Multisense Realism

(updated 5/27/16)

This (reverent, yet shameless) riff on special relativity and its relation to general relativity is intended to also show light as a special representative case  relating to light as the visible subset of the more general conjecture of general diffractivity, which relates to all sensory, perceptual, and phenomenal content. I apologize in advance for the neologisms. – Craig Weinberg 4/26/2016

c²: Imaginary Light (“m² and t²”) | Cosmic-Meta-Cosmic scale
Phenomenal-metaphenomenal, surreal-supernatual, super-Mahasunna

Dreams and visions can confuse events. Dream content often features locations, characters, and objects which have ambiguous or superpositioned  identities (“superlocality m²”). They can also include spontaneously confabulated histories as well as content which seems to be visionary or prophetic in retrospect (“superchronology t²”).

c: Natural Light (m/s) | Macrocosmic-Electromagnetic scale
Phenomenal-optical, real-natural, between Mahasunna and Chidakasa

Our ordinary, waking experience of light is seen as “zero-interval linkages between events near and far”*, and seamlessly merges veridical optical conditions with phantasmic ‘illusions’. Natural light occurs at c, and tends to play a foundational role in realism for sighted humans. “Seeing is believing”, including the sight of so-called ‘optical illusions’, in which the criticality between optical and phenomenal light is exposed. Phenomenal light is judged to be illusory to the Western mind, but more as a revelation of the nature of light, perception, and consciousness to the Eastern mind.

√c: Physical Light | Electromagnetic-QED scale
Optical-Semaphenomenal, hemi-real-unnatural “Sub-Chidakasa ”

On this level of description, light is an invisible, intangible semi-substance which is inferred as either entangled particles with definite position or contextual waves with definite momentum. The measurement is therefore conceived not in terms of meters per second or distance over time, but as probabilistic wave functions in which the conservation of spatial entanglement and temporal contextuality are inversely proportioned. Relativity might be understood as a macroscopic manifestation of entanglement or perceptual cohesiveness (inertial frame) and contextuality or cognitive adhesiveness (as in Lorentz transformations),  I have proposed that our concept of photons should be inverted, so that they are conceived of not as particles in a void or vibrations of an electromagnetic field, but as figurative units of permittivity-permeability. I further suggest that a new unit, the phoron, be adopted informally to provide linkage across the phenomenal-optical (phoric), metaphoric, and semaphoric levels of description (frames of afference).

²c: Beams, rays, rainbows, specular reflections, glowing, halos

Light renders itself most directly and literally visible as dynamically contextualizing image transforms such as a rainbow, a change in brightness. This corresponds to the metaphotic, ²c level of description: visibility itself is made visible as “glowing” or shining and is associated with matter being glossy, transparent, or translucent.

c: Forms, colored objects, veridical images

At the photic level of description, light is transparent or seen-through. It ‘gets out of the way’ so that visibility is embodied/entangled with realism as the opaqueness of visible forms. This is the classical, natural, “c” level of description where light is the entanglement of Seer, seeing, and the seen. On this level of description (frame of afference) the metaphotic, ²c phenomena are understood to be mirage or illusion.

c√: Particle-Waves, frequency-wavelength, probability functions

Semaphotic light is an (invisible, intangible) information-theoretic pseudo-entity inferred from evidence of its effects on material instruments, and whose properties are defined mathematically. At the electromagnetic level of description, light is an oscillation of an invisible field which can be perceived as visible color or, as thermal intensity (infrared), or by the behaviors of instruments and material substances. At the quantum level, c√ light is a probabilistic wave function – a pure abstraction with purely concrete effects

*quote from David A. Grandy, The Speed of Light, Constancy + Cosmos

Please see the following PDFs for more information.

extract from 4.92

4.92 Diffractivity