Rainbow phenomenon

[starlight]

It wasnt there but i remember the site and the music i was listening to at the time, good old Joan Armatrading MBE :') !!!!

[Insertnamehere]

BTW, disagreeing with me is totally fine. If I'm wrong and you can make my dumb ass understand how I'm wrong, I have no problem with acknowledging the error of my stupid ways.

In this case, at this point, I'm not yet convinced of my ignorance.

The words "dumb" or "ignorance" were never used, good sir.

But there's the whole neurophenomenological aspect of the thing, too. The light we SEE is not the light that physics studies. I was taught that by a physicist. The light we "see" is a neurological RESPONSE to the effects of light energy stimulating our nervous system

Ok, yes.

A signal transduction is carried out within photorreceptor cells (not unlike any other signal transduction, let's say for insulin, adrenaline, etc)

Rhodopsin and other transmembrane proteins change tridimensional conformation upon absorption of a few limited wavelengths within the visible range and kick start through a few intermediates a local depolarization of the membrane by Sodium intake, off goes the nervous impulse, etc, etc.

On this bit, you have a point, since the wavelenghts that can be perceived are very limited



which means of course that the neurological construction of the 3D world based on light stems from a very limited framework.

What I fail to see here, is why does this transduction of electromagnetic radiaton into Na+/K+/Cl- currents going out n about through aferent neurons suddenly subtracts from the validity of the physical process as an independently occurring fact.

It's a bit, in my head, as if one would see starch in any plant and used this end-product of photosynthesis to detract from the initial radiation that kick started its production.

In both cases, starch and ion currents are chemical and electrochemical, respectively, energy that once was electromagnetic energy, i.e. the light. The energy hasn't gone anywhere, just changed nature, and that is what drove me to say that if you take away the receptors, the physical process is still happening out there.

Of course, then we have this

But to call that (rather global) refraction and dispersion of light "a rainbow" is nonsense. It is what it is: light energy being refracted and dispersed. THAT IS WHT IT IS. Not "a rainbow" For THAT, A rainbow, yeah, you do need a receptor... ONE and one with a LENSE capable of focusing the light energy on a receptor surface.

From this I get that the independent process is not a matter of discussion, but then, the abstract concept? The existence of a word to serve this abstract concept?

If this is the case, yes, I'm inclined to agree to some extent...any image is a construct based on an electrical impulse and without receptors to take in the initial energy there can be no construct, no abstraction and hence, no word to define the process that is ocurring...

I suppose you couldn't very well ask Hellen Keller to define you what is a rainbow.

Am I correct in this interpretation?

[mrex]

But but but :| if there are no rainbows, are there still unicorns? ={ (outside the bed at nights)