are more "true" then others depending on how accurate they represent reality.

Absolute Truth is simply being.  Nothing too fancy about it. And you are directly conscious of being right now.  That's why in neo advaita they teach that you are already enlightened.

 

there is a distinction between relative truth and relative falsehood which exists only in the mind.

At the level of being.. There is no falsehood. Everything is absolute Truth.

For example... 1+1=3 is falsehood at the relative level of meaning and symbols. Yet the very being of the equation (it's very existence) is absolute Truth.  

[Princess Arabia]

I'm kinda liking your posts lately. You're delving into, I would say, the other side of things. Things that I don't see talked about on here too often; but yes, how can we trust our senses. I'm tired of being called Miss Advaita to share some of the radical stuff I suspect to be so and have been accused of not having any say because I don't do psychedelics and certain Spiritual practices and being told i'm just parroting gurus and teachers and whatever else. 

I just read all the delusions and neuroses on here and see the disappointments about this work and all the "I" problems that come with all the dreamers and thought believers. Even me saying all this is part of the delusion of the "I", but at least i won't make it into a big deal because it's obvious what's taking place. 

What kind of direct experience are we going to vouch as Absolute truth when the "I" doesn't even exist. How can we say the "I" is the one actually doing the seeing, or the hearing or the smelling. How can something that passes away, (die), know anything. How can we dismiss the ALL THERE IS and say were living in the relative domain so we have to speak and live as such. That's all fine and dandy, but don't be so sure anything is actual and that anything is actually happening and we're all inside this illusion thinking we're actually doing anything and not being played like a bunch of chipmunks.

About that dress.....i remember when it hit the headlines and was a huge topic in the news about half the population seeing one color and the other half seeing another. I see gold, but who knows. Color-blind people do exist and that's not a bug. 

 

Edited June 12 by Princess Arabia

[r0ckyreed]

On 6/12/2024 at 1:19 PM, Someone here said:

@r0ckyreed  it is not up to you to trust direct experience..you have no other choice. 

 When your mind goes skeptical of direct experience.  ..and Why is direct experience the criteria for truth? Because based on direct experience one can only ever be certain of the content of his own experience. And cannot validate or invalidate the existence of a third person objective world behind the surface of appearance. 

Point one thing.. Just one fucking thing that exists outside of your direct experience right now.. You might say "well the pyramids in Egypt they exist there and they are not in my direct experience now".. No!  There is no pyramids and no Egypt and no "there".. All that exists in actuality right this moment is whatever you are experiencing right now + the belief or ideas that there is something existing outside of that which is actually occurring (the belief) inside of that. 

Take out your hand and look at it.. And recognize that your hands are actual. They are Real. They are the absolute Truth.

And recognize that all your concepts about Truth in your minds(thoughts) are not the Truth. 

Compare all your thoughts and concepts with the sensation of your hands.. Notice that your hands are Truth. While all your thoughts (without exception) are nonsense. 

TRUTH VS  FALSEHOODS exist only on the level of thoughts.. Where there is relative truth. You could say some thoughts are more "true" then others depending on how accurate they represent reality.

Absolute Truth is simply being.  Nothing too fancy about it. And you are directly conscious of being right now.  That's why in neo advaita they teach that you are already enlightened.

 

there is a distinction between relative truth and relative falsehood which exists only in the mind.

At the level of being.. There is no falsehood. Everything is absolute Truth.

For example... 1+1=3 is falsehood at the relative level of meaning and symbols. Yet the very being of the equation (it's very existence) is absolute Truth.  

@Someone hereDirect experience though is limited. God hides things from itself. For instance, Leo’s toilet exists right now even though I am not aware of it. The Earth is orbiting around the sun even though I am not aware of it. There are many things outside of the human experience that are happening. 

Look. If a murder happens, do we just say that the murderer doesn’t exist because we cannot perceive him? There exists a murderer outside of direct experience. That is an idea in direct experience that points to something outside of my direct experience. 

Edited June 14 by r0ckyreed

[Someone here]

18 hours ago, r0ckyreed said:

hereDirect experience though is limited. God hides things from itself. For instance, Leo’s toilet exists right now even though I am not aware of it. The Earth is orbiting around the sun even though I am not aware of it. There are many things outside of the human experience that are happening. 

You are asking the same question. So I will have to give you the same answer:

On 12/06/2024 at 9:19 PM, Someone here said:

You might say "well the pyramids in Egypt they exist there and they are not in my direct experience now".. No!  There is no pyramids and no Egypt and no "there".. All that exists in actuality right this moment is whatever you are experiencing right now + the belief or ideas that there is something existing outside of that which is actually occurring (the belief) inside of that. 

 

18 hours ago, r0ckyreed said:

Look. If a murder happens, do we just say that the murderer doesn’t exist because we cannot perceive him? There exists a murderer outside of direct experience. That is an idea in direct experience that points to something outside of my direct experience. 

 You are conflating the truthfulness or  truth value with the practicality of a thing .

if a tree falls In the woods and no one was there to perceive it ..does it make a sound ?

Edited June 14 by Someone here

[r0ckyreed]

5 hours ago, Someone here said:

if a tree falls In the woods and no one was there to perceive it ..does it make a sound ?

@Someone here If a murder happens in the forest and if no one’s around to witness it, did anyone get killed?

Edited June 15 by r0ckyreed

[r0ckyreed]

On 6/12/2024 at 1:52 PM, Princess Arabia said:

What kind of direct experience are we going to vouch as Absolute truth when the "I" doesn't even exist. How can we say the "I" is the one actually doing the seeing, or the hearing or the smelling.

I is Consciousness. I is Absolute. 

[theleelajoker]

https://neuroscience.stanford.edu/news/reality-constructed-your-brain-here-s-what-means-and-why-it-matters

[Someone here]

12 hours ago, r0ckyreed said:

@Someone here If a murder happens in the forest and if no one’s around to witness it, did anyone get killed?

No.

Objective reality is intertwined with consciousness. 

Nothing can happen outside of a conscious mind. 

It's like asking..if a murder happens in my dream ..does it also happen without the dream? 

 

Edited June 15 by Someone here

[theleelajoker]

2 hours ago, Lila9 said:

I can say that the dress is white with gold.

It appears blue because of the shadow, which gives it a more blueish, cold tone. The gold combined with the same cold, blueish shadow creates more of a dark gray-black tone.

The shadow might be artificially created by the device, it might be natural, or both, meaning that there is a slight natural shadow that has been artificially manipulated to appear more intense.

Everything can look different than its local color depending on the light, shadows, and the colors in the background, which reflect their tone on other objects nearby and create new tones.

 

The dress is not white and gold. The original dress is blue and black.

The explanation is, according to researchers, that our mind subconscious assumes a certain type of light/shadow. This assumption is to a large degree but not only by:  1) if we identify as night owl or early riser 2) by how much time we spend in daylight in our life up to this point 3) what kind of wavelength of light we have been exposed to in the past. This creates expectations our brain makes in additions to what our senses perceive. 

I do courses where I show the pic and discuss with participant. One time, a woman said - "Wow, first i saw it white and gold. Now I see it black and blue."

This is amazing due to two reasons. It shows

1) How strong subconscious filters (built on previous experience) influences our perception of our reality

2) How much power we have to actually change what we perceive

Edited June 15 by theleelajoker

[r0ckyreed]

2 hours ago, Someone here said:

No.

Objective reality is intertwined with consciousness. 

Nothing can happen outside of a conscious mind. 

It's like asking..if a murder happens in my dream ..does it also happen without the dream? 

 

@Someone here How do you explain that I could have a video camera of the murder that right now exists outside of your experience. Of course, when you view it, it will be inside of your experience. But right now, my experience holds more knowledge about it than you because I was the witness and you were not. I have the camera and you don’t.

I think you are taking the Dream analogy too literally because our night time dreams are very different than this day dream. In the night dreams, everything is dependent on your imagination, whereas in this day dream, everything is dependent on the Universe’s imagination.

One thing that you have to realize is that you cannot trust appearances and your own senses. Rationality has its limits, but I would say it is a higher form of knowing that is based off of the senses. We couldn’t have rationality without the senses, but I think rationality is higher because it is the part of our mind that can analyze our experiences and can distinguish illusion from reality.

If you go to a magic show, do you honestly believe that everything you see the magician doing is actually what is happening? The magician knows more than you about the nuances of specific sense-perceptions which is why they are able to fool you. If a magician is able to make it appear like your wallet has vanished into thin air, does that really mean that it has? 

Use your logic. It obviously still exists somewhere else in your “dream” but you aren’t aware of it.

Please contemplate what I wrote. If you just go off of your senses, then it will seem like solipsism is true, but if you combine that with rationality, you will notice the limits of your perception such as the color of the dress.

I still see white and gold even though it is actually blue and black. Notice how I would be a fool if I claimed that the dress is white and gold even despite the knowledge of how light impacts perception.

Edited June 15 by r0ckyreed

[r0ckyreed]

59 minutes ago, Lila9 said:

believe that our senses are enough for us to survive, so we can trust them to some extent. We are still here, so it means that they are reliable and good enough. They are not perfect but good enough to keep us alive.

They might be good enough to keep us alive, but that doesn’t mean they are good enough to discern truth from falsehood beyond survival. 

It is easy to assume that practicality/survival = Absolute Truth.

But I would suggest that our senses are heavily biased towards survival. For instance, if you see a snake in the forest, then your fear might cloud your perception to where you start reacting to sticks and roots on the ground. I know this has happened to me, but think about the other ways your senses are impacted.

Also, your rationality is also impacted too. If you ever had a bad experience with something, you will start to rationalize why you aren’t good at it and why you are a loser, etc.

But I would argue that this isn’t true rationality because it is biased and distorted thinking. 

[Someone here]

2 hours ago, r0ckyreed said:

How do you explain that I could have a video camera of the murder that right now exists outside of your experience. Of course, when you view it, it will be inside of your experience. But right now, my experience holds more knowledge about it than you because I was the witness and you were not. I have the camera and you don’t.

You answered your own question. 

The rest is conceptualizing. 

2 hours ago, r0ckyreed said:

@Someone here How do you explain that I could have a video camera of the murder that right now exists outside of your experience. Of course, when you view it, it will be inside of your experience. But right now, my experience holds more knowledge about it than you because I was the witness and you were not. I have the camera and you don’t.

I think you are taking the Dream analogy too literally because our night time dreams are very different than this day dream. In the night dreams, everything is dependent on your imagination, whereas in this day dream, everything is dependent on the Universe’s imagination.

One thing that you have to realize is that you cannot trust appearances and your own senses. Rationality has its limits, but I would say it is a higher form of knowing that is based off of the senses. We couldn’t have rationality without the senses, but I think rationality is higher because it is the part of our mind that can analyze our experiences and can distinguish illusion from reality.

If you go to a magic show, do you honestly believe that everything you see the magician doing is actually what is happening? The magician knows more than you about the nuances of specific sense-perceptions which is why they are able to fool you. If a magician is able to make it appear like your wallet has vanished into thin air, does that really mean that it has? 

Use your logic. It obviously still exists somewhere else in your “dream” but you aren’t aware of it.

Please contemplate what I wrote. If you just go off of your senses, then it will seem like solipsism is true, but if you combine that with rationality, you will notice the limits of your perception such as the color of the dress.

I still see white and gold even though it is actually blue and black. Notice how I would be a fool if I claimed that the dress is white and gold even despite the knowledge of how light impacts perception.

Reality as you personally know it doesn't exist for anyone else in exactly the same way. The only reality you experience is your own perception of reality. This is true of everyone of us. No other person in existence experiences the same perception of reality. Therefore.. WE don't have ONE truly shared perceptual reality that may or may not be real.

Real for you is what you are experiencing now. Real for me is what I am experiencing now. When you are dreaming..that dream has more reality than the waking state ....and thus more reality experientially for you than the external world. 

[Schizophonia]

white and gold

[theleelajoker]

2 hours ago, r0ckyreed said:

They might be good enough to keep us alive, but that doesn’t mean they are good enough to discern truth from falsehood beyond survival. 

It is easy to assume that practicality/survival = Absolute Truth.

But I would suggest that our senses are heavily biased towards survival. For instance, if you see a snake in the forest, then your fear might cloud your perception to where you start reacting to sticks and roots on the ground. I know this has happened to me, but think about the other ways your senses are impacted.

Also, your rationality is also impacted too. If you ever had a bad experience with something, you will start to rationalize why you aren’t good at it and why you are a loser, etc.

But I would argue that this isn’t true rationality because it is biased and distorted thinking. 

I like what you wrote here.

Our senses are deceiving.

Even if we know for 100% that it is not as it seems, our senses still tell us what they think is "true".

For example, do a bungee jump in "real" and then do the "plank experience" with a VR headset. I did this, and the VR experience was crazy. Sweating, heartbeat, anxiety, the feeling of "f*** I am about to die if I take one more step".

Rationality is not that rational, too.

Check out the list of cognitive biases on wikipedia. And moreover, our whole believe systems are f***ed up, too. You can talk yourself into all kind of stuff. And by creating a believe, or a self image, you directly impact your experience. Just think of the placebo effect - we seem to take it for granted, but how crazy it that actually?  I mean, we can CREATE all kind of weird experiences that are completely beyond what should make sense according to a rational, causal, matter based environment.

Quote

Please contemplate what I wrote. If you just go off of your senses, then it will seem like solipsism is true, but if you combine that with rationality, you will notice the limits of your perception such as the color of the dress.

You do have a point here. I perceive reality with senses - which are incomplete and deceiving. I rationalize my experience, knowing the rational part is incomplete and deceiving. This likely also includes my emotions (see the theory of constructed emotions.) Moreover, I know my senses, my thoughts, my emotions and my experience (reality) are influencing each other.

So what's left?

Is there a "sense of truth" beyond that? Is there any kind of "intuition" that allows us to navigate beyond what is plainly in sight?

Edited June 15 by theleelajoker

[Keryo Koffa]

@r0ckyreed We pick up patterns and relate them, entangling them in the process.

How do we know they're "really" entangled? We don't, it's all interpretation of experience.

Our perception is absolute, unlike our interpretation and understanding thereof

Sometimes we figure out formulas that let us predict the future, but those are just correlations.

Unless we became God and created reality from scratch, we're working on our best guesses...

We can start by honesty, exploring our emotions and the source of our desires and intentions though