Still Amazed, ...never grow up. Options

[snooodlysnoosnoo...]

The thing that still trips me up the most about sight is the fact that we really see everything upside down...but our brains do their brain-magic and turn it all the right-side-up.

Yeah, I was reading something recently about a guy who experimented on himself by wearing glasses that flipped the world upside down. After some time, his brain took over, and everything looked the right way around again.

Three days! It takes three days for your brain to adapt to upside down glasses and then three days to adapt when you stop wearing them.

[voices_in_my_hea...]

I learned about that in my Psychology class, oddly. The entire section about how we perceive things could easily go in this thread. Like, there are colors that humans can't see - it's something that seems so obvious and yet when you think about it, it's bizarre. It's impossible to know what those colors look like...because we've never seen them (and likely never will) it's impossible for us to even imagine them.

Even more amazing to me is the fact that the world exists only as we perceive it. At any given time, my brain is busy processing thousands upon thousands of sensations and then interprets them to create the world I live in. Pressure on my skin turns to weight, light turns to vision and so on.

Actually, I guess you could say that the human being in general is an amazing thing, not just our brains. We're essentially a skin-covered sack of meat and bones (and water) that somehow manages not only to live, but to think, reason and experience emotions.

[Hobbes]

We're essentially a skin-covered sack of meat and bones

Stop it, you're making me hungry!

Even more amazing to me is the fact that the world exists only as we perceive it. At any given time, my brain is busy processing thousands upon thousands of sensations and then interprets them to create the world I live in. Pressure on my skin turns to weight, light turns to vision and so on.

This can get pretty mind-blowing. Although we communicate with one another regarding our sensory experiences, and we might agree with each other's descriptions, that doesn't mean we do ACTUALLY feel the same. It is just that the description is the same in both our mind's.

I am colour-blind, and aware that I apparently see the world a bit differently to others. Do people also hear things slightly differently, or feel things slightly differently? And I mean, without considering various disabilities/diseases/abnormalities that could cause it... just differences in perception. Possibly HUGE differences?

[Daria]

"Do people also hear things slightly differently, or feel things slightly differently? And I mean, without considering various disabilities/diseases/abnormalities that could cause it... just differences in perception. Possibly HUGE differences? "
THERE IS NO UNANIMOUS PERCEPTION!

I for one have synaesthesia.

[Mata]

Laura has got a spookily good sense of taste and smell, whereas I have slightly abnormally good hearing in the higher pitch ranges (I can often hear bats or the whine of a television being turned on through several walls). Beyond all of the freakish coincidences that make up who we are when we were born, we then get all the weird quirks of our senses that then twist us into even stranger shapes.

Dogs are pretty amazing - they're the species with the most diverse physical characteristics that we know of. One dog can be perfectly healthy and something like six times taller than a dog of another breed... And those two dogs could still have puppies (technically, although stepladders would probably need to be involved somewhere).

Speaking of such things, killer whales and dolphins can have babies - they are different species! The point of being a species is that you can't breed with other species. That's like saying that Captain Kirk has got strangely coloured children spread across the universe. It's just crazy, but it's true. Also, I've got a lot of respect for the dedication of the dolphins who try this...

Locks - they're bloody amazing. We've worked out a way to make machines that can tell one nearly-identical jagged piece of metal from another! Incredible! I have sometimes thought that if I were born in medieval times I would have been a locksmith - I'm not sure why, but that makes sense in my head.

NOW - the world around us in Western society is flipping amazing! Sure, we've not got jet boots and flying cars, but have you seen what your phone can do? I first got online about 17 or 18 years ago and the web was almost entirely text. Now people are recording moments of their lives and streaming straight out to the whole world.

Cameras - !!!

I think I need to stop for the moment before I go ahead and list everything in existence.

[Cath Sparrow]

Apart from a lot of the other things mentioned I think frost and snow are pretty amazing. The pattens the ice crystals form.

[Phantom]

I am always amazed by the idea that if I would lay every hair I have around the world I could go round it 1,5 time XD

[Hobbes]

Apart from a lot of the other things mentioned I think frost and snow are pretty amazing. The pattens the ice crystals form.

Snow always evokes the child in me. There are plenty of people who dislike it, would rather it kept away, and have bad experiences with it, and I can obviously understand that. But, personally, I see snow and my heart is immediately filled with a warm glow, and I get an incredibly comforting feeling. Sure, I live incredibly close to work so I don't have to worry about traffic issues, I have services and family very nearby, so I don't feel that I would ever be (at the moment) particularly "cut off" due to snow unless I was out and about somewhere beforehand. But I still love the stuff. For me, the only bad side is if I look out the window after it has snowed, to discover that it has barely covered the ground. I want several inches! ... I want it deep! ... I like a lot of snow!

[Hobbes]

THERE IS NO UNANIMOUS PERCEPTION!

I for one have synaesthesia.

Don't look at me in that tone of voice, it smells a funny colour.



I think a lot of people have synaesthetic moments from time to time. I certainly don't experience it in any way that people diagnosed as synesthetes would, but there's been occasions when a sense responds involuntarily to something that I wouldn't expect. The particular example that springs to mind would be seeing a photograph of my infant school, and suddenly being able to smell the kitchens there. It's memory-based, and an isolated case, but it still is a shock.

[Mata]

I feel loud sounds with the jelly in my eyes. Does that count? (I'm not kidding, I really do. I can feel my eyes vibrate with the sound waves. It's really very unpleasant.)

[Phantom]

I feel loud sounds with the jelly in my eyes. Does that count? (I'm not kidding, I really do. I can feel my eyes vibrate with the sound waves. It's really very unpleasant.)

I have random vibrations, sometimes it lasts for 30 min XD

[Lurker in the Pa...]

"Do people also hear things slightly differently, or feel things slightly differently? And I mean, without considering various disabilities/diseases/abnormalities that could cause it... just differences in perception. Possibly HUGE differences? "
THERE IS NO UNANIMOUS PERCEPTION!

I for one have synaesthesia.

Well there is sort of, in that what I call red, you also call red despite the fact that we could be perceiving it in completely different ways.

I'm quite impressed by the fact that I have more effective medicines in this room than existed 150 years ago and it's only two packs of Beechams and a box of Strepsils. Also, I'm having a discussion with half a dozen people in almost real time and listening to a bunch of guys from the other side of the world. Modern life, it's rather good innit.

P.S. Mata, the locksmith thing probably goes with the games design. Basically its a puzzle to solve.

[Phantom]

I am going to start the love thing again...
I am still amazed that you can suddenly meet someone who is amazing and give you loads of butterflies
<3

[Pikasyuu]

do eet! go sara!
in that vein, human resilience?

[Mata]

Human stupidity too, unfortunately!

[Phantom]

feeling is sometimes enough, acting will come when my stupidity is faded XD

[Phantom]

Air plains! they can take us everywhere nowadays! its truly amazing

[Pikasyuu]

airplanes scare me - which everyone who even vaguely, slightly, possibly knows me totally understands. airplanes are amazing, absolutely, but if something goes wrong, you're pretty much ded.
anyway, on the topic of resilience.. i'm constantly hearing things like 'my two children and husband/wife were all killed instantly.' how those people get up in the morning and still remain intact enough to function and harbor the willpower to go on and make something from nothing is so impressive and inspiring. it truly proves that people can weather so, so much more than we give ourselves credit for.

[Moosh]

Pretty much anything man made amazes me. I'm constant catching myself stopping and staring at something thinking "Not only did someone have the idea for that, someone had the skill to implement that idea." I'm in awe of engineers and people who, when given an idea, can think "I know how to do that".

[Phantom]

clouds so much work for nature to make them, and they can take on so many shapes (preferably the fluffy white clouds, so awesome).

[Hobbes]

clouds so much work for nature to make them, and they can take on so many shapes (preferably the fluffy white clouds, so awesome).

I have never grown out of watching clouds; enjoying their shapes and patterns. As I left work this afternoon, I spotted a cloud that was lit in such a way that it seemed as though it had been photoshopped onto the sky - it was marvellous, but so unreal

I find dreams amazing, too. The idea that our brain runs away with itself a few times each night, often in a seemingly random way, and yet the images and stories it creates can be incredibly vivid, and real, and believable... or sometimes total lunacy. But still, the sleeping brain amazes and interests me.

[Ashbless]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GE_USPTmYXM&feature=aso

This. I'm amazed by spaceships. I get little kid happy watching a satellite float across the night sky. The science boffins think up amazing things to show us.

[Hobbes]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GE_USPTmYXM&feature=aso

This. I'm amazed by spaceships. I get little kid happy watching a satellite float across the night sky. The science boffins think up amazing things to show us.

Wow. I just spent a few minutes watching various launch videos, and you are right It would be amazing to see a launch.

[Phantom]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GE_USPTmYXM&feature=aso

This. I'm amazed by spaceships. I get little kid happy watching a satellite float across the night sky. The science boffins think up amazing things to show us.

awesome link

[Mata]

WD40 and superglue. Weird chemical things that are so useful in so many ways.