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Posts from the ‘Essay’ Category

6
Mar

More About Waterfall Experiences

This is a picture from a recently posted 360 photo of Majestic Falls. The original picture was for one of my World Wide Panorama projects, and talked about the waterfall in general. I used a different picture of this same waterfall to discuss the idea of qualia; that one was just a normal photograph.

The normal photograph and discussion illustrated ideas of conscious experience and helped me think about the different aspects of experiences that are just based on perceptions, versus those that also involve internal context and related thoughts.

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26
Feb

Majestic Falls Again

This is Majestic Falls, the main waterfall at McDowell Creek Falls county park.

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17
Feb

Frameless Pictures

When photographs are printed and hung on a wall, they often have a frame and a matte. Sometimes though, photographers, like other visual artists, choose to display their pictures without a frame – so-called “frameless” mounting. The picture here is an example of that.

This example does have a solid side, but sometimes frameless mounts don’t even have that – they may be mounted flat on the wall, or have a small hidden mount behind the picture so that it appears to be floating in front of the wall. In any case, the point is that there is nothing in the same plane as the picture itself.

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4
Jan

An Example of Local Wonder

This is a picture of a dandelion, taken along a small lake at a local state park. I’m not sure why it caught my eye. After all, it’s just a weed, something that is generally not thought about much except as a problem, or perhaps occasionally for making tea. For whatever reason, I took this picture.

The picture ended up being surprising in how beautiful this simple little flower appeared. Some enhancements were done in post processing, but only to enhance the colors and shapes already there, and also to deemphasize the background.

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12
Nov

Seeing Past Bias

We all have biases that affect how we see the world. As a photographer, one of the things I strive to learn is to see beauty in the world even when it’s not obvious. For example, my bias may be to see the obviously ugly, natural appearance of something, but I will choose to seek to see what else is there. This is perhaps a sort of deliberate bias, but it often reveals unexpected beauty.

Take, for example, this photograph. To me, it looks like a picture of deep space, with glowing gas clouds, fields of stars, and layers of detail that recede into infinity.

In reality, however, this is simply a rusting metal plate. I looked for and found a different aesthetic by refusing to limit myself to what I thought rust should look like and chose to see it a different way. Of course, it did take some processing to make it look like this, but the point is that I was deliberately trying to look beyond my bias of ugliness to find some beauty, and this resulted.

This tendency goes beyond photography, of course, and applies to pretty much all our perceptions, the ways in which we see the world around us. It even applies to scientists who are deliberately trying to extend knowledge beyond current understanding, especially in fields with high uncertainty. It’s common for individuals to start with a proposed answer and attempt to find supporting proof, rather than start with an array of options to narrow down. It’s even less common for people to deliberately try to disprove their preferred understanding.

An example of a scientific domain that reflects this challenge is research into the nature of consciousness. Consciousness is so poorly understood and is such a different phenomenon that it challenges existing views of physicalism (the idea that reality consists of only physical entities). As such, scientific research into it is subject to biased thinking because some approaches to explain it, even though not based on any religious ideas, sound religious to some people and so get immediately rejected.

I’ve written before about how consciousness is a challenging topic and how photography may help. Perhaps one specific possibility is that it can be used to address bias by helping us learn to see beyond our initial perspectives, as I did in the picture above. Sometimes, simply picturing something in a new way can yield helpful insights.

The trick is to apply this sort of thing to thinking critically about consciousness. In this case, it might look like creating metaphors that represent some aspect being studied. Metaphors may help us think about the topic in ways that don’t automatically trigger our biases. Thus, this could help us avoid biases against certain types of solutions, and truly seek whatever the science reveals.

15
Oct

After Fading

One of the things that fall is known for is the colorful displays that many trees put on; this is an example of a maple leaf beginning to turn. One of the things that strikes me about this picture is the way the color change is starting at the edge and moving its way towards the tree, as food production stops through the leaf. The edges look darker, too, as if the leaf’s life is slowly being drawn back into the tree.

When this process is complete, the leaf falls, decays, and eventually becomes part of other new growth.

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30
Sep

Perhaps Art Can Help Explore Consciousness

It often seems as if science has explained the basics of how the world works, and the remaining mysteries are interesting details that aren’t directly related to daily life. Questions about the very beginning of the universe or what’s going on in black holes may be interesting and fundamental to an ultimate theory of everything, but it’s hard to believe they have practical application.

However, history shows that solving such mysteries can change our understanding in such profound ways that it cascades through our lives in unexpected ways. So, we need to be careful with the still limited understanding we have of reality and be aware of places where we still have things to learn. Some mysteries, because they are at the edge of science, may benefit from other modes of thinking, even if only to make sure the right questions are being asked.

An example of this sort of limited knowledge is the challenge of understanding consciousness, and in particular, how it relates to material reality. In other words, is consciousness strictly a result of physical, material processes, or does it result from something outside of these?

At one time this might have been considered a somewhat abstract question, with application to only a few, narrow places in medicine. However, with the advent of AI, these questions may become fundamental influences in the future of our species.

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13
Aug

VR Photography and Museums

For a recent 360 photography project, I took a VR photograph inside of an old, water-powered mill that has been turned into a state park: Thompson’s Mills in Shedd, Oregon. The purpose was to make a picture for the Worldwide Panorama Project quarterly theme of “Museums”. The picture here is a “little planet” view of that panorama.

This seemed like an interesting choice because it illustrated two different expressions of the museum concept in one photograph. The first expression is the familiar one of a building full of artifacts and stories. This is what most people probably think of when they hear the word museum.

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20
Jul

Clear as Glass (part 2)

In the previous essay, I discussed the possibility that the brain is necessary to consciousness, but that it is not sufficient. In other words, there seems to be something needed beyond just material structures. We explored these ideas by considering the metaphor of a stained glass window, illustrating the possibility that we need to continue looking beyond strictly material solutions.

However, history shows that science has often been challenged with such paradigm shifts. Thus, it may be helpful to use non-science tools to explore these ideas while science is still far from conclusive answers. For example, sometimes metaphors can help us see beyond biases and preconceptions. As an example, in this essay we’ll consider the stained glass picture some more, and develop a picture that may illustrate why consciousness is so unique and why it’s too early to start closing off options for explaining it.

Imagine standing inside a church that is full of stained glass windows. These windows have a strikingly beautiful appearance, largely due to their glowing nature. If we were naive about their construction, we might wonder how they came to have such a striking appearance. Where does the extra light come from?

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30
Jun

Clear as Glass

This picture of a stained glass window is from a spherical picture taken in the sanctuary of a church. This particular church is filled with similar windows, and they are seen as one of the defining characteristics of the building.

Stained glass windows are also interesting topics/objects with which to explore the implications of necessity versus sufficiency that was introduced in an earlier essay.

The challenge is to recognize that something may be necessary but still not be sufficient. For example, food is necessary for us to live, but it is not sufficient. We also need air, water, and so on. This example is clear, but sometimes it’s not so obvious. In some cases, we may miss other things that are also needed if we focus on the most obviously important things.

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