Does more exists than we can observe?
Horatio: "There are more things in heaven and earth."
The scepticus: "I only believe what I can see."
Senses
We can use our senses to observe sound, light, taste, smell, pain, temperature and pressure differences.
Your senses not only 'see' the environment but too explore information from the inside of your body.
Sometimes you have pain, thirst or hunger awareness or you feel urge (pressure) to go to the lavatory.
Human limitation
Although with all our senses we make a huge range of observations it is quite possible that there are
numerous phenomena that we cannot observe.
We define that all human-perceivable belongs to physics. All for people not observable things belongs
to metaphysics. The metaphysics belongs to the philosophy.
The ontology is the set of observable and unobservable concepts, so the doctrine of all, the doctrine
of being and beings.
The boundary between physics and metaphysics is not always clear.
For example: 'my' thoughts are to 'me' crystal clear realities that I can perceive.
For 'you', they are metaphysical, because you cannot read my mind. You believe that I have thoughts
but you can only know them when ' I ' tell them to 'you'. Then ' I ' am a medium.
Sound, to hear and to listen
Our ears can distinguish loudness, pitch, timbre and musical rhythm. With two ears we hear binaural.
Thus we can locate the direction of a sound source. An echo can delude us.
Vibrations through the air and other substances can move like waves, can be divided into three areas:
in infrasound or infrasonic vibrations, in (audible) sound and ultrasound or ultrasound.
The range is determined by the number of vibrations per second or the frequency.
The sound range is then defined by two limits.
The lower limit of the audible sound is considered very low bass around 15 hertz. The vibrations are
that slow we can see the vibrations of the source. In that limit the eye takes the observable function
of the ear over or vice versa.
The upper limit which is an extremely high scream, about 12 kilohertz. These two limits differ individually
rather: what one still heard another cannot anymore. Moreover, for each person the limits depend on age.
Unfortunately many elder people cannot hear any more the treble of birdsong. For them they became
metaphysical. However the combination of a suitable microphone and an oscilloscope can make visible
the ultrasound so it not metaphysical any more.
Basically sound you can hear but there are a number of conditions.
- An active sound source;
- The sound waves reaching your ears must be sufficiently strong;
- The pitch should not be too high or too low.
Not only the high and low frequency limits are individually strongly different but
the boundaries of the volume as well.
As Fred says he heard a faint sound and Wilma states that she did not hear it
she has no reason not to believe Fred. She missed it only.
For Wilma it is not a reason to say: "the weak sound did not exist".
Not only your ears are sensitive to noise but in principle your whole body can resonate with various
frequencies. Loud music in a disco is perceived almost throughout the body as pressure variations.
A famous philosophical question is:
Does a waterfall give sound when there is not any listener?
The seemingly unanswerable question can easily be answered by a proper 'sound' definition.
Sound is a vibration phenomenon that people can hear by their ears.
The splashing of the waterfall can be heard.
so always there is noise near the waterfall.
There is a difference between hearing and listening.
The whole day you hear sounds but you do not remember all impressions on your eardrums.
Only if you listen to the sounds that you are aware you can often remember.
If you can not remember a sound, was it not there?
Light
Thanks to your eyes you can see and watch colors, contrast differences, distance, organization,
forms and movements.
We can read among other things due to
- The ability to both eyes to fix at one point.
- We can have our eyes on reading distance by focusing precisely
(the muscles of the lens to give the correct tension).
- Older people's arms are too short to be able to read; they need glasses to bring back the
distance of around 30 cm.
- Sufficient difference in contrast and color between the letters and the paper.
- Only the good arrangement of the letters gives the desired word. Anagrams have their own meaning.
- Thaks to the shapes we can see not only letters but also distinct fonts.
- Fortunately most letters do not move.
Colours
The colors of the rainbow are ordered to red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet.
It is absolutely impossible for someone who has been blind always to explain what colors are.
Has the blind person the right to claim that red and green do not exist?
Yes, because in his experience it is true, he is not lying.
But his claim is not generally recognized by the seeing as a truth.
For the blind people colors are metaphysical, for the seeing people colors belong to the physics.
To see or to watch
Basically you can see or watch but there are a number of conditions.
- An active light source:
- light must be spottable when your eyes are sufficiently strong and
- not too bright because you might be blinded;
- the frequency of the light should not be too high or too low.
IR and UV
Beyond the red is the invisible infrared; beyond the violet is ultraviolet, both a collection of
invisible colors. There are very few people that can perceive the near infrared or near ultraviolet
(See the following section.)
Infrared radiation
Infrared is a much larger wavelength range of the electromagnetic spectrum than the visible light.
Infrared is a type of radiation that the human eye absolutely cannot see but human skin is sensitive
to this type of radiation. It is experienced as heat.
The infra-red wavelengths of the different colors, read infrared wavelength areas, are all longer
than the wavelength of light. Light goes from 0.4 to 0.8 micrometer. The wavelength of infrared is
still more than 0.8 micrometers, up to a millimeter.
There are different kinds of applications of infrared colors among others remotes.
The ancestors of man walked around naked like their ancestors. It seems a reasonable assumption
they were trained observing the different infrared colors with the skin. From some time they began
to dress, especially to protect to climatic influences. That gave a significantly greater chance of
survival. And for example mosquitoes could hardly pierce through clothing.
With the introduction of clothing came gradually reducing of the skill to the ability to observe the
different infrared colors. Finally it disappeared in a very large extent. A blindfold would be a
similar effect on our eyes with visible light.
Our skin is not sensitive to different infrared colors any more. But that does not mean they do not
exist, they are not even metaphysical. They can be identified by infrared detectors.
Radio waves
Sound waves are converted by a microphone into electrical vibrations which can be converted into radio
waves. The antenna on your portable radio catches the waves and electronics converts them back into
audible, hopefully recognizable and pleasant sound.
People cannot directly perceive radio waves themselves. We have no sense for them. Without radio
receivers radio waves were metaphysical.
Incidentally we can be glad that we do not directly perceive radio waves because we would be crazy of
all radio stations which would harass us simultaneously with different wavelengths and intensities.
In Vietnam a shell fragment of a grenade struck the head of an American soldier. The fragment could
not be removed. Later the man complained hearing music and chatter all the time.
It appeared the metal shell fragment in his head received somehow a local radio station!
Fortunately, this belongs to the extreme exceptions.
Polarisation of light
You need a tool such as a polarizing filter to be able to observe light can be polarized (partially).
You are just like every other human being blind for the light polarization. If you do not have
polarizing filter as polaroid sunglasses, polarization exists or not? It was metaphysical.
Special minorities
If 9,999 of the 10,000 people cannot perceive a certain phenomenon and one of those 10,000 can, he is
likely that this person is labeled as a freak. We laugh about him and declare him mad. He will feel
very frustrated and will not talk about it anymore. Maybe he is convinced by the majority that he
really is crazy.
But what's crazy? Crazy is by definition anything that deviates strongly from the modal and mean.
Maybe he sees, smells, feels or hears ... beings like angels, demons, goblins, elves, ghosts,
spirits, ... about which I can only read, think, dream and fantasize.
Maybe he experiences the world very differently as I do.
Maybe he can see into the future.
Maybe he can perceive four dimensional objects. The vast majority of people can only see three
dimensions (stereoscopy), hear (stereophony) and feeling (scan forms).
Maybe he has the ability to observe and maybe to cure diseases from a large distance.
Maybe he can feel grief or danger at a distance.
Maybe he can perceive underground water with a divining rod.
Maybe he can smell hidden water.
Maybe he has contact with deceased souls.
Maybe he remembers specifically a past life. (Reincarnation)
Maybe he can observe an aura with all its colors around someone or a halo.
Maybe he really can 'see' different infrared colors with skin.
Maybe he can observe phenomena whose existence I can not even imagine.
Maybe ....
Who am I to crack a specific gifted. Perhaps it is a metaphysical phenomenon for you and for a small
number of privileged people yet physical.
Redefining
Perhaps it is useful to call a concept metaphysical when really nobody can perceive it.
The concept can only be considered and discussed.
But how to determine whether one can perceive it? Nobody knows everybody!
If really nobody can perceive a certain concept, it can only be known by someone who invented it.