Aliens and our brains

maccored

If you consider how much of our 'reality' that is created by our brains (colour, brightness, the ability to process light to see, the ability to process sound waves and turn them into things we understand), wouldnt an alien be a bit fecked if they arrived here? They wouldnt have brains that evolved on earth so they mightnt see or hear the things we see and hear. (and lets not discuss if aliens are real - I cant say I believe such things will ever bump into us)

http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/exchange/reality/looklike

“But is there a way to know what “reality” is really like? What would the physical world be like if perceived outside of the framework of the brain? That is, how would things look (taste, sound, feel like) if our brains did not construct our experience? Since color is a construction of the brain, would the world look colorless? Without a brain to construct our worlds, would reality be “a bloomin’ buzzin’ confusion”? Or perhaps noisy?”

Myrddin

I think it's natural enough to consider a being who didn't evolve on Earth to find it an alien place. I do think though that things such a light, sound, gravity etc are all universal constants...and really exotic life forms aside, I feel it's natural to conclude that an alien being in its own environment will have evolved with its own understanding of these things too. Sure, the light here on Earth might be very bright, or very dim...or sound might travel differently here than it would elsewhere, but the being would understand the reasons for this I think. It's an interesting concept though, that one being might have a totally different experience of one place as another being in the same place.

Ziycon

Myrddin wrote: »

I do think though that things such a light, sound, gravity etc are all universal constants...

I would agree with you on this to a certain extent as all three are just different frequency waves so they would be universal, the only issue would come as to how they are interpreted by the relevant being as interpretation plays a big part in understanding and in turn forming ideas and purpose of the waves.

Myrddin

Ziycon wrote: »

I would agree with you on this to a certain extent as all three are just different frequency waves so they would be universal, the only issue would come as to how they are interpreted by the relevant being as interpretation plays a big part in understanding and in turn forming ideas and purpose of the waves.

The closest comparison we have are other species here on earth, radically different ones like fish and insects all process light & sound in more or less the same ways we do (sure you've differences in organs like compound eyes etc, but the overall goal is the same - turn external stimuli into useful information). Granted everything on Earth to date has evolved on Earth, and indeed something not from Earth might process things a bit differently, but I'd imagine complex life if it were to exist elsewhere would share the basic precepts that we do here.

maccored

can we assume beings from earth (us, fish, animals etc) have the same kind of functionality as an alien brain because things are 'universal'? I wouldnt assume so, mainly because the radio waves etc are universal, but its our brains that translates it into sound/vision etc for us.

my point is just as Hollywood assumes all aliens are humanoid and speak english, the general public seem to assume an alien brain would make sense of earth as much as a brain (again be that fish, human, animal etc) that evolved on earth.

Myrddin

maccored wrote: »

but its our brains that translates it into sound/vision etc for us.

I think I get what you mean now, so you're asking just because earth based life processes sound waves as a 'sound' for example, what's to say a more extravagant life form wouldn't process sound waves as some kind of visual impulse or some other way to interpret sound waves?

mickmackey1

Yeah but if you extend that logic we can't even say we are in the same 'universe' as the aliens. What we call stars and galaxies they might call chalk and cheese.

maccored

Myrddin wrote: »

I think I get what you mean now, so you're asking just because earth based life processes sound waves as a 'sound' for example, what's to say a more extravagant life form wouldn't process sound waves as some kind of visual impulse or some other way to interpret sound waves?

precisely - or not be able to process them at all.

maccored

mickmackey1 wrote: »

Yeah but if you extend that logic we can't even say we are in the same 'universe' as the aliens. What we call stars and galaxies they might call chalk and cheese.

the logic is sound as colour, brightness and sound are all created through our brains. theres no debating that as its scientific fact.

mickmackey1

maccored wrote: »

the logic is sound as colour, brightness and sound are all created through our brains. theres no debating that as its scientific fact.

A 'scientific fact' as interpreted by the brain, if the brain were different there might be different scientific 'facts'.

Myrddin

maccored wrote: »

colour, brightness and sound are all created through our brains

Not sure I'd agree with that part. Our brains interpret these external stimuli and convert them into internal information...the brain doesn't create them in the first place. Take a sound wave for example, say a clap of thunder...our brains merely receive the sound wave through the ear canal and convert it into electrical information...the actual sound wave itself originated externally from the brain.

That's what I meant when I said these things are constants in the universe, wave forms exist whether there are brains around to interpret them or not...but I take your point that the interpreting of these stimuli may be done very differently (or indeed not at all) by different life forms.

maccored

Myrddin wrote: »

Not sure I'd agree with that part. Our brains interpret these external stimuli and convert them into internal information...the brain doesn't create them in the first place. Take a sound wave for example, say a clap of thunder...our brains merely receive the sound wave through the ear canal and convert it into electrical information...the actual sound wave itself originated externally from the brain.

That's what I meant when I said these things are constants in the universe, wave forms exist whether there are brains around to interpret them or not...but I take your point that the interpreting of these stimuli may be done very differently (or indeed not at all) by different life forms.

the brain creates colour .... and brightness. those are true things. the brain interprets the soundwave to create the sound. the sound itself doesnt exist. a tree falling in a forest with no-one to witness it creates a soundwave - but it technically doesnt create sound as theres no ear to translate the frequency to sound.

maccored

mickmackey1 wrote: »

A 'scientific fact' as interpreted by the brain, if the brain were different there might be different scientific 'facts'.

its a fact the brain creates colour.

maccored

https://www.quora.com/Colors-vision/Do-colors-exist-outside-our-brain

As other answers say, the external world does contain light with mixtures of wavelengths, but color is purely constructed and contained within the brain. For example, light waves have properties like wavelength, polarization, coherence (or not) and intensity. These objectively exist. But color is not one of those objective properties - colors are created only in our brain and are purely subjective.

Myrddin

maccored wrote: »

https://www.quora.com/Colors-vision/Do-colors-exist-outside-our-brain

Very interesting, I always thought colour was defined by the properties of the wave itself.