We tend to describe the pupil as though it's its own actual separate part of the eye. It's almost strange to think about the fact that in reality it's just a hole in the Iris and not a "thing" at all.
We tend to describe the pupil as though it's its own actual separate part of the eye. It's almost strange to think about the fact that in reality it's just a hole in the Iris and not a "thing" at all.
For example, why do we say "Your pupils are dilated". They aren't. It's the iris aperture that is dilated.
I mean we have lots of words for varying degrees and styles of "nothing".
A chasm is the empty space between two chunks of the earths crust.
A void is just an empty space well... Void of all things.
An interval is just the time between two events. Technically it's nothing.
Still a good shower thought. There aren't a ton of words dedicated to the same phenomenon, but we have a handful.
Pretty good number of them if you count things like intermission. Slit, slot, crack, aperture, interlude, gap, breach, etc. Others, too.
When I said "handful" I more so meant in all of language yeah there are probably hundreds of words for the empty space between certain things, but in all of human language that's probably a pretty small number.
Also just
“Space” as a place to go
Good ol fashion space.
Well yes, but also no.
The term pupil is used to describe an area that exists inside a three dimensional space, the eye, and while that space may not have anything that reflects light, it does contain something. The surface of the eye, known as the lens, and the liquid or 'jelly' that is contained inside the eye. So that area that is light reflective material would include the whites and the iris, but the inside of the eye is not just empty space. If it was, your eye would collapse like an uninflated beach ball, and you wouldn't see very much at all. Arguably the term pupil is used to refer to the non-reflective area of the eye bordered by the iris and containing the lens.
This is a great point! Humans can put names on things that aren't there, such as holes!
This 'naming of hole-like concepts' may sound trivial, but there have been entire cultures that didn't have 'hole-like' concepts and this stunted their ability to make certain discoveries. For example, the ancient Greeks could not have developed calculus; they did not have a concept of zero that they could use for mathematical manipulation. This shows an unfortunate reality: you can't mentally manipulate ideas that you don't have.
However, once you do have those ideas, they may seem obvious. This is a well documented human bias: the curse of knowledge. Once you understand something, it is very difficult to imagine not knowing that. For us, knowers of pupils, holes, zeros, and chasms, it may seem absurd to not have names for pupils, holes, zeros, and chasms. We take them for granted, when in reality it was not an easy road to arrive at them.
Really makes ya think what obvious things we might be missing. Maybe all you need to make FTL travel possible is to dinglepop all your schleem using a household plumbus?
Oh boy. Don’t look too deep into philosophy of language, or you might become convinced that “the iris” is just as nonexistent — or that all nouns are really about a symbolic existence as a relationship, for which measurable physical matter is inconsequential.
I too enjoy peyote on occasion.
Eye sphincter sounds weird though.
Well shoot. My regular eye doctor is a cute little thing that I kind of have a crush on, and now all I can picture is her talking about my eye sphincter...
It's a sphincter that lets a lot of shit enter your body
A hole is a thing.
Could it not be said that "nothing" is actually a thing? 🤔
- Me, trying to persuade my philosophy prof that by not turning in my assignment, I have actually turned in an assignment.
Null and zero are two different things.
I'd say it's more than just a hole. I had an eye injury when I was a teenager that caused a detached iris. I didn't have a massive pupil, I had 2 small, irregularly shaped pupils. After surgery, I now have a permanently dilated pupil shaped like a teardrop
Out of curiosity, does a different shaped pupil change your vision? I equate a pupil to a camera lens aperture; the smaller it gets, the less light gets through. Have you noticed a difference?
Well after all these years I've gotten used to it, but my vision is very blurry in that eye. There's also injury to the macula so there's a giant gray spot in my near vision. It's kinda like a giant peripheral vision, but I'm also more sensitive to big changes in brightness
Wait until I tell you about this weird concept, the zero…
I'll have none of your witchcraft here, thank-you-very-much.