No this isn't some philosophical debate.
Just wondering if someone can understand what I'm going to try and explain.

We can't physicaly see reality without light getting in the way.
Hmmm, just stay with me for a minute.

If I am looking at an apple, the light has to reflect off of the apple and into my eye.
I can never truely see the apple in real time.
Only its image.
There will always be that time it takes for the image of the apple to travel on the light and into my eye as miniscule as it may be.
Like my Grandpa used to say, "Almost dont build no bridges".

And by the time the image has reached my eye, the atomic structure of the apple has already changed, and is no longer the same apple I was looking at by the time the image had travelled to my eye.
Just a constant second hand image of reality.

I can never see physical reality in real time.
The light gets in the way.
Haha, sounds funny.

But anyways ya, I'm sure someone can understand that.
Peace

Just one of those thoughts I had to throw out there.

Thanks.

It's just the exact same debate that they have in philosophical debates. So how can you say that it's not philosophical.

Two people stand alonside each other and see the same apple. We can communicate between each other about the exact same experience. Two scientists can perform the exact same experiments and get the same results: they can equally share there experiences that they had in THEIR EQUALLY EXPERIENCED real time.

It's a philosophical debate and belongs on a different subject category forum. It's not about General Science or Technology.

I apreciate the interest.
I understand what you are saying valich and I agree with your scenario.

However, I dont think you understood what I attempted to express.
This observation has nothing to do with two people.
Just one.
Yourself and the object your observing.
Because anything you look at is not instantaneous, as the image is limited to the speed of light, thus the information is always delayed.

Heres an exagerated example of delayed information to maybe help clear up what I'm saying.
If I am far enough away that there is a 3 second time delay between when the sound is made, and when it reaches my ears, then by the time I recieve that information, it is no longer valid in this particular example.
Say the information in this case was bellowed out as "I'm standing!" over a megaphone or whatever, and the person that said that imediately sat down, by the time it reached my ears, that information is no longer valid, or is no longer describing..
"what is" in real time.

Just as with sight, everything you look at is delayed by the limited speed of light.
FACT: Visual information is limited to the speed of light.
Not that this delay limits us in any practical way.

Anyways, I just wanted to see if at least one person got what I was saying.
L8ter

What, like this (http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?t=46765) y'mean? ;)

moementum7: I understand completely what you are saying, but nevertheless it is a philosophical argument as to whether this is reality or not. We can mutually communicate our same experiences as the same reality, even though there is a time delay. We both experience that same time delay and thus both experience that same real reality. It's a philosophical argument.

Em, Val? Although granted moementum's question can indeed be taken in the philosophical sense, fundamentally speaking it is really a biological issue - sensory input takes time to process, not terribly much time anyone will grant, but time nevertheless - time which remains absent completely from ones experience of reality which remains, in all instances, perfectly instantaneous.

There's no philosophy to that, its what simply happens - only, it can't actually happen the way we experience it.

This, I believe, remains the central thrust of what moementum's getting at.

Thus the question is answered. It's simply a biological fact that our input of experience from our receptor cells to our brain to our interpretation or assembly of the info is not instantaneous, and we all experience it that way. That's why we can all communicate about that event in equal terms, as if it were simultaneous, because we all have that same amount of delay.

The exact same argument as all of the above takes place in philosophical debates.

Yes Mr A, that is the context in which I meant it.
Actualy, its funny, I contemplated going into the biological aspects of information delay as well, but I was already losing half my audience on just the physics aspect of it, that being the information delay limited to the speed of light, then having to go through the nervous system to our conscious reckognition, also limited to the speed of our electrical impulses.
I bet theres a formula for visual information delay.
But I dont think I'll look to hard for it, lol.

Thanks for the feedback Mr A

P.s. Valich, it was never a "question" to be awnsered.
You may have understood what I said, but not what I meant.
My bad, I should have been more clear.

and thus science comes into the picture, in an attempt to outline the fundamental aspects of observation, in an attempt not to nullify these sorts of observation problems, but to account for them and reduce thier impact on the final record.

Thanks for the feedback Mr A

Not a bit, deucedly interesting matter. Wouldn't at all mind getting to the nub of the thing m'self. Sorry for the delay, by the way, head like a mullet this week...

As to maths and formula's for visual perception delay, I'm assured there are. Actually, I was pondering this question originally in context with the condition commonly known as Autism...

The inability to read and understand human expression, the tenancies towards focusing on either visual or aural stimulation but not the two in context. Got me wondering towards what it might possibly be like, experience wise, if one didn't have this capacity the rest of us seem to share of "falsifying" an instantaneous experience between sensory input and perception and the best I've ever been able to fathom, other than continually feeling as if one were in a badly dubbed spaghetti western, comes out sounding somewhat similar to what I've been able to noodle about being Autistic.

Freely confess, it's a speciality well out of my particular field of expertise and really very little more than just an idle speculation at best, but since we all in the main seem to share this equal sense of the actual moment, based wholly on the way our brains process information, there are exceptions to the way so-called normal brain function works in certain individuals giving rise to all manner of interesting and clinical sounding of terms.

I happen to be one of those sorts who somewhat possibly quaintly believes, understanding the exceptional is the only really possible way of genuinely understanding what we commonly take for granted.

Oh, and...

The exact same argument as all of the above takes place in philosophical debates.

What, even though you yourself have just pegged the matter down to consequence of a shared biological process?

As I said, indeed, one can take the matter philosophically if one wishes, but this remains a biology matter... ;)