If an airborne bird flaps its wings at the exact rate of the shutter of the videocamera it's being recorded with, the resulting video is evidence of neither if the bird IS flapping its wings nor is it evidence of if it ISN'T.

Let's say there is an arguement about this. One side offers this video as evidence that the bird is indeed flapping it's wings, even though you don't see them move. The fact that it's hovering through the air means it must be flying. And if it's flying that means it must be flapping it's wings, based on what we know of how birds work. The counter arguement of course being that if we don't see them moving on the video.

The other side claims that the video of the hummingbird is evidence that it does not move it's wings when flying. It's clear that in the video, the bird does move, but does not move its wings. The counter arguement to this being that we know, based on past experiences with birds, that they flap their wings to stay aloft, so if the bird in the video is aloft then it must be also flapping its wings.

Whichever arguements are made for or against, there is absolutely no circumstance where the video is valid evidence of anything. It is unknowable which reality actually took place. Really this situation can be applied to any video of whatever subject. And if we take it further, this can also be applied to our own experiences. Our eyes and senses in this case being the 'camera' and the bird being whatever happens in front of us.

Really the only thing we can be sure of is that we had an experience. As soon as we try to define anything the arguement can be made that the instruments doing the measurements are in some way interacting with reality that they obfuscate the underlying truth.

Thoughts?

PS: the videos exist and are very mind-boggling
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nyf79SI0U9Q