What Can Fluid Motion Of Videos In A Moving World Tell Us?

What Use Would A Faculty For Creating Motion Out Of Still Images Have If The World Is Already Fluidly In Motion?

Today it is generally asserted that brain activity are correlates of phenomenal events within the mind, or more classically put, are correlates of our consciousness that arises — somehow — as a result of the brain activity associated with those events. But without an explanation of why such conscious phenomena would arise in this way, the proposed correlations are empty of meaning, or mere guesses. But more than that, the presence of neurological activity in the brain only ‘proves’ a causal link within a paradigmatic materialist understanding, which, by its predisposed nature, puts the focus on the neural activity as the source of any causation.

A traditional working hypothesis in neuroscience holds that a complete account of brain function is possible, in principle, in strictly neurophysiological terms without invoking conscious or mental agents; the neural correlates of subjective experience are conceived to exert causal influence but not mental qualities per se.⁠¹

This leads to a profoundly absurdist position:

Every phenomenal, subjective state is caused by a particular physical mechanism in the brain. There is a circuit for seeing your grandmother in a picture or in life, another one for hearing the sound of the wind whispering through pine trees on a mountain top, and the third one is for the vicarious rush when rapidly weaving on a bicycle through city traffic.⁠²

That is, every thought you will ever have — for they are subjective, are they not? — every experience you will ever feel, is not only predetermined, it is hardcoded already in your brain, having been causally created by an uncountable, and therefore, uncomputable, series of physical interactions of material particles that led to the development not only of the human brain — but yours in particular. This is the necessary outcome of the assumption that only matter causally matters.

The evidence for this understanding is not the remains of species, for those are incontrovertible, but rather, the assumption that there is no other possible cause for their development. But what about things that contravene such an assumed state of affairs. What about a faculty that serves no survival purpose, and relates to no possible material cause?

For example, take the phenomena known as the “persistence of vision,” which creates various kinds of optical illusions. While there are proposed solutions to the problematic question of how these illusions occur, there has never been a logically necessary reason proposed for the production of illusory movement of the contents of still images.

Where is the necessity for such persistence of vision? What beneficial contribution to the survivability of human beings has been shown for such illusions, or more specifically, the apparent faculty of our vision for spinning motion out of stillness? In fact, no neural process is known that can explain how the brain could accomplish such a feat.

And yet, it’s interesting to note that our minds already had the ability to create motion from still images that are ever so slightly different, even before the invention of the zoetrope, and later film technology.

A seemingly related phenomenon is motion blur which can also create illusions, such as a ring of fire created by swinging a torch through the air, or shooting a burning arrow through the air (both at night). In these cases, the motion of the fire is blurred and creates a tail, or ring, of fire. Interestingly, it is the fire’s motion that creates a ‘ring of fire’ or ‘tail’, but the wooden body of the torch or arrow just becomes a blur. Could it be the motion of the bright fire, not its motion through the air, that is the condition that goads our vision to ‘persist’ in holding it in place? This is what is called an ‘after image’ which Aristotle (384–322 BC) noted, saying that the image of the sun remained in his vision after he stopped looking at it. But these are not the creation of motion from stillness.

And to be absolutely clear, it is not vision that persists, because it must always be available and ‘taking in’ the light falling upon it. Rather, it is an imputed motion of objects that change that is manufactured. Why, after all, would vision need to impute motion into things that are in motion?

Persistence of vision is only one of the names for various problematic phenomena having to do with vision. There is also the overall problem of motion perception in general. The salient character of what I am referring to is the construction of motion from still images that are received by the retina, not moving images — even if the still images are on a moving medium like film. That is, the image is perceived whole and not sliding in some fashion in front of the retina. The retina does not itself ‘click’ a certain number of images per second, like a video camera. In fact, motion blur is a common phenomena while looking out of a car window, and that could only happen if the retina is constantly perceiving light falling on its light-sensitive cells.

The parietal art in the caves of France near my home at times depict the motion of their subjects by showing two or more superimposed perspectives that are slightly different, in order to show the progression of their movement, such as the head and neck movement of a horse. These effects are achieved in various ways by etching around or beside a figure, or superimposing changes, such as head movements, upon the figure. To what benefit would such techniques serve, if human vision wasn’t already able to construct motion from multiple images, and thus that phenomenon would be a familiar part of human experience, so that the static lines and overlaid images made sense to those painting and viewing the artwork?

Reflecting upon the natural world — a world that we experience in the same way as our forebears did — I cannot find anything to which this faculty could be applied, except one: psychedelic hallucinations. But in this regard, the phenomenon of still images of external things that we know are in motion appearing in sequence seems to me to be the sudden absence of the effect we are looking for.

What possible genesis, then, would such a faculty have had to convey to our ancient forebears the potential of creating motion out of still images if the world is fluidly in motion? Perhaps we are missing something important in our understanding of how the world works.

Never once was, never will be, since now is at once total: One coherent. (Parmenides, fragment B8, lines 5–6a)

Perhaps that faculty is necessary because the world is eternally at rest, not in motion, and reconfigures now, like a new frame of a film replacing the old, but not by sliding in, just suddenly being the frame — and always having been so, not ‘over time’. Then this faculty of constructing motion would make perfect sense, because a predator who can be perceived as being in motion by slight changes in its stillness can be a danger recognized.

And, as is often the case when solutions to quandaries are proffered, the persistence of vision is taken in camera, focused solely on the problem, and not the context or wider implications. But if “vision persists,” rather than motion being constructed, how would that work for us? One moment’s view smearing into and across the next, like some abstract hodgepodge of colors? Isn’t that what motion blur is? But how is there a motion blur for that which is not in motion?

Again, within a materialist paradigm which places the focus on interactions of matter as the cause and source of everything, any opposing viewpoint is denied out of hand. Parmenides assertion quoted above is an example. While his proem to the “Way of Truth” is frequently described as just a dramatic literary device, the action and phenomena presented in that drama is an accurate depiction of a shamanic voyage to the underworld, and if it is accepted as that, then the statements in the second part of his poem are the depiction of spiritual insights and discoveries that he is sharing.

In Parmenides’ own poem, the emphasis he gives to being carried is only the beginning: only the start to a whole series of peculiar devices and deliberate repetitions. His poetry seems oddly to limp and falter, until you realize that this rhythmic effect is chosen because it mirrors the sense of what he is saying. There is no poor craftsmanship here; on the contrary. At each step he breaks any ordinary sense of continuity and creates a space of utter stillness and simplicity instead, keeps drawing the listener out from the details of the narrative rather than into them. And the repeated repetitions that he uses soon start to show he is not just describing a journey into another world. He is actually reproducing the effects of the transition.⁠³

However, spiritual insights, in fact, human experience of any kind are held to be ‘subjective’ and therefore not valid evidence in a scientific sense of anything. This normative evidential standard leaves us with nothing else to turn to, when the current scientific paradigm fails.