TED Community » Mark Meyer

Comments

• TEDCred score: +16.30 TEDCred reflects your contribution to the TED community.

• A reply on Conversation: Can we ever know how another person "senses" the world?

  Feb 17 2012: I think your answer expresses exactly why this is such an interesting issue. We can measure the world in near infinite detail, but it never seems to communicate what the world 'is like.' I often hike in the woods with my dog, and I always wonder what the experience in the woods is like with her powers of scent. She experiences a much different walk and even if she could speak, there is no way for her to communicate the subjective experience.
  
  The example of color is such a good one precisely because we DO assume we have similar experiences, but nevertheless can't communicate them in language. For example there is no way for me to explain to a person with protanopia-type color blindness (no red receptors) what purple is like. The color blind person can learn everything science and observation has to tell them about purple: color, wavelength, light, biology of the eye, firing of the neurons and still make no progress in understanding what purple looks like. It suggests a real limitation in our ability to translate experience into language.
  
  And I think it does make sense to talk about it or at least think about — I'm experiencing something that a color blind person isn't but I can't communicate it. It's truly fascinating because it makes you wonder what other subjective experiences are like that—how differently I world experience life if I had my dog's nose or eyes like the mantis shrimp that can see the direction of polarized light. It leaves room in a world dominated by positivism for poetry.

• A reply on Conversation: Can we ever know how another person "senses" the world?

  Feb 16 2012: "The source of the "blue" is independent of our perception of it because if I'm not present, the source of the blue is still there, independent from my existence."
  
  The source of color may be there, but there is no color without the perceiver. Color happens inside the head. Without our perception, the only thing you can measure is the wavelength and power of the light. That is NOT color—it is watts and nanometers. Color doesn't happen until it is perceived. This is why if you want to transform measurements taken from a spectrophotometer (i.e. watts and nanometers) into a color specification you need subjective data taken from actual observers. (For most color science this is in the form of the CIE standard observer data).

• A reply on Conversation: Can we ever know how another person "senses" the world?

  Feb 15 2012: "The blue is independant of our perception of it."
  
  I don't think that's really true. The spectral characteristics of light reflecting off an object are independent of our perception, but how that spectral distribution of light gets turned into a color is 100% perception. Maybe a better way to ask Sophie's question would be: what does color look like to tetrachromat (eyes with four types of cones)? Can we ever communicate this or understand what the world looks like through senses that are different from our own?

• A comment on Conversation: Can we ever know how another person "senses" the world?

  Feb 15 2012: Hi Sophie, there is quite a lot to read about this but it's hard to find if don't know the jargon. A google search for 'qualia' will provide more than you ever wanted to know. Thomas Nagal's 'What Is it Like to Be a Bat?' is a good place to start.

• A reply on Talk: Scott Rickard: The beautiful math behind the ugliest music

  Jan 22 2012: The digits of pi are a good example of why this is different from random music. There is repetition all over the place in pi because it's random. Go on the web and download the first million or so digits and search for 14159—you'll find it repeated about 15 times in the first million digits.
• +1

  A reply on Conversation: Fixed Pricing would be much better than Supply and Demand

  Dec 30 2011: I'm already a tree hugger. And utopia sounds just as nice to me as it does to everyone else. I just don't find giving authority to someone to fix prices particularly utopian. To me, it sounds authoritarian, as do many utopian ideas once you begin to examine them. Remember, the word 'utopia' is Thomas Moore's little joke on us—it means 'no place' in Greek.
• +1

  A reply on Conversation: Fixed Pricing would be much better than Supply and Demand

  Dec 29 2011: One for me, one for you does not work in a world with 7 billion people. Sorry. Who is going to make seven billion electric cars? Where will we get the material for the batteries? Where will the energy to power them come from? If we can't have one for everyone, who allocates them?
  
  If your argument is: in a world with unlimited energy, resources, and food we don't need supply and demand, then of course you're right. But until then, you can't escape the problem of demand outstripping limited resources without some sort of constraint on consumption. Currently that constraint is a price that reflects the balance between supply and demand.
  
  The utopian ideas always sound so nice until you try to work out the details
• +1

  A comment on Conversation: Fixed Pricing would be much better than Supply and Demand

  Dec 29 2011: So the problem is: how do you set the price for things that are not abundant, yet are in demand? How do you know how much to charge? And who gets to do it?
  
  At what price do you fix gasoline? Wine? Electricity? Diamonds? Truffles? Bluefin Tuna?
  
  What all these schemes that attempt to eradicate markets and money have in common is that they are willing to trade one tyrant—the market—for another—the people or group who get to allocate and price limited resources.

• A comment on Conversation: What role do you think humor has in human discourse?

  Nov 24 2011: If you are interested in human nature, you should forget about humor and look to comedy. Comedy encompasses wit, play, and humor, but on a structural level it also includes a deep reminder about what is important in life. Humor is the stuff of jokes; comedy is the stuff of Falstaff and Aristophanes. Unlike humor, comedy has a critical tradition that extends to the Greeks—if you want to know what role it plays in human discourse, it's a richer field.
  
  Here's an interesting essay about play and comedy: http://www.canuck.com/~bnb/greatcosmicjoke/reallife/playethic.html

• A comment on Conversation: Should we allow animals to have rights?

  Nov 17 2011: If animals have rights is would be something we recognize and maybe defend, but not something we allow. The very nature of a right is that it is innate, not bestowed by other people.
  
  An easier question might be what is our ethical responsibility to animals and nature in general. This question was answered beautifully by Aldo Leopold: http://www.aldoleopold.org/about/LandEthic.pdf