Reply to Michael
Scientifically speaking, grey/green, but that doesn't mean it's necessarily a mistake to call them red. The illusion exploits a loophole in definitions of "red", which refer both to specific wavelengths of light and hues resembling those of blood/psychologically primary hues i.e. the definitions incorporate both non-cognitive and cognitive elements. These usually match up, but in this case our psychology adjusts the hue throwing a spanner into the works. So, yeah, they're red and not red. Take your pick.
Reply to Sapientia
True, although you can take off your glasses, but you can't take out your brain.
The illusion exploits a loophole in definitions of "red", which refer both to specific wavelengths of light and hues resembling those of blood/psychologically primary hues i.e. the definitions incorporate both non-cognitive and cognitive elements.
I don't know if it's correct to say that the illusion exploits a loophole in the definition of "red". But I would say that certain philosophical positions on colour perception seem to conflate the two.
Strawberries are red, pixels are blue,
Indirect realism still isn't true.
So I look at blue pixels and see red strawberries? Certainly does suggest that we can't reduce the objects of perception to the mind-independent things in front of us that causally explain the perception.
Wrong. If I am looked at with red tinted sunglasses, I will look red, but I will not be red.
What's the difference between red-tinted sunglasses and eyes? They both have a role in influencing what colour we see things to be. Just look at those with tetrachromacy. Do they see the "real" colours, or is the extra type of cone cell performing a "tinting" effect?
Reply to Michael Only if there is no difference between the parts and the whole, though.
If the strawberry image just is the pixels, then I would agree with you. But if the strawberry image is composed of pixels, then wholes can have different properties than their parts, and we could reduce the object of perception to mind-independent things which causally explain the perception.
I'm not saying I want to do the latter -- but if we perceive a whole, then the whole could be mind-independent and cause said perception, even while the constituent parts don't share its properties.
So I look at blue pixels and see red strawberries?
Well no. When I look at blue pixels I see that they are blue, that's how I know they are blue. And when I look at strawberries, I see that they are red, and that's how I know they are red. I don't know what a tetra-chromatic sees in these circumstances, but probably not something that isn't there, even if it's something I don't see.
When I look at blue pixels I see that they are blue, that's how I know they are blue.
And yet when I look at the image I posted I see red strawberries.
I don't know what a tetra-chromatic sees in these circumstances, but probably not something that isn't there, even if it's something I don't see.
I think it's wrong to think that all the colours that we could see a thing to be are "there", and that only organisms with the right kind of eye are able to see them. If I see something as red and a tetrachromat sees it as orange then it's not the case that the thing independently has both red and orange properties but I can only see the red property and the tetrachromat can only see the orange property. It's just the case that we respond differently to the same input (electromagnetic radiation with a certain wavelength).
I'm not saying I want to do the latter -- but if we perceive a whole, then the whole could be mind-independent and cause said perception, even while the constituent parts don't share its properties.
Even the whole itself doesn't have all the properties we see it to have (the red hue). That's added by our brain's processing. As explained here, "You brain says, 'the light source that I'm viewing these strawberries under has some blue component to it, so I'm going to subtract that automatically from every pixel.' And when you take grey pixels and subtract out this blue bias, you end up with red."
Ah, the communal brain, what would we do without it? ;)
What is seeing? Is it something other than the brain's processing of the eye's sensation? Light does not enter the brain, therefore we see nothing. Does this make sense?
Ah, the communal brain, what would we do without it? ;)
What is seeing? Is it something other than the brain's processing of the eye's sensation? Light does not enter the brain, therefore we see nothing. Does this make sense?
So I look at blue pixels and see red strawberries? Certainly does suggest that we can't reduce the objects of perception to the mind-independent things in front of us that causally explain the perception.
The blue pixels arranged in strawberry shapes are mind-independent things which conjoin with the act of perception in which hue adjustment takes place and that state of affairs just is the experience, the seeing, of red strawberries. (Didn't we do all this years ago?)
The blue pixels arranged in strawberry shapes are mind-independent things which conjoin with the act of perception in which hue adjustment takes place and that state of affairs just is the experience, the seeing, of red strawberries. (Didn't we do all this years ago?)
Sure. But the issue is the object of perception. Does the "red strawberries" in "I see red strawberries" just refer to those blue pixels?
(Should I move these posts out of the shoutbox and into a separate discussion?)
The object of perception is blue pixels arranged in strawberry shapes. You see red strawberries rather than blue ones because the act of seeing inheres that transformational aspect in this case.
The object of perception is blue pixels arranged in strawberry shapes. You see red strawberries rather than blue ones because the act of seeing inheres that transformational aspect in this case.
So if someone else were to look at them and see orange strawberries then "orange strawberries" in "I see orange strawberries" would also refer to those blue pixels? Then the person who sees red strawberries and the person who sees orange strawberries are seeing the same thing?
(Should I move these posts out of the shoutbox and into a separate discussion?)
Go for it although I'm unlikely to go too far through this whole rigmarole again. The theoretical differences are mostly just going to boil down to parsimony.
The object of perception is blue pixels arranged in strawberry shapes. You see red strawberries rather than blue ones because the act of seeing inheres that transformational aspect in this case.
I wonder what else the act of perception inheres, aside from colour. Smell? Taste? Feeling? Shape?
They're seeing the same thing in different ways.
If by this you just mean that the same external object(s) are causally responsible for the perception, but that the perception itself is different, then sure. I'm sure even the indirect realist would accept that. But is that all it means to see the same thing?
I'm convinced we're not going to find logical inconsistencies in each other's positions but different ways of describing the same thing that work on their own terms.
I'm convinced we're not going to find logical inconsistencies in each other's positions but diffetent ways of describing the same thing that work on their own terms.
At least in our case, yeah. It's really just a semantic dispute.
Even the whole itself doesn't have all the properties we see it to have (the red hue). That's added by our brain's processing. As explained here, "You brain says, 'the light source that I'm viewing these strawberries under has some blue component to it, so I'm going to subtract that automatically from every pixel.' And when you take grey pixels and subtract out this blue bias, you end up with red."
When did I have a conversation with my brain? Or does it speak to itself?
Obviously this way of talking is supposed to convey something -- but what does this personification of the brain convey? What in the world does it mean to say "Your brain says 'the light source that i'm viewing these strawberries under has some blue component to it, so I'm going to subtract that automatically from every pixel'"?
Colors which set next to one another change the way said colors look. Similarly so with what surrounds some color. So it is with this picture. Why do you believe that the brain "adds" red to the strawberries? (and, for that matter, why doesn't the brain add gray? I imagine you believe that it does -- but then why is this picture different? What does it demonstrate?)
I tend to find "your brain did it" explanations of perception to be something of a black box -- only worse, because even the inputs aren't defined. (images? pixels? wavelengths? information?) The brain is clearly involved, but "your brain adds red to the image because of the blue surrounding it, like it always does in all environments with blue lighting to maintain the colors which objects are thought to have" just doesn't cut it for an explanation. It's no different from saying "red next to blue looks more red", but somehow a third actor -- the brain -- gets involved and does this.
Line 2 is a serious question that you need to address, because the way you talk is as if the brain processes and adjusts, and then there is seeing of the result, as if there is a homunculus in there somewhere watching a screen.
Line 3 takes indirect realism to its illogical conclusion.
Suppose one does some processing in front of the eye, with polarised lenses. Filtering out the reflected glare enables one to see detail that would otherwise be lost. Not detail that 'isn't really there'. One does not say that a camera is indirectly seeing because one puts a filter on the lens, so why should one say it of oneself? Interpretation, of light conditions and other stuff is part of seeing, and 'optical illusions' expose how we see, not how we fail to see. We see the true colour despite poor lighting. Hurrah for seeing!
Colors which set next to one another change the way said colors look. Similarly so with what surrounds some color. So it is with this picture. Why do you believe that the brain "adds" red to the strawberries? (and, for that matter, why doesn't the brain add gray? I imagine you believe that it does -- but then why is this picture different? What does it demonstrate?)
I tend to find "your brain did it" explanations of perception to be something of a black box -- only worse, because even the inputs aren't defined. (images? pixels? wavelengths? information?) The brain is clearly involved, but "your brain adds red to the image because of the blue surrounding it, like it always does in all environments with blue lighting to maintain the colors which objects are thought to have" just doesn't cut it for an explanation. It's no different from saying "red next to blue looks more red", but somehow a third actor -- the brain -- gets involved and does this.
I'm just reporting on what the neuroscientist said about it. He's the expert.
And it's not as simple as two colours "sitting next to each other" appearing as a different colour. Remember the dress? People saw different colours - some white and gold, others blue and black - even though the stimulus was the same. And that's because the stimulus isn't the only thing that's responsible for the perception of colour. Our bodies play an essential role in that dress being either white and gold or blue and black.
because the way you talk is as if the brain processes and adjusts, and then there is seeing of the result, as if there is a homunculus in there somewhere watching a screen.
I didn't mean to give that impression. What I am saying is that it's a mistake to think that a thing's colour is a property of the stimulus (in this case, the pixels on the screen), and also short-sighted (pun intended) to reduce the object of perception to that stimulus. If I see orange strawberries and you see red strawberries then we're seeing different things, even if a shared stimulus is responsible.
And when I see Johnny Depp swashbuckling on TV it would be a mistake to reduce the object of perception to those pixels on the screen.
I'm just reporting on what the neuroscientist said about it. He's the expert.
Sure. I didn't mean to say you had to be an expert and lay it out for me -- only that these are the questions I think people should ask when they hear or are tempted to say "the brain did it"
Anything I've read thus far, though I may be ignorant and am willing to read anything more, may involve more steps than that, but it comes down to a similar event. We'll follow the light to the cones where differentials generate potential energy which transfers up into the part of the brain associated with visual processing where. . . we find the black box again.
And it's not as simple as two colours "sitting next to each other" appearing as a different colour. Remember the dress? People saw different colours - some white and gold, others blue and black - even though the stimulus was the same. And that's because the stimulus isn't the only thing that's responsible for the perception of colour. Our bodies play an essential role in that dress being either white and gold or blue and black.
Couldn't the dress be both? It would just depend on how you look at it, no?
Like the vase/talking faces.
I think color blindness would be a stronger example for your case, because at least there is a demonstrated hereditary association. But I'd posit the same thing here -- only that we have to dig a little deeper into our bodies to "see as" the colorblind do, and currently lack the technology to do so.
Metaphysician UndercoverMarch 02, 2017 at 12:16#587050 likes
It should be noted that seeing strawberries and seeing a picture of strawberries, is not the same thing. I'm near sighted, and wear glasses to see things far away. But when I'm shown a picture of things far away, I have to take off my glasses to see well, those objects in the picture. So clearly it is a distinct process by which you see a picture of an object from actually seeing that object.
It should be noted that seeing strawberries and seeing a picture of strawberries, is not the same thing. I'm near sighted, and wear glasses to see things far away. But when I'm shown a picture of things far away, I have to take off my glasses to see well, those objects in the picture. So clearly it is a distinct process by which you see a picture of an object from actually seeing that object.
Having to repeatedly say "I see a picture of red strawberries" (and "I see a picture of a white and gold dress") is too cumbersome.
Couldn't the dress be both? It would just depend on how you look at it, no?
The dress wasn't both, but definitively whichever it was, I forget now. The particular image was ambiguous, not the dress itself. One does not often mistake two faces for a vase, or one's wife for a hat.
Metaphysician UndercoverMarch 02, 2017 at 12:26#587080 likes
Reply to Michael Perhaps, but if we are discussing why we see blue strawberries as red, we might want to remind ourselves that we are not looking at strawberries, but a picture of strawberries.
Reply to unenlightened Good point in saying it's the image, not the dress -- though it might be the case that the dress could appear this or that way in different environments, too.
I guess the question here would be -- while it is not often the case that we come across ambiguous images, why are there ambiguous images?
Michael seems to be stating that color, at least, is added by the brain, and the brain adds colors in different ways in different environments, so the same object can appear to be different colors.
I was attempting to say you could explain this with a part-whole distinction -- the dress does seem problematic to my tactic, so I was going for the "both/and", just depending on how you look at it.
But I guess it comes down to -- what do you make of ambiguous images? Is it simply that they are ambiguous, and there is nothing more to it than that?
I'm seeing some pixels on my screen that you have indirectly put there. But seeing pixels is seeing nothing.
With a bit of 'brain adjustment', I see what you mean. Sure, in the dark, the dress would look black, and wouldn't look like a dress. Seeing is brain adjustment, interpretation. We know there are no strawberries or dresses on our screens, as MU points out. We make an adjustment in seeing red strawberries in blue light as a way of making sense, so we know that seeing is active interpretation not passive registering of pixels. An ambiguous image has more than one sense to be made and thereby illuminates how we see, which is how we interpret. What makes no sense to me is that it should be misinterpreted as illuminating our inability to see. Once you get to the shop and look at the dress, or the strawberries, or the vase, you see what is there. Online shopping is a bit more hit and miss, like online philosophy.
What's the difference between red-tinted sunglasses and eyes? They both have a role in influencing what colour we see things to be. Just look at those with tetrachromacy. Do they see the "real" colours, or is the extra type of cone cell performing a "tinting" effect?
Whatever the answer to those questions, I know this much: if you reach Hanover's conclusion, then you've gone wrong somewhere along the line.
Or you haven't, and the naive understanding of colour is wrong.
Interesting that you've targeted what you call the "naïve understanding" of colour, rather than the ordinary way of speaking. What if my understanding of colour was just as sophisticated as yours, if not more so, but I objected to the wording of conclusions like Hanover's?
Interesting that you've targeted what you call the "naïve understanding" of colour, rather than the ordinary way of speaking. What if my understanding of colour was just as sophisticated as yours, if not more so, but I objected to the wording of conclusions like Hanover's?
Whatever the answer to this question, I know this much: if you disagree with me, then you've gone wrong somewhere along the line.
I just see words. Anyway, what's a pixel if it's not part of a word, shape or colour? I'm not saying you can't speak of the situation coherently as you do. It's just not the only way of speaking about it. There's nothing odd in what un said.
Hmph. If I want to know the peak wavelength range of a particular colour, I'll ask the scientist not wearing the rose-tinted glasses.
What do you mean by peak wavelength range of a particular colour? Do you just mean the peak wavelength range that most people under normal light conditions (and when not wearing rose-tinted glasses) would see as a particular colour (e.g. red)?
Metaphysician UndercoverMarch 02, 2017 at 14:20#587320 likes
Reply to Baden In the vast majority of instances of perceiving colour, what is perceived is a combination of different wavelengths, not a single restricted range of wavelengths. The eyes have ways of dealing with those combinations. So speaking of a particular colour as a particular range of wavelength, is not very realistic.
How can you see the words if you can't see the pixels? You cannot. The words would not appear to you if not for the many tiny black pixels which form the shapes which we recognise as words. What you're saying is absurd. It's not analogous to, say, a cup and the atoms which compose the cup. I can actually see the pixels, and so can you.
Anyway, what's a pixel if it's not part of a word, shape or colour?
Let's say that it's the smallest visible component of an image, such as the images on your screen.
A pixel doesn't need to be part of a word. But I don't know how there could be a shapeless or colourless pixel. (The latter, if black, white and grey are a kind of colour, namely achromatic colour).
My device has 720 pixels of vertical resolution and 0.9 megapixels. Some of those pixels are the dark shapes which contrast with a white background - which is also pixels - and that's what I recognise as words.
I'm not saying you can't speak of the situation coherently as you do. It's just not the only way of speaking about it. There's nothing odd in what un said.
It's not the only way of speaking about it, but it is a sensible way of speaking about it, and what unenlightened said seemed odd - possibly false, and not the best way of wording it at all, in my assessment.
Sure. Colour is an appearance, not a trans-appearance property of external stimuli.
Colour is not [i]just[/I] appearance, if it is appearance at all. Otherwise I couldn't appear red without being red, but I'm not red, and your red tinted glasses don't change that, they just change how I appear to you.
Colour is not just appearance, if it is appearance at all. Otherwise I couldn't appear red without being red, but I'm not red, and your red tinted glasses don't change that, they just change how I appear to you.
Sure it is. If you appear red then you're red. If you're red then you appear red. So you're red if I look at you through red-tinted glasses and not if I don't (presumably). What else would it mean to be red? Perhaps "have a surface that reflects light at a wavelength of ~620–740nm" or "appears red to most people with the naked eye in ordinary lighting conditions"?
And if colour is just an appearance, you can't claim that anything [i]is[/I] red and [i]really mean that[/I], because "appears" and "is" don't mean the same thing.
How can you see the words if you can't see the pixels? You cannot. The words would not appear to you if not for the many tiny black pixels which form the shapes which we recognise as words. What you're saying is absurd. It's not analogous to to, say, a cup and the atoms which compose the cup. I can actually see the pixels, and so can you.
"How can you see the cup if you can't see the atoms? You cannot. The cup would not appear to you if not for the many tiny atoms which form the object which we recognise as a cup."
It's not absurd at all, it's a perfectly legitimate way of speaking.
It's pretty simple guys, red is either something there can be a fact of the matter about at some level or it is not. And there either exists a science of colour that is not nonsensical or there does not. If every human being in the world right now put on red tinted glasses that would not in the slightest change the scientific understanding or abrogate the scientific meaning of the term "red".
And if colour is just an appearance, you can't claim that anything is red and really mean that, because "appears" and "is" don't mean the same thing.
They do in this context. Or they don't, and the claim "the apple is red" is strictly speaking a fiction (even if it's an ordinary thing to say), as colour isn't a perception-independent property that external stimuli have.
It's pretty simple guys, red is either something there can be a fact of the matter about at some level or it is not. And there either exists a science of colour that is not nonsensical or there does not. If every human being in the world right now put on red tinted glasses that would not in the slightest change the scientific understanding or abrogate the scientific meaning of the term "red".
What's the scientific meaning of the term "red"? Does it differ from the meaning of the term "red" when I look at image I posted earlier and say "I see a picture of red strawberries"?
There's two ways of looking at it. I made it clear in my first post. I'm not saying either is nonsensical on its own terms. However, if you claim that to be red is just to look red, that's equivalent to saying there can be no science of colour. But there is. So, you're wrong.
What else would it mean to be red? Perhaps "have a surface that reflects light at a wavelength of ~620–740nm" or "appears red to most people in ordinary lighting conditions"?
I know enough to rule your meaning out, even if I don't give a detailed alternative.
However, if you claim that to be red is just to look red, that's equivalent to saying there can be no science of colour.
Not if by "red" I mean what I mean when I say "I see a picture of red strawberries". If by "red" I mean something like "has a surface that reflects light at a wavelength of ~620–740nm" then obviously it's not an appearance, and there can be a science of colour, but then it's also obviously irrelevant if the scientist is wearing red-tinted glasses – because he'll use some machine to measure the wavelength, not his eyesight.
"How can you see the cup if you can't see the atoms? You cannot. The cup would not appear to you if not for the many tiny atoms which form the object which we recognise as a cup."
It's not absurd at all, it's a perfectly legitimate way of speaking.
No, as I said, they're not analogous. The pixels are visible to the naked eye, but the atoms are not.
I'm aware a scientist wearing red-tinted glasses wouldn't have a problem reading a number off a screen. I think you know my example was meant somewhat humorously. Anyway, if you accept there is a science of colour then you accept that to be red is not just to appear red.
Anyway, if you accept there is a science of colour then you accept that to be red is not just to appear red.
No, because the word "red" when I use it here is referring to what it refers to when I say "I see a picture of red strawberries", and this thing it's referring to is an appearance.
I'm not denying that the word can also be used to refer to something that isn't just an appearance (e.g. a surface that reflects a certain wavelength of light).
Never hear of a retina screen? I guess I must have a better phone than you. :P But even when the pixels are theoretically visible, we don't generally see them, we just see the words. As I said before, I don't think it's illegitimate to say you see pixels, but it's not nonsense to say you don't either.
If by that you mean only the way that you're using them, then sure. In that context, they mean the same thing.
And I can create a context in which thinking means doing, such that thinking that I've jumped off a cliff means that I've jumped off a cliff. :-}
What else shall we conflate? Walking and running? Sinking and rising? Smelling and hearing? Take your pick.
I'm not conflating. I'm explicitly avoiding conflation by drawing a distinction between being red in the sense meant when we say "I see a picture of red strawberries" and in the scientific sense of "has a surface that reflects light at a wavelength of ~620–740 nm".
There doesn't have to be a single meaning. There can be multiple meanings, and some can be more sensible than others. I have highlighted the shortcomings of your meaning, so we should seek a better one - one that is more flexible and which doesn't lead to seeming absurdity.
I don't see how. It should be obvious in the context of the illusion with the strawberries that the word "red" isn't referring to a surface that reflects light at a wavelength of ~620–740 nm, given that the issue is that it doesn't reflect this wavelength of light and yet we see it as red.
There doesn't have to be a single meaning. There can be multiple meanings, and some can be more sensible than others. I have highlighted the shortcomings of your meaning, so we should seek a better one - one that is more flexible and which doesn't lead to seeming absurdity.
So what did you mean when you said that a thing can appear red even if not (or vice versa)?
This is the gerrymandering. My objection was to the statement "to be red is just to appear red" not to the statement "to be red is just to appear red when what I mean by red is...". You don't get to define "red".
Metaphysician UndercoverMarch 02, 2017 at 15:05#587590 likes
There's two ways of looking at it. I made it clear in my first post. I'm not saying either is nonsensical on its own terms. However, if you claim that to be red is just to look red, that's equivalent to saying there can be no science of colour. But there is. So, you're wrong.
What may be indicated here is that the "science of colour" is inconsistent with "colour" as we commonly use the word. If the scientist says that "red" refers to a very specific range of wavelengths, yet we see "red", and refer to a thing as "red" under all sorts of different conditions, then there is such an inconsistency.
Sure, that's what my first post on all this pointed too.
Metaphysician UndercoverMarch 02, 2017 at 15:08#587610 likes
Reply to Baden Then it's probably not the case that one is right and the other is wrong, there is just a difference. Since these are two very distinct ways of using "coulour", or "red", then what would be wrong would be to equivocate.
Seems perfectly ordinary to talk about people seeing things that aren't really there.
[I]That[/I] talk may be ordinary, but if you saw a ghost, that would be extraordinary. So [i]that[/I] talk doesn't reflect reality, otherwise it would be a relatively ordinary occurrence to see ghosts.
[I]This[/I] ordinary talk is a better reflection of reality: "I thought I saw a ghost", "That looked like a ghost".
Never hear of a retina screen? I guess I must have a better phone than you. :P But even when the pixels are theoretically visible, we don't generally see them, we just see the words. As I said before, I don't think it's illegitimate to say you see pixels, but it's not nonsense to say you don't either.
My phone has a retina screen. But although I cannot differentiate one pixel from another with extreme precision, I am nevertheless seeing a number of pixels, am I not? That's what those dark shapes are.
This is the gerrymandering. My objection was to the statement "to be red is just to appear red" not to the statement "to be red is just to appear red when what I mean by red is...". You don't get to define "red".
I get to decide what I mean by "to be red is just to appear red" when I use it. That you can use that statement to mean something else is irrelevant.
If you were to say that a chair is something we sit on it would be absurd of me to respond with "but Warren Buffett is a chair, but he's not something we sit on" simply because "chair" can also mean the highest officer of a board of directors. Rather than you gerrymandering, I'd be equivocating. So too with the roles reversed here.
Indeed! And it is irrelevant that there were any pixels at all. The same meaning could be conveyed with brush strokes, finger-painting, or carved in tablets of stone. All that is relevant is the structure, not the substrate. Identical pixels, differently arranged, would convey a different meaning or no meaning. Which is why it makes sense to say that to see pixels is to see nothing; to see something is to see a structure, not pixels, but the relationships of pixels. Hence the old saw about not seeing the wood for the trees.
Why are unindividuated pixels more visible than unindividuated atoms?
What are the dark shapes? Do atoms have colour? I see the dark shapes, and the dark shapes are pixels, therefore I see the pixels, or I see the pixels [i]as[/I] dark shapes. The number of pixels are black and are a certain shape, and what I see is black and a certain shape. What's the difference?
If your meaning is idiosyncratic or controversial or even simply debatable then you need to highlight that immediately or people will respond to the regular meaning. And to expect them to respond to the unqualified statement as if it were the qualified one would be to expect them to accept your meaning.
What are the dark shapes? Do atoms have colour? I see the dark shapes, and the dark shapes are pixels, therefore I see the pixels, or I see the pixels as dark shapes.
Do you really still want to insist that when I look at a screen with no individuated pixels (or even barely individuated ones) on it that it's nonsense for me to say "I don't see pixels, I see words". If no, we've nothing left to argue about. If yes, then all I have left to say is that that's a very unreasonable attitude.
If your meaning is idiosyncratic or controversial or even simply debatable then you need to highlight that immediately or people will respond to the regular meaning. And to expect them to respond to the unqualified statement as if it were the qualified one would be to expect them to accept your meaning.
I'd say that the regular meaning is the meaning it has when we say "I see a picture of red strawberries". It's certainly not the scientific meaning that refers to having a surface that reflects light at a certain wavelength.
Reply to Baden Then your criticism above makes no sense. If the regular meaning encompasses both then my meaning isn't "idiosyncratic or controversial or even simply debatable".
Your meaning is exclusive. (And I'm talking about the meaning of the word "red" in general not as used in a specific context. Remember you said "to be red is just to look red". That's what I objected to not "to be red is just to look red when I'm talking about looking at red strawberries, or whatever...")
"To be red is just to look red" only when you pretend the scientific definition, which is encompassed in the regular dictionary definition, is not actually encompassed in it. Use the qualification and then fine. But that's a different statement.
Your meaning is exclusive. (And I'm talking about the meaning of the word "red" in general not as used in a specific context. Remember you said "to be red is just to look red". That's what I objected to not "to be red is just to look red when I'm talking about looking at red strawberries or whatever..."
But my claim was made in a specific context, so obviously all that matters is what "red" means in that context. That it can mean other things in other contexts is irrelevant, as explained above with the example of "chair".
And the context in which my claim was made was the one in which we see a picture of red strawberries even though the stimulus isn't light with a wavelength of ~620–740nm.
Metaphysician UndercoverMarch 02, 2017 at 15:47#587800 likes
No it is the scientific definition which is exclusive. It reduces "seeing red" to a particular sort of seeing red, whereas the common understanding of seeing red includes the scientific instance as well as others.
Do you really still want to insist that when I look at a screen with no individuated pixels on it that it's nonsense for me to say "I don't see pixels, I see words". If no, we've nothing left to argue about. If yes, then all I have left to say is that that's a very unreasonable attitude.
What we say isn't always what we mean and anything can make sense given the right interpretation, so your question doesn't get to the issue. It can seem like nonsense to you or it can make sense to you, but I'm trying to go deeper than that.
If the words are not the pixels, then what are they? What's the difference between the number of pixels, which are black and a certain shape, and the words, which are black and a certain shape? There doesn't seem to be any difference at all, which, if so, would make that statement contradictory at face value. The only thing missing is the recognition of those black shapes as words, but what has that got to do with anything?
No it is the scientific definition which is exclusive. It reduces "seeing red" to a particular sort of seeing red, whereas the common understanding of seeing red includes the scientific instance as well as others.
You've missed the point. The regular unqualified definition of "red" includes two senses which are in certain contexts exclusive of each other (the "red" strawberries example being one).
Metaphysician UndercoverMarch 02, 2017 at 15:50#587830 likes
Reply to Baden They are different, but unless you contrive them, they are probably not exclusive.
What we say isn't always what we mean and anything can make sense given the right interpretation, so your question doesn't get to the issue. It can seem like nonsense to you or it can make sense to you, but I'm trying to go deeper than that.
If the words are not the pixels, then what are they? What's the difference between the number of pixels, which are black and a certain shape, and the words, which are black and a certain shape? There doesn't seem to be any difference at all, which, if so, would make that statement contradictory at face value. The only thing missing is the recognition of those black shapes as words, but what has that got to do with anything?
Consider the example I gave earlier. When I watch TV I see Johnny Depp. Is the Johnny Depp I see the pixels, or is he the actor living in L.A.?
Metaphysician UndercoverMarch 02, 2017 at 15:53#587870 likes
I responded to the statement at face value and so did @Sapientia. That's a legitimate way to respond to it.
So when someone says something like "it appears red but isn't red" (e.g. Sap earlier) do the two instances of "red" mean/refer to different things or the same thing?
I'm not conflating. I'm explicitly avoiding conflation by drawing a distinction between being red in the sense meant when we say "I see a picture of red strawberries" and in the scientific sense of "has a surface that reflects light at a wavelength of ~620–740 nm".
You said that "in this context", "appears" and "is" mean the same thing. But they obviously don't mean the same thing when people say things like "My body is not red, it just appears red, because you're looking at it through red tinted glasses". People don't mean to contradict themselves as if they were saying "My body is not red, it is just red" or "My body does not appear red, it just appears red".
You said that "in this context", "appears" and "is" mean the same thing. But they obviously don't mean the same thing when people say things like "My body is not red, it just appears red, because you're looking at it through red tinted glasses". People don't mean to contradict themselves as if they were saying "My body is not red, it is just red" or "My body does not appear red, it just appears red".
Then as I asked of Baden above, when you say "it appears red but isn't red" do the two instances of "red" mean/refer to different things or the same thing?
Let me put it another way @Sapientia: with the cup/atoms example, you've already accepted the principle that you can see the whole without seeing the parts. Why you can't see that that binds you to admit that what I and un are saying is sensible and coherent is beyond me.
So what did you mean when you said that a thing can appear red even if not (or vice versa)?
I mean something beyond appearance. I'm talking about the thing itself, at least inasmuch as I'm talking about what it is not. Whether it has no colour, or is a different colour, or has colour in a different sense to when we talk about how something appears - the point is, to talk of colour in the way that you and Hanover have done is problematic.
I mean something beyond appearance. I'm talking about the thing itself, at least inasmuch as I'm talking about what it is not. Whether it has no colour, or is a different colour, or has colour in a different sense to when we talk about how something appears - the point is, to define colour in the way that you and Hanover have done is problematic.
I'm asking you if the two instances of "red" mean/refer to different things or the same thing.
Edit: Sorry, thought you were responding to a different comment.
Indeed! And it is irrelevant that there were any pixels at all. The same meaning could be conveyed with brush strokes, finger-painting, or carved in tablets of stone. All that is relevant is the structure, not the substrate. Identical pixels, differently arranged, would convey a different meaning or no meaning. Which is why it makes sense to say that to see pixels is to see nothing; to see something is to see a structure, not pixels, but the relationships of pixels. Hence the old saw about not seeing the wood for the trees.
It's not irrelevant - in what I am addressing - that there were any pixels at all. No pixels, no words.
Yes, structure is relevant. That's where number and shape come in with regards to the pixels. But there can be no structure without that which is structured, so both are relevant, and you can't do away with one of them. No pixels, no structure, no words.
Meaning is irrelevant to my point here, since meaning, or what I called "recognition", can be separated from what I'm talking about when I talk about the words or those pixels, which are the same thing. The objective and the subjective can be set apart for sake of analysis.
To see pixels is, obviously, to see something, and not nothing. To see the structure of pixels is to see the pixels. And to see the structure, but not the pixels which are structured, is seemingly absurd.
Do you see a bridge, but no bricks? I see both. I see the bridge and the bricks with which it is structured. I see a brick bridge. A number of bricks structured in a certain way, in a certain shape.
Looks more like pixels to me. And what's that thing under the bridge of pixels that looks like an upside down bridge? Is it a bridge made of water? We're playing duck/rabbit aren't we?
And what's that thing under the bridge of pixels that looks like an upside down bridge? Is it a bridge made of water? We're playing duck/rabbit aren't we?
It's a reflection, as you know full well. And please don't say that it's pixels if you want this to be a serious discussion.
I see the brick bridge for what it is. I see the brick bridge as a brick bridge, and not as a duck. Perhaps you see it as a duck, but I don't care. That makes no sense to me.
If cups are not atoms, then what are they? This could go on all day...
Unless you're suggesting that atoms are visible to the naked eye and have colour and shape, then that's a false analogy.
In this case, I described what I see, and that description fits those words on the screen and those pixels on the screen. So, I ask you again, what's the difference, if any? Do you have an answer or not?
Consider the example I gave earlier. When I watch TV I see Johnny Depp. Is the Johnny Depp I see the pixels, or is he the actor living in L.A.?
You don't actually see Johnny Depp, but it's acceptable to say that you do in a typical context, and those around you will understand what you mean. You actually see an image of Johnny Depp: an image composed of pixels. So yes, you see the pixels (so composed). The closer you look, the more distinguished the pixels become.
Then as I asked of Baden above, when you say "it appears red but isn't red" do the two instances of "red" mean/refer to different things or the same thing?
Does it matter? The important distinction is between appearance and reality. Whether "red" means the same thing in each instance, or whether in one instance it means something different but related to the other, my point stands: the two phrases are not equivalent in meaning. You can replace "red" with X in both instances, or with an X[sup]1[/sup] in one instance and an X[sup]2[/sup] in the other, and my point still stands. The key words are those I pointed out: "appears" and "is".
I mean something beyond appearance. I'm talking about the thing itself, at least inasmuch as I'm talking about what it is not. Whether it has no colour, or is a different colour, or has colour in a different sense to when we talk about how something appears - the point is, to talk of colour in the way that you and Hanover have done is problematic.
Well, to the extent that we're dividing the world between realism and anti-realism, the only thing of significance is that we admit to seeing the same thing, regardless of what it is. That is, whether the color is "really" in the strawberries or is imposed by the mind by something the fact that we're both seeing the same thing consistently speaks to some external reality.
Further complicating things is that when I speak of colour, I speak of color.
Let me put it another way Sapientia: with the cup/atoms example, you've already accepted the principle that you can see the whole without seeing the parts. Why you can't see that that binds you to admit that what I and un are saying is sensible and coherent is beyond me.
Because they're not analogous in important respects, as I've explained. Why is that beyond you? You want me to accept a general principal based on a false analogy? I'm talking about what I can see with my naked eye. We're talking about perception in this sense, yes? So why do you keep bringing up this false analogy with atoms? I don't claim to see atoms with my naked eye. I'm trying to be impartial by sticking to the description of what I see, and then checking what that does or does not match.
Well, to the extent that we're dividing the world between realism and anti-realism, the only thing of significance is that we admit to seeing the same thing, regardless of what it is. That is, whether the color is "really" in the strawberries or is imposed by the mind by something the fact that we're both seeing the same thing consistently speaks to some external reality.
I reckon that we can agree that we're seeing the same thing, whatever it is, and that this speaks to some external reality. But unless you've retracted your initial claim, or didn't really mean it, or meant something else, then that's where we disagree. It looks red, but it doesn't follow that it is red, unless you've got some questionable hidden premise.
Does it matter? The important distinction is between appearance and reality. Whether "red" means the same thing in each instance, or whether in one instance it means something different but related to the other, my point stands: the two phrases are not equivalent in meaning. You can replace "red" with X in both instances, or with an X1 in one instance and an X2 in the other, and my point still stands. The key words are those I pointed out: "appears" and "is".
Of course it matters.
If they mean/refer to the same thing and the "red" in "X appears red" refers to a type of appearance then either "X is red" and "X appears red" mean the same thing or "X is red" claims that having an appearance is a perception-independent thing such that something can have an appearance even when it isn't being seen or that something can have one type of appearance but appear a different way, neither of which make sense and so make for "X is red" to be a category error.
Or they mean/refer to the same thing and the "red" in "X is red" refers to something like having a surface that reflects light with a wavelength of ~620–740nm and so to say that X appears red is to say that X appears to have a surface that reflects light with a wavelength of ~620–740nm, which I would think is an inaccurate/nonsensical interpretation.
Or they mean/refer to different things and so the "but" in "X appears red but isn't red" is potentially misleading given that there's no a priori reason that appearing red[sub]1[/sub] and not being red[sub]2[/sub] is in some sense a conflict. You might as well just say "X appears red and isn't red" which is just to say "X has a red appearance and doesn't reflect light with a wavelength of ~620–740nm.
Silly geese. Go look up a blue strawberry, and then a green one. Why don't they look red? Why don't unripe green and white blotchy ones look red?
The sneaky thing about the image is just that the red has been removed, rather than replaced, or coloured in. Like just removing an image leaves a silhouette, or the impression of its absence. Because all of the red has been removed, rather than covered up, or replaced, it's still obvious that they're really red. This is the interplay between precepts and concepts. From the bottom up of precepts, there's no red, but from the top down of concepts, we recognize the form of red, even by its silhouette, as it were.
If they mean/refer to the same thing and the "red" in "X appears red" refers to a type of appearance then either "X is red" and "X appears red" mean the same thing or "X is red" claims that having an appearance is a perception-independent thing such that something can have an appearance even when it isn't being seen or that something can have one type of appearance but appear a different way, neither of which make sense and so make for "X is red" to be a category error.
The former isn't a valid option, and you've denied conflating them in that way. "X is red" and "X appears red" don't mean the same thing. End of.
And the statement in question is: "X appears red, but X is not red". That only commits one to what X is not, and leaves open the question of what X is. I'm saying that it isn't necessarily how it appears. If you deny that, you run into problems. Do you really want to defend full blown idealism, where there's no distinction between appearance and reality?
And the statement in question is: "X appears red, but X is not red". That only commits one to what X is not, and leaves open the question of what X is. I'm saying that it isn't necessarily how it appears. If you deny that, you run into problems. Do you really want to defend full blown idealism, where there's no distinction between appearance and reality?
The point is that if the "red" in "X appears red" doesn't mean/refer to the same thing as the "red" in "X is not red" then there's no necessary conflict here. You might being saying something like "X appears red but X isn't a chicken".
So if there's to actually be a conflict – if it appearing red is an error, given that it isn't red – then it must be that the "red" in "X appears red" means/refers to the same thing as the "red" in "X is not red". And that's where I believe your distinction between appearing red and being red falls apart, given that the thing referred to by "red" in "X appears red" just is a type of appearance (qualia), and not some mind-independent property of external stimuli (e.g. having a surface that reflects a certain wavelength of light).
The point is that if the "red" in "X appears red" doesn't mean/refer to the same thing as the "red" in "X is not red" then there's no necessary conflict here. You might being saying something like "X appears red but X isn't a chicken".
So if there's to actually be a conflict – if it appearing red is an error, given that it isn't red – then it must be that the "X" in "X appears red" means/refers to the same thing as the "red" in "X is not red". And that's where I believe your distinction between appearing red and being red falls apart, given that the thing referred to by "red" in "X appears red" just is a type of appearance, and not some mind-independent property of external stimulation.
Okay, let's say that it's the same meaning. It still makes sense to say that X appears red, but X isn't red. It's just saying that X isn't how it appears. If your philosophy can't handle that, then there's a problem with your philosophy.
Okay, let's say that it's the same meaning. It still makes sense to say that X appears red, but X isn't red. It's just saying that X isn't how it appears. If your philosophy can't handle that, then there's a problem with your philosophy.
Saying that it isn't how it appears with respect to its colour is like saying that it isn't how it appears with respect to its taste. If it tastes sweet to you then it really is sweet, and if it looks red to you then it really is red. The how it appears is a feature of the appearance itself and not a property that external stimuli have on their own. Your philosophy sounds like naive realism, where things are said to look like what they look like to us even when they're not being looked at, or taste like what they taste like to us even when they're not being tasted, which is nonsensical (even if a fiction that we ordinarily engage in).
So given that the thing referred to by "red" in "X appears red" is an appearance-property (e.g. qualia), and given that we're assuming that the "red" in "X appears red" means/refers to the same thing as the "red" in "X is not red", it must be either that "X is not red" is a category error or that "X appears red but X is not red" is a contradiction.
The only recourse is to accept that the "red" in "X appears red" means/refers to something different to the "red" in "X is not red", in which case there's no (a priori) conflict/error in appearing red[sub]1[/sub] but not being red[sub]2[/sub].
Anyway, I have definitely demonstrated the power of poetry.
Strawberries are of course green, until they get the urge to be eaten, which is the plant's way of getting the kids to move out. Their power over the human mind is itself poetic, and far more mysterious than that of grey pixels. But as well as fruiting, they also send out runners and so are both mobile and potentially immortal. No wonder they manipulate us with such ease.
The how it appears is a feature of the appearance itself and not a property that external stimuli have on their own.
That doesn't sound too different to what I've been saying. There is no necessary connection between how it appears and what it is, such that how it appears is what it is. It may appear red, but that doesn't mean that it is red. That it appears red means nothing other than that it appears red.
Your philosophy sounds like naive realism, where things are said to look like what they look like to us even when they're not being looked at, which is nonsensical.
No, I'm allowing for that possibility, but my position here is closer to indirect realism. Your philosophy sounds like naive idealism, which faces the same problem as naive realism.
It may appear red, but that doesn't mean that it is red. That it appears red means nothing other than that it appears red.
Again, unless all instances of "red" here mean/refer to the same thing, this is no different in kind to saying "it may appear red, but that doesn't mean that it is a chicken".
And if they do mean/refer to the same thing, then to say that it isn't red even though it appears red is nonsensical, given that the "red" in "X appears red" refers to a property that only appearances have, and not some perception-independent property that perception-independent stimuli have.
No, I'm allowing for that possibility, but my position here is closer to indirect realism. Your philosophy sounds like naive idealism, which faces the same problem as naive realism.
I'm accepting the existence of perception-independent stimuli that are causally covariant with our perception, so I'm not arguing for idealism. What I'm rejecting is the claim that the word "red" in "X appears red" refers to some perception-independent property that perception-independent stimuli have.
Again, unless all instances of "red" here mean/refer to the same thing, this is no different in kind to saying "it may appear red, but that doesn't mean that it is a chicken".
And if they do mean/refer to the same thing, then to say that it isn't red even though it appears red is nonsensical, given that the "red" in "X appears red" refers to a property that only appearances have, and not perception-independent stimuli.
You're blaming me for a problem with your philosophy, which stems from artificially creating a logical connection between appearance and reality. That's not my problem, it's yours. This is not nonsensical. You're just making it so within your own context.
You're blaming me for a problem with your philosophy, which stems from artificially creating a logical connection between appearance and reality. That's not my problem, it's yours.
There's no problem with my philosophy. There's a problem with your claim that "X appears red but X isn't red" is sensible, where both instances of "red" mean/refer to the same thing. And that is your problem.
There's no problem with my philosophy. There's a problem with your claim that "X appears red but X isn't red" is sensible, where both instances of "red" mean/refer to the same thing. And that is your problem.
That's not a problem for me. It is sensible. Test it out on people, they'll agree. Things aren't always what they appear to be, whether we're talking about "red" or something similar - the denial is nonsense, whether naive realism or naive idealism.
Your own example with the picture of the strawberries shows this.
Incidentally, I happened across the same picture except on this site the strawberries look grey to me. Has anyone checked out the actual image for actual reddish actual pixels?
I'm accepting the existence of perception-independent stimuli that are causally covariant with our perception, so I'm not arguing for idealism. What I'm rejecting is the claim that the word "red" in "X appears red" refers to some perception-independent property that perception-independent stimuli have.
Then you're rejecting something I never accepted in the first place. It may well refer to some qualia sort of thing. And if so, then it'd be right to say that it appears red, but isn't red.
The problem, as I said earlier, is when you conflate "appears" and "is". I'm not sure where you currently stand on that. You seem to have accepted it, then denied it, then accepted it again. I stand by my criticism.
Yeah, I did. The only difference is that the one that was posted has the brightness increased. Colour constancy can't be right, as that's about seeing the same colour in varying lights, not seeing one when it isn't there at all. This implies that no matter what colour the strawberries really were, we'd just be basically guessing based on what colour they "normally" are, but if this were true, just any different colour strawberry should create some perceptual confusion, but it doesn't.
Saying that it isn't how it appears with respect to its colour is like saying that it isn't how it appears with respect to its taste. If it tastes sweet to you then it really is sweet, and if it looks red to you then it really is red. The how it appears is a feature of the appearance itself and not a property that external stimuli have on their own. Your philosophy sounds like naive realism, where things are said to look like what they look like to us even when they're not being looked at, or taste like what they taste like to us even when they're not being tasted, which is nonsensical (even if a fiction that we ordinarily engage in).
So given that the thing referred to by "red" in "X appears red" is an appearance-property (e.g. qualia), and given that we're assuming that the "red" in "X appears red" means/refers to the same thing as the "red" in "X is not red", it must be either that "X is not red" is a category error or that "X appears red but X is not red" is a contradiction.
It's neither. It's not a contradiction, and it's not a category error, but it is more like a category error than a contradiction. If I were to state that it doesn't have a quality like the one that I perceive, and if it in fact doesn't have such a quality, then that'd just be a true statement.
The problem, as I said earlier, is when you conflate "appears" and "is". I'm not sure where you currently stand on that. You seem to have accepted it, then denied it, then accepted it again. I stand by my criticism.
If the "red" in "X is red" means/refers to the same thing as the "red" in "X appears red" then either "X is red" and "X appears red" mean the same thing or "X is red" (where this is understood as saying that being red is a perception-independent property of X) is a category error.
So as I've said before, it really depends on what you mean by "red". The problem is that your account seems to conflate two different meanings, as you want for "X appears red" and "X is not red" to be consistent, and yet for the there to be a genuine conflict – for the appearance to be an error. But I can't see how making that claim makes sense unless you're a naive realist and think that qualia are perception-independent properties – which itself doesn't make sense.
Reply to unenlightened I did do that with paint.net color picker first :D. They were, indeed, grayish-greenish, and as I put blue on the blank canvas it began to look red.
One could argue that, though we wouldn't classify said pixels as red that they do have red as part of their make-up, but I thought it more interesting to just take the example at its word, so to speak, and try and argue against the strong case.
If the "red" in "X is red" means/refers to the same thing as the "red" in "X appears red" then either "X is red" and "X appears red" mean the same thing or "X is red" (where this is understood as saying that being red is a perception-independent property of X) is a category error.
We're going around in circles now. That's a false dilemma. It needn't be either. And addressing "X is red" seems like a red herring. I'm not claiming anything about what X is.
So as I've said before, it really depends on what you mean by "red".
I'll just call it a quality, and mean by that something more neutral than you seem to take it to be, so as not to rule out certain possibilities without due consideration, and so as to avoid a vacuous truth.
The problem is that your account seems to conflate two different meanings, as you want for "X appears red" and "X is not red" to be consistent, and yet for the there to be a genuine conflict – for the appearance to be an error.
They [i]are[/I] consistent, although there [i]would be[/I] a conflict for anyone who mistakenly assumed that what appears to be red [i]must be[/I] red - which is the controversial assumption underlying the claim which triggered my entry into this discussion, and is also something which you seemed to quite clearly indicate your agreement with at various points throughout this discussion, although you also seemed in denial at points when I've challenged this, and seem to have evaded my criticism as well as clarification of your stance.
There [i]would not[/I] be a conflict - or a problem, as far as I can tell - if you don't make that assumption, if it appears red, and if it is not red.
I don't make that assumption, I acknowledge that possibility, and I acknowledge the distinction between appearance and reality.
L. Wittgenstein, in Remarks on Colour, p 46e. :I am not saying here what the Gestalt psychologists say: that the impression of white comes about in such and such a way. Rather the question is precisely: what is the impression of white, what is the meaning of this expression, what is the logic of this concept 'white'?
The impression of the depicted strawberries might be grey-blue, but the meaning of the expression "they look grey-blue" is the colour of the picture, not the strawberries.
The object of perception is blue pixels arranged in strawberry shapes. You see red strawberries rather than blue ones because the act of seeing inheres that transformational aspect in this case.
I thought this particular image had to do with our brains "white balancing" the image due to the cyan tint to it. An adaptation we also use when moving from indoor (yellow light) to outdoor (blue).
EDIT: the strawberries only appear red but in reality the colour red isn't present in the picture.
EDIT: the strawberries only appear red but in reality the colour red isn't present in the picture.
As I pointed out earlier, to define "red" as a particular range of wavelength is unacceptable, because the vast majority of instances of seeing a particular colour, are instances of a combination of different wavelengths. So the fact that a particular wavelength of light is not present, does not mean that the strawberries are not red.
Metaphysician UndercoverMarch 06, 2017 at 13:44#594720 likes
Human eyes can see millions of different shades of colour. This is not because there are millions of different wavelengths between 400 and 740.
As I pointed out earlier, to define "red" as a particular range of wavelength is unacceptable, because the vast majority of instances of seeing a particular colour, are instances of a combination of different wavelengths. So the fact that a particular wavelength of light is not present, does not mean that the strawberries are not red.
Right. So we can stop trusting telescopes that there really are more stars in the sky than we can see with the naked eye.
There's a reason why we trust intstrumentation and why that works. You sound like the Spanish inquisition when they dealt with Copernicus. We "have" defined red as a particular wavelength and it's precisely because it is a particular wavelength that we are capable of discerning it under different lighting conditions by "filtering" out certain wavelengths of light. That this, normally useful adaptation, now plays tricks on us by making us believe the strawberries are red when they aren't, doesn't make the strawberries red, it only makes them look red.
EDIT: The mirage isn't really there, no matter how certain you are you saw it.
Human eyes can see millions of different shades of colour. This is not because there are millions of different wavelengths between 400 and 740.
Good point. :) ..but then isn't also the range of wavelengths analog and dense...i.e. between two identified wavelengths there is always a third. Hence there are millions of them too.
This discussion often misses the point of absorption and emission spectra. the 'actual' color depends on the lighting conditions. Sometimes we know it should be one color in daylight conditions, so it appears different to our mind than it would otherwise be in other lighting, which explains one fascination with art. Moreover, our eyes use a different mechanism to see in the dark, and our minds combine the experience of different objects with known colors in the dark as they are perceived with visual purple. Finally, and perhaps most significantly. very low-level edge-detection mechanisms distort the actual perceived colors at boundaries, so one color really does look different to us depending on the color next to it.
Metaphysician UndercoverMarch 06, 2017 at 21:01#595120 likes
Right. So we can stop trusting telescopes that there really are more stars in the sky than we can see with the naked eye.
I don't see what instrumentation has to do with this. The fact is that the vast majority of colours which we see, talk about, refer to, and describe, are combinations of different wavelengths. The various reds which we see are no different from this. Have you ever seen someone mixing red paint? So your restricted definition of red, to a particular range of wavelength, while it might be useful for some scientific purposes, is not a true representation of what the average person refers to as "red".
You have restricted your definition of "red" to a particular type of red, some sort of pure red. When do you ever see pure red? There are many other instances of red, different combinations of wavelengths, which do not qualify as "red" under your definition, and it is not wrong to call these particular red objects, instances of red. But it is wrong to say that we shouldn't call any instance of colour "red" unless it conforms to your restricted definition. It's like you've determined the "ideal" red, and you do not think that anyone should call anything "red" unless it fits this ideal.
Thats exactly what I am saying. Red paint contains pigments which appear red in daylight. But in other lighting conditions, the red paint can appear to be orange, or purple, or brown, or gray. the strange thing is, two pigments can appear the same color in daylight, but different colors in different lighting conditions. That is what the great artists understood.
For a common object, such as a strawberry, we do not think of it being orange when it is lit such that it appears orange. We still think of it as red from our experience.
That is why color is more than just a combination of wavelengths.
I should add, it is amazing how much that is misunderstood even now.
Take Rothko, for example, who was an artist interested only in large swathes of color. He painted by candlelight. Art galleries now pay millions of dollars for his canvases and display them in bright incandescent light. I actually had an argument with the MOMA in NYC about it. It said basically, showing his canvases in candlelight was too weird for Americans to accept, and there would only be a demand to see it 'properly' in bright light instead. Which, given the other weird things MOMA displays, made it rather pointless continuing the debate, so I gave up. So now we cant even see the art Rothko actually painted at all. The name Rothko is now more important than the colors he wanted to show us. Just a thought why it is so misunderstood here now.
it is amazing how much that is misunderstood even now.
Indeed, especially scientific accounts based on arguments from illusion, according to which you'd never see a real colour, only your own hallucination of something unseen. :-}
what we *mean* by *real color* is how a large uniformly, flat colored object appears in daylight. That is just a standardized reference by convention. It has very little to do with how we actually perceive color.
I don't see what instrumentation has to do with this.
It's instrumentation that can tell you there's no red in the image. The rest of your post is an argument to ignore progress and return to the Middle Ages.
Metaphysician UndercoverMarch 07, 2017 at 12:30#596060 likes
Reply to Benkei
Actually, your method for determining colour proceeds from a faulty premise. You assume that a particular colour has a corresponding range of wavelengths. That this is a false premise is evident from the fact that most of the different colours which we talk about have no such corresponding range of wavelengths.
Furthermore, it appears like you want to reduce "colour" to a specific set of primary colours, each having a corresponding wavelength. But any such reduction is known to be purely arbitrary, and abstract. So all you've done is produced an arbitrary, ideal "red", and you are claiming that if an encountered instance of red does not match this ideal red, it does not qualify as "red".
So you have a false premise, that any particular colour, such as red, can be defined by a particular wavelength, and from this you produce a false "ideal red", which is define as a range of wavelengths. Then you proceed to argue, from this false conclusion, that if a particular instance of colour does not match your ideal, it does not qualify as being the referred to colour.
And your mode of justifying your false premise appears to be pure assertion. I'm right and your wrong, because science supports my position. But if you looked closely, you would see that science does not support your false premise. Science has produced a specialized definition of "red", which is suitable for use within the instrumentation which you refer to, but is not suitable for use when referring to human perception.
Reply to Metaphysician Undercover We only have a limited number of "color"-receptive cones in our eyes, and all of them are triggered by an assortment of wavelengths of varying degrees. It is a rare circumstance when only one of our cones is triggered, or none as in the case of no light being in the environment. You have to account for the fact that we can't see at all when light is completely absent from the environment.
Our brains then assemble a "picture" based on these varying degrees that each cones is triggered by. In other words, the brain mixes the strength of these signals from each "color"-sensitive cone to create the colors we experience.
It doesn't really matter what one person claims as being "the ideal red". After all it is possible that we all experience different colors when interacting with the same light. All that matters is that the symbol, or representation, of that light is consistent - that the effect is always the same per the cause for that particular person. This way we can still communicate about what we see without anyone being the wiser choice of what is the "ideal color".
Metaphysician UndercoverMarch 07, 2017 at 13:46#596140 likes
All that matters is that the symbol, or representation, of that light is consistent - that the effect is always the same per the cause for that particular person.
Don't we need some consistency between individuals as well? This consistency gives us what some people call inter-subjectivity, which in some cases it is argued, qualifies as objectivity. It's interpretation. If we all agree as to the meaning of a particular word, then that word has "objective" meaning (in the sense of inter-subjective), though it might not have an ideal objective meaning in the sense of an independent Platonic Form. The independent Platonic Form could allow us to theoretically judge the inter-subjective meaning, if we had access to that Form.
Isn't this the same with colours? Seeing is a mode of interpretation as well. There is an inter-subjective meaning of "red" which provides us with the common meaning of the term. Benkei appears to be claiming that there is a truly objective "red", an ideal definition of red, and even to know this Platonic Form, through science. It is suggested that we should judge our inter-subjective interpretation against this Form. But I think Benkei derives this ideal in a faulty way. There may be such a Platonic Form of red, but Benkei has not described it.
What is interpreted? We might interpret the presence of a silver oval in our visual field as a round coin. But we don't get to interpret its presence, nor the coloured shape. In this sense seeing precedes interpretation.
Metaphysician UndercoverMarch 08, 2017 at 00:40#596820 likes
But we don't get to interpret its presence, nor the coloured shape.
Why not? I would say that all these things are interpretations. That there is a presence, that there is a colour, that there is a shape, all of these are interpretations. If you consider that the coin consists of atoms and molecules, then ask yourself why do you see it as the presence of a single, coloured, shape, instead of individual molecules, or atoms. Interpretation is inherent within seeing.
Terrapin StationMarch 08, 2017 at 01:30#596910 likes
One thing that makes it difficult is that those are weird colors. It's kind of an array of grayish or "dirty-looking" teal.
Metaphysician UndercoverMarch 08, 2017 at 01:32#596920 likes
It looks all blue and green to me. But what do I know?
If you consider that the coin consists of atoms and molecules, then ask yourself why do you see it as the presence of a single, coloured, shape, instead of individual molecules, or atoms. Interpretation is inherent within seeing.
So what would seeing its atoms and molecules be an interpretation of? :-}
I don't think you see the atoms and molecules; it is not your interpretation of some undifferentiated swarm of individual particles which sets the visual features of the object that you see but the parts of the object which are present in your visual field and the optics and biology of seeing. The presence of a single, coloured shape is set by the objective facts of seeing. Hence seeing precedes interpretation.
Benkei appears to be claiming that there is a truly objective "red", an ideal definition of red, and even to know this Platonic Form, through science. It is suggested that we should judge our inter-subjective interpretation against this Form. But I think Benkei derives this ideal in a faulty way. There may be such a Platonic Form of red, but Benkei has not described it.
There isn't a Platonic Form, there's consensus on the wavelengths associated with colours when an object absorbs light and reflects light back. And I mean this in the sense of spectrum. The science is pretty clear on this. If we then "think" we see red, when in reality there are no colours emitting with a wavelenght between 622nm to 780nm, then we've been fooled by our very fallable perception.
A colour blind person (deuteranopia) sees purple as blue. He's wrong and so are you. Why are we comfortable with saying he's wrong? Because we understand his perception is "broken". Now what we have with the strawberries is a "broken" perception that is shared by most everyone due to the white-balancing we automatically apply due to high levels of teal in the picture. Very useful in everyday life, when moving from indoors and outdoors - for this particular picture it's a nuisance.
I'm perfectly fine trusting a spectrometer on this matter.
There isn't a Platonic Form, there's consensus on the wavelengths associated with colours when an object absorbs light and reflects light back. And I mean this in the sense of spectrum. The science is pretty clear on this. If we then "think" we see red, when in reality there are no colours emitting with a wavelenght between 622nm to 780nm, then we've been fooled by our very fallable perception.
A colour blind person (deuteranopia) sees purple as blue. He's wrong and so are you. Why are we comfortable with saying he's wrong? Because we understand his perception is "broken". Now what we have with the strawberries is a "broken" perception that is shared by most everyone due to the white-balancing we automatically apply due to high levels of teal in the picture. Very useful in everyday life, when moving from indoors and outdoors - for this particular picture it's a nuisance.
I think it's incorrect to say that because someone responds differently to the same input than most people that their perception is wrong.
It seems me that when you say "wrong" you just mean "uncommon". But as we're trying to take a more philosophical approach to colour perception, you need to use more exact language and not just play along with the everyday narrative that conflates "right" with "ordinary".
And what of someone with tetrachromacy? Is their percpetion "broken" if they see as blue what most other people (i.e. people without tetrachromacy) see as purple? Or if they see it as some colour that the rest of us don't even know?
there's consensus on the wavelengths associated with colours
This is the important point. There's an agreed consensus about what wavelengths are associated with what colours, but those wavelengths are not themselves those colours. The colour red is the sensory quality that is usually elicited by the stimulation of light with a wavelength of ~620–740nm, but that's it.
And there's no reason for it to be considered wrong (as opposed to just uncommon) for an organism to have such a sensory quality elicited by light of a different wavelength – or by stimulation of something other than light, e.g. in the case of synaesthesia.
This is the important point. There's an agreed consensus about what wavelengths are associated with what colours, but those wavelengths are not themselves those colours. The colour red is the sensory quality that is usually elicited by the stimulation of light with a wavelength of ~620–740nm, but that's it.
And there's no reason for it to be considered wrong (as opposed to just uncommon) for an organism to have such a sensory quality elicited by light of a different wavelength – or by stimulation of something other than light, e.g. in the case of synaesthesia.
If we define red as light with a wavelength between 620-740nm, then calling any light with a different wavelength "red" is wrong. By definition. And that's my point condenced I suppse. We are capable of verifying our own perceptions with instruments. To then lift the subjective experience up as the definitive answer to whether an object is red or not is a step back. All the way back to before Copernicus.
The strawberries therefore appear red and we can even explain why but they aren't red.
(Also the answer is a bit more subtle because the picture does emit light in that wavelength range of red as part of the white/gray areas but something is red or reddish due to a concentration of a particular spectrum of wavelength in a particular area but that is more about chromacity).
If we define red as light with a wavelength between 620-740nm, then calling any light with a different wavelength "red" is wrong. By definition.
Sure. But that goes back to the question I asked before; does the "red" in "I see red strawberries" refer to that kind of light? I don't think so. When I say that I see red strawberries I'm not (either explicitly or implicitly) saying that I see that kind of light. So there's equivocation here. On the one hand we might use "red" to refer to that kind of light – and that's an ad hoc scientific stipulation – and on the other hand we might use "red" to refer to the qualitative aspect of seeing, which is what I think we're doing when we say "I see red strawberries".
The strawberries therefore appear red and we can even explain why but they aren't red.
But that's just wrong, if by "red" you mean "light with a wavelength between 620-740nm", because those strawberries don't appear to reflect light with a wavelength between 620-740nm. That would be equivocation, based on the fact that most people ordinarily see things that reflect light with a wavelength between 620-740nm as being red.
So as I've said before, it seems to me that the two instances of "red" in "it appears red but isn't red" mean/refer to different things, which means that the claim that there's some sort of conflict or error in the appearance is wrong. The "red" in "it appears red" refers to a certain sensory quality and the "red" in "it isn't red" refers to a certain type of light. And there's no prima facie reason that it's wrong (as opposed to just uncommon) for this type of light to elicit this type of sensory quality.
Don't we need some consistency between individuals as well? This consistency gives us what some people call inter-subjectivity, which in some cases it is argued, qualifies as objectivity. It's interpretation. If we all agree as to the meaning of a particular word, then that word has "objective" meaning (in the sense of inter-subjective), though it might not have an ideal objective meaning in the sense of an independent Platonic Form. The independent Platonic Form could allow us to theoretically judge the inter-subjective meaning, if we had access to that Form.
Isn't this the same with colours? Seeing is a mode of interpretation as well. There is an inter-subjective meaning of "red" which provides us with the common meaning of the term. Benkei appears to be claiming that there is a truly objective "red", an ideal definition of red, and even to know this Platonic Form, through science. It is suggested that we should judge our inter-subjective interpretation against this Form. But I think Benkei derives this ideal in a faulty way. There may be such a Platonic Form of red, but Benkei has not described it.
After all, it is possible, being that we are genetically similar, that we do experience the same colors with the same wavelength or assortment of wavelengths. But even if we didn't, the consistency comes from being in a shared world. The same wavelength of light may create different colors in the mind, but the same wavelength ALWAYS triggers the same color in the mind for each person.
When you learned you colors, you learned to associate the word, "red" with the color you see when that particular wavelength interacts with the cones and rods in your eyes. I may experience a different color. But we both experience our color consistently as a result of the same wavelength of light. This is why we can agree on the wavelength, without experiencing the same color.
Sure. But that goes back to the question I asked before; does the "red" in "I see red strawberries" refer to that kind of light? I don't think so. When I say that I see red strawberries I'm not (either explicitly or implicitly) saying that I see that kind of light. So there's equivocation here. On the one hand we might use "red" to refer to that kind of light – and that's an ad hoc scientific stipulation – and on the other hand we might use "red" to refer to the qualitative aspect of seeing.
I agree we can use the word "red" in different contexts but when we disagree on the redness of something, how are we going to arbitrate this question? I have no problem with you referring to the strawberries as appearing red but if we want to definitely answer the question whether they are red, we have to conclude they aren't irrespective of our subjective experiences of seeing.
But that's just wrong, if by "red" you mean "light with a wavelength between 620-740nm", because those strawberries don't appear to reflect light with a wavelength between 620-740nm. That would be equivocation, based on the fact that most people ordinarily see things that reflect light with a wavelength between 620-740nm as being red.
I don't follow. I don't think I'm saying much else than the following analogy "the desert appeared to have an oasis and we even know why but there wasn't an oasis."
There isn't a Platonic Form, there's consensus on the wavelengths associated with colours when an object absorbs light and reflects light back.
What is the consensus on the wavelength associated with grey, white, or burgundy?
[quote=Metaphysician Undercover;59614"]Human eyes can see millions of different shades of colour. This is not because there are millions of different wavelengths between 400 and 740.[/quote]True, but there are millions of different combinations of colors triggered by millions of different combinations of the strengths of the signals coming from the rods and cones in our eyes. It's no different from creating millions of different colors from just varying degrees of the three primary colors
I don't follow. I don't think I'm saying much else than the following analogy "the desert appeared to have an oasis and we even know why but there wasn't an oasis."
You're saying that a thing can appear red even if it isn't. And you've said that "red" refers to light with a wavelength between 620-740nm. So you're saying that a thing can appear to reflect light with a wavelength between 620-740nm even if it doesn't. I reject the notion that those strawberries appear (with the naked eye) to reflect light with a wavelength between 620-740nm. The wavelength of the light that is emitted by those pixels isn't part of the appearance at all - it's just the cause. So as I explained in the last paragraph (edited in before your response), there's two different meanings/referents of "red", and you seem to be equivocating them.
I agree we can use the word "red" in different contexts but when we disagree on the redness of something, how are we going to arbitrate this question? I have no problem with you referring to the strawberries as appearing red but if we want to definitely answer the question whether they are red, we have to conclude they aren't irrespective of our subjective experiences of seeing.
When we disagree on the redness of something, are we disagreeing on the wavelength of the light that is emitted/reflected by it or are we disagreeing on its appearance? If the former then, yes, there's an independent fact-of-the-matter. If the latter then, no, there isn't.
And I'd argue that we're disagreeing about the latter. We can both measure and agree upon the wavelength of the light but nonetheless disagree on its colour. Because although stimulation by the former is what elicits the experience of the latter, they're not the same thing.
When we disagree on the redness of something, are we disagreeing on the wavelength of the light that is emitted/reflected by it or are we disagreeing on its appearance? If the former then, yes, there's an independent fact-of-the-matter. If the latter then, no, there isn't.
As I said: I'm willing to have a spectrometer to have a last say on this. Are you?
And I'd argue that we're disagreeing about the latter. We can both measure and agree upon the wavelength of the light but nonetheless disagree on its colour. Because although stimulation by the former is what elicits the experience of the latter, they're not the same thing.
I agree they aren't the same thing. However, I don't believe we can arrive at two different answers. So when we search for an explanation as to why we disagree, we discover "red" is associated with a certain wavelength. We then discover there's no red in the picture and we even discover how that comes about.
The difference then is that I'm willing to say: "oops, I was wrong to interpret that as red" and you continue to maintain it's red.
By that token the sun still revolves around the earth and the illusionary oasis is really there. The latter with deadly consequences.
Metaphysician UndercoverMarch 08, 2017 at 14:21#598070 likes
There isn't a Platonic Form, there's consensus on the wavelengths associated with colours when an object absorbs light and reflects light back. And I mean this in the sense of spectrum. The science is pretty clear on this. If we then "think" we see red, when in reality there are no colours emitting with a wavelenght between 622nm to 780nm, then we've been fooled by our very fallable perception.
As I said, what we see as colour is a mixture of wavelengths, not a pure wavelength. I read some of the discussion on the strawberry picture, and apparently there are grey pixels which are composed partially of red wavelengths. So despite the fact that there is red wavelength within the composition of the pixel, the pixel itself is grey, and therefore is not called red. But grey is not a particular range of wavelength itself, it is a mixture.
(Also the answer is a bit more subtle because the picture does emit light in that wavelength range of red as part of the white/gray areas but something is red or reddish due to a concentration of a particular spectrum of wavelength in a particular area but that is more about chromacity).
This only indicates that you are wrong in defining colour based on particular wavelengths. There is no particular wavelength for the various greys, they are combinations of wavelengths, And, since the grey pixels do emit red wavelengths, it is contradictory for you to say that there is no red in the picture, according to your definition of red. You refer to the other definition of colour to say that the pixels are grey, then as Michael indicates, it is only by equivocation that you can say there is no red in the picture.
I agree we can use the word "red" in different contexts but when we disagree on the redness of something, how are we going to arbitrate this question? I have no problem with you referring to the strawberries as appearing red but if we want to definitely answer the question whether they are red, we have to conclude they aren't irrespective of our subjective experiences of seeing.
It all has to do with the mixtures of wavelengths, and how our eyes detect them. If red mixed with other colours, within a tiny pixel makes a colour called grey, then we are justified in saying "colour", in general, is a mixture of wavelengths. If mixing these grey pixels with certain blue pixels in a larger scale makes the colour red, then we are justified in saying that the strawberries are red.
It all has to do with the mixtures of wavelengths, and how our eyes detect them. If red mixed with other colours, within a tiny pixel makes a colour called grey, then we are justified in saying "colour", in general, is a mixture of wavelengths. If mixing these grey pixels with certain blue pixels in a larger scale makes the colour red, then we are justified in saying that the strawberries are red.
Sure. So how about you get the image into paint and zoom in on that apparent red pixel until that pixel fills your screen. Then get back to me with which colour it has.
EDIT: I'd like to point out that the colour of that faux-red pixel doesn't change because of the surrounding blue, we are not "mixing" them in our perception. We're quite capable of seeing individual pixels at these resolution (1080p, just stick your nose in the screen).
The blue merely influences how we perceive it due to false signal it gives us that we ought to white balance the image for outdoor circumstances. Then our brains filter out blue from the grey, which makes the grey appear red. Taking a closer look (literally!) shows the error.
As I said: I'm willing to have a spectrometer to have a last say on this. Are you?
No, because that only tells us the wavelength of the light that is emitted/reflected by the object; it doesn't tell us anything about the object's appearance, and when I talk about the strawberries being red, I'm talking about their appearance.
I agree they aren't the same thing. However, I don't believe we can arrive at two different answers. So when we search for an explanation as to why we disagree, we discover "red" is associated with a certain wavelength.
That's the problematic part. What do you mean by saying that red is "associated" with a certain wavelength? If only that most people would ordinarily see objects that emit/reflect such light as red then I wouldn't disagree. But you seem to be making the stronger claim that if someone doesn't see such objects as red (or if they see objects that emit/reflect light with different wavelengths as red) then there's something wrong with what they see; that the appearance is an error. And that would be an unjustified assertion that doesn't follow from the fact that there is a common relationship between light of a certain wavelength and certain colour appearances.
The difference then is that I'm willing to say: "oops, I was wrong to interpret that as red" and you continue to maintain it's red.
By that token the sun still revolves around the earth and the illusionary oasis is really there. The latter with deadly consequences.
The difference is that when I say "I see red strawberries" the word "red" is referring to a type of appearance (rather than to a particular type of light), and so its truth just is in the appearance, whereas when I talk about the Sun revolving around the Earth, or about there being an oasis, the sentences intend to refer to some trans-appearance fact-of-the-matter.
(Of course, you might say that the word "red" refers to a type of appearance but also intends to refer to some trans-appearance fact-of-the-matter, suggesting a naive view of perception, but that would be a category error).
So as I said before, given that the "red" in "it appears red" means/refers to something different to the "red" in "it isn't red", that something appears red[sub]1[/sub] but isn't red[sub]2[/sub] gives no a priori reason to suggest that the appearance is an error. Such a conclusion can only stem from equviocation.
Would it really make any sense if there were an object that no one saw as being red but some scientist told us was actually red? What would we then call that object that looked red but actually wasn't? My suggestion is that we call it "red." Surely we mean by "red" that it looks to our eyes as red.
Let us suppose we live in a color blind community and we see blue where the non-color blind see red. We are later informed by the outside community that there is this red color we didn't know about and what we've been calling blue often isn't blue, but it's red. I would suggest that as long as the outsiders remain outside our community, we will correctly be calling all such objects blue, despite that they're really not.
No, because that only tells us the wavelength of the light that is emitted/reflected by the object; it doesn't tell us anything about the object's appearance, and when I talk about the strawberries being red, I'm talking about their appearance.
There's some irony here, because you're doing a similar thing to that which you criticise. One could just reply to you that that only tells us about appearance, and doesn't tell us anything about the object. You criticise others for what you claim is an equivocation, yet, once again, you do a similar thing by equating the meaning of "appearance" and "being". When I talk about being, I talk about being. Surely it would be clearer to distinguish between what something is and how it appears, rather than conflate the two. You are critical of the naive realist, yet I think you make a similar error: looks red, we call it red, so it is red. But it isn't.
Would it really make any sense if there were an object that no one saw as being red but some scientist told us was actually red?
Yes.
For example, if we were all wearing glasses which made it appear blue, and we were all ignorant about the fact that it is red (because we never knew in the first place or because of memory loss) other than the scientist. Or maybe even the scientist is not aware of that fact, and is attempting to state a falsehood, but ends up stating a truth.
Or if the object was secured in the same position within a room set up to create an optical illusion in which it appears blue, but it is in fact red like the scientist says, despite the fact that anyone entering the room sees it as blue.
Let us suppose we live in a color blind community and we see blue where the non-color blind see red. We are later informed by the outside community that there is this red color we didn't know about and what we've been calling blue often isn't blue, but it's red. I would suggest that as long as the outsiders remain outside our community, we will correctly be calling all such objects blue, despite that they're really not.
Correctness is about what it really is or really isn't. Appropriate is what it would be to call all such objects blue within a community in which that is the norm. It'd be appropriate, but nevertheless incorrect.
I think you make a similar error: looks red, we call it red, so it is red. But it isn't.
Again, your criticism only works if the "red" in "it appears red" means/refers to the same thing as the red in "it isn't red". But you haven't provided an account of what this meaning/referent is. If, to use Benkei's suggestion, it means/refers to light with a particular wavelength, then the claim "it appears red" doesn't work, because when I say "I see red strawberries" I'm not saying anything about light of a particular wavelength (either explicitly or implicitly).
You criticise others for what you claim is an equivocation, yet, once again, you do a similar thing by equating the meaning of "appearance" and "being".
There's no distinction between something appearing tasting when I eat it and that something being tasty, so your continued assertion that appearance and reality are necessarily distinct doesn't work. There can be a distinction, but it isn't a given. In some cases, that thing being X just is that the perception of that thing has quality X.
My claim is that if the "red" in "it is red" means/refers to the same thing as the "red" in "it appears red" then that it is red just is that it appears red. Conversely, if that it is red is not just that it appears red then the "red" in "it is red" doesn't means/refer to the same thing as the "red" in "it appears red", but then there's no prima facie reason to claim that the red appearance is an error, and so to claim that it is would be to equivocate: "if it appears red[sub]1[/sub] but it isn't red[sub]2[/sub] then the appearance is an error" is a non sequitur if the two instances of "red" mean/refer to different things.
Compare that to the following. In a flash you think you see a cat. You look again, it turns out to be a dog. The first appearance was false. You seem to claim there a qualitative difference with colour. I disagree.
Also, you're mistaken when you think no light with wavelengths for the colour red are present in the picture. They are in the gray pixels. When your brain "corrects" for the blue, the gray is interpreted as red. It's still gray though, which you'll see by zooming in. We don't even need instruments to establish the mistake.
Of course, there's a multitude of tricks with colour and light possible. If I have a yellow banana and I put it on a dark blue blanket, the yellow will appear more vibrant. That's partly the contrast but also the juxtaposition of colours. Nothing changed about the banana though and I don't see any basis to assume the yellowness of a banana is context dependent but I see every reason to conclude our eyes and brains are simply not very accurate in establishing colours. Which is why I'll take the spectrometer any day over your subjectivity.
If the "red" in "it appears red" means/refers to something different to the "red" in "it isn't red" then to claim that the appearance is an error is a non sequitur.
If the "red" in "it appears red" means/refers to the same thing as the "red" in "it isn't red" and if it means/refers to light with a wavelength of ~620–740nm then the claim "it appears red" is suspect (and I'd say false).
If the "red" in "it appears red" means/refers to the same thing as the "red" in "it isn't red" and if it means/refers to a particular qualia then either the claim "it isn't red" means "it doesn't appear red", which makes for the claim "it appears red but isn't red" to be a contradiction, or the claim "it isn't red" is correct insofar as it would be category error to claim that an external object is red.
You seem to be committing the mistake made in my first point. You're equivocating on two different meanings of "red".
Again, your criticism only works if the "red" in "it appears red" means/refers to the same thing as the red in "it isn't red". But you haven't provided an account of what this meaning/referent is. If, to use Benkei's suggestion, it means/refers to light with a particular wavelength, then the claim "it appears red" doesn't work, because when I say "I see red strawberries" I'm not saying anything about light of a particular wavelength (either explicitly or implicitly).
My criticism works because it doesn't follow from how something looks and what something is called that that's what it is. This is so obvious that it shouldn't have to be demonstrated by example.
When I say that the strawberries appear red, I mean that they appear the colour that strawberries normally appear: red. But they're not red. If there was no difference between appearing red and being red, then they'd be red. But there is, and they're not.
When you say you see red strawberries, you're not saying anything about the strawberries, you're saying something about how they appear, so you shouldn't say that the strawberries are red, you should just say that they appear red.
But you keep making this fallacious equivalence of appearance and reality, and then you make the misleading claim that they are red, even though they are not.
There's no distinction between something appearing tasting when I eat it and that something being tasty, so your continued assertion that appearance and reality are necessarily distinct doesn't work. There can be a distinction, but it isn't a given. In some cases, that thing being X just is that the perception of that thing has quality X.
The distinction is necessary to speak clearly and truthfully. Your use of language is common but misleading. To get to the truth of the matter, it is better to discuss things more clearly. This is metaphysics, not casual discourse. More precision is required. If you really want to talk about being, then you should make this important distinction. It's fine to say that a Big Mac is tasty in the context of McDonald's, but this discussion is not between two people having a casual chit chat in McDonald's, it is a serious discussion about the metaphysics of perception on a philosophy forum.
It's still gray though, which you'll see by zooming in. We don't even need instruments to establish the mistake.
And this kind of thing is even more obvious if we go back to Michael's own example about the appearance of Johnny Depp on TV. No matter how you look at the image on the screen, it ain't Johnny Depp. It's an image on a TV screen made of pixels. You can see the pixels more clearly if you look close enough. Does it look like Johnny Depp? Yes. Do we call it Johnny Depp? Yes. Is it Johnny Depp? No. Is Johnny Depp an image on a TV screen made of pixels? No, obviously not. He's a walking talking human being.
The proper distinction between appropriateness and correctness is important in philosophy. It's appropriate in other, more casual contexts to say that you saw Johnny Depp on TV, but strictly speaking that is not correct.
The distinction is necessary to speak clearly and truthfully. Your use of language is common but misleading. To get to the truth of the matter, it is better to discuss things more clearly. This is metaphysics, not casual discourse. More precision is required. If you really want to talk about being, then you should make this important distinction. It's fine to say that a Big Mac is tasty in the context of McDonald's, but this discussion is not between two people having a casual chit chat in McDonald's, it is a serious discussion about the metaphysics of perception on a philosophy forum.
I am trying to be precise. I'm trying to bring to light the fact that the thing referred to by "red" in "it appears red" is a property of appearances only (qualia). It doesn't refer to a certain kind of light, or an object's disposition to reflect light a certain way, or any other perception-independent thing. So if the "red" in "it is/isn't red" also refers to this appearance-property then it must be that appearing red and being red are the same thing, just as being tasty and appearing tasty are the same thing - because tastiness just is a property of taste-perception, and not some sort of property inherit in a particular arrangement of atoms (e.g. the liquorice on the table).
Or if you want to insist that being red and appearing red are different things then it must be that the "red" in "it is/isn't red" refers to something other than what the "red" in "it appears red" refers to (e.g. light of a certain kind), so it would be a non sequitur to claim that the red-appearance is an error.
I'm trying to bring to light the fact that the thing referred to by "red" in "it appears red" is a property of appearances only. It doesn't refer to light, or an object's disposition to reflect light a certain way, or any other perception-independent thing. So if the "red" in "it is/isn't red" also refers to this appearance-property then it must be that appearing red and being red are the same thing.
No, you must be doing something wrong to reach that conclusion. To say that it isn't how it appears makes sense, is true, and doesn't entail that appearing red and being red are the same thing.
Or if you want to insist that being red and appearing red are different things then it must be that the "red" in "it is/isn't red" refers to something other than what the "red" in "it appears red" refers to, so it would be a non sequitur to claim that the red-appearance is an error.
They are different things, that's not up for debate. Unless whether light and dark, up and down, yes and no, scream and whisper, left and right, and so on, and so forth, are different things, is up for debate.
And it is an error because it isn't how it appears, as we are initially drawn to conclude, as demonstrated by your own example of the picture of strawberries. They appear red, but they're not red, they're grey. When we find out that they're grey, we find out that we were mistaken to think otherwise, unless we didn't think otherwise to begin with.
Sure. So how about you get the image into paint and zoom in on that apparent red pixel until that pixel fills your screen. Then get back to me with which colour it has.
EDIT: I'd like to point out that the colour of that faux-red pixel doesn't change because of the surrounding blue, we are not "mixing" them in our perception. We're quite capable of seeing individual pixels at these resolution (1080p, just stick your nose in the screen).
The blue merely influences how we perceive it due to false signal it gives us that we ought to white balance the image for outdoor circumstances. Then our brains filter out blue from the grey, which makes the grey appear red. Taking a closer look (literally!) shows the error.
If I understand correctly, it is not the case that there are red pixels in the composition, there are none, and that prompts the claim that there is no red in the picture. However, I understand that there are grey pixels, and the grey pixels are composed of some red. So it is not really the case that there is no red wavelength in the picture, there is, but it is hidden within the grey. When our brains filter out the blue, as you suggest, if this is really what is happening, then the blue within the grey is also being filtered out, and this brings out the red in the grey.
You admit above, that there is grey in the picture. What wavelength do you think the grey is if there is no red in it?
Metaphysician UndercoverMarch 08, 2017 at 22:44#598750 likes
If you consider that the coin consists of atoms and molecules, then ask yourself why do you see it as the presence of a single, coloured, shape, instead of individual molecules, or atoms. Interpretation is inherent within seeing.
I replied: ...
I don't think you see the atoms and molecules...
The argument should be obvious: we don't see the atoms and molechules of a coin, so there is nothing to interpret as a coin prior seeing its coloured shape. Therefore, seeing precedes interpretation.
Metaphysician UndercoverMarch 09, 2017 at 04:10#598940 likes
The argument should be obvious: we don't see the atoms and molechules of a coin, so there is nothing to interpret as a coin prior seeing its coloured shape. Therefore, seeing precedes interpretation.
Ok, I see you completely missed the point, so I'll explain it more clearly. You are sensing something, seeing it. You sense it as a round coloured shape, not as a bunch of molecules, or as a bunch of atoms. Since we know that it exists as molecules, and as atoms, then these are real possibilities, alternative ways, for how it could be sensed. But it is not sensed as molecules or atoms, it is sensed as a round coloured shape. Therefore the act of sensing is itself an act of interpreting what is there, bringing out one of the numerous possible ways of representing it.
If I understand correctly, it is not the case that there are red pixels in the composition, there are none, and that prompts the claim that there is no red in the picture. However, I understand that there are grey pixels, and the grey pixels are composed of some red. So it is not really the case that there is no red wavelength in the picture, there is, but it is hidden within the grey. When our brains filter out the blue, as you suggest, if this is really what is happening, then the blue within the grey is also being filtered out, and this brings out the red in the grey.
You admit above, that there is grey in the picture. What wavelength do you think the grey is if there is no red in it?
Grey is like white, it consists of a lot of wavelengths including those for the colour red. And yes my first posts were inaccurate but I clarified in my post about colour and chromacity.
Since we know that it exists as molecules, and as atoms, then these are real possibilities, alternative ways, for how it could be sensed
That makes no sense at all. How could the projection of an oval that you see be just an alternative way for how it could be seen? Could you see an oval with corners perhaps? Seems like relativist ideology.
Robert LockhartMarch 09, 2017 at 17:02#599590 likes
The principle surely is that our interpretation via sensory perception of external stimuli must by definition inescapably involve an interplay between such stimuli and our internal neural processes and so by reduction must necessarily be subjective. If the neural process by which distinct individuals perceive a given external stimuli - ‘colour’ in this example – happen to be similar then, in terms of their resulting experience, they will share a similar interpretation and so be able to attain to a consistent (and thereby utilitarian) agreement concerning the nature of their interpretation. If however there happens to exist between individuals some relative discrepancy regarding the neural processes relevant to the interpretation of some particular external stimuli then no such agreement of interpretation will be possible.
The term, ‘Colour Blind’, for example, surely then serves merely to refer to such an interpretational discrepancy as it exists on the one hand between a numerically dominant group happening to possess a similar relevant neural process and, on the other, a minority group happening to be characterised by differing neural processes – and thus can have no meaning objectively, other than, owing to neuralogical annomalies, perhaps meaning that in practice the sub-group may be characterised by a lack of consistency of interpretation even on an individual basis.
Of course however, regarding elements as they exist intrinsically, say for example the number of molecules that comprise the table laid before us - this as opposed to our perception of its' shape which must in the case of any given observer derive from the sense of perspective produced by the location of the orbits in the scull – these do represent a set of values unrelated to the neural processes of the observer, and so constitute an objective reality.
-The same argument of course applies generally to our perception of all external stimuli.
The principle surely is that our interpretation via sensory perception of external stimuli must by definition inescapably involve an interplay between such stimuli and our internal neural processes and so by reduction must necessarily be subjective. If the neural process by which distinct individuals perceive a given external stimuli - ‘colour’ in this example – happen to be similar then, in terms of their resulting experience, they will share a similar interpretation and so be able to attain to a consistent (and thereby utilitarian) agreement concerning the nature of their interpretation. If however there happens to exist between individuals some relative discrepancy regarding the neural processes relevant to the interpretation of some particular external stimuli then no such agreement of interpretation will be possible.
The term, ‘Colour Blind’, for example, surely then serves merely to refer to such an interpretational discrepancy as it exists on the one hand between a numerically dominant group happening to possess a similar relevant neural process and, on the other, a minority group happening to be characterised by differing neural processes – and thus can have no meaning objectively, other than, owing to neuralogical annomalies, perhaps meaning that in practice the sub-group may be characterised by a lack of consistency of interpretation even on an individual basis.
Of course however, regarding elements as they exist intrinsically, say for example the number of molecules that comprise the table laid before us - as opposed to our perception of its' shape which must in the case of any given observer derive from the sense of perspective produced by the location of the orbits in the scull – these do represent a set of values unrelated to the neural processes of the observer and so constitute an objective reality.
-The same argument of course applies generally to our perception of all external stimuli.
So what's your answer to the title question?
Robert LockhartMarch 09, 2017 at 17:59#599650 likes
-Ah yes, that!...Well, on reading it again, I think in retrospect that I have in fact answered the question - that it's all essentially a subjective matter and therefore just an arbitrary question of utility as to how we arrange a consistent agreement regarding our assignment of colour value, or any other sensorialy perceived entity for that matter - important in practice but in principle inconsequential and, paradoxically, nothing to do with objective reality! The wave length of the light reflected by an object is an objective value. The colour of that light as this is perceived by any given observer results from an interplay between that objective value and the neural network of the particular observer's brain and accordingly is a subjective experience which will vary as the neural network of the particular observer varies. - Can't say much more!
Metaphysician UndercoverMarch 09, 2017 at 21:17#599870 likes
-Ah yes, that!...Well, on reading it again, I think in retrospect that I have in fact answered the question - that it's all essentially a subjective matter and therefore just an arbitrary question of utility as to how we arrange a consistent agreement regarding our assignment of colour value, or any other sensorially perceived entity for that matter - important in practice but in principle inconsequential and, paradoxically, nothing to do with objective reality! The wave length of the light reflected by an object is an objective value. The colour of that light as this is perceived by any given observer results from an interplay between that objective value and the neural network of the particular observer's brain and accordingly is a subjective experience which will vary as the neural network of the particular observer varies. - Can't say much more!
I think that you can and should say more, but not more of the same. That would save me the trouble of trying to work out the implications of what you've said. Some of us here think that the depicted strawberries are grey, and some of us here think that the depicted strawberries are red. What colour do you think that they are? And what do you think about what we think? Is the former group right and the latter group wrong, or is the latter group right and the former group wrong, or are both right, or are neither right? If your answer is implicit in what you've said, I think you should make it explicit.
Metaphysician UndercoverMarch 09, 2017 at 22:15#599960 likes
Reply to jkop Exactly, you don't see the individual molecules, because your sensing system is interpreting what's there as one object, not a whole bunch of objects. Get the picture?
our interpretation via sensory perception of external stimuli must by definition inescapably involve an interplay between such stimuli and our internal neural processes and so by reduction must necessarily be subjective.
Experience is subjective, not interpretation. What could be subjective about the use of public words?
Reply to jkop Those two statements are not inconsistent for the same reason that it is not inconsistent to say, for example, that I could go fishing, but I don't. Whether they're true or not is another matter.
. . you don't see the individual molecules, because your sensing system is interpreting what's there as one object. . .
Look, Sherlock, an individual molecule is insufficient for reflecting or emitting light, it lacks electrical charge etc. We'd need a powerful microscope to identify it, because our biological sensing system cannot do it on its own; it does not identify molecules, so it has no individual molecules to interpret as one object. You must be bullshitting.
Metaphysician UndercoverMarch 09, 2017 at 22:59#600030 likes
Reply to jkop
With a microscope, molecules can be "seen", so they must be reflecting or emitting some light, or electrical charge. Anyway, that's beside the point. Human beings evolved to have eyes which see the whole object, they did not evolve to have senses which are distinguishing individual molecules. So we can assume that this was a good way to interpret the things out there, it is a beneficial interpretation for survival, so we evolved this way. Don't you agree, that this must be a good way to interpret what's out there, as individual objects, so that's why we evolved to sense things in this way? Nevertheless, we can still interpret what's out there as individual molecules. We do this in science
I don't see why you would think I am bullshitting. Clearly there are individual molecules, which could be sensed, but we didn't develop the means to do this. So our eyes interpret things in that particular way.
Clearly there are individual molecules, which could be sensed, but we didn't develop the means to do this. So our eyes interpret things in that particular way.
Prior to seeing something you don't know whether something is present and subject for interpretation. You don't get to sneak in knowledge of its presence and constituents just to say that seeing it as a whole would be an interpretation of, or one of many ways to interpret, its individual constituents.
Furthermore, the individual constituents of a coin are not so individual when they're bound by force into a material compound called metal. The metal has a light-reflecting surface with recognizable properties. So we see a silver oval, because that's what there is for us to see, and which we then can interpret as a coin.
I think that you can and should say more, but not more of the same. That would save me the trouble of trying to work out the implications of what you've said. Some of us here think that the depicted strawberries are grey, and some of us here think that the depicted strawberries are red. What colour do you think that they are? And what do you think about what we think? Is the former group right and the latter group wrong, or is the latter group right and the former group wrong, or are both right, or are neither right? If your answer is implicit in what you've said, I think you should make it explicit.
I think it's pretty clear:
" it's all essentially a subjective matter and therefore just an arbitrary question of utility as to how we arrange a consistent agreement regarding our assignment of colour value"
and
"The colour of that light as this is perceived by any given observer results from an interplay between that objective value and the neural network of the particular observer's brain and accordingly is a subjective experience which will vary as the neural network of the particular observer varies."
Reply to aporiap So, you think that it's pretty clear, yet you don't use that to give a simple answer to the following question. Why not? That prior question was connected to the subsequent question and wasn't meant to be taken in isolation. Your reply is not helpful to me. I have already read what he posted multiple times and have given it some thought. I don't think that I'm asking for much. The options are simple and limited, even if the explanation is more complex. I still want an answer - a conclusion - rather than an explanation which leaves that implicit, and leaves it up to the reader to figure out. I am not sure what the answer would be based on what he has said. That's why I am pressing him for an answer.
I want clarification about what this means with regards to truth and being right or wrong. If this were ethics, for example, I wouldn't be sure whether he is a moral relativist, error theorist, or some other position.
Reply to Benkei My problem with this approach is that the spectrometer doesn't see red. The spectrometer absorbs photons and spits out some data based upon this measurement. But the ruler doesn't feel length, even though it does basically the same thing at a much better accuracy and precision than our visual intuitions are able to pinpoint.
Defining 'red' as between this and that wavelength implicitly relies upon what we already call and see red. We just happened to draw a line somewhere based upon the colors we already perceive. We could just as easily say that the strawberries don't look red because they don't have this very particular wavelength of light which we happen to associate with red -- but that misses the point entirely.
When you look at the picture what you see is red. When you pull a pixel out what you see is grey-green. But since the picture is not the pixel it doesn't make much sense to say that the picture is really grey-green.
When you look at the picture what you see is red. When you pull a pixel out what you see is grey-green. But since the picture is not the pixel it doesn't make much sense to say that the picture is really grey-green.
If what we see is red, then what is it that we see? The picture is not the pixel (singular), but the picture is the pixels (plural), is it not? If so, then if the pixels are grey, the picture is grey. If not, then what is the picture?
Reply to Sapientia I would say that the picture is made of pixels, but to say that the picture simply is the pixels isn't quite right. For one, there is the arrangement of the pixels which makes the picture. So even in a very reduced sense you have to account for that, too.
But then, I'd say that The Starry Night is not just paint on canvas. The Starry NIght is one particular painting made by one particular artist which regularly hangs in the Museum of Modern Art. It's more appropriate to just look at The Starry Night and describe how you feel and think when looking at it, and add to that various historical facts about The Starry Night and say that this what the painting is than to say it is this particular grouping of pigments on a canvas.
Granted, this image isn't a unique object in the same sense that The Starry Night is, so there may be room for making a distinction. I'm just trying to elucidate how I think about images and why, in general, I'd say they are different than what they are made up of. Our experience and perception of an image is sort of bound up in what said image is, if not entirely.
Metaphysician UndercoverMarch 10, 2017 at 12:33#600680 likes
The metal has a light-reflecting surface with recognizable properties. So we see a silver oval, because that's what there is for us to see, and which we then can interpret as a coin.
I don't know about this "surface" you refer to. The coin consists of molecules which consists of atoms. What constitutes this so-called "surface"? And I don't even think it's proper to say that the object reflects light. If I understand the physics correctly, the electrons absorb the light, and reemit it. Electrons exist in some kind of cloud formation, so how cloud there be a surface? Does a cloud have a surface? So unless your speaking metaphorically about this surface, I'm going to turn that charge of bullshit back on you.
I would say that the picture is made of pixels, but to say that the picture simply is the pixels isn't quite right. For one, there is the arrangement of the pixels which makes the picture. So even in a very reduced sense you have to account for that, too.
But then, I'd say that The Starry Night is not just paint on canvas. The Starry Night is one particular painting made by one particular artist which regularly hangs in the Museum of Modern Art. It's more appropriate to just look at The Starry Night and describe how you feel and think when looking at it, and add to that various historical facts about The Starry Night and say that this what the painting is than to say it is this particular grouping of pigments on a canvas.
Granted, this image isn't a unique object in the same sense that The Starry Night is, so there may be room for making a distinction. I'm just trying to elucidate how I think about images and why, in general, I'd say they are different than what they are made up of. Our experience and perception of an image is sort of bound up in what said image is, if not entirely.
I agree, but not to the extent that the strawberries in the picture are red, if that is what you're suggesting, or if that is what you conclude from this. I don't see how the arrangement of the pixels makes anything we've referred to thus far red, whether the pixels, the pixels in a certain arrangement, the strawberries, or the picture. Unless you mean something other than what I mean when I talk about the picture. The strawberries [i]appear[/I] red under certain circumstances, but I don't see how the circumstances would [i]make[/I] the strawberries red. If what I see is red, it seems to me that it must be something else that I see. Perhaps some kind of distinction would be helpful here, like that between what I see and what I perceive: I see grey pixels in a certain arrangement, under certain circumstances, and I perceive them as an image of red strawberries.
elucidate how I think about images and why, in general, I'd say they are different than what they are made up of. Our experience and perception of an image is sort of bound up in what said image is, if not entirely.
What does it mean to say [1] that an image is different from what it is made up of, and [2] that experience and perception are bound up in what an image is made of? Where does that leave the image we see? It makes no sense to me.
Metaphysician UndercoverMarch 10, 2017 at 13:14#600840 likes
What does it mean to say [1] that an image is different from what it is made up of, and [2] that experience and perception are bound up in what an image is made of? Where does that leave the image we see? It makes no sense to me.
That's what I've been trying to explain to you, an image is a representation. Since the image is never exactly the same as the thing represented, it is always an interpretation of the thing represented.
My problem with this approach is that the spectrometer doesn't see red. The spectrometer absorbs photons and spits out some data based upon this measurement. But the ruler doesn't feel length, even though it does basically the same thing at a much better accuracy and precision than our visual intuitions are able to pinpoint.
Defining 'red' as between this and that wavelength implicitly relies upon what we already call and see red. We just happened to draw a line somewhere based upon the colors we already perceive. We could just as easily say that the strawberries don't look red because they don't have this very particular wavelength of light which we happen to associate with red -- but that misses the point entirely.
When you look at the picture what you see is red. When you pull a pixel out what you see is grey-green. But since the picture is not the pixel it doesn't make much sense to say that the picture is really grey-green.
Indeed the spectrometer doesn't see red, it measures wavelengths. I don't see this as a problem. What's the problem that this implicitly relies on what we call red? A standard meter didn't become a standard meter by taking that from somewhere outside ourselves either. We told a meter what it should be (a meridional definition) by convention but the 1870 meter bar was actually 0.02% shorter than that. Then we calculated back from wavelengths to the meridional meter and recently from the speed of light as to what a meter should be. Quite similarly, we told "red" what it should be in terms of wavelength as well (although less accurately). We don't have a problem trusting a ruler over our own sense of distance but somehow colour is an issue for some.
To get back to my example of the banana. The yellow of the banana does not change from one second to the next and I know this when I put it on the dark blue blanket. I will still experience the yellow as more vibrant and bright. Following your line of thinking the banana got more vibrant and bright yellow. But we know nothing about the banana changed.
Here grey is included as part of a picture that causes us to white balance it causing the grey to appear red. Nothing happened to the grey that it all of a sudden became red. It's the surrounding teal that causes us to perceive it as red.
Here grey is included as part of a picture that causes us to white balance it causing the grey to appear red. Nothing happened to the grey that it all of a sudden became red. It's the surrounding teal that causes us to perceive it as red.
Yep. It seems that some people want to include our perception in the object that we're talking about, but under scrutiny that makes no sense, and that kind of talk is misleading. What makes sense is the distinction between perception and object, and between what it is to appear and to be.
Yep. It seems that some people want to include our perception in the object that we're talking about, but under scrutiny that makes no sense, and that kind of talk is misleading. What makes sense is the distinction between perception and object, and between what it is to appear and to be.
Well, happy someone agrees but it certainly appears to be the minority position!
Well, happy someone agrees but it certainly appears to be the minority position!
I'm quite sure I've argued against a similar position myself before, but I just thought about it real hard and ended up here. Funny how things turn out.
Since it seems we're pretty much reiterating positions here, let me at least finish with a few questions that people might want to answer so that I can at least understand their position better.
1. Why must the perception of an object's colour and the [actual] object's colour be the same? Or, why can't I say the grey in that picture appears red to me? By insisting I cannot say this, are you saying I'm lying?
2. Why shouldn't I incorporate what we scientifically know about "red" into the definition of "red"?
3. Why shouldn't I apply a descriptive definition to "red" to my experience?
4. Is this just a matter of definition/semantics? If I define red as what I experience as red unless it turns out that a spectrometer tells me it isn't because it does not have an emphasis of wavelengths between x and y, then by definition the strawberries aren't red.
5. What is red? (e.g. what's your definition).
Writing down these questions I think we can conclude we all use red with the assumption we have a shared meaning of the word and it's starting to appear that we actually might not.
1.Why must the perception of an object's colour and the [actual] object's colour be the same? Or, why can't I say the grey in that picture appears red to me? By insisting I cannot say this, are you saying I'm lying?
I would say that objects don't have any color. Color is a property of visual perception, just like smell is a property of olfaction, not the chemical makeup of the odors themselves.
2. Why shouldn't I incorporate what we scientifically know about "red" into the definition of "red"?
Scientifically speaking, the world is without color or smell, except for creatures who see color and smell odors. Color is a secondary property, not a primary one, qua Locke.
3. Why shouldn't I apply a descriptive definition to "red" to my experience?
That's fine, as long as it's understood in philosophical discussion that the colors we see are based on how human visual perception works and not the properties of objects or photons themselves.
4. Is this just a matter of definition/semantics? If I define red as what I experience as red unless it turns out that a spectrometer tells me it isn't because it does not have an emphasis of wavelengths between x and y, then by definition the strawberries aren't red.
In ordinary language, which assumes naive realism, strawberries are red. But given a scientific understanding of atoms, photons and how our visual system works, strawberries are not red.
Scientifically speaking, the world is without color or smell, except for creatures who see color and smell odors. Color is a secondary property, not a primary one, qua Locke.
Fair enough. How does the fact that we've imported primary qualities into the definition of secondary qualities affect this distinction? E.g., wavelengths reflected by an object has in a sense been incorporated into this, which is why we are even capable of this discussion. If we had no way of knowing the pixels in dispute are really gray there would be no disagreement here.
Fair enough. How does the fact that we've imported primary qualities into the definition of secondary qualities affect this distinction?
I'm not sure how to answer your question other than to point out that these types of discussion ultimately are about the nature of objectivity, with Nagel's view from nowhere, Locke's primary and secondary colors, direct vs indirect realism vs anti-realism, Kant's categories of thought, and so forth.
There was a previous discussion on the old forum (I think) about whether direct realism entailed color realism, and if the scientific evidence was against color realism, then direct realism could not be the case. Needless to say, the direct realists strongly disagreed, leading to charges of anti-realism, and ultimately, a disagreement over terms.
So yes, we do recognize a distinction between wavelengths of light and the color we experience seeing. What that means for perception is disputed. I think it means colors aren't real. It's like the sun rising and setting, which is naive realist language, and still useful to say, but everyone knows it's false in the modern world.
Fair enough. How does the fact that we've imported primary qualities into the definition of secondary qualities affect this distinction?
Also, I think this distinction has implications for consciousness and Chalmer's hard problem, because if color is a secondary quality, but science makes use of primary qualities, then explaining the experience of color is going to be a conceptual dead end, as Nagel recognized, which again goes back to questions about the nature of objectivity.
Metaphysician UndercoverMarch 10, 2017 at 17:15#601220 likes
Indeed the spectrometer doesn't see red, it measures wavelengths.
...
We don't have a problem trusting a ruler over our own sense of distance but somehow colour is an issue for some.
The problem with colour is not as straight forward as measuring with a ruler. The colours which we see are combinations of different wavelengths, and the way that our eyes deal with combinations may not be straight forward mathematics.
Here grey is included as part of a picture that causes us to white balance it causing the grey to appear red. Nothing happened to the grey that it all of a sudden became red. It's the surrounding teal that causes us to perceive it as red.
"Grey" is not a straight forward wave length, it is a combination of wavelengths. So the issue here is how are we to define a "combination". We might produce a grey colour by combining wavelengths at the very same location. Or, we might produce a grey by having tiny points of different colours side by side. From a close up perspective, the latter could not be called grey, it is points of different colour. But from a distant perspective, that object would be grey. The colour of the object is perspective dependent. From one perspective it is points of different colours, but from another perspective, it is mixed wavelengths.
The colour of the object is perspective dependent. From one perspective it is points of different colours, but from another perspective, it is mixed wavelengths.
Perceptual relativity and the problem of perception, eh? How can we objectively say what color something is if it's relative to how we're viewing it, and the kind of visual system we possess?
Some animals see color better than we do, for example.
How can we objectively say what color something is if it's relative to how we're viewing it, and the kind of visual system we possess?
We can do so in accordance with an objective categorisation of colour. If it is so-and-so, then it is red. You just reject this categorisation, as it seems you must in order to conclude that objects do not have colour and that colour isn't real.
We can do so in accordance with an objective categorisation of colour. If it is so-and-so, then it is red. You just reject this categorisation, as it seems you must in order to conclude that objects do not have colour and that colour isn't real.
You can do so if anti-realism is fine with you. Also, science "paints" a rather colorless picture. Afterall, where is the color? Is it in the photon? Does that get transferred to the electrical signal travelling to your visual cortex?
You can do so if anti-realism is fine with you. Also, science "paints" a rather colorless picture. Afterall, where is the color? Is it in the photon? Does that get transferred to the electrical signal travelling to your visual cortex?
I was just about to delete my comment, but then I noticed that you'd replied. I was going to do so because, although that's a way of objectively saying what colour something is, I'm not sure that it meets the other part of your question.
Whether I'm fine with anti-realism depends of how that's defined. I'm a realist in a sense, because by this sort of categorisation, colour can be real, because colour can be categorised as something real, like wavelengths of light. That's real, isn't it? It's about the categorisation and accordance or discordance with it. In light of this, the answers to your questions needn't matter, and can be answered arbitrarily.
If the strawberry tastes sweet, then objectively, it's sweet, right?
If that's how sweet things are being categorised, then yes. But that might not be the best way of categorising them. One conventional way of categorising colour is by wavelength, but I don't really know of an equivalent way of categorising taste.
I agree, but not to the extent that the strawberries in the picture are red, if that is what you're suggesting, or if that is what you conclude from this. I don't see how the arrangement of the pixels makes anything we've referred to thus far red, whether the pixels, the pixels in a certain arrangement, the strawberries, or the picture.
Here's an image I created out of two color picked items, one from the teal (what was white-ish) table, and one from a part of a strawberry:
http://imgur.com/a/sumhF
(hopefully that works)
And a bit of a zoom in and stretch out to show a mid-scale version:
http://imgur.com/a/15yRf
Clearly there's no red at the two-pixel level, and you can start to see the red fading in the mid-scale picture. Another way of putting this -- you could take all the pixels of one color and put it on one side, and all the pixels of the other associated color and put it on the other side, and you might see red in the middle, but it would fade out. (wish I had the capability to do that, but I'm not that good)
So, yes, I'm suggesting the image of strawberries in the original picture are red.
Unless you mean something other than what I mean when I talk about the picture. The strawberries appear red under certain circumstances, but I don't see how the circumstances would make the strawberries red. If what I see is red, it seems to me that it must be something else that I see. Perhaps some kind of distinction would be helpful here, like that between what I see and what I perceive: I see grey pixels in a certain arrangement, under certain circumstances, and I perceive them as an image of red strawberries.
Seems to me that this is the same distinction as appearance vs. reality. But I think that this distinction rests on a compositional fallacy. The tiny bits of things are not what a whole is -- what a whole is or what properties it has can have different properties or even be different than what composes said whole.
And we can see this is so because we can look at both the picture and the pixel in isolation.
What does it mean to say [1] that an image is different from what it is made up of, and [2] that experience and perception are bound up in what an image is made of? Where does that leave the image we see? It makes no sense to me.
Point 2 may be a bit poetical, all depending on how we want to hash terms out. I mostly mean that you shouldn't doubt your perceptions of one thing just because your perception of another thing happens to differ, and the other thing happens to make up the one thing.
As for [1]: I'm still moving with the distinction between wholes and parts. That the parts in this case are the pixels (and in the case of the painting the dried oil paint on canvas, or even more broken down if you wish), and the whole is the image, and therefore they can have different properties from one another.
Indeed the spectrometer doesn't see red, it measures wavelengths. I don't see this as a problem. What's the problem that this implicitly relies on what we call red?
Just seems to beg the question to me when you're proposing it as a means to adjudicate whether something is or isn't within said color category. Seems to me that it goes in the other direction -- first we determine said colors then we assign wavelengths. We can redefine our usage of 'red' at that point, of course -- but I'm telling ya, when I look at that image I see red.
It would be interesting to see what a spectrometer measured of the image, actually -- not sure if there's enough light from a monitor for it to work though.
To get back to my example of the banana. The yellow of the banana does not change from one second to the next and I know this when I put it on the dark blue blanket. I will still experience the yellow as more vibrant and bright. Following your line of thinking the banana got more vibrant and bright yellow. But we know nothing about the banana changed.
How do we know that latter bit, there?
Seems to me that it got more vibrant, no?
Here grey is included as part of a picture that causes us to white balance it causing the grey to appear red. Nothing happened to the grey that it all of a sudden became red. It's the surrounding teal that causes us to perceive it as red.
Right -- grey is part of the picture, as is teal. And the parts are different from the picture, since the picture is a whole. At least, that's how I'd parse it out. So we see the image as red, or perceive the image as red -- and thus, the image is red, just as the pixels are grey and teal. Nothing more to it than that.
So, yes, I'm suggesting the image of strawberries in the original picture are red.
Okay, but that doesn't follow from anything you said, except the parts where you said that you see red, by that's false or misleading, since there is no red there to be seen.
Seems to me that this is the same distinction as appearance vs. reality. But I think that this distinction rests on a compositional fallacy. The tiny bits of things are not what a whole is -- what a whole is or what properties it has can have different properties or even be different than what composes said whole.
I had already considered that objection. There is no compositional fallacy involved. I don't deny that a whole can be different in ways to its parts, and, unlike examples of the fallacy:
[Quote]No atoms are alive. Therefore, nothing made of atoms is alive.
All cells are aquatic. All organisms are composed of cells. Therefore, all organisms are aquatic.
If someone stands up out of their seat at a cricket match, they can see better. Therefore, if everyone stands up, they can all see better.[/quote]
...in [i]this[/I] case, the quality pertains to both parts and whole. The pixels are grey and the strawberries are grey, despite how they look to you under various circumstances. You can zoom in and out or separate this part from that part, but they'll still be grey. Why? Because what you're calling red is actually just how they appear to you, which is different from what they are.
In this case, the quality pertains to both parts and whole.
I suppose I would say the way we determine what color quality something has is we look at it -- full stop. I don't think there's a more accurate method, such as designating wavelengths of light, since the designation of the wavelengths depends upon what we perceive in the first place.
By what means would you say the gray quality -- or perhaps we could say "not-red", if we don't get too picky about what we mean by 'quality' ? -- applies to both the parts and the whole? Maybe I'm just dense, but it seems to me that the argument is that since the pixels are gray the image of the strawberries are gray. no?
I suppose I would say the way we determine what color quality something has is we look at it -- full stop.
We do indeed tend to determine what colour something is by looking at it. But there's more to it than that. That's the reason why we tend to fall for optical illusions like the picture of the strawberries. Optical illusions show that this means of determining what colour something is is fallible and sometimes erroneous. That's a much better explanation than that the things themselves change colour. It has more to do with our perception and what we think than the colour of the object.
I don't think there's a more accurate method, such as designating wavelengths of light, since the designation of the wavelengths depends upon what we perceive in the first place.
There is in some cases, such as the case we've been discussing: the picture of the strawberries. Your method says that they're red, but they're not, and my method says that they're some other colour, and they are. Your method either fails to distinguish or erroneously connects how they appear with what they are, and my method doesn't. So my method is more accurate.
By what means would you say the gray quality -- or perhaps we could say "not-red", if we don't get too picky about what we mean by 'quality' ? -- applies to both the parts and the whole?
That's explained in the articles out there about this: see here.
Maybe I'm just dense, but it seems to me that the argument is that since the pixels are gray the image of the strawberries are gray. No?
What if it is? That's not necessarily a fallacy. Either way, there is no red in either the pixels or the picture of the strawberries, so you're still wrong. Your argument can only work if you confuse appearance and reality, but that's not something that I'm willing to do.
That's explained in the articles out there about this:
These explanations, unless I am missing something in them, more or less amount to "your brain turns this reality into this appearance" -- but that doesn't tell me how they determined the image of the strawberry -- in reality -- is actually grey.
So, in context A the brain makes such and such color stay constant, and here in context B the brain is doing that same thing but we're exploiting it to make these gray-green pixels appear red. Alright. But 'the brain did it' is more or less 'there's a black box between where reality is grey, and after the black box the appearance is red. We know this because of the blue sky is contaminating our perception and our brain corrects for that, and here it's just doing that same thing' -- but so it seems to me, the brain drops out of this story pretty easily. What exactly is the brain doing to the gray reality to make it appear red? "correcting the color to what it should be, were it a natural object outside" seems to be what they're saying. But it's not a natural object outside. It's an image on a computer screen. So it seems to me that the believers in gray are sort of misinterpreting exactly what's before their eyes because of their fascination with brains.
After all -- how do we determine that reality is gray other than just looking at the individual pixel? But if the pixel is not the same thing as the strawberry image, then... we are actually looking at two different things.
And the image of the strawberries appears red. Which is, more or less, how we usually determine the color of something. It's certainly how we assign colors to the electromagnetic spectrum.
What if it is? That's not necessarily a fallacy. Either way, there is no red in either the pixels or the picture of the strawberries, so you're still wrong.
That is exactly a fallacious inference. From the SEP:
The fallacies of composition and division occur when the properties of parts and composites are mistakenly thought to be transferable from one to the other. Consider the two sentences:
Every member of the investigative team was an excellent researcher.
It was an excellent investigative team.
Here it is ‘excellence’ that is the property in question. The fallacy of composition is the inference from (a) to (b) but it need not hold if members of the team cannot work cooperatively with each other. The reverse inference from (b) to (a)—the fallacy of division—may also fail if some essential members of the team have a supportive or administrative role rather than a research role.
While a whole may have the same property as a part, such as a chairs leg being made entirely of wood and a chair being made entirely of wood, it is not that the chair's leg is made entirely of wood which makes the chair made entirely of wood -- but rather, whether or not the chair is made entirely of wood.
So, yes, they can have the same properties. But that one has such and such property does not mean that the other has such and such property -- and so that would be a problem if that's the underlying argument, since it's at least not valid.
You can't infer one from the other. At the very least, if we are to infer one from the other, it'd be nice to know how this inference is safe in this instance. I'm not one for claiming that informal fallacies are devestating to arguments, or anything. They just point at where we might be making a mistake, or at least could clear up what we do precisely mean.
Or, like I said, perhaps I'm just dense and I just don't understand how else this image-argument gets off the ground. I could certainly be painting myself into a corner. But then I'd at least ask how it is you determined the reality is gray.
Your argument can only work if you confuse appearance and reality, but that's not something that I'm willing to do.
Eh, I'd say that appearance/reality is a distinction which simply designates inferior/superior with respect to belief. So designating a belief as appearance is kind of the same thing as saying "I don't believe it is real", and designating a belief as reality is kind of the same thing as "I believe it is real" -- or true.
That isn't to say that appearance is reality, note. I certainly don't believe that. But rather I doubt the distinction sets out an ontological truth. (Also, I'd note here that I don't think the topic of perception reveals much about the nature of reality, either -- maybe the nature of perception, but not reality vs. appearance)
What's more, I'd say that what I'm saying is more along the lines of the question "How do we determine such and such?", and so is more geared towards an epistemic approach rather than an ontological approach. Not to be naive and think that we can abandon ontological commitments, but only to say this is the framing I'm attempting -- since we determine the color of some named image, be it strawberry platter or pixel, by looking at it, the rest follows rather easily. It seems to me that if the strawberry images are not red, then there must be some means of determining this in reality, no? What means are those?
I mean, "the brain did it" is all well and good, but if it's doing its thing, then what are we doing to determine the color? Do we just ask the brain? An obtuse question, yes. But I'd say that this is exactly the sort of weird talk you result in when we assign causal power, and almost a kind of pseudo-agency, to our brain.
Whether I'm fine with anti-realism depends of how that's defined.
Anti-realism and realism are well defined and don't need to be redefined, or we end up with endless semantic disputes that go nowhere. Color is real if it's mind-independent, and anti-real if it's not.
Compare with dreams. Some cultures have thought that when you dream, you go somewhere else. That it's an experience of something real. But we understand dreams to be mind-dependent.
Also compare with shape. We say shape is a property of objects, not of perception. Idealists might disagree, but at the very least, color is understood to be objective and not relative to the perceiver.
It seems to me that if the strawberry images are not red, then there must be some means of determining this in reality, no? What means are those?
Your argument exposes that this can't be about simple emergence via compositional interactions. But in talking about a digital pixel display - designed to fool the brain in that precise fashion - then it does start to seem that composition is somehow the right register of thought.
To simplify the story, we should think of the world simply having some wavelength peak of reflectance at some point of the environment. Let's call that X. And then from the get-go, the brain - speaking down at the very front line in the ganglion cells in the retina - are already making a more complex computation. They never see this X. They are already seeking a comparison with other (remembered) values. So X is being compared to Y. Or more generically (that is dichotomously, as in opponent channel processing) X is being compared to not-X.
So the situation is Kantian or semiotic from the neural get-go. We don't see X, the thing in itself. We are already into a response that is the sign representing the psychological "fact" of a contrast. We don't see some pixel scale strength dollop of some particular physical wavelength. We have already crossed the "epistemic cut" and are representing purely some difference that makes a difference - the experience of seeing X in terms of that meaning we are not seeing not-X. That is, we are seeing what we see in terms of an actual contrast with a remembered context or conception. Raw input has already been transformed into pure sign or signal at the first neurological step.
So now we have a story where ordinary visual judgements are made ecologically - we apply everything we know to interpret the scene. And this state of "best fit" conception acts all the way top down to frame our neural responses.
An isolated ganglion cell gets a ton of outside help to make up its mind. The wider brain can see that this is a plate of strawberries in a weird light. It shouts at the ganglion cells, that (using the chat about grey and teal pixels being used here) the grey or low level white actually should be understood as a relative absence of the dominating teal hue and so - by logical implication - a suppressed presence of redness.
The point again is that the brain never sees anything real directly. The world just doesn't have that kind of contextuality in which wavelength peak X is meaningfully an absence of every other wavelength possibility. That comparison - the one that turns a meaningless variation into a difference that makes a difference - depends entirely on the existence of the further thing of a memory-based comparison, a response by an observer who says that the facts have to be either a "this" or a "that". Either the world is X or not-X in terms of our private modelled realm of signs.
So what I am arguing against is any kind of colour realism. And talk of higher level emergence from the collective interactions of composite parts is still going to create the question of what colour are the pixels really.
Instead it is comparisons (counterfactual constraint or forced symmetry breakings) all the way down. Even grey is about the comparative absence and presence of "black" and "white".
This extends to talk about qualia. When we talk about the redness of red, we are repeating what is happening down at ground level on a grand scale. We are stripping away the levels and levels of conception or context that give the "computations" of the brain/mind their ecological validity. We are just saying pay attention to what it feels like to be "seeing red". And that strips away from qualia talk the backdrop truth that what is really going on is that we are (just as much) seeing a mental state of not-green (which more complexly is itself either a dominating presence of red wavelength light, or - another way to see not-green - a relative absence of blue-yellow channel activity).
1. Why must the perception of an object's colour and the [actual] object's colour be the same? Or, why can't I say the grey in that picture appears red to me? By insisting I cannot say this, are you saying I'm lying?
I don't think it must be so, only that it seems we are deviating from what we normally do in this particular case if we are saying the strawberry image is, in reality, grey.
2. Why shouldn't I incorporate what we scientifically know about "red" into the definition of "red"?
Because there is no scientific knowledge of 'red' -- there is a loosely designated region of the electromagnetic spectrum assigned 'red' on the same basis that everything is assigned 'red', by its appearance.
3. Why shouldn't I apply a descriptive definition to "red" to my experience?
I'm not sure I understand this question.
4. Is this just a matter of definition/semantics? If I define red as what I experience as red unless it turns out that a spectrometer tells me it isn't because it does not have an emphasis of wavelengths between x and y, then by definition the strawberries aren't red.
I don't think it's just definitions and semantics. If you stipulate a definition then of course we can all respect that definition within some conversation.
But it would just be a stipulated definition based on what red looks like.
Also, it would be interesting to see what the spectrometer actually did say. If that's how you're using "red", then we would at least have to use one in order to actually determine whether the image is red.
Reply to apokrisis Thanks for the post. Giving me some food for thought.
I sort of suspected that Kant might come up, given the Kant-esque nature of cog-sci.
I'm not sure exactly how Kant would carry over to the discussion of perception, though. It's not something he really discusses. Or even to what extent, either. Like, color could be a product of the brain, right? But that doesn't necessarily mean there are color-concepts of the mind which impose themselves on intuition. It could be a part of intuition, but even more than that, if it's just 'in the brain', as you note, it wouldn't really be all that Kantian. Colors would just be accidents, and I'd infer that they actually do look different for each of us, in the same way that we have different behaviors which result from various brain functions (behaviors which are products of judgment, at least -- not heart beats and such).
There is definitely a lot of relevance here for the question of qualia, I agree. A lot of my hesitancy is probably based on that. It seems to me that the frame is this weird notional information-centric ontology -- notional because it's not fleshed out, at least from what I can tell (in general, not you in particular -- I may have trouble following you sometimes, but you do at least seem to be consistent ;) ). And that said beliefs about mental processes and a presumed sort of faith in emergence are what give these sorts of inferences from this image their persuasive "umph". And I'd say that these beliefs are fairly acceptable, but I don't believe them myself.
For myself, I think I'm drawn to what you call here:
. When we talk about the redness of red, we are repeating what is happening down at ground level on a grand scale. We are stripping away the levels and levels of conception or context that give the "computations" of the brain/mind their ecological validity. We are just saying pay attention to what it feels like to be "seeing red".
"stripping away the backdrop truth" -- because I'm rather uncertain that the backdrop truth is, well, actually true given its Kantian backdrop. It seems to me that a Kanti-esque approach to these phenomena provides a frame of interpretation that is interesting, but will likely suffer from similar problems that Kant's philosophy does. One such problem would be the over-emphasis on the power of judgment with respect to experience, as is revealed by such language as 'the brain talks to the ganglion' -- it's very similar to 'the faculty of the understanding connects to a schemata which brings the concepts into intuition'. In a way it makes sense, but then it also seems like you're cutting yourself off from the very thing which you had previously known in order to explain how it is you know it.
Hrm hrm hrm. Kind of just rambling here at this point. Still thinking it over.
I experience the strawberries as looking red from a non close up view. I experience the strawberries as looking grey when I zoom in very close on the pixels. A scientist with an instrument measuring the wavelength of light coming from the strawberry would measure the same wavelength from both close up, or far away.
I think the confusion arises from asking types of questions like "what colour is the strawberry really", "what colour is the strawberry independent of mind".
The confusion arises from thinking of the strawberries colour as something existing outside of human perception.
The strawberry appears different to the viewer under different conditions. The scientist measures the same length of light coming from the strawberry under these various conditions. Does this present a problem? Do these NEED to be reconciled? Only if you think the way the strawberry appears to you is directly related to the wavelength of light (as measured by the scientist) the strawberry emits.
My view is these are two different domains, one is phenomenological, the other scientific. The problem only arises when trying to reconcile the two under a single domain. Perhaps they're just separate, and need no attempt to reconcile the apparent contradiction (the strawberry appears different even though the scientist measures the same wavelength).
People seem to have the view that red objects are those that emit x wavelength of light. But this seems to conflate the scientific domain (of measuring wavelength) with the phenomenological domain of how things appear in our visual fields. Probably part of the confusion arises from the word "red" meaning different things under the two domains and yet are used as if they're interchangeable.
Metaphysician UndercoverMarch 11, 2017 at 03:28#601880 likes
I experience the strawberries as looking red from a non close up view. I experience the strawberries as looking grey when I zoom in very close on the pixels. A scientist with an instrument measuring the wavelength of light coming from the strawberry would measure the same wavelength from both close up, or far away.
Sure, but what colour is grey? In primary school art class we could make greys and browns by mixing all sorts of colours. Grey might be defined as black (whatever colour that is) mixed with white (which is every colour), but "grey" is a very ambiguous colour. So the grey in the picture, no doubt, has red in it.
Now, put a wash of blue on the grey, and surroundings. The blue is lost in the grey, and that's what you see when you zoom in close up to the grey. You see grey. When you zoom out, the blue in the surrounding area creates a contrast with the grey, bringing out the red which is in the grey. The point being, that mixed colours, such as grey, look different under different conditions,
Colors would just be accidents, and I'd infer that they actually do look different for each of us, in the same way that we have different behaviors which result from various brain functions (behaviors which are products of judgment, at least -- not heart beats and such).
Of course we can't compare our experiences to know that your red is my red. in that final analysis, there is a brute lack of counterfactuality that thus winds up in an explanatory gap. But quite a lot of telling comparisons can be made on the way to that ultimate impasse. So for instance everyone sees yellow as the brightest hue, and also doesn't see brown as the blackish yellow it really is. And that phenomenological commonality is explained in complete fashion by the known (rather jury-built) neurological detail of the visual pathways.
So in the end, our yellows might indeed be different as experiences. Yet we can track the story right down towards this final question mark and find that similar neuroscience is creating similar mental outcomes. Thus we are not getting a strong reason for the kind of doubt - the talk of the purely accidental - that you might want to introduce to motivate a philosophy of mind argument.
And that said beliefs about mental processes and a presumed sort of faith in emergence are what give these sorts of inferences from this image their persuasive "umph".
I'm trying to be quite clear that talk of emergence is very much reductionist handwaving most of the time. It is taking the idea of physical phase transitions - the idea of properties like liquidity emerging as a collective behaviour at some critical energy scale - and treating consciousness as just another material change of that kind.
But I am arguing the exact opposite. I am saying there is a genuine "duality" in play. The brain is a semiotic organ and so it is all about a modelling relation based on the play of "unphysical" signs. So material physics isn't even seeing what is going on. No amount of such physics could ever produce anything like what the brain actually does by just adding more of the same and relying on some kind of collective magic.
Of course physics does self organise and that kind of emergence is a really important correction to physicalist ontology. But semiosis is yet another story on top of that again.
"stripping away the backdrop truth" -- because I'm rather uncertain that the backdrop truth is, well, actually true given its Kantian backdrop.
Ah well. Forget any mention of Kant then. This is Peirce so "truth" is pragmatic. We have already shifted from requiring that the world be represented in some veridical fashion. We are now viewing cognition in the way modern neuroscience would recognise - modelling that is ecologically situated, coding which is sparse, perception that is only interested in the degree to which uncertainty can be pragmatically minimised.
Why does the eye only have three "colour" pigments when evolution could have given us as many as we liked? Less is more if you already have in mind the few critical things you need to be watching out for.
One such problem would be the over-emphasis on the power of judgment with respect to experience, as is revealed by such language as 'the brain talks to the ganglion'
Neuroscience has a ton of more technical jargon. But it is a basic fact of neural design that every neuron has hundreds of times more connections feeding down from on high than it has inputs coming up from "the real world". So just looking at that anatomy tells you that your prevailing state of intention, expectation and memory has the upper hand in determining what you wind up thinking you are seeing.
If you know pretty much exactly what should happen in the next instant, you can pretty much ignore everything as it does happen a split second later. And thus you also become exquisitely attuned to any failures of the said state of prediction. You know what requires attentive effort in the next split second - the hasty reorientation of your conceptions that then, with luck, allow you to ignore completely what does happen after that as you have managed now to predict it was going to be the case.
So yes. This doesn't tally with the usual notions of how the mind should work. But that is because the phenomenology as we focus on it is naturally about all our constant failures to get predictions right. It seems that the homuncular "I" is always chasing the elusive truth of an ever surprising reality. However that introspective view by definition is only seeing things that way because there is such a bulk of events successfully discounted in every passing instant.
For example, in the second that just passed, I was effectively, subconsciously, predicting that Donald Trump was not about to barge into my room, an asteroid was not about to plough into the park outside my window, my foot wasn't about to explode in a shower of fireworks. So that is what brains do - allow us to discount a near infinite ensemble of possibilities as that which is almost infinitely unlikely.
In your terminology, that seems a hell of a lot of judgement in relation to a tiny fraction of experience. It is just that we don't really give much weight to how much we both routinely predict successfully, and also discount unthinkingly as too crazy to even consider (although we can pull them out conceptually at any time as I just did).
So again, that is why I stress this extra constraint of ecological validity. Philosophy of mind does have a habit of stripping it away as it searches atomistically for a foundation of qualia. Yet it is the pragmatic relation that a mind has with the world that is central to accounting for the mind causally.
So yes. This doesn't tally with the usual notions of how the mind should work. But that is because the phenomenology as we focus on it is naturally about all our constant failures to get predictions right. It seems that the homuncular "I" is always chasing the elusive truth of an ever surprising reality. However that introspective view by definition is only seeing things that way because there is such a bulk of events successfully discounted in every passing instant.
For example, in the second that just passed, I was effectively, subconsciously, predicting that Donald Trump was not about to barge into my room, an asteroid was not about to plough into the park outside my window, my foot wasn't about to explode in a shower of fireworks. So that is what brains do - allow us to discount a near infinite ensemble of possibilities as that which is almost infinitely unlikely.
Interesting. I can see how much of our awareness is all about what doesn't work, like Heidegger's broken tool analogy. We are most aware of that which did not go as planned. That which does go as planned is ignored immediately or soon after. I do not spend time thinking about what it was like to press the letter "a" key on my keyboard, but I do spend more time thinking WHEN i REALIZE i ACCIDENTALLY PRESSED THE CAPS LOCK KEY.
Yet I find it hard to believe that you were actually subconsciously predicting all these insane possibilities as you mentioned. That would require a hell of a lot of energy, would it not? What use would it be for the subconscious to go through all these possibilities - and how do you know your subconscious is, in fact, running through them? It's subconscious!
Yet I find it hard to believe that you were actually subconsciously predicting all these insane possibilities as you mentioned.
My point was the opposite. These were all things I could be consciously conjuring up, but then in fact I am effortless ignoring. Just being aware at a general background level of "being in my familiar room" is enough to suppress a vast amount of craziness.
In dreams, of course, we aren't plugged into a real setting and so the imagination does run riot in just that way. The lack of an ecological or situated state of mind means there is no organised state of constraint to suppress the perceptual invention.
Again, this goes back to the top down logic of systems, where the way things work is by the creating of states of constraint that narrow and shape degrees of freedom. So at any moment, it is possible I could be imagining anything. But the more I'm plugged into some actual place with its affordances and the kinds of things natural to the situation, the more constrained my state of mind will be.
So the contrast is with the input/output model of a computer where a vision of the world is thought to be constructed in jigsaw like fashion by the elaborate gluing together of a multitude of sensory data points. The view gets constructed by figuring out the details from the bottom up.
Instead now I start with a head full of every kind of possibility and start to limit that in a top down fashion so it is reasonably predictive of what is likely to happen next in terms of some flow of sensory elements. I generate the idea of the room from memory and so pretty instantly will notice anything that sharply deviates from my forward model of it.
The strawberry appears different to the viewer under different conditions. The scientist measures the same length of light coming from the strawberry under these various conditions.
The disconnect is the other way around. We still think we see red even though there is now no actual "red" wavelength light being emitted.
So the brain corrects for the missing light by being able to imagine perceptually what the same scene would look like under ordinary light.
But the upshot is the same. The point is that the world has no colour anymore than a chemical has a taste or an air vibration has a noise. So if we are understanding the world in terms of neurally constructed qualia, then what kind of thing are they really?
My answer is we have to think of them as signs or symbols. Colours, noises, tastes and other qualia are encodings of physical energies.
Now most people don't take that as much of an answer. But it is not as if the physical energies are much less mysterious once we start to delve scientifically into the reality of material being. We soon discover that we haven't really shaken off our qualitative impressions of the world when we try to imagine light as little wriggly lines of something.
So the same applies to the mental side of the equation. Scientifically, a generalised theory of signs - that is, semiotics - is going to have to be the best way of making sense of phenomenal experience.
These explanations, unless I am missing something in them, more or less amount to "your brain turns this reality into this appearance" -- but that doesn't tell me how they determined the image of the strawberry -- in reality -- is actually grey.
It says that this is because it consists of grey pixels. There is no specific wavelength on the spectrum for grey, but something is grey when all wavelengths are absorbed at roughly the same percentage.
So, in context A the brain makes such and such color stay constant, and here in context B the brain is doing that same thing but we're exploiting it to make these gray-green pixels appear red. Alright. But 'the brain did it' is more or less 'there's a black box between where reality is grey, and after the black box the appearance is red. We know this because of the blue sky is contaminating our perception and our brain corrects for that, and here it's just doing that same thing' -- but so it seems to me, the brain drops out of this story pretty easily. What exactly is the brain doing to the gray reality to make it appear red? "correcting the color to what it should be, were it a natural object outside" seems to be what they're saying. But it's not a natural object outside. It's an image on a computer screen. So it seems to me that the believers in gray are sort of misinterpreting exactly what's before their eyes because of their fascination with brains.
No, the brain doesn't drop out of the explanation. And it doesn't need to be a natural object outside, so that criticism is based on a false premise that was never part of my argument. And I'm not the one misinterpreting the grey strawberries as red, that's what you're doing. That's the common misinterpretation that is shown to be erroneous, and to which you're clinging, despite the scientific evidence to the contrary.
But if the pixel is not the same thing as the strawberry image, then... we are actually looking at two different things.
Of course they're two different things, and that is utterly irrelevant. The strawberry image is not a single pixel, it is a whole bunch of pixels. Point out as many differences as you like, but, as I have argued, colour is not one of them.
And the image of the strawberries appears red. Which is, more or less, how we usually determine the color of something. It's certainly how we assign colors to the electromagnetic spectrum.
I've already addressed those first two sentences. They are irrelevant, since they don't support your conclusion. I accept both of them, yet reach a different conclusion.
And I doubt your last sentence. What do you mean by that? That's about wavelengths, language, and categorisation. A colour blind person could understand it enough to determine colours if he had the right tools to determine wavelengths. What's missing would be the kind of colour perception - the "what it's like" - that we have. But that's not objective: it is not a part of the object.
The fallacy of composition is an informal fallacy, so whether or not something counts as this fallacy is not strictly about form, but relates to the content, and there is more room for disagreement. If you see here, for example, it states that it is not always fallacious, but we must be cautious in making inferences of this form. There are clear examples, and possible examples which are not so clear and may be contested, or even widely rejected as valid examples of this fallacy.
[Quote]Not all arguments of this form are fallacious, however. Whether or not they are depends on what property is involved. Some properties, such as lasting less than an hour, may be possessed by every part of something but not by the thing itself. Others, such as being bigger than a bus, must be possessed by the whole if possessed by each part.
One case where it is difficult to decide whether the fallacy of composition is committed concerns the cosmological argument for the existence of God. This argument takes the contingency of the universe (i.e. the alleged fact that the universe might not have come into being) as implying the existence of a God who brought it into being. The simplest way to argue for the contingency of the universe is to argue from the contingency of each of its parts, as follows:
(1) Everything in the universe is contingent (i.e. could possibly have failed to exist).
Therefore:
(2) The universe as a whole is contingent (i.e. could possibly have failed to exist.
It is clear that this argument has the form of the fallacy of composition; what is less clear is whether it really is fallacious. Must something composed of contingent parts itself be contingent? Or might it be that the universe is necessarily existent even though each of its parts is not?
Another controversial example concerns materialistic explanations of consciousness. Is consciousness just electrical activity in the brain, as mind-brain identity theory suggests, or something more? Opponents of mind-brain identity theory sometimes argue as follows:
(1) The brain is composed of unconscious neurons.
Therefore:
(2) The brain itself is not conscious.
It is certainly difficult to see how consciousness can emerge from purely material processes, but the mere fact that each part of the brain is unconscious does not entail that the whole brain is the same.[/quote]
And the very thing that we're discussing here - that, for example, it is acceptable to conclude that a chair is green if all constituent parts of the chair are green - has been argued by philosophers like Nelson Goodman, who called such features "expansive" features, and Frans van Eemeren, who argues that these features are limited only to features that are absolute and structure-independent.
While a whole may have the same property as a part, such as a chairs leg being made entirely of wood and a chair being made entirely of wood, it is not that the chair's leg is made entirely of wood which makes the chair made entirely of wood -- but rather, whether or not the chair is made entirely of wood.
I know that! I'm not making that fallacy! That's either a straw man or a red herring. If [i]all[/I] of the parts are made of wood, then the chair is made of wood. Do you disagree?
You can't infer one from the other. At the very least, if we are to infer one from the other, it'd be nice to know how this inference is safe in this instance. I'm not one for claiming that informal fallacies are devastating to arguments, or anything. They just point at where we might be making a mistake, or at least could clear up what we do precisely mean.
That's good to know. I think I've already explained this to some extent, and that the extent to which I can explain it is limited, so I think that it's mainly down to you to explain how what I've said is allegedly false or fallacious.
I've acknowledged a number of the differences that you've pointed out, but not in terms of colour, except insofar as appearance is concerned. None of these differences are relevant with regards to the colour of the strawberries, as far as I can tell.
There is a shared property between the parts and the whole, and the whole has the same property because the whole is an arrangement of the parts, and nothing about that arrangement effects the property such that it no longer applies. That last part is not true of uncontroversial examples of the fallacy of composition, but it is true in this case. Although if you're confused about appearance and reality, you might think otherwise.
Eh, I'd say that appearance/reality is a distinction which simply designates inferior/superior with respect to belief. So designating a belief as appearance is kind of the same thing as saying "I don't believe it is real", and designating a belief as reality is kind of the same thing as "I believe it is real" -- or true.
That isn't to say that appearance is reality, note. I certainly don't believe that. But rather I doubt the distinction sets out an ontological truth. (Also, I'd note here that I don't think the topic of perception reveals much about the nature of reality, either -- maybe the nature of perception, but not reality vs. appearance)
Okay. But if we're saying that wavelengths or whatever are real - which is the assumption that I'm working under, and which will be agreeable to many - and if we're talking about colour in terms of wavelength or some related scientific description, then it makes sense to say that what we're talking about in such cases is reality. And similarly, with regards to any appearance which seemingly conflicts with this reality, if we're categorising that in contrary terms, then it'd make sense to say that this is not real. Furthermore, if we're attributing properties, and we accept the aforementioned, then we should do so accordingly in the right way, by attributing appearance to the subjective and property to the objective, rather than attributing appearance to the objective, as some people in this discussion seem to be doing by making certain kinds of statements which lack clarity and precision.
What's more, I'd say that what I'm saying is more along the lines of the question "How do we determine such and such?", and so is more geared towards an epistemic approach rather than an ontological approach. Not to be naive and think that we can abandon ontological commitments, but only to say this is the framing I'm attempting -- since we determine the color of some named image, be it strawberry platter or pixel, by looking at it, the rest follows rather easily. It seems to me that if the strawberry images are not red, then there must be some means of determining this in reality, no? What means are those?
Okay, I don't have a problem with that epistemic approach, but it does seem naive to end up with that common means of determination which has been demonstrated to be erroneous in at least some cases, as with the strawberries.
I think I've answered those questions in other parts of this reply, so I refer you back to those parts.
I mean, "the brain did it" is all well and good, but if it's doing its thing, then what are we doing to determine the color? Do we just ask the brain? An obtuse question, yes. But I'd say that this is exactly the sort of weird talk you result in when we assign causal power, and almost a kind of pseudo-agency, to our brain.
We become conscious of certain things as a result of our respective brains. We see the grey strawberries as red, and, typically, our initial reaction is to think that they are in fact red. I don't think we need to get caught up in the so-called hard problem here, if that's what you're getting at.
Of course we can't compare our experiences to know that your red is my red. in that final analysis, there is a brute lack of counterfactuality that thus winds up in an explanatory gap. But quite a lot of telling comparisons can be made on the way to that ultimate impasse. So for instance everyone sees yellow as the brightest hue, and also doesn't see brown as the blackish yellow it really is. And that phenomenological commonality is explained in complete fashion by the known (rather jury-built) neurological detail of the visual pathways.
So in the end, our yellows might indeed be different as experiences. Yet we can track the story right down towards this final question mark and find that similar neuroscience is creating similar mental outcomes. Thus we are not getting a strong reason for the kind of doubt - the talk of the purely accidental - that you might want to introduce to motivate a philosophy of mind argument.
Hrmm, not purely accidental I wouldn't think, but accidental. Some people's judgments happen to align, after all -- one could think there is regularity to be found based on some grouping. But as judgments differ from various persons as we can observe by means of the behaviors which are the results of judgment, and color is an experience of judgment, it wouldn't be a function of mere doubting but rather a fair inference from our explanatory frame that we do, in fact, see different colors. If what we are saying is true about color, then there is no explanatory gap -- it is the most sensible thing to believe. (though it does bugger the more functionalist notion of the brain which seems predominant -- at least on its face)
There's another reason why similar neuroscience could be creating similar mental outcomes -- the other flaw of Kant's philosophy, which whether we are Kantian or not these sorts of arguments do seem to follow this form of argumentation, is the transcendental argument.
So we have a gray image with a particular teal chosen to make the gray strawberries red. This is after having asked what are the possible conditions of experience -- the experience being this notion of color constancy. The brain adding colors to appear constant is the necessary conditions for colors remaining constant, or in this case, not doing so. We see that colors are constant(generally) and modified(when exploited) in experience, therefore this precondition is necessary.
But we can come up with other possible pre-conditions which explain the pheneomena. As a for instance, we might say that it is not the brain which judges and adds colors to experience, but the mind which does so. We know this to be so because we actually do see the same colors -- at least the same hues (as you note, yellow is the brightest hue for all of us). This explains the seeming regularity of experience better than reference to an embodied organ which differs from person to person. This organ, like the heart and the lungs and the skin, is certainly necessary for mental activity. Modifying it modifies mental activity. But it is not the best explanation for experience (one way of parsing the transcendental argument is that it's kind of the pre-cursor or model to abduction, hence my use of the term 'best explanation')
However, if we all agree to the same pre-conditions, then all the phenomena start becoming support for the pre-condition -- when, in fact, the pre-condition was meant to explain the phenomena. So this would be another reason why similar neuroscience could be creating similar mental outcomes -- mere agreement on the proper pre-conditions for such and such phenomena.
I'm trying to be quite clear that talk of emergence is very much reductionist handwaving most of the time. It is taking the idea of physical phase transitions - the idea of properties like liquidity emerging as a collective behaviour at some critical energy scale - and treating consciousness as just another material change of that kind.
But I am arguing the exact opposite. I am saying there is a genuine "duality" in play. The brain is a semiotic organ and so it is all about a modelling relation based on the play of "unphysical" signs. So material physics isn't even seeing what is going on. No amount of such physics could ever produce anything like what the brain actually does by just adding more of the same and relying on some kind of collective magic.
Of course physics does self organise and that kind of emergence is a really important correction to physicalist ontology. But semiosis is yet another story on top of that again.
OK, cool. We are definitely in agreement here. Though my doubts in emergence were more produced by seeing how arguments for emergence fall to all the same arguments against dualism (in particular the argument about how these two planes interact -- emergence is very hand-wavey on this front, moreso than even the early pituitary-gland positing dualists ;)). And since most emergentists were anti-dualists, it just seemed an inconsistent position since emergence is mostly motivated by trying to find a non-dualist solution to the mind-body problem.
Cool. Though I'm not sure that K's theory of truth was at issue here as much as his theory of cognition which seems to be in play.
This is Peirce so "truth" is pragmatic. We have already shifted from requiring that the world be represented in some veridical fashion. We are now viewing cognition in the way modern neuroscience would recognise - modelling that is ecologically situated, coding which is sparse, perception that is only interested in the degree to which uncertainty can be pragmatically minimised.
Why does the eye only have three "colour" pigments when evolution could have given us as many as we liked? Less is more if you already have in mind the few critical things you need to be watching out for.
Seems to me this is difficult to explain along evolutionary lines, at least immediately, because the way our species happens to see differs from the way other successful species happen to see. Also, while vision has evolutionary advantages for a land-dwelling species in an environment flooded with light -- or I can see how that makes sense at least - that doesn't mean that the three-color vision we experience is evolutionarily related. It could have been a bi-color, for all we can tell, and the tri-color vision just came along for the ride, or was sexually selected for, or was a random mutation and a seismic event wiped out those with bi-color vision.
Neuroscience has a ton of more technical jargon. But it is a basic fact of neural design that every neuron has hundreds of times more connections feeding down from on high than it has inputs coming up from "the real world". So just looking at that anatomy tells you that your prevailing state of intention, expectation and memory has the upper hand in determining what you wind up thinking you are seeing.
If you know pretty much exactly what should happen in the next instant, you can pretty much ignore everything as it does happen a split second later. And thus you also become exquisitely attuned to any failures of the said state of prediction. You know what requires attentive effort in the next split second - the hasty reorientation of your conceptions that then, with luck, allow you to ignore completely what does happen after that as you have managed now to predict it was going to be the case.
So yes. This doesn't tally with the usual notions of how the mind should work. But that is because the phenomenology as we focus on it is naturally about all our constant failures to get predictions right. It seems that the homuncular "I" is always chasing the elusive truth of an ever surprising reality. However that introspective view by definition is only seeing things that way because there is such a bulk of events successfully discounted in every passing instant.
For example, in the second that just passed, I was effectively, subconsciously, predicting that Donald Trump was not about to barge into my room, an asteroid was not about to plough into the park outside my window, my foot wasn't about to explode in a shower of fireworks. So that is what brains do - allow us to discount a near infinite ensemble of possibilities as that which is almost infinitely unlikely.
In your terminology, that seems a hell of a lot of judgement in relation to a tiny fraction of experience. It is just that we don't really give much weight to how much we both routinely predict successfully, and also discount unthinkingly as too crazy to even consider (although we can pull them out conceptually at any time as I just did).
So again, that is why I stress this extra constraint of ecological validity. Philosophy of mind does have a habit of stripping it away as it searches atomistically for a foundation of qualia. Yet it is the pragmatic relation that a mind has with the world that is central to accounting for the mind causally.
I don't think I'd object to much here. We certainly can be oriented by judgment, and sure, this way of talking is a simplification. I'm not really interested in defending homuncularity or mere introspection or finding an atomistic basis for the mind. And I wouldn't discount judgment, I'd just note that our experiences are structured by more than judgment. Or, even more than this, that judgment is a learned habit taught by our environment -- which is predominantly social. Is it any wonder that an Enlightenment era philosopher interested in explaining the presence of scientific knowledge in light of an abstract philosophical puzzle, when describing the mind, put judgment as the focal point for said mind? Not at all.
Judgment is useful in non-social environments too, to be sure. Learning how to judge, and further how to make adjustments to said judgment, can reap many rewards. But I'd say that the structure of experience, as much as judgment plays a part in our behavior and functions, differs from this.
Anti-realism and realism are well defined and don't need to be redefined, or we end up with endless semantic disputes that go nowhere. Color is real if it's mind-independent, and anti-real if it's not.
Then, as I argued in the discussion I created on whether truth is mind-dependent, I'll argue that colour, as I have defined it, is not mind-dependent, but more like rule-dependent. Rules depend on mind for creation, and for being comprehended, but not for persistence and not for application, so in the latter sense, they're mind-independent. Categories are related to rules, may be rule-based, and seem similar enough for my argument there to work here as well.
Compare with dreams. Some cultures have thought that when you dream, you go somewhere else. That it's an experience of something real. But we understand dreams to be mind-dependent.
Sure, dreams are mind-dependent. Dreams are real, the experiences are real, the contents are not. I really did have a dream last night, in which I experienced all kinds of things, but what I dreamed was not real. I didn't really fly around like a superhero.
Also compare with shape. We say shape is a property of objects, not of perception. Idealists might disagree, but at the very least, color is understood to be objective and not relative to the perceiver.
Again, that's fine with me. But that doesn't mean that they're right (or wrong). To make that assessment, you'd have to start by analysing what they mean.
I don't think it must be so, only that it seems we are deviating from what we normally do in this particular case if we are saying the strawberry image is, in reality, grey.
We are, but that's the point. It emphasises the fallibility in what we normally do.
People seem to have the view that red objects are those that emit x wavelength of light. But this seems to conflate the scientific domain (of measuring wavelength) with the phenomenological domain of how things appear in our visual fields. Probably part of the confusion arises from the word "red" meaning different things under the two domains and yet are used as if they're interchangeable.
I think that one key to understanding the view that red objects are those that emit x wavelength of light, and the reason why it is not a conflation in the way you say that it seems, is that, as you yourself say, it is a view about what red objects are (rather than how things appear). One simple distinction, and the superficial problem seems to vanish. That such talk is about what red objects [i]are[/I] should give you a clue about what is meant by "red". Would a charitable interpretation assume some kind of naive realism whereby these two domains are confused? On the contrary, that's what is being argued against.
Metaphysician UndercoverMarch 11, 2017 at 13:21#602480 likes
So we have a gray image with a particular teal chosen to make the gray strawberries red. This is after having asked what are the possible conditions of experience -- the experience being this notion of color constancy. The brain adding colors to appear constant is the necessary conditions for colors remaining constant, or in this case, not doing so. We see that colors are constant(generally) and modified(when exploited) in experience, therefore this precondition is necessary.
I really don't think that the brain is "adding colors". I think that's a mistake, thinking that the brain is adding red. I believe the red is there, as part of the mixture within the grey. I would say that the brain "subtracts" or otherwise tries to account for the teal, because it appears like there is a lens of teal between the eyes and the strawberries. So the teal is subtracted from the grey, and we can see the red within the grey.
Instead now I start with a head full of every kind of possibility and start to limit that in a top down fashion so it is reasonably predictive of what is likely to happen next in terms of some flow of sensory elements. I generate the idea of the room from memory and so pretty instantly will notice anything that sharply deviates from my forward model of it.
What does it mean, exactly, when you say you start with a head full of every kind of possibility? Do you mean to say that literally every sort of possibility is "implanted" in our heads, or do you mean that the brain merely has the capability to conjure up endless possibilities? As in, the power to actualize these events already makes these events "existent" in some sense?
If we look at the brain, we see it is limited in many respects. It has a certain size, a certain organization, a certain amount of processing power and capabilities. I cannot imagine ten thousand stars, all I can imagine is a very large amount of stars of indeterminate quantity. There legitimately is a limit to how much I can do.
How would something like you're describing evolve in the natural world? From where would the mind come from? From my perspective, a bottom-up view, while perhaps not being entirely sufficient, has leverage here. Consciousness evolves from lesser awareness to more, all in the name of efficiency. You said "less is more", but in my opinion it should be "more is more" so long as efficiency and adaptability are maintained within some set threshold.
This explains the seeming regularity of experience better than reference to an embodied organ which differs from person to person.
So by your dualistic reasoning, every congenitally blind person ought to report imagining colours, every congenitally deaf person would still imagine noises, every teetotaller would still know the feeling of drunkenness, etc. After alll, something may be missing in terms of inputs to drive brain activity but we all partake in the one mind substance, right?
It could have been a bi-color, for all we can tell, and the tri-color vision just came along for the ride, or was sexually selected for, or was a random mutation and a seismic event wiped out those with bi-color vision.
Well the usual speculative evolutionary story goes that mammals generallly did go bicolour or dichromatic and red-green colour blind because they were night creatures during the dinosaur era. Then primates added a pigment to allow for sharp red-green discrimination. And a reasonable reason for that was so they could spot ripe fruit in dense foliage. Which would happen to be a good example of evolving a sign detector to read the signs being made by other parts of nature.
Judgment is useful in non-social environments too, to be sure. Learning how to judge, and further how to make adjustments to said judgment, can reap many rewards. But I'd say that the structure of experience, as much as judgment plays a part in our behavior and functions, differs from this.
So what does your "judgement" entail as a neurological concept? It does seem to imply a hard dualism of observer and observables. It does give primacy to acts of attentive deliberation where I am pointing out how much is being done automatically and habitually, leaving attention and puzzlement as little to do as is possible. So talk of judgement puts the emphasis in all the wrong places from my anticipatory modelling point of view. Just the fact that judgements follow the acts strikes another bum note if the impressions of present have already been generally conceived in the moment just prior.
Reply to jkop Well in neuroscience it has led to this almost crazy obsession with the possibility that cells are talking to each other in codes of electrochemical pulses. I mean what are these guys smoking? ;)
What does it mean, exactly, when you say you start with a head full of every kind of possibility?
I hesitate to give the usual answer, but since you insist, I mean vague possibility. So a state of informational symmetry that could be broken a countable vast number of ways.
Possibility doesn't have to be an ensemble of distinct states like marked balls in a bag. Instead it can be a state or relatively unformed indistinctness out of which distinct possibilities are forced into counterfactual definiteness as the hand reaches in to grasp for some thing.
ou said "less is more", but in my opinion it should be "more is more" so long as efficiency and adaptability are maintained within some set threshold.
But I'm not the one trying to impose a monotonic dynamic on the discussion. I am simply trying to correct for that tendency to privilege bottom up construction in telling the story of nature. So I have no problem that there is both construction and constraint, each being fully expressed. That is in fact what full blooded holism demands.
And note how you make consciousness synonymous with in the moment attention. My definition of being mindful extends to include habitual level awareness. So that is the diachronic view of the holist. Memory, or the whole weight of a life of experience, is "doing" the "being conscious". We grow a close modelling fit for the world and so in the moment, only tiny tweaks need to be made to tat running state of mind. Again this is in complete contrast to computational thinking where every moment is a new state of information to be data processed so that it generates some mental representation.
So when I say less is more, I mean the fewer tweaks needed, the better the running model. The less attention needs to fix, the more powerful it becomes as it is being now very narrowly devoted to whatever turns out to be the remaining focus of uncertainty.
This actually shows up physically in comparative neurology. Chimps are smart, but we are smarter. So who do you think devotes more primary visual cortex to the tiny central focus of vision? It is because we are better at predicting the contents of our peripheral vision that we can justify devoting more neural resource to whatever needs to be the centre of our attention. Tunnel vision becomes wired in because we are more successful at ignoring the world in general.
Reply to jkop To try to make things clearer, the computational view does the regular atomistic thing of imagining existence to be based on some level of fundamental stabilty. So that is where computational models of mind go wrong - they expect the neural code to be some kind of simple compositional deal.
But semiotics - to boil it down - takes the opposite metaphysical position of basing everything on a presumption of fundamental instability (what folk used to call the edge of chaos, or criticality).
So top down regulative constraints work because the underlying material reality is exactly on the point between breaking down and reforming. It is poised in a condition of maximum instability. Which is how a little nudge, an infinitesimal push, can tip the physics one way or the other.
That explains how mental states - as systems of signs, habits of interpretance - can interact in ways that pragmatically connect with the goings on of the material world. The world is poised at its tipping point, not stuck in some undynamic rut from which it would be impossible to budge.
So that regulation of material instability is what semiotic theory can explain. That is its metaphysical paradigm in a nutshell.
In neuroscience, computationalism still dominates. Folk know neuron spikes are some kind of code. But generally, they don't then have a clear way of relating that to a coherent model as they are still thinking that the activity must be computational and so based on some ground of "hardware" stability.
Even in biology, the full force of a semiotic shift in thought is only just beginning. It is only in the last decade that biophysics has had the tools to actually view cellular processes at the level of the nanoscale molecular machinery.
Life is matter poised on the point of falling apart and yet nudged to keep going, continually reforming, by a (genetic) system of signs. Thus the organic can be defined in contrast to the mechanical in terms of this foundational thought - semiosis is the regulation of fundamental instability.
No, the brain doesn't drop out of the explanation. And it doesn't need to be a natural object outside, so that criticism is based on a false premise that was never part of my argument.
I think we're miscommunicating a bit here. To be fair, your argument was a google search. What I mean by 'drops out of the explanation' is that all that is said is we have reality on one side, and appearance on the other, and two claims about both. When asked how reality becomes appearance, the answer is 'the brain did it, just like it does with other objects to keep the color constant under different light conditions' where the main example was a blue sky.
My question is -- what does the brain do to reality to make the appearance? But the answer is "it makes the appearance appear like the appearance appears, different from reality" -- which just masks the mechanism I'm asking after.
And I'm not the one misinterpreting the grey strawberries as red, that's what you're doing. That's the common misinterpretation that is shown to be erroneous, and to which you're clinging, despite the scientific evidence to the contrary.
With science. What you describe above determines appearance. You can conflate that with something else, but that would be erroneous/misleading.
I'm grouping these just as a side note, because it will take us pretty far astray.
A basic view of science:
Science is little more than a collection of arguments about certain topics. There are established procedures in place for certain sorts of questions, there are established beliefs due to said process, but in the end it's a collection of arguments about certain topics on what is true with respect to those topics.
At least, as I see it. We don't science it -- we make an argument. An argument, in this context, can of course include experimental evidence. But said evidence must, itself, be interpreted to make sense.
So really I'm just asking after the arguments in play. What does the scientist say to make his case convincing to yourself? What convinced you?
I've already addressed those first two sentences. They are irrelevant, since that don't support your conclusion. I accept both of them, yet reach a different conclusion.
And I doubt your last sentence. What do you mean by that?
I mean that when Newton placed prisms to diffract light from the sun into a spectrum that the red part of the spectrum which came out of the prism was called 'red' not because it was had a larger wavelength and such was proven, but rather because the light was red.
If all of the parts are made of wood, then the chair is made of wood. Do you disagree?
No, that makes sense to me.
Though if all the parts are made of wood, and some parts are painted green while others are painted yellow, then it wouldn't make sense to say that the chair is green. :D
In fact, what if the chair had a sticky reprint of the pixel-image we're discussing? Just to make it closer. Then, what color would the chair be?
Although if you're confused about appearance and reality, you might think otherwise.
I'm thinking this is probably where we diverge the most, then. We seem to be in agreement on both the fallacy of composition and whether or not it has merit depends on the circumstances. If, in fact, the image is gray and appears red then certainly I am wrong.
So really it seems we're more in disagreement on determining which color is the real color, and which color is the apparent color.
Okay. But if we're saying that wavelengths or whatever are real - which is the assumption that I'm working under, and which will be agreeable to many - and if we're talking about colour in terms of wavelength or some related scientific description, then it makes sense to say that what we're talking about in such cases is reality. And similarly, with regards to any appearance which seemingly conflicts with this reality, if we're categorising that in contrary terms, then it'd make sense to say that this is not real. Furthermore, if we're attributing properties, and we accept the aforementioned, then we should do so accordingly in the right way, by attributing appearance to the subjective and property to the objective, rather than attributing appearance to the objective, as some people in this discussion seem to be doing by making certain kinds of statements which lack clarity and precision.
Cool. This is much closer to what I'm asking after.
I think this condition: " if we're talking about colour in terms of wavelength or some related scientific description,"
is likely the culprit of disagreement. Electromagnetic waves are real, as far as anything in science goes. But photons, nor atoms, have any color whatsoever. This is not an attribute of the individual parts of what we are saying causes the perception of color. Certain (regular, obviously, as you note about gray not being a regular wave) wavelengths of light correspond with our color-perceptions. But the color is not the electromagnetic radiation.
Color is -- to use your terminology -- subjective. I'd prefer to call it a first-person attribute not attributable to our physics of light, which is a third-person description of the phenomena of light rather than objective/subjective, myself.
Okay, I don't have a problem with that epistemic approach, but it does seem naive to end up with that common means of determination which has been demonstrated to be erroneous in at least some cases, as with the strawberries.
Cool. Then I think we're more or less on the same page in terms of the terms, at least :D
Whether such and such a demonstration is erroneous seems to be the major point of disagreement.
I don't think we need to get caught up in the so-called hard problem here, if that's what you're getting at.
Responding to this in reverse order because I think the latter point is more important:
I don't think we need to get caught up in the hard problem either. I wasn't really trying to go there, but it does seem related to the topic at hand. But it seems like we've managed to pair down our disagreement to one of "how to determine such and such", so there's no need to get into it.
We become conscious of certain things as a result of our respective brains. We see the grey strawberries as red, and, typically, our initial reaction is to think that they are in fact red.
Honestly, while brains are certainly a part of the picture of human consciousness -- I wouldn't dispute this -- we just don't know how we become conscious. Either there is no such thing in the first place, in which case there is nothing to explain, or if there is such a thing then we don't know how or why it's there.
I really don't think that the brain is "adding colors". I think that's a mistake, thinking that the brain is adding red. I believe the red is there, as part of the mixture within the grey. I would say that the brain "subtracts" or otherwise tries to account for the teal, because it appears like there is a lens of teal between the eyes and the strawberries. So the teal is subtracted from the grey, and we can see the red within the grey.
I believe that the strawberry-image in the picture is red. But what that says about this or that theory of color or perception, I'm less committed on. I really don't know what I believe there -- I'm just following the arguments where they go.
So by your dualistic reasoning, every congenitally blind person ought to report imagining colours, every congenitally deaf person would still imagine noises, every teetotaller would still know the feeling of drunkenness, etc. After alll, something may be missing in terms of inputs to drive brain activity but we all partake in the one mind substance, right?
Not necessarily. Cognition of mental phenomena could depend upon physical inputs, after all -- and then, also, just because there is a single-mind that does not then mean that we are all one. The identity of a person -- from their physical body up -- is constructed out of the raw stuffs of the world. One mind-world -- multiple people within the mind-world.
Brains are salient to individual identities in such a world, so it's not entirely off base to be looking at brains -- that would be one part of the physical-world, after all -- it's just not the whole picture, in accordance with this line of reasoning.
So what does your "judgement" entail as a neurological concept? It does seem to imply a hard dualism of observer and observables. It does give primacy to acts of attentive deliberation where I am pointing out how much is being done automatically and habitually, leaving attention and puzzlement as little to do as is possible. So talk of judgement puts the emphasis in all the wrong places from my anticipatory modelling point of view. Just the fact that judgements follow the acts strikes another bum note if the impressions of present have already been generally conceived in the moment just prior.
Hrrmm, I wouldn't disagree with much of judgment being on "auto-pilot", actually. One can consciously judge, of course, but judgment is just the application of concepts to particulars, or the powers of the mind. That doesn't mean it has to be something I consciously do. It just means that the mind is a disciminating-machine, marking differences on the basis of concepts. Actually, your description of visual perception is pretty much what I mean by judgment -- the ganglion, to use the brain-theory of the mind, is judging the light coming in, and is already discriminating from the beginning.
I can see how such language could be confusing. I'd say that while we can pause to consciously consider and judge our mental processes, that the majority of the time they are beyond awareness and not thought too much about -- so, while I'm doing my thing, or focusing on this or that, my mind is judging, i.e., discriminating between particulars, making distinctions (or recalling distinctions learned, also often subconsciously, to further judge/discriminate between particulars and make sense out of what is just too much to take in total while still making sense)
On this front I don't think we have much to disagree on, to tell the truth.
Brains are salient to individual identities in such a world, so it's not entirely off base to be looking at brains -- that would be one part of the physical-world, after all -- it's just not the whole picture, in accordance with this line of reasoning.
But this is just being inconsistent - choosing dualism or some ill defined brain functionalism depending on which front you are currently mounting a defence.
The logic remains - if dualism is true and qualia are not brain dependent, then the blind should have at least imaginative access to those qualia, despite eyes that have never functioned in a way that would produce the right neural circuits. And you shouldn't be able to zap the V4 colour centre of the brain and produce then a loss of colour qualia as a consequence.
It'd be less confusing to say we prejudge on the whole. And still less confusing to say we positively predict. Conceptions are schemata, to make use of the good old fashioned cogsci borrowing from Kant. We have mental templates to which the world is already generally assimilated. Post hoc judgement is reserved then for where the schema prove to need tailoring.
My question is -- what does the brain do to reality to make the appearance? But the answer is "it makes the appearance appear like the appearance appears, different from reality" -- which just masks the mechanism I'm asking after.
The way you phrase this again says you find it natural to think about the mind as representational - the cogsci paradigm which is being replaced by the enactive or ecological turn in psychology (or return, if we are talking gestalt dynamics and even the founding psychophysicists).
And that is my point about the paradigm shift represented by semiotics. Representationalism presumes that a stable reality can be stability pictured and so stabily experienced - begging a whole lot of questions about what could ever be the point of there being the observer essentially doing nothing but sitting and staring at a flickering parade of qualia painted like shadows on the cave wall.
But give that observer a job I say. Observation - defined in the general fashion of semiosis - is all about stabilising the critically unstable. So minds exist to give determination to the inherent uncertainty of the material world. If matter is a lump of clay, minds are there to shape it for some purpose.
And uncomfortable though it may seem, the science of quantum theory says observers are needed to "collapse" the inherent uncertainty of material nature all the way down. Existence is pan-semiotic.
Somehow we now have to honour that empirical fact in a way that makes Metaphysical sense. Most folk agree we can't claim that "consciousness" solved the quantum observer problem. But quantum foundationalism does think that some notion of information, contextualism and counterfactuality will do so - which is another way of talking about semiotics.
So I'm talking about a sweeping paradigm shift. The systems view is about how existence has to founded on the primal dynamism of material uncertainty becoming regulated by the sedimentation of informational constraints.
Heraclitus summed up the understanding already present in Greek metaphysics - existence is flux and logos in interaction.
And the mathematical exploration of what that could mean is still being cashed out, as with the return of bootstrap metaphysics in fundamental theory - https://www.quantamagazine.org/20170223-bootstrap-geometry-theory-space/
The logic remains - if dualism is true and qualia are not brain dependent, then the blind should have at least imaginative access to those qualia, despite eyes that have never functioned in a way that would produce the right neural circuits. And you shouldn't be able to zap the V4 colour centre of the brain and produce then a loss of colour qualia as a consequence.
I'm not so sure about that. What about other creatures? Non-controversial examples of other creatures which have vision and demonstrate intelligent behavior I mean. It seems to me if your reasoning holds then any deviation whatsoever should disprove dualism. But why would I want to defend something which is so clearly and easily refutable by a wealth of counter-examples?
I mentioned color-blindness before, and I'll mention it again. It seems to me that the color-blind look at the same red in a different way. I don't think that perception necessarily displays every aspect of the world.
For the congenitally blind I could see it going either way. Wouldn't it depend on exactly which side of the divide the qualia are on, for example? And why can't qualia only be perceived if one has both the right mind-stuff and the right body-stuff? What if the perception of qualia just is two proto-conscious bits on each side of the divide lining up?
Perception doesn't have to be veridical and univocal for dualism -- dualism would just explain the apparent similarities of experience, since there would be a shared structure of mind.
Besides, I am mentioning this only to show the weakness in transcendental argumentation -- it's valid, but it's far from certain. Often enough what ends up happening is that counter-examples get counted as support in one theory, and vice-versa. The counter-examples just take on a different m
eaning depending on which transcendental conditions we decide are more likely.
And one man's modus ponens is another's modus tollens, after all ;).
It'd be less confusing to say we prejudge on the whole. And still less confusing to say we positively predict. Conceptions are schemata, to make use of the good old fashioned cogsci borrowing from Kant. We have mental templates to which the world is already generally assimilated. Post hoc judgement is reserved then for where the schema prove to need tailoring.
Sounds good to me. I agree with this general notion of cognition, then, let's say?
I still think it is ratio-centric, but I don't think ratio-centric thinking has to be somehow directed by an individual -- it can all take place 'under the hood' of awareness.
Seems we are good here to me. The only thing I'm questioning is whether this under-the-hood cognition is what results in the structure of experience. It seems to me that it's more a learned habit, something taught by the environment, something which can be trained and honed for, but likewise, can be diminished and taken apart.
So rather than it being a model of either the mind or experience, it's just something the mind can do, and it's just a part of what shapes our awareness of experience.
The way you phrase this again says you find it natural to think about the mind as representational - the cogsci paradigm which is being replaced by the enactive or ecological turn in psychology (or return, if we are talking gestalt dynamics and even the founding psychophysicists).
I think we'd have to think of the mind as representational if we believe that in reality the strawberry we see is gray, while in appearance it is red -- at least to some extent. Here I'm just trying to engage the argument as it is presented, not necessarily endorsing this view of things. As I noted to Sapientia, I don't think this distinction is very useful to perception, but there has to be some engagement at some level otherwise we'll just end up talking past one another, it seems to me.
And that is my point about the paradigm shift represented by semiotics. Representationalism presumes that a stable reality can be stability pictured and so stabily experienced - begging a whole lot of questions about what could ever be the point of there being the observer essentially doing nothing but sitting and staring at a flickering parade of qualia painted like shadows on the cave wall.
But give that observer a job I say. Observation - defined in the general fashion of semiosis - is all about stabilising the critically unstable. So minds exist to give determination to the inherent uncertainty of the material world. If matter is a lump of clay, minds are there to shape it for some purpose.
And uncomfortable though it may seem, the science of quantum theory says observers are needed to "collapse" the inherent uncertainty of material nature all the way down. Existence is pan-semiotic.
Somehow we now have to honour that empirical fact in a way that makes Metaphysical sense. Most folk agree we can't claim that "consciousness" solved the quantum observer problem. But quantum foundationalism does think that some notion of information, contextualism and counterfactuality will do so - which is another way of talking about semiotics.
So I'm talking about a sweeping paradigm shift. The systems view is about how existence has to founded on the primal dynamism of material uncertainty becoming regulated by the sedimentation of informational constraints.
Heraclitus summed up the understanding already present in Greek metaphysics - existence is flux and logos in interaction.
And the mathematical exploration of what that could mean is still being cashed out, as with the return of bootstrap metaphysics in fundamental theory - https://www.quantamagazine.org/20170223-bootstrap-geometry-theory-space/
Sounds neat to me. I don't endorse a representational view of mind, personally. But I'm also uncertain to what extent mind even actually overlaps with experience, personally. I sometimes get to thinking that experience is sort of its own thing -- and that our minds are first collective, and second individual -- there is a pre-existing mind to our birth, one generated by the social interactions of our peoples (sort of like distributed cognition and extended mind, as one could conceive of the scientific project, but less structured or intentional or teleological), which in turn generates our sense of self (usually through a mixture institutions -- the family, the church, school, work), and an individual contact with this more general structure. This individual contact and sense of self is what combines to form our personal mind, which in turn is what directs awareness, but does not generate experience. Rather, it directs awareness of said experience. Or perhaps at this point we could be said to have some agency in the affair and could claim we direct our awareness of experience, if only in part.
But the mind thing isn't making model things of the experience things, so it's not representational. Rather, there's a kind of flow or seepage between the two
Just laying that out there to make some of my statements clear. It's worthwhile to explore the arguments because my notions are quite hazy, merely intuitive, un-argued for, and not really worth considering and certainly not ready to be lain out in argument or for persuasion, and only worth mentioning to make my other statements in this discussion clear.
I'm not so sure about that. What about other creatures?
What about them? If I could look at the world through the eyes of a cat, I wouldn't expect to experience trichromatic vision. Just the same as I wouldn't through the eyes of a colour blind human.
It seems to me that the color-blind look at the same red in a different way
They might look at the same wavelength energy in some sense, but we know that there is no counterfactual sensory judgement taking place, such that they see red and not green. And my argument is that experience is nothing but a concatenation of such base level acts of discrimination. Physical values have to be converted to symbolic values in which an antagonistic switching off a neural response is as telling as switching that response on. Now both 1 and 0 have meaning. Absence means as much as presence, whereas back in the real world, there is only the presence.
And why can't qualia only be perceived if one has both the right mind-stuff and the right body-stuff? What if the perception of qualia just is two proto-conscious bits on each side of the divide lining up?
You are advocating Panpsychism it appears. For some reason the right wiring of a complex brain adds something different. The complexity of the patterns being woven lines up all the protoconsciousness to create not just bare mentality but mental content.
Yet that is still a mystical tale as the protoconsiousness remains itself rationally unexplained and beyond empirical demonstration. From a theory point of view, it is a hypothesis is not even wrong.
I sometimes get to thinking that experience is sort of its own thing -- and that our minds are first collective, and second individual -- there is a pre-existing mind to our birth, one generated by the social interactions of our peoples (sort of like distributed cognition and extended mind, as one could conceive of the scientific project, but less structured or intentional or teleological), which in turn generates our sense of self (usually through a mixture institutions -- the family, the church, school, work), and an individual contact with this more general structure.
I certainly agree that the self-conscious human mind is socially contructed. The ability to introspect in an egocentric way, rationalise in an explictly logical fashion, reconstruct an autobiographical past, etc, are language-based skills that we learn because they are expected of us by the cultures we get born into.
So that is part of the semiotic story. Adding a new level of code - words on top of the neurons and genes - allows for a whole new level of developmental complexity.
Qualia are perceptual qualities and so are a biological level of symbolisation. Even a chimp will experience red due to a similarity of the circuits. But only humans have the culture and language that makes it routine to be able to introspect and note the redness of redness. We can treat our brain responses as a running display which we then take a detached view of. Culture teaches us to see ourselves as selves...having ideas and impressions.
So the point then about the red strawberries is that there is also still the actual biological response that can't be changed just by talking about it differently. And this shows that the biological brain itself is already a kind of rationalising filter. We never see the physical energies of the world in any direct sense. The world has been transformed into some yes/no set of perceptual judgements from the outset. It is already a play of signs. And so the feeling of what it is like to be seeing red is somehow just as much a sign relatiion as the word "red" we might use to talk about it with other people.
If you are a physicalist, you want to somehow make redness a mental substance - a psychic ink. And if we are talking about colour speech, we are quite happy that this is simply a referential way of coordinating social activity or group understanding. The leap is to see perceptual level experience as also sign activity - a concatenation of judgements - not some faux material stuff.
The mind is a modelling relation with the world. And after all, it should feel like something to be in that kind of intimate functional relation, right?
What about them? If I could look at the world through the eyes of a cat, I wouldn't expect to experience trichromatic vision. Just the same as I wouldn't through the eyes of a colour blind human.
They might look at the same wavelength energy in some sense, but we know that there is no counterfactual sensory judgement taking place, such that they see red and not green. And my argument is that experience is nothing but a concatenation of such base level acts of discrimination. Physical values have to be converted to symbolic values in which an antagonistic switching off a neural response is as telling as switching that response on. Now both 1 and 0 have meaning. Absence means as much as presence, whereas back in the real world, there is only the presence.
You are advocating Panpsychism it appears. For some reason the right wiring of a complex brain adds something different. The complexity of the patterns being woven lines up all the protoconsciousness to create not just bare mentality but mental content.
Yet that is still a mystical tale as the protoconsiousness remains itself rationally unexplained and beyond empirical demonstration. From a theory point of view, it is a hypothesis is not even wrong.
I'd say that any theory of consciousness, from that same point of view, is not even wrong. That's just where we're at. I wouldn't call this pan-psychism, though -- I'd call it (a form of) property-dualism, which seems to fit nicely in with mind-body dualism (considering that they are theories for two different questions). It would take both a third-person proto-conscious bit and a first-person proto-conscious bit to produce some qualia. (so, a rock, having no mind stuff -- let's just say -- wouldn't have qualia, nor would some dis-embodied mind, though it may be thinking of things or making computations).
I mention animals because they would, using your line of arguments against dualism, also count as counter-arguments because they will experience the world differently. What seems to me to be the case is that you believe a dualism couldn't explain deviation in experience, whereas what I'm saying is that a belief that experience is nothing but a concatenation of base level acts of discrimination couldn't explain constancy.
Here are some other things which dualism has to offer:
Explains...
the tendency towards animism.
The existence of relationships becoming de-mystified, including relationships not just with people but also with animals, plants, and objects.
How emotion flows out into the world, and vice-versa -- the inter-penetrable nature of the boundary between mind and world, and why it isn't a hard barrier.
How it is that society is characterizable as a mental phenomena, even when it isn't itself a mental phenomena.
How it is we are able to perceive the minds of others.
De-mystifies the existence of mind in the first place.
And, as I've already mentioned, dualism explains why it is that experience has so many striking regularities.
Were this a research program these would be at the end of my poster board as further areas that need research ;).
But it shouldn't be any surprise that dualism, having fallen out of favor, needs an update. That's what happens to transcendental frames as they are dropped -- they fall out of date, and the new frame is what gets updated with the new information. I just don't think that experiential deviation is enough of a reason to reject it (and, also, I'd include animals, unlike the Cartesian variety of dualism). It seems to me that, just as the strawberries here are being counted as evidence for the brain editing or adding colors, that deviations of this sort would just be examples meant to elucidate the particulars of the mind. i.e. 'needs further research' :D
I certainly agree that the self-conscious human mind is socially contructed. The ability to introspect in an egocentric way, rationalise in an explictly logical fashion, reconstruct an autobiographical past, etc, are language-based skills that we learn because they are expected of us by the cultures we get born into.
So that is part of the semiotic story. Adding a new level of code - words on top of the neurons and genes - allows for a whole new level of developmental complexity.
Qualia are perceptual qualities and so are a biological level of symbolisation. Even a chimp will experience red due to a similarity of the circuits. But only humans have the culture and language that makes it routine to be able to introspect and note the redness of redness. We can treat our brain responses as a running display which we then take a detached view of. Culture teaches us to see ourselves as selves...having ideas and impressions.
So the point then about the red strawberries is that there is also still the actual biological response that can't be changed just by talking about it differently. And this shows that the biological brain itself is already a kind of rationalising filter. We never see the physical energies of the world in any direct sense. The world has been transformed into some yes/no set of perceptual judgements from the outset. It is already a play of signs. And so the feeling of what it is like to be seeing red is somehow just as much a sign relatiion as the word "red" we might use to talk about it with other people.
If you are a physicalist, you want to somehow make redness a mental substance - a psychic ink. And if we are talking about colour speech, we are quite happy that this is simply a referential way of coordinating social activity or group understanding. The leap is to see perceptual level experience as also sign activity - a concatenation of judgements - not some faux material stuff.
Something I'm not quite following here is how you escape the charge of representationalism. Or perhaps this is just something I thought you were trying to say, but aren't? If red is a sign, then it does seem that the mind is representational at least. (at least, as I understand sign -- a signifier and a signified, a mark and a mental-thing-ish-semantic-bit fused together)
Just asking for clarification here.
The mind is a modelling relation with the world. And after all, it should feel like something to be in that kind of intimate functional relation, right?
I don't think so, per se. At least, if we are physicalists. If not, then it seems that red could serve just as well as blue, as the inverted-spectrum argument goes -- and, in fact, if it's just a large functional organic-machine, that wavelengths are just as good as red-ness because that's still information, a pre-sign informational bit which can be converted into an electrical-voltage-sign which enters the dynamic system known as the brain, which sends out its signals to the body to reproduce.
But one need not feel anything in this process for reproduction to occur. All that would be needed is for information to be fed into the functions which generate signals which form the basis of signs.
Robert LockhartMarch 12, 2017 at 17:30#604140 likes
Sapientia: I would say that the general point to recognise concerning such discrepancies of personal experience among individuals regarding their interpretation of sensorialy perceived phenomena - typically as reported in this thread - is that such phenomena, by definition, do not exist objectively but in reality are merely the product of the interplay necessarily occurring between elements external to the observer and the internal neural processes by which interpretation is effected.
In that context then the question, “What is an objects’ ‘real’ colour” is surely a contradiction in terms in that only the wave lengths of the light emitted by an object can have an objective existence, 'its colour' being an attribute not of the object itself but a product of the observer's neural processes. It's merely the innate similarity of the neural processes by which perception is enabled existing among individuals that enables a pragmatically useful consistency of agreement between them regarding their interpretation of any given sensorialy perceived phenomena. -Alien beings for example could in principle be characterised by neural processes relevant to sensorial perception effectively inimical to our own – thus rendering mutually consistent interpretation impossible!
The point to recognise – not one of the more difficult concepts in philosophy perhaps - is that sensorial experience must necessarily be a product of the neural processes mediating between the observer and those elements external to him, the idea that such experience is objective being, understandably, just a popularly received illusion!
An objective description of the mechanisms of such mediation (I think personally btw) is likely more an excercise relevant to the methodology of science than the somewhat byzantine and recondite speculations of metaphysics - the sometimes apocryphal complexities tending to be introduced by the latter discipline into this problem being borne perhaps of its origin in an age ignorant of the concept of 'cause and effect', as this type of interaction to describe the relationships occurring between material phenomena came in subsequent ages to be gradually recognised cocurrent with the development of the scientific method itself as capable to adequately describe - ultimately in a comparatively simple and logically coherent manner - genres of phenomena such as this!
Something I'm not quite following here is how you escape the charge of representationalism.
I'm saying that the intent is not to re-present reality to the self - display sensory data so it can become the subject of experience. Instead the intent is to form a pragmatic modelling relarion with the world. So signs might mediate that, but the implied need for realism, completeness, faithfulness, etc, drops out.
In reality, the physical difference between green and red wavelengths is nothing more but a slight variation in wavelengths. But the mind sees two absolutely opposed things. Red and green can't mix as far as experience is concerned. So the mind is introducing a completely fake boundary into its view of the world. It is certainly not representing the continuous variation of the same thing - radiation - in constructing a model where a binary difference is what gets represented ... even when the physical display, as with the strawberries, doesn't emit any red.
And we can understand that from the way maps don't have to recreate territories. They just have to tell a tale of critical actions we would take at certain points in a history of motions. That is how they become a model - a model of our interaction with the world, not a model of the world as such, and so that is how a self arises. The self is the thing of the model representing some state of "selfish" intentionality in representing a set of critical actions.
So the mentality becomes the fact of a coordination between a body and a world. The sensory display is not a picture awaiting interpretation, it is the act of interpretation or mediation itself.
I'm saying that the intent is not to re-present reality to the self - display sensory data so it can become the subject of experience. Instead the intent is to form a pragmatic modelling relarion with the world. So signs might mediate that, but the implied need for realism, completeness, faithfulness, etc, drops out.
So, the intent of your whole account is not to represent reality? Has the " implied need for realism, completeness, faithfulness. etc." "dropped out' of it? If your account is merely a pragmatic model, then what is its actual purpose? If it is to be justified by being purportedly more coherent than 'standard models', and not in terms of its purportedly corresponding to anything, then what if it is found by most thinkers to be less coherent, and thus less compelling than a standard dualistic account? How will its recommendation then be justified?
So, the intent of your whole account is not to represent reality? Has the " implied need for realism, completeness, faithfulness. etc." "dropped out' of it?
That's a good point. I was talking about the biological level of neural modelling. And that is much more strictly pragmatic. Animals really are locked into a practical relationship with their environments.
Humans - though the development of words and numbers - have shifted to a far more abstract and philosophical relation with existence ... apparently.
But then the counter to that is check out what we mostly actually do and it is still pragmatic. We are simply learning to see our environment in a way that gives us greater technological control. We are imagining the world as a set of concealed sources of energy and material that can be redirected to fulfill our general (entropic) desires. So a colonial settler arrives in a new country and sees immediately forests that could be fields, hills that could be forts.
And yes, I would be quixotic perhaps in wanting to step back from all that practical activity to try to see its reality - stand outside of it to make sense of it ... knowing it is still just another exercise in mapping perhaps.
But there are reasons to think that it is not just a new level of arbitrary mapping. Reality is turning out to have mathematical or Platonic strength irreducibles. That is how I regard the metaphysics of Peircean semiosis. It captures the fundamental causal logic of existence. And so what begins as mere epistemology becomes the ontological hypothesis being empirically explored.
So semiosis starts as a model of human psychology. And it turns out (the reason I got involved) to be precisely how biology now understands the causal logic of living systems. Then the next step after that is to see that even the new science of dissipative structures (all that stuff that used to be classified as the new maths of fractals, chaos, complexity and self-organisation) is accounted for causally by the rational machinery of semiotics.
Thus semiosis is of course just another metaphysical map. But also it could prove to be the ultimate mapping in being the one that arrives at the mathematical limits of abstract conception.
Yet even if that is so, you could say that knowing this is itself not particularly pragmatic. How does it help to know why the Universe must exist in the form that it does? What use is that information to a biological creature really?
It is like why venture into outer space? You can't breathe there. Ultimately it is quite pointless - a distraction from your job of living a life down here on Earth.
But to get back to philosophy of mind, the semiotic perspective is instead a corrective in that it does bring you down to Earth in fact.
It says that the famous explanatory gap - why is "what it is like" actually what it is like, and not something else? - is a failure of proper pragmatism. It is a mistake to think that this is the kind of thing science should be able to explain. Explanations are there to serve purposes, and so can only deal with differences that make a difference - the actually counterfactual. In Wittgensteinian fashion, if red qualia could be inverted as blue qualia - and it would be impossible to stand at any viewpoint where the difference might show - then it is simply muddled conception to claim to be troubled by a difference that cannot make a difference.
So the thread illustrates that. All the talk about what colour a wavelength is really. All that matters to a modelling mind is the fact that wavelengths are discriminable in a way that has direct ecological validity.
So what should drop out of a science of the mind, or even a metaphysics of the mind, is this obsession with discovering what the "mind" really is. The fact that we even reify the process of being mindful as a noun - the mind - shows that already we are presuming a metaphysics of substantial objects. Instead, we should be in search of a process, and a process we can account for in the most metaphysically generic terms. My argument is that semiosis is turning out to be that generic model - a metaphysics of matter and sign rather than matter and mind.
So what should drop out of a science of the mind, or even a metaphysics of the mind, is this obsession with discovering what the "mind" really is.
I agree with that, although I do wonder whether it makes any more sense to ask what matter or the sign "really is" than it does to ask what mind "really is". Also the notion of signs only seems to be intelligible in a context where mind/bodies that can read them and material mediums in which they are instantiated are assumed to exist.
For me intersubjective pragmatic concerns make sense when it comes to politics, economics, ecology, and science in general.
Pragmatic concerns are much more personal when it comes to religion, philosophy and the arts, though. What is it best to believe in those spheres? Whatever is most effective in terms of flourishing; whatever inspires in the creative or religious life, or whatever leads to a most ethical life, or loving attitude towards others. And since we are all unique individuals exactly what that optimum understanding or set of beliefs will be will vary from one person to the next.
How is it possible to know if the illusion indicates a distortion of visual intuition as opposed to merely a linguistic mistake?
Perhaps all the illusion shows is that our ordinary language colour words don't have the meaning we thought they had. Certainly the strawberrys didn't look to have the normal tint of red we associate with them. I'm reminded of Wittgenstein's manometer. Is a mistake 'mere show' here?
I think we're miscommunicating a bit here. To be fair, your argument was a google search. What I mean by 'drops out of the explanation' is that all that is said is we have reality on one side, and appearance on the other, and two claims about both. When asked how reality becomes appearance, the answer is 'the brain did it, just like it does with other objects to keep the color constant under different light conditions' where the main example was a blue sky.
My question is -- what does the brain do to reality to make the appearance? But the answer is "it makes the appearance appear like the appearance appears, different from reality" -- which just masks the mechanism I'm asking after.
And my question is: why do you ask, and why isn't that answer good enough for you? You could go and ask a neuroscientist who could probably give you a more detailed answer, although my guess is that you still wouldn't be satisfied. But why should I care? We only know what we know, and what we know enables us to answer the question in the way that I have done, which is good enough for the sake of this problem of perception, but perhaps not for some other problem that you seem to have introduced into the discussion. But this is a discussion about the former, and it need not digress into a discussion about the so-called hard problem to which you seem to be alluding.
I'm grouping these just as a side note, because it will take us pretty far astray.
A basic view of science:
Science is little more than a collection of arguments about certain topics. There are established procedures in place for certain sorts of questions, there are established beliefs due to said process, but in the end it's a collection of arguments about certain topics on what is true with respect to those topics.
At least, as I see it. We don't science it -- we make an argument. An argument, in this context, can of course include experimental evidence. But said evidence must, itself, be interpreted to make sense.
So really I'm just asking after the arguments in play. What does the scientist say to make his case convincing to yourself? What convinced you?
I didn't elaborate because I didn't think it necessary. You already know about this, don't you? And even if you don't, others in this discussion have gone into detail on this. There is an established means of categorising colour based on range of wavelength. That's what I was referring to, and you can look it up yourself if need be. This is what I'm appealing to when I make the claim that the strawberries are not red, and I do so because I think that it makes for a better explanation than the alternative which claims that they are red. I don't really want to go into further detail than that, since I've already done so in previous comments, and I stand by those comments. I'd rather you just address what I've already said on the matter, rather than reiterate from the starting point of this discussion.
I mean that when Newton placed prisms to diffract light from the sun into a spectrum that the red part of the spectrum which came out of the prism was called 'red' not because it was had a larger wavelength and such was proven, but rather because the light was red.
Okay, but that's not in itself a good reason to stick by that, is it? Times have changed, discoveries and developments have been made. And sticking by that doesn't resolve the problem of perception or explain optical illusions as well as you otherwise could. If you disagree, then you should explain how, and explain why you think that your explanation is better. I don't see how the better explanation can involve a picture which changes colour, because that just isn't how optical illusions work. Optical illusions are about naturally misleading perceptions, not magically changing realities.
Though if all the parts are made of wood, and some parts are painted green while others are painted yellow, then it wouldn't make sense to say that the chair is green. :D
Yes, I agree, but that is not analogous. Although if that was just a joke, then that doesn't matter.
I'm thinking this is probably where we diverge the most, then. We seem to be in agreement on both the fallacy of composition and whether or not it has merit depends on the circumstances. If, in fact, the image is gray and appears red then certainly I am wrong.
So really it seems we're more in disagreement on determining which color is the real color, and which color is the apparent color.
We're in disagreement about which colour is the apparent colour?! That's news to me. Obviously the apparent colour is whatever colour it appears to be, irrespective of the real colour. If it appears red in circumstance X, then red is the apparent colour in circumstance X, and if it appears grey in circumstance Y, then grey is the apparent colour in circumstance Y. Whence the disagreement?
As for disagreement about the real colour, it makes more sense to call real that which is mind-independent, hence that position being known as realism.
Cool. This is much closer to what I'm asking after.
I think this condition: " if we're talking about colour in terms of wavelength or some related scientific description,"
is likely the culprit of disagreement. Electromagnetic waves are real, as far as anything in science goes. But neither photons, nor atoms, have any color whatsoever. This is not an attribute of the individual parts of what we are saying causes the perception of color. Certain (regular, obviously, as you note about gray not being a regular wave) wavelengths of light correspond with our color-perceptions. But the color is not the electromagnetic radiation.
Color is -- to use your terminology -- subjective. I'd prefer to call it a first-person attribute not attributable to our physics of light, which is a third-person description of the phenomena of light rather than objective/subjective, myself.
Photons and atoms don't need to have colour. If that's what we're talking about, then they're not red.
And the [i]whole point[/I] with the picture of the strawberries is that the wavelengths of light [I]do not[/I] in this case correspond to our colour-perception! Our colour-perception is red, but the wavelengths do not correspond!
It's not about waves, photons, atoms, radiation, or whatever, "having" colour, as such. It's about wavelengths of light according with an established colour categorisation, and it's about how useful this colour categorisation is. It is useful when trying to explain what happens with certain optical illusions, for example.
Colour is not subjective, unless by colour, you just mean colour-perception. But it was you yourself who introduced that latter term, so clearly the distinction is useful, yes?
I don't think we need to get caught up in the hard problem either. I wasn't really trying to go there, but it does seem related to the topic at hand. But it seems like we've managed to pair down our disagreement to one of "how to determine such and such", so there's no need to get into it.
Honestly, while brains are certainly a part of the picture of human consciousness -- I wouldn't dispute this -- we just don't know how we become conscious. Either there is no such thing in the first place, in which case there is nothing to explain, or if there is such a thing then we don't know how or why it's there.
Maybe you're right. It does seem a bit of a mystery. I'm not agreeing or disagreeing with that. I think that that's a different problem that we needn't get into.
I think this is covered at this point. Let me know if you disagree.
Yes, I disagree if you do. That is, I stand by my claim that optical illusions like the picture of the strawberries emphasise the fallibility of what we normally do, viz. jump to the conclusion that the strawberries are red because they appear red, and so if you disagree with that, then I disagree with your disagreement.
Sapientia: I would say that the general point to recognise concerning such discrepancies of personal experience among individuals regarding their interpretation of sensorially perceived phenomena - typically as reported in this thread - is that such phenomena, by definition, do not exist objectively but in reality are merely the product of the interplay necessarily occurring between elements external to the observer and the internal neural processes by which his interpretation is effected.
I do recognise that. Who here doesn't? It's obvious, isn't it? Phenomena, by definition, as you note, are subjective.
In that context then the question, “What is an objects’ ‘real’ colour” is surely a contradiction in terms in that only the wave lengths of the light emitted by an object can have an objective existence, 'its colour' being an attribute not of the object itself but a product of the observer's neural processes. It's merely the innate similarity of the neural processes by which perception is enabled existing among individuals that enables a pragmatically useful consistency of agreement between them regarding their interpretation of any given sensorially perceived phenomena. -Alien beings for example could in principle be characterised by neural processes relevant to sensorial perception effectively inimical to our own – thus rendering mutually consistent interpretation impossible!
Well no, not necessarily, since, in accordance with the established categorisation which has been around for quite some time, and is widely accepted in the scientific community, 'its colour' can be determined by the range of wavelength of the light emitted, rather than by appealing to some subjective quality or internal neural process. The wavelengths of light are objective, and that these wavelengths of light correspond to a particular colour category is objective. No need for the subjective there, and no contradiction in terms.
The point to recognise – not one of the more difficult concepts in philosophy perhaps - is that sensorial experience must necessarily be a product of the neural processes mediating between the observer and those elements external to him, the idea that such experience is objective being, understandably, just a popularly received illusion!
Well, yes, I recognise that. Of course experience is subjective in the sense that it requires a subject. But why is this supposedly relevant?
An objective description of the mechanisms of such mediation (I think personally btw) is likely an excercise more relevant to the methodology of science than the byzantine speculations of metaphysics - the sometimes arcane complexities tending to be introduced into this problem by the latter discipline being borne perhaps of its origin in an age ignorant of the idea of 'cause and effect' type relationships, as these were envisaged by subsequent ages to occur between phenomena, and found capable of effectively describing, in ultimately a comparatively simple manner, types of phenomena such as this!
I've argued that the scientific way of categorising colour in terms of range of wavelength of light is useful when dealing with the metaphysical problem of perception.
And, after all of this, you still haven't directly answered my questions, or at least explained why you haven't done so, which I think is bad manners. I think that it's quite important in philosophical discussions to stay on point, to be succinct, and to cut to the chase when need be. That's what I like to see. What I don't like to see so much is jargon, verbosity, tangent, or lack of clarity.
[B]Please pay close attention to this next part, because I think that it's important. This is going to be my last attempt:[/b]
What colour are the strawberries? [U]Just answer the question[/u]. Are they red? Do they just appear red? Are they grey? Do they in fact have no colour? All of the above? Some of the above? None of the above? Surely you have an answer, but even if not, you could just say that you don't know or that it depends, and if the latter, then briefly state what it depends upon. I find it annoying that you aren't coming back around to this point, when this is exactly where you should end up. If you're going to reply, I think that you should start with your conclusion(s) regarding the aforementioned, and then, only once you've done that, you may proceed with how you got there, and lastly anything else you think is of relevance.
And my question is: why do you ask, and why isn't that answer good enough for you? You could go and ask a neuroscientist who could probably give you a more detailed answer, although my guess is that you still wouldn't be satisfied. But why should I care? We only know what we know, and what we know enables us to answer the question in the way that I have done, which is good enough for the sake of this problem of perception, but perhaps not for some other problem that you seem to have introduced into the discussion. But this is a discussion about the former, and it need not digress into a discussion about the so-called hard problem to which you seem to be alluding.
Well, the question was "What colour are the strawberries?" -- and your answer is that they are gray, in reality, but red, in appearance. My answer is that the strawberries are red, while the pixels are gray. Your answer seems to rely upon some kind of mechanism which the brain does, no? So, we can tell the strawberries are really gray because the brain does such and such. It seems a natural enough question to ask what it is that the brain does to make it appear as such and such when in reality it is this or that. Or, at the very least, how it is you determined this, and why we might want to determine things differently in this case than in other cases.
I'd think you would care for the answer because it would explain your belief here. I suppose you don't have to care though. You could certainly just believe it's true because a scientist says it's true.
If the explanation boils down to the brain does stuff here like elsewhere that's not exactly persuasive when we have a perfectly reliable method for determining color, I'd say. If we don't have a mechanism, then the explanation really does amount to about the same thing as magic. It's like all the neuro- talk you see in the papers everywhere meant to explain everything -- and the explanation boils down to the same: "The brain made you do it"
Here, at least, there's this notion of color constancy, so there's a bit more than this -- but not much.
I'd suggest that we could at least admit that we don't know the mechanism, but presume that the strawberries are really gray because the pixels are gray, and it seems like this brain-thing does stuff with perception so we believe that it might have something to do with it. At least, we could say that maybe someone with more knowledge than ourselves -- of which I am certainly not the most knowledgeable on the subject, I hardly even qualify as a hobbyist -- might know, but we ourselves don't understand the process, and so it would be unwise to claim we know in the first place.
But if that were the case, then I'd also suggest that it is quite reasonable to believe the strawberries are red, since we determine the color of images and things by looking at them -- and that it is the one who is claiming to know the real reality that should explain themselves in light of this.
I didn't elaborate because I didn't think it necessary. You already know about this, don't you? And even if you don't, others in this discussion have gone into detail on this. There is an established means of categorising colour based on range of wavelength. That's what I was referring to, and you can look it up yourself if need be. This is what I'm appealing to when I make the claim that the strawberries are not red, and I do so because I think that it makes for a better explanation than the alternative which claims that they are red. I don't really want to go into further detail than that, since I've already done so in previous comments, and I stand by those comments. I'd rather you just address what I've already said on the matter, rather than reiterate from the starting point of this discussion.
And the whole point with the picture of the strawberries is that the wavelengths of light do not in this case correspond to our colour-perception! Our Colour-perception is red, but the wavelengths do not correspond!
As far as I can tell no one here or elsewhere has actually verified this. We have extracted colors of pixels through a color picker, but no one has used a spectrometer or anything.
If we were able to shoot the light through a prism, I betcha we'd get some red.
It's not about waves, photons, atoms, radiation, or whatever, "having" colour, as such. It's about wavelengths of light according with an established colour categorisation, and it's about how useful this colour categorisation is. It is useful when trying to explain what happens with certain optical illusions, for example.
Colour is not subjective, unless by colour, you just mean colour-perception. But it was you yourself who introduced that latter term, so clearly the distinction is useful, yes?
Colour is colour-perception, yes. I think that's about right, though we have to be careful here -- there are obvious traps in saying it just in this way, and in using the term 'subjective'. Color is not subjective in several senses of the word 'subjective', either, I'd say. Hence why I'd prefer to avoid using the word 'subjective' -- first-person is better, I think.
Yes, I disagree if you do. That is, I stand by my claim that optical illusions like the picture of the strawberries emphasise the fallibility of what we normally do, viz. jump to the conclusion that the strawberries are red because they appear red, and so if you disagree with that, then I disagree with your disagreement.
We are, but that's the point. It emphasises the fallibility in what we normally do.
I just mean that I think we've found where our disagreement lies. You believe that this normal way of determining color is fallible in this case. This is what I'm contending is not the case -- that the method of using a color picker on the picture to determine the color of a pixel is not a good way for determining the color of the strawberries, that our looking at the image of the strawberries is adaquate for telling us the color of the strawberries in most cases, and that it is so in this case as well.
At the weakest I'm claiming that to continue in this belief without some kind of argument about the nature of color, the brain, and reality (in the case of this image) is rational.
So what I mean is that I believe we've honed down where our disagreement is. Not that we don't disagree.
Well, the question was "What colour are the strawberries?" -- and your answer is that they are gray, in reality, but red, in appearance. My answer is that the strawberries are red, while the pixels are gray.
Your answer is false or misleading in this context. My answer doesn't have that problem. In this context, it is not misleading to say that the strawberries are not red, because we know I'm not talking about how they appear, or jumping to a conclusion about what colour they are based on how they appear, as we are likely to do in an ordinary context, where we don't think about things philosophically. But your answer doesn't work here, on a philosophy forum, where it's all about analysis, clarity and accuracy.
It also, in contrast to my answer, lacks plausibility when it comes to accounting for optical illusions - at least those relating to colour and perception in a similar way to that of the picture of the strawberries.
Your answer seems to rely upon some kind of mechanism which the brain does, no? So, we can tell the strawberries are really gray because the brain does such and such.
That in combination with what I've said about colour categorisation. And so does yours, does it not? Don't you similarly think that we can tell that the strawberries are red because the brain does such-and-such?
It seems a natural enough question to ask what it is that the brain does to make it appear as such and such when in reality it is this or that. Or, at the very least, how it is you determined this, and why we might want to determine things differently in this case than in other cases.
And a similarly worded question applies to you too, does it not? Why do you seem to think that this burden is on me, but not you? What would you be without your brain? What would you be capable of, if anything? Would you even be you? Would you be able to perceive colour or to determine anything at all without your brain? No, you wouldn't. So clearly your brain has an essential function here. So please explain to me in detail what your brain is doing in all of this, and I'll sit back and judge whether or not your answer is satisfactory. Does that seem fair to you?
Look, an explanation has already been given. If you can convince me why that explanation isn't good enough, then maybe I'll try to do better, or maybe I'll concede that I personally cannot do any better. I don't see why I should have to go into this in my own words, rather than just refer back to what has already been said or the related articles and scientific literature on this. Why do you want to know the ins and outs of the workings of the brain, anyway? What good will it do? It might well be interesting, but the conclusion won't change. You'd just have a more elaborate explanation.
I'd think you would care for the answer because it would explain your belief here. I suppose you don't have to care though. You could certainly just believe it's true because a scientist says it's true.
I could believe it because I find it convincing [I]and[/I] because a scientist says it's true, and the latter could be a valid appeal to authority. What I do know about this, I find convincing, and there are authorities who could do a better job than I can of explaining in detail what the process involves as well the various related implications.
If the explanation boils down to the brain does stuff here like elsewhere that's not exactly persuasive when we have a perfectly reliable method for determining color, I'd say.
Ha! Perfectly reliable? You [i]might[/I] have gotten away with that if it wasn't for those meddling scientists, who came along and discovered that colour is inextricably related to light emissions, and that particular ranges of wavelength in normal circumstances cause us to perceive particular colours - and were thus categorised accordingly - almost without exception. Then exceptions were discovered, and this is one of them. Hence the grey coloured strawberries appearing red, hence the unreliability of your method.
According to your method, it can't even [i]be[/I] an optical illusion. It's just a picture of red strawberries. They appear red because they're really red. That's not very insightful, accurate or plausible, and lacks explanatory power with regard to the peculiarity of the grey, as opposed to red, pixels. That's just naive realism.
If we don't have a mechanism, then the explanation really does amount to about the same thing as magic. It's like all the neuro- talk you see in the papers everywhere meant to explain everything -- and the explanation boils down to the same: "The brain made you do it"
We [i]do[/I] have an explanation. The brain [I]is[/I] the mechanism. One doesn't need to elucidate a mechanism within a mechanism within a mechanism [I]ad infinitum[/I] or until you're satisfied, if that's even possible.
Here, at least, there's this notion of color constancy, so there's a bit more than this -- but not much.
Yes, there's a start for you. Don't expect a lecture from me - I'm not a specialist on this subject. I'm not an authority. But it is possible for me to validly appeal to one if need be. But you shouldn't expect even such an expert to have [i]all[/I] the answers. Our knowledge is limited. It would be misguided, I think, to keep pressing on and on like a child persistently asking "Why?", expecting an answer for everything when the answers already given are good enough for effectively dealing with many problems which might arise.
I'd suggest that we could at least admit that we don't know the mechanism, but presume that the strawberries are really gray because the pixels are gray, and it seems like this brain-thing does stuff with perception so we believe that it might have something to do with it.
You and I might not know it, but that doesn't mean that it isn't known. But either way, that doesn't really matter, since we nevertheless have very good reason to believe that the brain has something to do with it. I'll settle for the above, especially if that means we can move on.
At least, we could say that maybe someone with more knowledge than ourselves -- of which I am certainly not the most knowledgeable on the subject, I hardly even qualify as a hobbyist -- might know, but we ourselves don't understand the process, and so it would be unwise to claim we know in the first place.
So it's unwise to claim to know something in light of what the experts know, when we don't know it in the way that they do? I don't think that that's necessarily true. We have good reason to believe that the experts know what they're talking about, and it would be unreasonable to expect those of us who are not experts to expound upon these things to the extent of the experts.
But if that were the case, then I'd also suggest that it is quite reasonable to believe the strawberries are red, since we determine the color of images and things by looking at them -- and that it is the one who is claiming to know the real reality that should explain themselves in light of this.
No, that's not quite reasonable, because an explanation has already been given, just apparently not to your satisfaction. The two are not one and the same. On the one hand, there's the explanation, and on the other hand, there's your satisfaction. Which one is unreasonable is arguable. Your lack of satisfaction does not of course mean that an explanation hasn't been given.
As far as I can tell no one here or elsewhere has actually verified this. We have extracted colors of pixels through a color picker, but no one has used a spectrometer or anything.
No need. This has most likely been verified by scientists before we were even aware of it. The work has most likely already been done, and we can appeal to these authorities. Or we could harbour unreasonable doubt. Perhaps it's all just a joke or a conspiracy! Yeah, I don't think so. In this case, it is valid to appeal to authority and to make certain reasonable assumptions about what was done to verify the hypothesis.
If we were able to shoot the light through a prism, I betcha we'd get some red.
Some red isn't red though, is it? We're talking about grey, which, as we know, contains some red. But if you conclude that it's red on that basis, you'd also have to conclude that it's yellow, and that it's blue, and so on. Which is just nonsense. It's grey.
I just mean that I think we've found where our disagreement lies. You believe that this normal way of determining color is fallible in this case. This is what I'm contending is not the case -- that the method of using a color picker on the picture to determine the color of a pixel is not a good way for determining the color of the strawberries, that our looking at the image of the strawberries is adaquate for telling us the color of the strawberries in most cases, and that it is so in this case as well.
Okay. Contend all you like, but you're still wrong. X-)
At the weakest I'm claiming that to continue in this belief without some kind of argument about the nature of color, the brain, and reality (in the case of this image) is rational.
So what I mean is that I believe we've honed down where our disagreement is. Not that we don't disagree.
There is some kind of argument as you describe above, so that's that box ticked. And you've focussed a lot on the brain - too much, perhaps - but don't forget about the established colour categorisation, and that whether or not something corresponds accordingly doesn't matter one iota about the brain. The brain has to do with why we perceive it a certain way, not why it is the colour that it is.
It also, in contrast to my answer, lacks plausibility when it comes to accounting for optical illusions - at least those relating to colour and perception in a similar way to that of the picture of the strawberries.
This just begs the question, though. It is only an optical illusion if there is an illusion.
That in combination with what I've said about colour categorisation. And so does yours, does it not? Don't you similarly think that we can tell that the strawberries are red because the brain does such-and-such?
No, not at all in fact. All you need do is look at something to tell the color of something. That the brain is doing something to make the gray appear red seems to be the argument on the opposing side, by my lights.
Ha! Perfectly reliable? You might have gotten away with that if it wasn't for those meddling scientists, who came along and discovered that colour is inextricably related to light emissions, and that particular ranges of wavelength in normal circumstances cause us to perceive particular colours - and were thus categorised accordingly - almost without exception. Then exceptions were discovered, and this is one of them. Hence the grey coloured strawberries appearing red, hence the unreliability of your method.
Eh, scientists must make arguments like anyone else. I don't need to believe what a scientist has to say just because a scientist says it. There isn't such a thing as a valid appeal to authority in science. You can trust authority for certain purposes, and must do so very often in life, but that is no reason to believe something is true.
That's not how science works. You're perfectly rational to not believe something until you understand the demonstration -- you don't have to disbelieve it, either, per se. It doesn't have to be forbidden. But you certainly don't have to take a scientists word on anything.
That's, like, the whole point of science. It is open to anyone to interrogate and understand. It may take some time and effort to understand, and it's fair enough to say that you or I aren't up to snuff on a topic -- but that doesn't mean you have to believe anything. That's just anti-scientific thinking.
We do have an explanation. The brain is the mechanism
The brain is a black box. There are inputs and outputs being defined, but that's about it.
A chemical equation works in a similar manner.
H20 -> h2 + 1/2 o2
The "->" stands for "yields" -- while we may observe the beginning and ending products of a chemical reaction what is not demonstrated is the step-wise process which occurs. Many experiments are set up for the very purpose of determining the mechanisms of even singular chemical reactions. It is by no means an easy thing to determine, considering that you can't exactly observe the mechanism but, instead, have to infer it based on other measurements. (such as the rate of reaction, for instance).
So what I see when I hear "the brain does it" is "photons -> images" where "->" is "the brain does".
So it's unwise to claim to know something in light of what the experts know, when we don't know it in the way that they do?
Yup.
At least if you're claiming the mantle of science. Scientific arguments are straightforward enough that given enough time they make sense. Claims of 'complexity' and 'difficulty' are just mystifications.
Evolution is probably my favorite scientific theory because it demonstrates this so very well. The arguments for evolution are easy to lay out and explain to someone. You have more advanced topics in biology, of course. But the overall theory of evolution? It is elegant and easy for most anyone of average intellect to grasp and understand.
No, that's not quite reasonable, because an explanation has already been given, just apparently not to your satisfaction.
"because", without qualification, is also an explanation. And it is the sort of thing one gives to stop questions, for certain.
But there's no reason to think that because this explanation has been given that one should be satisfied with it, or that it is reasonable either.
What counts as either a reasonable or satisfactory explanation, clearly, needs something more to it than simply that it has been given.
This is just to knock down the notion that because an explanation has been given that we must accept it as satisfactory or rational -- I don't think this is the explanation you are giving, just that it passes the criteria you're proposing here for the acceptance of an explanation as rational or satisfactory.
No need. This has most likely been verified by scientists before we were even aware of it. The work has most likely already been done, and we can appeal to these authorities. Or we could harbour unreasonable doubt. Perhaps it's all just a joke or a conspiracy! Yeah, I don't think so. In this case, it is valid to appeal to authority and to make certain reasonable assumptions about what was done to verify the hypothesis.
That's just bonkers. At the very least you cannot be claiming any kind of scientific value -- as you said earlier, 'to science' the problem -- if you aren't even willing to verify a belief with some kind of standard of measure, but just take it on faith that this was done. Even if the scientists have done this, it is on the basis of reproducibility that scientific argument is built.
You don't need to have faith in the priests of scientific knowledge that what they translate from the book of nature into the vernacular is the truth, may Darwin be praised. You just do the experiment yourself. You may do the experiment wrongly, of course, but so may they.
At least, insofar that we are defining color along the lines of wavelength, and not what it looks like, it does seem reasonable to ask -- what wavelength have you measured?
Some red isn't red though, is it? We're talking about grey, which, as we know, contains some red. But if you conclude that it's red on that basis, you'd also have to conclude that it's yellow, and that it's blue, and so on. Which is just nonsense. It's grey.
I conclude that it's red on the basis of what it looks like. This is my standard.
And you've focussed a lot on the brain - too much, perhaps - but don't forget about the established colour categorisation, and that whether or not something corresponds accordingly doesn't matter one iota about the brain. The brain has to do with why we perceive it a certain way, not why it is the colour that it is.
My focus on the brain is an extension of the argument for why the strawberries only appear red, when in reality they are gray. The brain, after all, is the causal agent proposed here.
As for what colour it is -- it seems to me that you're taking on faith that it is the color it is, since there hasn't been a measurement, no?
Or. . . maybe you're just using the standard I've proposed? Given what you have said about the lack of need to measure I'd say this is a fair inference.
You look at the pixel, it's gray, and therefore the strawberries are gray, because the strawberry image is made of the pixels, and color is the sort of property which translates from its bits to what it makes up, therefore the color of the strawberry image in reality is gray, though it appears red. Scientists explain the causal mechanism somewhere behind the scenes, but ultimately that's not what matters -- what matters is what color the pixels are.
But then you're just looking at the pixel to determine its color. Which is exactly what I've said we should do to determine something's color. It's just in the case of the strawberry, you believe the image stays gray because the pixels are gray. I'd say that without some kind of argument to the contrary, we should just determine color in the exact manner that we did the first time around -- by looking at it.
If we drop out the brain entirely, and we aren't measuring wavelengths -- and if we don't know what the brain is doing aside from vague hand-wavey references to 'color constancy', why should it be referenced at all except to say it does something somewhere? Which is hardly and explanation -- then the strawberry image is red, and the pixels are gray.
FWIW, I decided to hunt down some kind of image of monitors being measured by spectroscopes. The following websites abliges: http://www.chemistryland.com/CHM107Lab/Exp7/Spectroscope/Spectroscope.html
Assuming that their results are accurate:
This is what he got by aiming the spectroscope at the white portion of a screen. Not the image we're talking about, by all means, but this is what he gets.
What I don't see by looking at this is white -- I don't see how you get white from these results. I see how, knowing that when light combines such and such colors evenly you get white you can predict white. But I don't see how you get white from this. It seems to me that you must first know what white light looks like in order to know what colors you are going to get by combining this particular array of colors.
What would be of particular interest, I think, would be to see the spectroscopic results of one pixel compared to the entire photo. I don't think they'd be identical. I don't think anyone would think they'd be identical, either, for that matter. But if they're not identical, by your own theory of color, then the pixel and the image are not the same color, at least. Maybe you wouldn't go so far as to say they are red. You'd explain the difference in color by the differences in the gray palette of the picture, I'd say. That would save your theory.
But at the end of the day given that there are no such spectroscopic tests, I'd say that we really are just looking at such and such to determine such and such, and it is your belief that color is the sort of property which does not change as it aggregates into a whole which yields your belief that the strawberry image is gray, while it is my belief that we determine color by looking at it and there is nothing more to it than that which yields my belief that the strawberry image is red.
EDIT: 10 minutes after -- there's a very good image on that website which explores this difficulty more, too. The yellow one, when measured by the spectroscope, only comes out as a mixture of green and red -- it is not a 'pure' yellow, i.e. the yellow associated with the particular wavelength on the electromagnetic spectrum. Yet, clearly, the box is yellow.
Pointillism explores this notion quite well, too -- individual dots from a pen can be one color, but when you stand back, the picture is a mixture of the colors there. Impressionism does as well, and sort of pushes against the lay notion of color constancy presented in the pop articles so far -- that things do stay the same color as the light changes. But I'd have to know more about what is really be proposed to say for certain.
?Moliere ?Sapientia Doesn't the distinction between spectral colour and perceptual colour resolve your dispute?
I think they require an additional distinction between perceptual colour and verbally reported colour.
For although a subject's verbal behaviour might narrowly imply that they are percieving red strawberrys, the rest of their behaviour might indicate otherwise. The meaning of "red" after all, is a public definition and not in terms of private ostensive definition.
Reply to jamalrob Maybe so. I could see it doing so, at least, just depending -- but I think the real dispute between Sapientia and I is more along the lines of what it means to know and also what it means to trust -- in particular, with respect to science.
I think what you propose would seperate our positions neatly. But I am uncertain that said distinction would actually address where the disagrement is occuring. Not that said disagreement has to be resolved here -- maybe that should occur in another discussion -- I'm just noting why I am uncertain.
We could adopt this distinction, but at the same time I sort of wonder if it would resolve our real dispute -- though, for sure, I'm not sure if we even have a real dispute or if we have hammered down where the best point of disagreement is at at this point.
Comments (287)
What colour are the strawberries?
https://twitter.com/social_brains/status/836088599418281984/photo/1?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
Indirect realism still isn't true.
So another vote for idealism? Michael will be pleased.
Wrong. If I am looked at with red tinted sunglasses, I will look red, but I will not be red.
Scientifically speaking, grey/green, but that doesn't mean it's necessarily a mistake to call them red. The illusion exploits a loophole in definitions of "red", which refer both to specific wavelengths of light and hues resembling those of blood/psychologically primary hues i.e. the definitions incorporate both non-cognitive and cognitive elements. These usually match up, but in this case our psychology adjusts the hue throwing a spanner into the works. So, yeah, they're red and not red. Take your pick.
True, although you can take off your glasses, but you can't take out your brain.
I don't know if it's correct to say that the illusion exploits a loophole in the definition of "red". But I would say that certain philosophical positions on colour perception seem to conflate the two.
So I look at blue pixels and see red strawberries? Certainly does suggest that we can't reduce the objects of perception to the mind-independent things in front of us that causally explain the perception.
What's the difference between red-tinted sunglasses and eyes? They both have a role in influencing what colour we see things to be. Just look at those with tetrachromacy. Do they see the "real" colours, or is the extra type of cone cell performing a "tinting" effect?
If the strawberry image just is the pixels, then I would agree with you. But if the strawberry image is composed of pixels, then wholes can have different properties than their parts, and we could reduce the object of perception to mind-independent things which causally explain the perception.
I'm not saying I want to do the latter -- but if we perceive a whole, then the whole could be mind-independent and cause said perception, even while the constituent parts don't share its properties.
Well no. When I look at blue pixels I see that they are blue, that's how I know they are blue. And when I look at strawberries, I see that they are red, and that's how I know they are red. I don't know what a tetra-chromatic sees in these circumstances, but probably not something that isn't there, even if it's something I don't see.
And yet when I look at the image I posted I see red strawberries.
I think it's wrong to think that all the colours that we could see a thing to be are "there", and that only organisms with the right kind of eye are able to see them. If I see something as red and a tetrachromat sees it as orange then it's not the case that the thing independently has both red and orange properties but I can only see the red property and the tetrachromat can only see the orange property. It's just the case that we respond differently to the same input (electromagnetic radiation with a certain wavelength).
Even the whole itself doesn't have all the properties we see it to have (the red hue). That's added by our brain's processing. As explained here, "You brain says, 'the light source that I'm viewing these strawberries under has some blue component to it, so I'm going to subtract that automatically from every pixel.' And when you take grey pixels and subtract out this blue bias, you end up with red."
Ah, the communal brain, what would we do without it? ;)
What is seeing? Is it something other than the brain's processing of the eye's sensation? Light does not enter the brain, therefore we see nothing. Does this make sense?
I have no idea what you're talking about here.
The blue pixels arranged in strawberry shapes are mind-independent things which conjoin with the act of perception in which hue adjustment takes place and that state of affairs just is the experience, the seeing, of red strawberries. (Didn't we do all this years ago?)
Sure. But the issue is the object of perception. Does the "red strawberries" in "I see red strawberries" just refer to those blue pixels?
(Should I move these posts out of the shoutbox and into a separate discussion?)
The object of perception is blue pixels arranged in strawberry shapes. You see red strawberries rather than blue ones because the act of seeing inheres that transformational aspect in this case.
So if someone else were to look at them and see orange strawberries then "orange strawberries" in "I see orange strawberries" would also refer to those blue pixels? Then the person who sees red strawberries and the person who sees orange strawberries are seeing the same thing?
Go for it although I'm unlikely to go too far through this whole rigmarole again. The theoretical differences are mostly just going to boil down to parsimony.
They're seeing the same thing in different ways.
I wonder what else the act of perception inheres, aside from colour. Smell? Taste? Feeling? Shape?
If by this you just mean that the same external object(s) are causally responsible for the perception, but that the perception itself is different, then sure. I'm sure even the indirect realist would accept that. But is that all it means to see the same thing?
Stuff that can be seen.
At least in our case, yeah. It's really just a semantic dispute.
Agreed.
When did I have a conversation with my brain? Or does it speak to itself?
Obviously this way of talking is supposed to convey something -- but what does this personification of the brain convey? What in the world does it mean to say "Your brain says 'the light source that i'm viewing these strawberries under has some blue component to it, so I'm going to subtract that automatically from every pixel'"?
Colors which set next to one another change the way said colors look. Similarly so with what surrounds some color. So it is with this picture. Why do you believe that the brain "adds" red to the strawberries? (and, for that matter, why doesn't the brain add gray? I imagine you believe that it does -- but then why is this picture different? What does it demonstrate?)
I tend to find "your brain did it" explanations of perception to be something of a black box -- only worse, because even the inputs aren't defined. (images? pixels? wavelengths? information?) The brain is clearly involved, but "your brain adds red to the image because of the blue surrounding it, like it always does in all environments with blue lighting to maintain the colors which objects are thought to have" just doesn't cut it for an explanation. It's no different from saying "red next to blue looks more red", but somehow a third actor -- the brain -- gets involved and does this.
Line 2 is a serious question that you need to address, because the way you talk is as if the brain processes and adjusts, and then there is seeing of the result, as if there is a homunculus in there somewhere watching a screen.
Line 3 takes indirect realism to its illogical conclusion.
Suppose one does some processing in front of the eye, with polarised lenses. Filtering out the reflected glare enables one to see detail that would otherwise be lost. Not detail that 'isn't really there'. One does not say that a camera is indirectly seeing because one puts a filter on the lens, so why should one say it of oneself? Interpretation, of light conditions and other stuff is part of seeing, and 'optical illusions' expose how we see, not how we fail to see. We see the true colour despite poor lighting. Hurrah for seeing!
I'm just reporting on what the neuroscientist said about it. He's the expert.
And it's not as simple as two colours "sitting next to each other" appearing as a different colour. Remember the dress? People saw different colours - some white and gold, others blue and black - even though the stimulus was the same. And that's because the stimulus isn't the only thing that's responsible for the perception of colour. Our bodies play an essential role in that dress being either white and gold or blue and black.
I didn't mean to give that impression. What I am saying is that it's a mistake to think that a thing's colour is a property of the stimulus (in this case, the pixels on the screen), and also short-sighted (pun intended) to reduce the object of perception to that stimulus. If I see orange strawberries and you see red strawberries then we're seeing different things, even if a shared stimulus is responsible.
And when I see Johnny Depp swashbuckling on TV it would be a mistake to reduce the object of perception to those pixels on the screen.
Sure. I didn't mean to say you had to be an expert and lay it out for me -- only that these are the questions I think people should ask when they hear or are tempted to say "the brain did it"
Anything I've read thus far, though I may be ignorant and am willing to read anything more, may involve more steps than that, but it comes down to a similar event. We'll follow the light to the cones where differentials generate potential energy which transfers up into the part of the brain associated with visual processing where. . . we find the black box again.
Quoting Michael
Couldn't the dress be both? It would just depend on how you look at it, no?
Like the vase/talking faces.
I think color blindness would be a stronger example for your case, because at least there is a demonstrated hereditary association. But I'd posit the same thing here -- only that we have to dig a little deeper into our bodies to "see as" the colorblind do, and currently lack the technology to do so.
Having to repeatedly say "I see a picture of red strawberries" (and "I see a picture of a white and gold dress") is too cumbersome.
The dress wasn't both, but definitively whichever it was, I forget now. The particular image was ambiguous, not the dress itself. One does not often mistake two faces for a vase, or one's wife for a hat.
I guess the question here would be -- while it is not often the case that we come across ambiguous images, why are there ambiguous images?
Michael seems to be stating that color, at least, is added by the brain, and the brain adds colors in different ways in different environments, so the same object can appear to be different colors.
I was attempting to say you could explain this with a part-whole distinction -- the dress does seem problematic to my tactic, so I was going for the "both/and", just depending on how you look at it.
But I guess it comes down to -- what do you make of ambiguous images? Is it simply that they are ambiguous, and there is nothing more to it than that?
With a bit of 'brain adjustment', I see what you mean. Sure, in the dark, the dress would look black, and wouldn't look like a dress. Seeing is brain adjustment, interpretation. We know there are no strawberries or dresses on our screens, as MU points out. We make an adjustment in seeing red strawberries in blue light as a way of making sense, so we know that seeing is active interpretation not passive registering of pixels. An ambiguous image has more than one sense to be made and thereby illuminates how we see, which is how we interpret. What makes no sense to me is that it should be misinterpreted as illuminating our inability to see. Once you get to the shop and look at the dress, or the strawberries, or the vase, you see what is there. Online shopping is a bit more hit and miss, like online philosophy.
Whatever the answer to those questions, I know this much: if you reach Hanover's conclusion, then you've gone wrong somewhere along the line.
Or you haven't, and the naive understanding of colour is wrong.
General guidance?
I'm at the tattoo parlour now.
What an odd thing thing to say. If so, then how did I just read that? I did so because I saw the pixels, and the pixels aren't nothing.
(Y)
You saw words made of pixels not pixels.
Interesting that you've targeted what you call the "naïve understanding" of colour, rather than the ordinary way of speaking. What if my understanding of colour was just as sophisticated as yours, if not more so, but I objected to the wording of conclusions like Hanover's?
Whatever the answer to this question, I know this much: if you disagree with me, then you've gone wrong somewhere along the line.
No, I saw both. The words on the screen [i]are[/I] the pixels.
I just see words. Anyway, what's a pixel if it's not part of a word, shape or colour? I'm not saying you can't speak of the situation coherently as you do. It's just not the only way of speaking about it. There's nothing odd in what un said.
Whether you're right or wrong can be put to the test. Do you think that to look red is to be red?
Sure. Colour is an appearance, not a trans-appearance property of external stimuli.
Hmph. If I want to know the peak wavelength range of a particular colour, I'll ask the scientist not wearing the rose-tinted glasses.
What do you mean by peak wavelength range of a particular colour? Do you just mean the peak wavelength range that most people under normal light conditions (and when not wearing rose-tinted glasses) would see as a particular colour (e.g. red)?
How can you see the words if you can't see the pixels? You cannot. The words would not appear to you if not for the many tiny black pixels which form the shapes which we recognise as words. What you're saying is absurd. It's not analogous to, say, a cup and the atoms which compose the cup. I can actually see the pixels, and so can you.
Quoting Baden
Let's say that it's the smallest visible component of an image, such as the images on your screen.
A pixel doesn't need to be part of a word. But I don't know how there could be a shapeless or colourless pixel. (The latter, if black, white and grey are a kind of colour, namely achromatic colour).
My device has 720 pixels of vertical resolution and 0.9 megapixels. Some of those pixels are the dark shapes which contrast with a white background - which is also pixels - and that's what I recognise as words.
Quoting Baden
It's not the only way of speaking about it, but it is a sensible way of speaking about it, and what unenlightened said seemed odd - possibly false, and not the best way of wording it at all, in my assessment.
Colour is not [i]just[/I] appearance, if it is appearance at all. Otherwise I couldn't appear red without being red, but I'm not red, and your red tinted glasses don't change that, they just change how I appear to you.
Sure it is. If you appear red then you're red. If you're red then you appear red. So you're red if I look at you through red-tinted glasses and not if I don't (presumably). What else would it mean to be red? Perhaps "have a surface that reflects light at a wavelength of ~620–740nm" or "appears red to most people with the naked eye in ordinary lighting conditions"?
And if colour is just an appearance, you can't claim that anything [i]is[/I] red and [i]really mean that[/I], because "appears" and "is" don't mean the same thing.
"How can you see the cup if you can't see the atoms? You cannot. The cup would not appear to you if not for the many tiny atoms which form the object which we recognise as a cup."
It's not absurd at all, it's a perfectly legitimate way of speaking.
It's pretty simple guys, red is either something there can be a fact of the matter about at some level or it is not. And there either exists a science of colour that is not nonsensical or there does not. If every human being in the world right now put on red tinted glasses that would not in the slightest change the scientific understanding or abrogate the scientific meaning of the term "red".
They do in this context. Or they don't, and the claim "the apple is red" is strictly speaking a fiction (even if it's an ordinary thing to say), as colour isn't a perception-independent property that external stimuli have.
How many were there?
What's the scientific meaning of the term "red"? Does it differ from the meaning of the term "red" when I look at image I posted earlier and say "I see a picture of red strawberries"?
There's two ways of looking at it. I made it clear in my first post. I'm not saying either is nonsensical on its own terms. However, if you claim that to be red is just to look red, that's equivalent to saying there can be no science of colour. But there is. So, you're wrong.
Nope. If you can get away with that, then I can get away with stuff like this: I think I saw a ghost, so I saw a ghost. But that's codswallop.
Quoting Michael
I know enough to rule your meaning out, even if I don't give a detailed alternative.
Not if by "red" I mean what I mean when I say "I see a picture of red strawberries". If by "red" I mean something like "has a surface that reflects light at a wavelength of ~620–740nm" then obviously it's not an appearance, and there can be a science of colour, but then it's also obviously irrelevant if the scientist is wearing red-tinted glasses – because he'll use some machine to measure the wavelength, not his eyesight.
Then what does it mean to be red?
No, as I said, they're not analogous. The pixels are visible to the naked eye, but the atoms are not.
I'm aware a scientist wearing red-tinted glasses wouldn't have a problem reading a number off a screen. I think you know my example was meant somewhat humorously. Anyway, if you accept there is a science of colour then you accept that to be red is not just to appear red.
No, because the word "red" when I use it here is referring to what it refers to when I say "I see a picture of red strawberries", and this thing it's referring to is an appearance.
I'm not denying that the word can also be used to refer to something that isn't just an appearance (e.g. a surface that reflects a certain wavelength of light).
Seems perfectly ordinary to talk about people seeing things that aren't really there.
Never hear of a retina screen? I guess I must have a better phone than you. :P But even when the pixels are theoretically visible, we don't generally see them, we just see the words. As I said before, I don't think it's illegitimate to say you see pixels, but it's not nonsense to say you don't either.
If by that you mean only the way that you're using them, then sure. In that context, they mean the same thing.
And I can create a context in which thinking means doing, such that thinking that I've jumped off a cliff means that I've jumped off a cliff. :-}
What else shall we conflate? Walking and running? Sinking and rising? Smelling and hearing? Take your pick.
Irrelevant.
I'm not conflating. I'm explicitly avoiding conflation by drawing a distinction between being red in the sense meant when we say "I see a picture of red strawberries" and in the scientific sense of "has a surface that reflects light at a wavelength of ~620–740 nm".
There doesn't have to be a single meaning. There can be multiple meanings, and some can be more sensible than others. I have highlighted the shortcomings of your meaning, so we should seek a better one - one that is more flexible and which doesn't lead to seeming absurdity.
I don't see how. It should be obvious in the context of the illusion with the strawberries that the word "red" isn't referring to a surface that reflects light at a wavelength of ~620–740 nm, given that the issue is that it doesn't reflect this wavelength of light and yet we see it as red.
So what did you mean when you said that a thing can appear red even if not (or vice versa)?
This is the gerrymandering. My objection was to the statement "to be red is just to appear red" not to the statement "to be red is just to appear red when what I mean by red is...". You don't get to define "red".
What may be indicated here is that the "science of colour" is inconsistent with "colour" as we commonly use the word. If the scientist says that "red" refers to a very specific range of wavelengths, yet we see "red", and refer to a thing as "red" under all sorts of different conditions, then there is such an inconsistency.
Sure, that's what my first post on all this pointed too.
[I]That[/I] talk may be ordinary, but if you saw a ghost, that would be extraordinary. So [i]that[/I] talk doesn't reflect reality, otherwise it would be a relatively ordinary occurrence to see ghosts.
[I]This[/I] ordinary talk is a better reflection of reality: "I thought I saw a ghost", "That looked like a ghost".
My phone has a retina screen. But although I cannot differentiate one pixel from another with extreme precision, I am nevertheless seeing a number of pixels, am I not? That's what those dark shapes are.
But you said:
Quoting Sapientia
Why are unindividuated pixels more visible than unindividuated atoms?
Quoting Sapientia
"I am nevertheless seeing a number of atoms, am I not? That's what that cup is."
I get to decide what I mean by "to be red is just to appear red" when I use it. That you can use that statement to mean something else is irrelevant.
If you were to say that a chair is something we sit on it would be absurd of me to respond with "but Warren Buffett is a chair, but he's not something we sit on" simply because "chair" can also mean the highest officer of a board of directors. Rather than you gerrymandering, I'd be equivocating. So too with the roles reversed here.
Indeed! And it is irrelevant that there were any pixels at all. The same meaning could be conveyed with brush strokes, finger-painting, or carved in tablets of stone. All that is relevant is the structure, not the substrate. Identical pixels, differently arranged, would convey a different meaning or no meaning. Which is why it makes sense to say that to see pixels is to see nothing; to see something is to see a structure, not pixels, but the relationships of pixels. Hence the old saw about not seeing the wood for the trees.
What are the dark shapes? Do atoms have colour? I see the dark shapes, and the dark shapes are pixels, therefore I see the pixels, or I see the pixels [i]as[/I] dark shapes. The number of pixels are black and are a certain shape, and what I see is black and a certain shape. What's the difference?
If your meaning is idiosyncratic or controversial or even simply debatable then you need to highlight that immediately or people will respond to the regular meaning. And to expect them to respond to the unqualified statement as if it were the qualified one would be to expect them to accept your meaning.
Quoting Sapientia
Do you really still want to insist that when I look at a screen with no individuated pixels (or even barely individuated ones) on it that it's nonsense for me to say "I don't see pixels, I see words". If no, we've nothing left to argue about. If yes, then all I have left to say is that that's a very unreasonable attitude.
And that is also irrelevant.
I'd say that the regular meaning is the meaning it has when we say "I see a picture of red strawberries". It's certainly not the scientific meaning that refers to having a surface that reflects light at a certain wavelength.
Every dictionary in the word will disagree with you and say the regular definition encompasses both.
Your meaning is exclusive. (And I'm talking about the meaning of the word "red" in general not as used in a specific context. Remember you said "to be red is just to look red". That's what I objected to not "to be red is just to look red when I'm talking about looking at red strawberries, or whatever...")
But my claim was made in a specific context, so obviously all that matters is what "red" means in that context. That it can mean other things in other contexts is irrelevant, as explained above with the example of "chair".
And the context in which my claim was made was the one in which we see a picture of red strawberries even though the stimulus isn't light with a wavelength of ~620–740nm.
No it is the scientific definition which is exclusive. It reduces "seeing red" to a particular sort of seeing red, whereas the common understanding of seeing red includes the scientific instance as well as others.
What we say isn't always what we mean and anything can make sense given the right interpretation, so your question doesn't get to the issue. It can seem like nonsense to you or it can make sense to you, but I'm trying to go deeper than that.
If the words are not the pixels, then what are they? What's the difference between the number of pixels, which are black and a certain shape, and the words, which are black and a certain shape? There doesn't seem to be any difference at all, which, if so, would make that statement contradictory at face value. The only thing missing is the recognition of those black shapes as words, but what has that got to do with anything?
I responded to the statement at face value and so did @Sapientia. That's a legitimate way to respond to it.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
You've missed the point. The regular unqualified definition of "red" includes two senses which are in certain contexts exclusive of each other (the "red" strawberries example being one).
If cups are not atoms, then what are they? This could go on all day...
You remember how all this started, right? A contrived example.
Consider the example I gave earlier. When I watch TV I see Johnny Depp. Is the Johnny Depp I see the pixels, or is he the actor living in L.A.?
Is a contrived example sufficient to demonstrate exclusivity, or is it a case of deception?
So when someone says something like "it appears red but isn't red" (e.g. Sap earlier) do the two instances of "red" mean/refer to different things or the same thing?
You said that "in this context", "appears" and "is" mean the same thing. But they obviously don't mean the same thing when people say things like "My body is not red, it just appears red, because you're looking at it through red tinted glasses". People don't mean to contradict themselves as if they were saying "My body is not red, it is just red" or "My body does not appear red, it just appears red".
Then as I asked of Baden above, when you say "it appears red but isn't red" do the two instances of "red" mean/refer to different things or the same thing?
I mean something beyond appearance. I'm talking about the thing itself, at least inasmuch as I'm talking about what it is not. Whether it has no colour, or is a different colour, or has colour in a different sense to when we talk about how something appears - the point is, to talk of colour in the way that you and Hanover have done is problematic.
I'm asking you if the two instances of "red" mean/refer to different things or the same thing.
Edit: Sorry, thought you were responding to a different comment.
It's not irrelevant - in what I am addressing - that there were any pixels at all. No pixels, no words.
Yes, structure is relevant. That's where number and shape come in with regards to the pixels. But there can be no structure without that which is structured, so both are relevant, and you can't do away with one of them. No pixels, no structure, no words.
Meaning is irrelevant to my point here, since meaning, or what I called "recognition", can be separated from what I'm talking about when I talk about the words or those pixels, which are the same thing. The objective and the subjective can be set apart for sake of analysis.
To see pixels is, obviously, to see something, and not nothing. To see the structure of pixels is to see the pixels. And to see the structure, but not the pixels which are structured, is seemingly absurd.
Do you see a bridge, but no bricks? I see both. I see the bridge and the bricks with which it is structured. I see a brick bridge. A number of bricks structured in a certain way, in a certain shape.
Looks more like pixels to me. And what's that thing under the bridge of pixels that looks like an upside down bridge? Is it a bridge made of water? We're playing duck/rabbit aren't we?
>:O
You're supposed to play along! Michael already clarified this issue to Metaphysician Undercover.
Quoting unenlightened
It's a reflection, as you know full well. And please don't say that it's pixels if you want this to be a serious discussion.
I see the brick bridge for what it is. I see the brick bridge as a brick bridge, and not as a duck. Perhaps you see it as a duck, but I don't care. That makes no sense to me.
Unless you're suggesting that atoms are visible to the naked eye and have colour and shape, then that's a false analogy.
In this case, I described what I see, and that description fits those words on the screen and those pixels on the screen. So, I ask you again, what's the difference, if any? Do you have an answer or not?
You don't actually see Johnny Depp, but it's acceptable to say that you do in a typical context, and those around you will understand what you mean. You actually see an image of Johnny Depp: an image composed of pixels. So yes, you see the pixels (so composed). The closer you look, the more distinguished the pixels become.
Does it matter? The important distinction is between appearance and reality. Whether "red" means the same thing in each instance, or whether in one instance it means something different but related to the other, my point stands: the two phrases are not equivalent in meaning. You can replace "red" with X in both instances, or with an X[sup]1[/sup] in one instance and an X[sup]2[/sup] in the other, and my point still stands. The key words are those I pointed out: "appears" and "is".
Well, to the extent that we're dividing the world between realism and anti-realism, the only thing of significance is that we admit to seeing the same thing, regardless of what it is. That is, whether the color is "really" in the strawberries or is imposed by the mind by something the fact that we're both seeing the same thing consistently speaks to some external reality.
Further complicating things is that when I speak of colour, I speak of color.
Because they're not analogous in important respects, as I've explained. Why is that beyond you? You want me to accept a general principal based on a false analogy? I'm talking about what I can see with my naked eye. We're talking about perception in this sense, yes? So why do you keep bringing up this false analogy with atoms? I don't claim to see atoms with my naked eye. I'm trying to be impartial by sticking to the description of what I see, and then checking what that does or does not match.
I reckon that we can agree that we're seeing the same thing, whatever it is, and that this speaks to some external reality. But unless you've retracted your initial claim, or didn't really mean it, or meant something else, then that's where we disagree. It looks red, but it doesn't follow that it is red, unless you've got some questionable hidden premise.
Of course it matters.
If they mean/refer to the same thing and the "red" in "X appears red" refers to a type of appearance then either "X is red" and "X appears red" mean the same thing or "X is red" claims that having an appearance is a perception-independent thing such that something can have an appearance even when it isn't being seen or that something can have one type of appearance but appear a different way, neither of which make sense and so make for "X is red" to be a category error.
Or they mean/refer to the same thing and the "red" in "X is red" refers to something like having a surface that reflects light with a wavelength of ~620–740nm and so to say that X appears red is to say that X appears to have a surface that reflects light with a wavelength of ~620–740nm, which I would think is an inaccurate/nonsensical interpretation.
Or they mean/refer to different things and so the "but" in "X appears red but isn't red" is potentially misleading given that there's no a priori reason that appearing red[sub]1[/sub] and not being red[sub]2[/sub] is in some sense a conflict. You might as well just say "X appears red and isn't red" which is just to say "X has a red appearance and doesn't reflect light with a wavelength of ~620–740nm.
The sneaky thing about the image is just that the red has been removed, rather than replaced, or coloured in. Like just removing an image leaves a silhouette, or the impression of its absence. Because all of the red has been removed, rather than covered up, or replaced, it's still obvious that they're really red. This is the interplay between precepts and concepts. From the bottom up of precepts, there's no red, but from the top down of concepts, we recognize the form of red, even by its silhouette, as it were.
Sure they do. End of.
It matters in general, but I question the relevance to my point.
Quoting Michael
The former isn't a valid option, and you've denied conflating them in that way. "X is red" and "X appears red" don't mean the same thing. End of.
And the statement in question is: "X appears red, but X is not red". That only commits one to what X is not, and leaves open the question of what X is. I'm saying that it isn't necessarily how it appears. If you deny that, you run into problems. Do you really want to defend full blown idealism, where there's no distinction between appearance and reality?
Then go back and address my prior criticism: [URL=http://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/58751]here[/URL].
By the way, I accidentally posted my unfinished reply. I didn't mean to do that, since I had more to say. I deleted it and re-posted.
The point is that if the "red" in "X appears red" doesn't mean/refer to the same thing as the "red" in "X is not red" then there's no necessary conflict here. You might being saying something like "X appears red but X isn't a chicken".
So if there's to actually be a conflict – if it appearing red is an error, given that it isn't red – then it must be that the "red" in "X appears red" means/refers to the same thing as the "red" in "X is not red". And that's where I believe your distinction between appearing red and being red falls apart, given that the thing referred to by "red" in "X appears red" just is a type of appearance (qualia), and not some mind-independent property of external stimuli (e.g. having a surface that reflects a certain wavelength of light).
Okay, let's say that it's the same meaning. It still makes sense to say that X appears red, but X isn't red. It's just saying that X isn't how it appears. If your philosophy can't handle that, then there's a problem with your philosophy.
Saying that it isn't how it appears with respect to its colour is like saying that it isn't how it appears with respect to its taste. If it tastes sweet to you then it really is sweet, and if it looks red to you then it really is red. The how it appears is a feature of the appearance itself and not a property that external stimuli have on their own. Your philosophy sounds like naive realism, where things are said to look like what they look like to us even when they're not being looked at, or taste like what they taste like to us even when they're not being tasted, which is nonsensical (even if a fiction that we ordinarily engage in).
So given that the thing referred to by "red" in "X appears red" is an appearance-property (e.g. qualia), and given that we're assuming that the "red" in "X appears red" means/refers to the same thing as the "red" in "X is not red", it must be either that "X is not red" is a category error or that "X appears red but X is not red" is a contradiction.
The only recourse is to accept that the "red" in "X appears red" means/refers to something different to the "red" in "X is not red", in which case there's no (a priori) conflict/error in appearing red[sub]1[/sub] but not being red[sub]2[/sub].
Strawberries are of course green, until they get the urge to be eaten, which is the plant's way of getting the kids to move out. Their power over the human mind is itself poetic, and far more mysterious than that of grey pixels. But as well as fruiting, they also send out runners and so are both mobile and potentially immortal. No wonder they manipulate us with such ease.
Sure, if there are taste illusions or errors, just as there are optical illusions or errors.
Quoting Michael
That really doesn't follow without a mistaken hidden premise.
Quoting Michael
That doesn't sound too different to what I've been saying. There is no necessary connection between how it appears and what it is, such that how it appears is what it is. It may appear red, but that doesn't mean that it is red. That it appears red means nothing other than that it appears red.
Quoting Michael
No, I'm allowing for that possibility, but my position here is closer to indirect realism. Your philosophy sounds like naive idealism, which faces the same problem as naive realism.
Again, unless all instances of "red" here mean/refer to the same thing, this is no different in kind to saying "it may appear red, but that doesn't mean that it is a chicken".
And if they do mean/refer to the same thing, then to say that it isn't red even though it appears red is nonsensical, given that the "red" in "X appears red" refers to a property that only appearances have, and not some perception-independent property that perception-independent stimuli have.
I'm accepting the existence of perception-independent stimuli that are causally covariant with our perception, so I'm not arguing for idealism. What I'm rejecting is the claim that the word "red" in "X appears red" refers to some perception-independent property that perception-independent stimuli have.
You're blaming me for a problem with your philosophy, which stems from artificially creating a logical connection between appearance and reality. That's not my problem, it's yours. This is not nonsensical. You're just making it so within your own context.
There's no problem with my philosophy. There's a problem with your claim that "X appears red but X isn't red" is sensible, where both instances of "red" mean/refer to the same thing. And that is your problem.
That's not a problem for me. It is sensible. Test it out on people, they'll agree. Things aren't always what they appear to be, whether we're talking about "red" or something similar - the denial is nonsense, whether naive realism or naive idealism.
Your own example with the picture of the strawberries shows this.
Then you're rejecting something I never accepted in the first place. It may well refer to some qualia sort of thing. And if so, then it'd be right to say that it appears red, but isn't red.
The problem, as I said earlier, is when you conflate "appears" and "is". I'm not sure where you currently stand on that. You seem to have accepted it, then denied it, then accepted it again. I stand by my criticism.
Yeah, I did. The only difference is that the one that was posted has the brightness increased. Colour constancy can't be right, as that's about seeing the same colour in varying lights, not seeing one when it isn't there at all. This implies that no matter what colour the strawberries really were, we'd just be basically guessing based on what colour they "normally" are, but if this were true, just any different colour strawberry should create some perceptual confusion, but it doesn't.
It's neither. It's not a contradiction, and it's not a category error, but it is more like a category error than a contradiction. If I were to state that it doesn't have a quality like the one that I perceive, and if it in fact doesn't have such a quality, then that'd just be a true statement.
If the "red" in "X is red" means/refers to the same thing as the "red" in "X appears red" then either "X is red" and "X appears red" mean the same thing or "X is red" (where this is understood as saying that being red is a perception-independent property of X) is a category error.
So as I've said before, it really depends on what you mean by "red". The problem is that your account seems to conflate two different meanings, as you want for "X appears red" and "X is not red" to be consistent, and yet for the there to be a genuine conflict – for the appearance to be an error. But I can't see how making that claim makes sense unless you're a naive realist and think that qualia are perception-independent properties – which itself doesn't make sense.
One could argue that, though we wouldn't classify said pixels as red that they do have red as part of their make-up, but I thought it more interesting to just take the example at its word, so to speak, and try and argue against the strong case.
We're going around in circles now. That's a false dilemma. It needn't be either. And addressing "X is red" seems like a red herring. I'm not claiming anything about what X is.
Quoting Michael
I'll just call it a quality, and mean by that something more neutral than you seem to take it to be, so as not to rule out certain possibilities without due consideration, and so as to avoid a vacuous truth.
Quoting Michael
They [i]are[/I] consistent, although there [i]would be[/I] a conflict for anyone who mistakenly assumed that what appears to be red [i]must be[/I] red - which is the controversial assumption underlying the claim which triggered my entry into this discussion, and is also something which you seemed to quite clearly indicate your agreement with at various points throughout this discussion, although you also seemed in denial at points when I've challenged this, and seem to have evaded my criticism as well as clarification of your stance.
There [i]would not[/I] be a conflict - or a problem, as far as I can tell - if you don't make that assumption, if it appears red, and if it is not red.
I don't make that assumption, I acknowledge that possibility, and I acknowledge the distinction between appearance and reality.
The impression of the depicted strawberries might be grey-blue, but the meaning of the expression "they look grey-blue" is the colour of the picture, not the strawberries.
I thought this particular image had to do with our brains "white balancing" the image due to the cyan tint to it. An adaptation we also use when moving from indoor (yellow light) to outdoor (blue).
EDIT: the strawberries only appear red but in reality the colour red isn't present in the picture.
Agree with all that.
Or my phrasing. :-* As long as we don't have to do the debate again, I'm good. (Y)
As I pointed out earlier, to define "red" as a particular range of wavelength is unacceptable, because the vast majority of instances of seeing a particular colour, are instances of a combination of different wavelengths. So the fact that a particular wavelength of light is not present, does not mean that the strawberries are not red.
Right. So we can stop trusting telescopes that there really are more stars in the sky than we can see with the naked eye.
There's a reason why we trust intstrumentation and why that works. You sound like the Spanish inquisition when they dealt with Copernicus. We "have" defined red as a particular wavelength and it's precisely because it is a particular wavelength that we are capable of discerning it under different lighting conditions by "filtering" out certain wavelengths of light. That this, normally useful adaptation, now plays tricks on us by making us believe the strawberries are red when they aren't, doesn't make the strawberries red, it only makes them look red.
EDIT: The mirage isn't really there, no matter how certain you are you saw it.
Good point. :) ..but then isn't also the range of wavelengths analog and dense...i.e. between two identified wavelengths there is always a third. Hence there are millions of them too.
I don't see what instrumentation has to do with this. The fact is that the vast majority of colours which we see, talk about, refer to, and describe, are combinations of different wavelengths. The various reds which we see are no different from this. Have you ever seen someone mixing red paint? So your restricted definition of red, to a particular range of wavelength, while it might be useful for some scientific purposes, is not a true representation of what the average person refers to as "red".
You have restricted your definition of "red" to a particular type of red, some sort of pure red. When do you ever see pure red? There are many other instances of red, different combinations of wavelengths, which do not qualify as "red" under your definition, and it is not wrong to call these particular red objects, instances of red. But it is wrong to say that we shouldn't call any instance of colour "red" unless it conforms to your restricted definition. It's like you've determined the "ideal" red, and you do not think that anyone should call anything "red" unless it fits this ideal.
For a common object, such as a strawberry, we do not think of it being orange when it is lit such that it appears orange. We still think of it as red from our experience.
That is why color is more than just a combination of wavelengths.
Take Rothko, for example, who was an artist interested only in large swathes of color. He painted by candlelight. Art galleries now pay millions of dollars for his canvases and display them in bright incandescent light. I actually had an argument with the MOMA in NYC about it. It said basically, showing his canvases in candlelight was too weird for Americans to accept, and there would only be a demand to see it 'properly' in bright light instead. Which, given the other weird things MOMA displays, made it rather pointless continuing the debate, so I gave up. So now we cant even see the art Rothko actually painted at all. The name Rothko is now more important than the colors he wanted to show us. Just a thought why it is so misunderstood here now.
http://www.archimedes-lab.org/color_optical_illusions.html
http://mentalfloss.com/article/54448/5-color-illusions-and-why-they-work
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_constancy
http://www.stareclips.com/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideasthesia
Indeed, especially scientific accounts based on arguments from illusion, according to which you'd never see a real colour, only your own hallucination of something unseen. :-}
It's instrumentation that can tell you there's no red in the image. The rest of your post is an argument to ignore progress and return to the Middle Ages.
Actually, your method for determining colour proceeds from a faulty premise. You assume that a particular colour has a corresponding range of wavelengths. That this is a false premise is evident from the fact that most of the different colours which we talk about have no such corresponding range of wavelengths.
Furthermore, it appears like you want to reduce "colour" to a specific set of primary colours, each having a corresponding wavelength. But any such reduction is known to be purely arbitrary, and abstract. So all you've done is produced an arbitrary, ideal "red", and you are claiming that if an encountered instance of red does not match this ideal red, it does not qualify as "red".
So you have a false premise, that any particular colour, such as red, can be defined by a particular wavelength, and from this you produce a false "ideal red", which is define as a range of wavelengths. Then you proceed to argue, from this false conclusion, that if a particular instance of colour does not match your ideal, it does not qualify as being the referred to colour.
And your mode of justifying your false premise appears to be pure assertion. I'm right and your wrong, because science supports my position. But if you looked closely, you would see that science does not support your false premise. Science has produced a specialized definition of "red", which is suitable for use within the instrumentation which you refer to, but is not suitable for use when referring to human perception.
Our brains then assemble a "picture" based on these varying degrees that each cones is triggered by. In other words, the brain mixes the strength of these signals from each "color"-sensitive cone to create the colors we experience.
It doesn't really matter what one person claims as being "the ideal red". After all it is possible that we all experience different colors when interacting with the same light. All that matters is that the symbol, or representation, of that light is consistent - that the effect is always the same per the cause for that particular person. This way we can still communicate about what we see without anyone being the wiser choice of what is the "ideal color".
Don't we need some consistency between individuals as well? This consistency gives us what some people call inter-subjectivity, which in some cases it is argued, qualifies as objectivity. It's interpretation. If we all agree as to the meaning of a particular word, then that word has "objective" meaning (in the sense of inter-subjective), though it might not have an ideal objective meaning in the sense of an independent Platonic Form. The independent Platonic Form could allow us to theoretically judge the inter-subjective meaning, if we had access to that Form.
Isn't this the same with colours? Seeing is a mode of interpretation as well. There is an inter-subjective meaning of "red" which provides us with the common meaning of the term. Benkei appears to be claiming that there is a truly objective "red", an ideal definition of red, and even to know this Platonic Form, through science. It is suggested that we should judge our inter-subjective interpretation against this Form. But I think Benkei derives this ideal in a faulty way. There may be such a Platonic Form of red, but Benkei has not described it.
Why not? I would say that all these things are interpretations. That there is a presence, that there is a colour, that there is a shape, all of these are interpretations. If you consider that the coin consists of atoms and molecules, then ask yourself why do you see it as the presence of a single, coloured, shape, instead of individual molecules, or atoms. Interpretation is inherent within seeing.
So what would seeing its atoms and molecules be an interpretation of? :-}
I don't think you see the atoms and molecules; it is not your interpretation of some undifferentiated swarm of individual particles which sets the visual features of the object that you see but the parts of the object which are present in your visual field and the optics and biology of seeing. The presence of a single, coloured shape is set by the objective facts of seeing. Hence seeing precedes interpretation.
There's a difference between colour and chromaticity. Sensitivity to colour change for humans is in the range from 1nm to 10 nm.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
There isn't a Platonic Form, there's consensus on the wavelengths associated with colours when an object absorbs light and reflects light back. And I mean this in the sense of spectrum. The science is pretty clear on this. If we then "think" we see red, when in reality there are no colours emitting with a wavelenght between 622nm to 780nm, then we've been fooled by our very fallable perception.
A colour blind person (deuteranopia) sees purple as blue. He's wrong and so are you. Why are we comfortable with saying he's wrong? Because we understand his perception is "broken". Now what we have with the strawberries is a "broken" perception that is shared by most everyone due to the white-balancing we automatically apply due to high levels of teal in the picture. Very useful in everyday life, when moving from indoors and outdoors - for this particular picture it's a nuisance.
I'm perfectly fine trusting a spectrometer on this matter.
Our belief of what it is that we perceive is fallable, not perception, because belief is representational.
I think it's incorrect to say that because someone responds differently to the same input than most people that their perception is wrong.
It seems me that when you say "wrong" you just mean "uncommon". But as we're trying to take a more philosophical approach to colour perception, you need to use more exact language and not just play along with the everyday narrative that conflates "right" with "ordinary".
And what of someone with tetrachromacy? Is their percpetion "broken" if they see as blue what most other people (i.e. people without tetrachromacy) see as purple? Or if they see it as some colour that the rest of us don't even know?
This is the important point. There's an agreed consensus about what wavelengths are associated with what colours, but those wavelengths are not themselves those colours. The colour red is the sensory quality that is usually elicited by the stimulation of light with a wavelength of ~620–740nm, but that's it.
And there's no reason for it to be considered wrong (as opposed to just uncommon) for an organism to have such a sensory quality elicited by light of a different wavelength – or by stimulation of something other than light, e.g. in the case of synaesthesia.
If we define red as light with a wavelength between 620-740nm, then calling any light with a different wavelength "red" is wrong. By definition. And that's my point condenced I suppse. We are capable of verifying our own perceptions with instruments. To then lift the subjective experience up as the definitive answer to whether an object is red or not is a step back. All the way back to before Copernicus.
The strawberries therefore appear red and we can even explain why but they aren't red.
(Also the answer is a bit more subtle because the picture does emit light in that wavelength range of red as part of the white/gray areas but something is red or reddish due to a concentration of a particular spectrum of wavelength in a particular area but that is more about chromacity).
Sure. But that goes back to the question I asked before; does the "red" in "I see red strawberries" refer to that kind of light? I don't think so. When I say that I see red strawberries I'm not (either explicitly or implicitly) saying that I see that kind of light. So there's equivocation here. On the one hand we might use "red" to refer to that kind of light – and that's an ad hoc scientific stipulation – and on the other hand we might use "red" to refer to the qualitative aspect of seeing, which is what I think we're doing when we say "I see red strawberries".
But that's just wrong, if by "red" you mean "light with a wavelength between 620-740nm", because those strawberries don't appear to reflect light with a wavelength between 620-740nm. That would be equivocation, based on the fact that most people ordinarily see things that reflect light with a wavelength between 620-740nm as being red.
So as I've said before, it seems to me that the two instances of "red" in "it appears red but isn't red" mean/refer to different things, which means that the claim that there's some sort of conflict or error in the appearance is wrong. The "red" in "it appears red" refers to a certain sensory quality and the "red" in "it isn't red" refers to a certain type of light. And there's no prima facie reason that it's wrong (as opposed to just uncommon) for this type of light to elicit this type of sensory quality.
After all, it is possible, being that we are genetically similar, that we do experience the same colors with the same wavelength or assortment of wavelengths. But even if we didn't, the consistency comes from being in a shared world. The same wavelength of light may create different colors in the mind, but the same wavelength ALWAYS triggers the same color in the mind for each person.
When you learned you colors, you learned to associate the word, "red" with the color you see when that particular wavelength interacts with the cones and rods in your eyes. I may experience a different color. But we both experience our color consistently as a result of the same wavelength of light. This is why we can agree on the wavelength, without experiencing the same color.
I agree we can use the word "red" in different contexts but when we disagree on the redness of something, how are we going to arbitrate this question? I have no problem with you referring to the strawberries as appearing red but if we want to definitely answer the question whether they are red, we have to conclude they aren't irrespective of our subjective experiences of seeing.
Quoting Michael
I don't follow. I don't think I'm saying much else than the following analogy "the desert appeared to have an oasis and we even know why but there wasn't an oasis."
[quote=Metaphysician Undercover;59614"]Human eyes can see millions of different shades of colour. This is not because there are millions of different wavelengths between 400 and 740.[/quote]True, but there are millions of different combinations of colors triggered by millions of different combinations of the strengths of the signals coming from the rods and cones in our eyes. It's no different from creating millions of different colors from just varying degrees of the three primary colors
You're saying that a thing can appear red even if it isn't. And you've said that "red" refers to light with a wavelength between 620-740nm. So you're saying that a thing can appear to reflect light with a wavelength between 620-740nm even if it doesn't. I reject the notion that those strawberries appear (with the naked eye) to reflect light with a wavelength between 620-740nm. The wavelength of the light that is emitted by those pixels isn't part of the appearance at all - it's just the cause. So as I explained in the last paragraph (edited in before your response), there's two different meanings/referents of "red", and you seem to be equivocating them.
Quoting Benkei
When we disagree on the redness of something, are we disagreeing on the wavelength of the light that is emitted/reflected by it or are we disagreeing on its appearance? If the former then, yes, there's an independent fact-of-the-matter. If the latter then, no, there isn't.
And I'd argue that we're disagreeing about the latter. We can both measure and agree upon the wavelength of the light but nonetheless disagree on its colour. Because although stimulation by the former is what elicits the experience of the latter, they're not the same thing.
As I said: I'm willing to have a spectrometer to have a last say on this. Are you?
Quoting Michael
I agree they aren't the same thing. However, I don't believe we can arrive at two different answers. So when we search for an explanation as to why we disagree, we discover "red" is associated with a certain wavelength. We then discover there's no red in the picture and we even discover how that comes about.
The difference then is that I'm willing to say: "oops, I was wrong to interpret that as red" and you continue to maintain it's red.
By that token the sun still revolves around the earth and the illusionary oasis is really there. The latter with deadly consequences.
You don't see them.
Quoting jkop
isn't it objective fact that seeing is interpretation?
Quoting Benkei
As I said, what we see as colour is a mixture of wavelengths, not a pure wavelength. I read some of the discussion on the strawberry picture, and apparently there are grey pixels which are composed partially of red wavelengths. So despite the fact that there is red wavelength within the composition of the pixel, the pixel itself is grey, and therefore is not called red. But grey is not a particular range of wavelength itself, it is a mixture.
Quoting Benkei
This only indicates that you are wrong in defining colour based on particular wavelengths. There is no particular wavelength for the various greys, they are combinations of wavelengths, And, since the grey pixels do emit red wavelengths, it is contradictory for you to say that there is no red in the picture, according to your definition of red. You refer to the other definition of colour to say that the pixels are grey, then as Michael indicates, it is only by equivocation that you can say there is no red in the picture.
Quoting Benkei
It all has to do with the mixtures of wavelengths, and how our eyes detect them. If red mixed with other colours, within a tiny pixel makes a colour called grey, then we are justified in saying "colour", in general, is a mixture of wavelengths. If mixing these grey pixels with certain blue pixels in a larger scale makes the colour red, then we are justified in saying that the strawberries are red.
Sure. So how about you get the image into paint and zoom in on that apparent red pixel until that pixel fills your screen. Then get back to me with which colour it has.
EDIT: I'd like to point out that the colour of that faux-red pixel doesn't change because of the surrounding blue, we are not "mixing" them in our perception. We're quite capable of seeing individual pixels at these resolution (1080p, just stick your nose in the screen).
The blue merely influences how we perceive it due to false signal it gives us that we ought to white balance the image for outdoor circumstances. Then our brains filter out blue from the grey, which makes the grey appear red. Taking a closer look (literally!) shows the error.
No, because that only tells us the wavelength of the light that is emitted/reflected by the object; it doesn't tell us anything about the object's appearance, and when I talk about the strawberries being red, I'm talking about their appearance.
Quoting Benkei
That's the problematic part. What do you mean by saying that red is "associated" with a certain wavelength? If only that most people would ordinarily see objects that emit/reflect such light as red then I wouldn't disagree. But you seem to be making the stronger claim that if someone doesn't see such objects as red (or if they see objects that emit/reflect light with different wavelengths as red) then there's something wrong with what they see; that the appearance is an error. And that would be an unjustified assertion that doesn't follow from the fact that there is a common relationship between light of a certain wavelength and certain colour appearances.
Quoting Benkei
The difference is that when I say "I see red strawberries" the word "red" is referring to a type of appearance (rather than to a particular type of light), and so its truth just is in the appearance, whereas when I talk about the Sun revolving around the Earth, or about there being an oasis, the sentences intend to refer to some trans-appearance fact-of-the-matter.
(Of course, you might say that the word "red" refers to a type of appearance but also intends to refer to some trans-appearance fact-of-the-matter, suggesting a naive view of perception, but that would be a category error).
So as I said before, given that the "red" in "it appears red" means/refers to something different to the "red" in "it isn't red", that something appears red[sub]1[/sub] but isn't red[sub]2[/sub] gives no a priori reason to suggest that the appearance is an error. Such a conclusion can only stem from equviocation.
Let us suppose we live in a color blind community and we see blue where the non-color blind see red. We are later informed by the outside community that there is this red color we didn't know about and what we've been calling blue often isn't blue, but it's red. I would suggest that as long as the outsiders remain outside our community, we will correctly be calling all such objects blue, despite that they're really not.
So I said. :-}
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
No. Hence my argument, which you seem to evade.
Blew.
Quoting Benkei
Quoting Benkei
Yes, yes, and yes. I agree with this.
Quoting Michael
There's some irony here, because you're doing a similar thing to that which you criticise. One could just reply to you that that only tells us about appearance, and doesn't tell us anything about the object. You criticise others for what you claim is an equivocation, yet, once again, you do a similar thing by equating the meaning of "appearance" and "being". When I talk about being, I talk about being. Surely it would be clearer to distinguish between what something is and how it appears, rather than conflate the two. You are critical of the naive realist, yet I think you make a similar error: looks red, we call it red, so it is red. But it isn't.
Yes.
For example, if we were all wearing glasses which made it appear blue, and we were all ignorant about the fact that it is red (because we never knew in the first place or because of memory loss) other than the scientist. Or maybe even the scientist is not aware of that fact, and is attempting to state a falsehood, but ends up stating a truth.
Or if the object was secured in the same position within a room set up to create an optical illusion in which it appears blue, but it is in fact red like the scientist says, despite the fact that anyone entering the room sees it as blue.
Quoting Hanover
We can call it whatever we like, but it is just an object that looks red.
Quoting Hanover
Correctness is about what it really is or really isn't. Appropriate is what it would be to call all such objects blue within a community in which that is the norm. It'd be appropriate, but nevertheless incorrect.
Again, your criticism only works if the "red" in "it appears red" means/refers to the same thing as the red in "it isn't red". But you haven't provided an account of what this meaning/referent is. If, to use Benkei's suggestion, it means/refers to light with a particular wavelength, then the claim "it appears red" doesn't work, because when I say "I see red strawberries" I'm not saying anything about light of a particular wavelength (either explicitly or implicitly).
Quoting Chief Owl Sapientia
There's no distinction between something appearing tasting when I eat it and that something being tasty, so your continued assertion that appearance and reality are necessarily distinct doesn't work. There can be a distinction, but it isn't a given. In some cases, that thing being X just is that the perception of that thing has quality X.
My claim is that if the "red" in "it is red" means/refers to the same thing as the "red" in "it appears red" then that it is red just is that it appears red. Conversely, if that it is red is not just that it appears red then the "red" in "it is red" doesn't means/refer to the same thing as the "red" in "it appears red", but then there's no prima facie reason to claim that the red appearance is an error, and so to claim that it is would be to equivocate: "if it appears red[sub]1[/sub] but it isn't red[sub]2[/sub] then the appearance is an error" is a non sequitur if the two instances of "red" mean/refer to different things.
Compare that to the following. In a flash you think you see a cat. You look again, it turns out to be a dog. The first appearance was false. You seem to claim there a qualitative difference with colour. I disagree.
Also, you're mistaken when you think no light with wavelengths for the colour red are present in the picture. They are in the gray pixels. When your brain "corrects" for the blue, the gray is interpreted as red. It's still gray though, which you'll see by zooming in. We don't even need instruments to establish the mistake.
Of course, there's a multitude of tricks with colour and light possible. If I have a yellow banana and I put it on a dark blue blanket, the yellow will appear more vibrant. That's partly the contrast but also the juxtaposition of colours. Nothing changed about the banana though and I don't see any basis to assume the yellowness of a banana is context dependent but I see every reason to conclude our eyes and brains are simply not very accurate in establishing colours. Which is why I'll take the spectrometer any day over your subjectivity.
None of what you say there addresses my points.
If the "red" in "it appears red" means/refers to something different to the "red" in "it isn't red" then to claim that the appearance is an error is a non sequitur.
If the "red" in "it appears red" means/refers to the same thing as the "red" in "it isn't red" and if it means/refers to light with a wavelength of ~620–740nm then the claim "it appears red" is suspect (and I'd say false).
If the "red" in "it appears red" means/refers to the same thing as the "red" in "it isn't red" and if it means/refers to a particular qualia then either the claim "it isn't red" means "it doesn't appear red", which makes for the claim "it appears red but isn't red" to be a contradiction, or the claim "it isn't red" is correct insofar as it would be category error to claim that an external object is red.
You seem to be committing the mistake made in my first point. You're equivocating on two different meanings of "red".
Quoting Michael
My criticism works because it doesn't follow from how something looks and what something is called that that's what it is. This is so obvious that it shouldn't have to be demonstrated by example.
When I say that the strawberries appear red, I mean that they appear the colour that strawberries normally appear: red. But they're not red. If there was no difference between appearing red and being red, then they'd be red. But there is, and they're not.
When you say you see red strawberries, you're not saying anything about the strawberries, you're saying something about how they appear, so you shouldn't say that the strawberries are red, you should just say that they appear red.
But you keep making this fallacious equivalence of appearance and reality, and then you make the misleading claim that they are red, even though they are not.
Quoting Michael
The distinction is necessary to speak clearly and truthfully. Your use of language is common but misleading. To get to the truth of the matter, it is better to discuss things more clearly. This is metaphysics, not casual discourse. More precision is required. If you really want to talk about being, then you should make this important distinction. It's fine to say that a Big Mac is tasty in the context of McDonald's, but this discussion is not between two people having a casual chit chat in McDonald's, it is a serious discussion about the metaphysics of perception on a philosophy forum.
And this kind of thing is even more obvious if we go back to Michael's own example about the appearance of Johnny Depp on TV. No matter how you look at the image on the screen, it ain't Johnny Depp. It's an image on a TV screen made of pixels. You can see the pixels more clearly if you look close enough. Does it look like Johnny Depp? Yes. Do we call it Johnny Depp? Yes. Is it Johnny Depp? No. Is Johnny Depp an image on a TV screen made of pixels? No, obviously not. He's a walking talking human being.
The proper distinction between appropriateness and correctness is important in philosophy. It's appropriate in other, more casual contexts to say that you saw Johnny Depp on TV, but strictly speaking that is not correct.
I am trying to be precise. I'm trying to bring to light the fact that the thing referred to by "red" in "it appears red" is a property of appearances only (qualia). It doesn't refer to a certain kind of light, or an object's disposition to reflect light a certain way, or any other perception-independent thing. So if the "red" in "it is/isn't red" also refers to this appearance-property then it must be that appearing red and being red are the same thing, just as being tasty and appearing tasty are the same thing - because tastiness just is a property of taste-perception, and not some sort of property inherit in a particular arrangement of atoms (e.g. the liquorice on the table).
Or if you want to insist that being red and appearing red are different things then it must be that the "red" in "it is/isn't red" refers to something other than what the "red" in "it appears red" refers to (e.g. light of a certain kind), so it would be a non sequitur to claim that the red-appearance is an error.
Yet your conflation of appearance and reality hinders you in that respect, so my advice would be to stop doing that.
Quoting Michael
No, you must be doing something wrong to reach that conclusion. To say that it isn't how it appears makes sense, is true, and doesn't entail that appearing red and being red are the same thing.
Quoting Michael
They are different things, that's not up for debate. Unless whether light and dark, up and down, yes and no, scream and whisper, left and right, and so on, and so forth, are different things, is up for debate.
And it is an error because it isn't how it appears, as we are initially drawn to conclude, as demonstrated by your own example of the picture of strawberries. They appear red, but they're not red, they're grey. When we find out that they're grey, we find out that we were mistaken to think otherwise, unless we didn't think otherwise to begin with.
Quoting Benkei
What he said.
These arguments of yours cannot be sound because they have false conclusions. [I]Reductio ad absurdum[/I]: you must be doing something wrong.
If I understand correctly, it is not the case that there are red pixels in the composition, there are none, and that prompts the claim that there is no red in the picture. However, I understand that there are grey pixels, and the grey pixels are composed of some red. So it is not really the case that there is no red wavelength in the picture, there is, but it is hidden within the grey. When our brains filter out the blue, as you suggest, if this is really what is happening, then the blue within the grey is also being filtered out, and this brings out the red in the grey.
You admit above, that there is grey in the picture. What wavelength do you think the grey is if there is no red in it?
Sorry, I didn't notice any argument, perhaps you could repeat it in a way which I might be able to understand.
I replied: ...
The argument should be obvious: we don't see the atoms and molechules of a coin, so there is nothing to interpret as a coin prior seeing its coloured shape. Therefore, seeing precedes interpretation.
Ok, I see you completely missed the point, so I'll explain it more clearly. You are sensing something, seeing it. You sense it as a round coloured shape, not as a bunch of molecules, or as a bunch of atoms. Since we know that it exists as molecules, and as atoms, then these are real possibilities, alternative ways, for how it could be sensed. But it is not sensed as molecules or atoms, it is sensed as a round coloured shape. Therefore the act of sensing is itself an act of interpreting what is there, bringing out one of the numerous possible ways of representing it.
Grey is like white, it consists of a lot of wavelengths including those for the colour red. And yes my first posts were inaccurate but I clarified in my post about colour and chromacity.
That makes no sense at all. How could the projection of an oval that you see be just an alternative way for how it could be seen? Could you see an oval with corners perhaps? Seems like relativist ideology.
The term, ‘Colour Blind’, for example, surely then serves merely to refer to such an interpretational discrepancy as it exists on the one hand between a numerically dominant group happening to possess a similar relevant neural process and, on the other, a minority group happening to be characterised by differing neural processes – and thus can have no meaning objectively, other than, owing to neuralogical annomalies, perhaps meaning that in practice the sub-group may be characterised by a lack of consistency of interpretation even on an individual basis.
Of course however, regarding elements as they exist intrinsically, say for example the number of molecules that comprise the table laid before us - this as opposed to our perception of its' shape which must in the case of any given observer derive from the sense of perspective produced by the location of the orbits in the scull – these do represent a set of values unrelated to the neural processes of the observer, and so constitute an objective reality.
-The same argument of course applies generally to our perception of all external stimuli.
So what's your answer to the title question?
Instead of sensing the coin as one oval shaped object, it could be sensed as many individual molecules.
I think that you can and should say more, but not more of the same. That would save me the trouble of trying to work out the implications of what you've said. Some of us here think that the depicted strawberries are grey, and some of us here think that the depicted strawberries are red. What colour do you think that they are? And what do you think about what we think? Is the former group right and the latter group wrong, or is the latter group right and the former group wrong, or are both right, or are neither right? If your answer is implicit in what you've said, I think you should make it explicit.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
:-}
Experience is subjective, not interpretation. What could be subjective about the use of public words?
Look, Sherlock, an individual molecule is insufficient for reflecting or emitting light, it lacks electrical charge etc. We'd need a powerful microscope to identify it, because our biological sensing system cannot do it on its own; it does not identify molecules, so it has no individual molecules to interpret as one object. You must be bullshitting.
With a microscope, molecules can be "seen", so they must be reflecting or emitting some light, or electrical charge. Anyway, that's beside the point. Human beings evolved to have eyes which see the whole object, they did not evolve to have senses which are distinguishing individual molecules. So we can assume that this was a good way to interpret the things out there, it is a beneficial interpretation for survival, so we evolved this way. Don't you agree, that this must be a good way to interpret what's out there, as individual objects, so that's why we evolved to sense things in this way? Nevertheless, we can still interpret what's out there as individual molecules. We do this in science
I don't see why you would think I am bullshitting. Clearly there are individual molecules, which could be sensed, but we didn't develop the means to do this. So our eyes interpret things in that particular way.
Prior to seeing something you don't know whether something is present and subject for interpretation. You don't get to sneak in knowledge of its presence and constituents just to say that seeing it as a whole would be an interpretation of, or one of many ways to interpret, its individual constituents.
Furthermore, the individual constituents of a coin are not so individual when they're bound by force into a material compound called metal. The metal has a light-reflecting surface with recognizable properties. So we see a silver oval, because that's what there is for us to see, and which we then can interpret as a coin.
I think it's pretty clear:
" it's all essentially a subjective matter and therefore just an arbitrary question of utility as to how we arrange a consistent agreement regarding our assignment of colour value"
and
"The colour of that light as this is perceived by any given observer results from an interplay between that objective value and the neural network of the particular observer's brain and accordingly is a subjective experience which will vary as the neural network of the particular observer varies."
I want clarification about what this means with regards to truth and being right or wrong. If this were ethics, for example, I wouldn't be sure whether he is a moral relativist, error theorist, or some other position.
Defining 'red' as between this and that wavelength implicitly relies upon what we already call and see red. We just happened to draw a line somewhere based upon the colors we already perceive. We could just as easily say that the strawberries don't look red because they don't have this very particular wavelength of light which we happen to associate with red -- but that misses the point entirely.
When you look at the picture what you see is red. When you pull a pixel out what you see is grey-green. But since the picture is not the pixel it doesn't make much sense to say that the picture is really grey-green.
If what we see is red, then what is it that we see? The picture is not the pixel (singular), but the picture is the pixels (plural), is it not? If so, then if the pixels are grey, the picture is grey. If not, then what is the picture?
But then, I'd say that The Starry Night is not just paint on canvas. The Starry NIght is one particular painting made by one particular artist which regularly hangs in the Museum of Modern Art. It's more appropriate to just look at The Starry Night and describe how you feel and think when looking at it, and add to that various historical facts about The Starry Night and say that this what the painting is than to say it is this particular grouping of pigments on a canvas.
Granted, this image isn't a unique object in the same sense that The Starry Night is, so there may be room for making a distinction. I'm just trying to elucidate how I think about images and why, in general, I'd say they are different than what they are made up of. Our experience and perception of an image is sort of bound up in what said image is, if not entirely.
I don't know about this "surface" you refer to. The coin consists of molecules which consists of atoms. What constitutes this so-called "surface"? And I don't even think it's proper to say that the object reflects light. If I understand the physics correctly, the electrons absorb the light, and reemit it. Electrons exist in some kind of cloud formation, so how cloud there be a surface? Does a cloud have a surface? So unless your speaking metaphorically about this surface, I'm going to turn that charge of bullshit back on you.
I agree, but not to the extent that the strawberries in the picture are red, if that is what you're suggesting, or if that is what you conclude from this. I don't see how the arrangement of the pixels makes anything we've referred to thus far red, whether the pixels, the pixels in a certain arrangement, the strawberries, or the picture. Unless you mean something other than what I mean when I talk about the picture. The strawberries [i]appear[/I] red under certain circumstances, but I don't see how the circumstances would [i]make[/I] the strawberries red. If what I see is red, it seems to me that it must be something else that I see. Perhaps some kind of distinction would be helpful here, like that between what I see and what I perceive: I see grey pixels in a certain arrangement, under certain circumstances, and I perceive them as an image of red strawberries.
What does it mean to say [1] that an image is different from what it is made up of, and [2] that experience and perception are bound up in what an image is made of? Where does that leave the image we see? It makes no sense to me.
That's what I've been trying to explain to you, an image is a representation. Since the image is never exactly the same as the thing represented, it is always an interpretation of the thing represented.
Indeed the spectrometer doesn't see red, it measures wavelengths. I don't see this as a problem. What's the problem that this implicitly relies on what we call red? A standard meter didn't become a standard meter by taking that from somewhere outside ourselves either. We told a meter what it should be (a meridional definition) by convention but the 1870 meter bar was actually 0.02% shorter than that. Then we calculated back from wavelengths to the meridional meter and recently from the speed of light as to what a meter should be. Quite similarly, we told "red" what it should be in terms of wavelength as well (although less accurately). We don't have a problem trusting a ruler over our own sense of distance but somehow colour is an issue for some.
To get back to my example of the banana. The yellow of the banana does not change from one second to the next and I know this when I put it on the dark blue blanket. I will still experience the yellow as more vibrant and bright. Following your line of thinking the banana got more vibrant and bright yellow. But we know nothing about the banana changed.
Here grey is included as part of a picture that causes us to white balance it causing the grey to appear red. Nothing happened to the grey that it all of a sudden became red. It's the surrounding teal that causes us to perceive it as red.
Yep. It seems that some people want to include our perception in the object that we're talking about, but under scrutiny that makes no sense, and that kind of talk is misleading. What makes sense is the distinction between perception and object, and between what it is to appear and to be.
Well, happy someone agrees but it certainly appears to be the minority position!
I'm quite sure I've argued against a similar position myself before, but I just thought about it real hard and ended up here. Funny how things turn out.
1. Why must the perception of an object's colour and the [actual] object's colour be the same? Or, why can't I say the grey in that picture appears red to me? By insisting I cannot say this, are you saying I'm lying?
2. Why shouldn't I incorporate what we scientifically know about "red" into the definition of "red"?
3. Why shouldn't I apply a descriptive definition to "red" to my experience?
4. Is this just a matter of definition/semantics? If I define red as what I experience as red unless it turns out that a spectrometer tells me it isn't because it does not have an emphasis of wavelengths between x and y, then by definition the strawberries aren't red.
5. What is red? (e.g. what's your definition).
Writing down these questions I think we can conclude we all use red with the assumption we have a shared meaning of the word and it's starting to appear that we actually might not.
I would say that objects don't have any color. Color is a property of visual perception, just like smell is a property of olfaction, not the chemical makeup of the odors themselves.
Quoting Benkei
Scientifically speaking, the world is without color or smell, except for creatures who see color and smell odors. Color is a secondary property, not a primary one, qua Locke.
Quoting Benkei
That's fine, as long as it's understood in philosophical discussion that the colors we see are based on how human visual perception works and not the properties of objects or photons themselves.
Quoting Benkei
In ordinary language, which assumes naive realism, strawberries are red. But given a scientific understanding of atoms, photons and how our visual system works, strawberries are not red.
Quoting Benkei
The color we experience seeing for a certain wavelength of light, depending on the exact visual circumstances.
Fair enough. How does the fact that we've imported primary qualities into the definition of secondary qualities affect this distinction? E.g., wavelengths reflected by an object has in a sense been incorporated into this, which is why we are even capable of this discussion. If we had no way of knowing the pixels in dispute are really gray there would be no disagreement here.
I'm not sure how to answer your question other than to point out that these types of discussion ultimately are about the nature of objectivity, with Nagel's view from nowhere, Locke's primary and secondary colors, direct vs indirect realism vs anti-realism, Kant's categories of thought, and so forth.
There was a previous discussion on the old forum (I think) about whether direct realism entailed color realism, and if the scientific evidence was against color realism, then direct realism could not be the case. Needless to say, the direct realists strongly disagreed, leading to charges of anti-realism, and ultimately, a disagreement over terms.
So yes, we do recognize a distinction between wavelengths of light and the color we experience seeing. What that means for perception is disputed. I think it means colors aren't real. It's like the sun rising and setting, which is naive realist language, and still useful to say, but everyone knows it's false in the modern world.
Also, I think this distinction has implications for consciousness and Chalmer's hard problem, because if color is a secondary quality, but science makes use of primary qualities, then explaining the experience of color is going to be a conceptual dead end, as Nagel recognized, which again goes back to questions about the nature of objectivity.
The problem with colour is not as straight forward as measuring with a ruler. The colours which we see are combinations of different wavelengths, and the way that our eyes deal with combinations may not be straight forward mathematics.
Quoting Benkei
"Grey" is not a straight forward wave length, it is a combination of wavelengths. So the issue here is how are we to define a "combination". We might produce a grey colour by combining wavelengths at the very same location. Or, we might produce a grey by having tiny points of different colours side by side. From a close up perspective, the latter could not be called grey, it is points of different colour. But from a distant perspective, that object would be grey. The colour of the object is perspective dependent. From one perspective it is points of different colours, but from another perspective, it is mixed wavelengths.
Perceptual relativity and the problem of perception, eh? How can we objectively say what color something is if it's relative to how we're viewing it, and the kind of visual system we possess?
Some animals see color better than we do, for example.
We can do so in accordance with an objective categorisation of colour. If it is so-and-so, then it is red. You just reject this categorisation, as it seems you must in order to conclude that objects do not have colour and that colour isn't real.
You can do so if anti-realism is fine with you. Also, science "paints" a rather colorless picture. Afterall, where is the color? Is it in the photon? Does that get transferred to the electrical signal travelling to your visual cortex?
If the strawberry tastes sweet, then objectively, it's sweet, right?
I was just about to delete my comment, but then I noticed that you'd replied. I was going to do so because, although that's a way of objectively saying what colour something is, I'm not sure that it meets the other part of your question.
Whether I'm fine with anti-realism depends of how that's defined. I'm a realist in a sense, because by this sort of categorisation, colour can be real, because colour can be categorised as something real, like wavelengths of light. That's real, isn't it? It's about the categorisation and accordance or discordance with it. In light of this, the answers to your questions needn't matter, and can be answered arbitrarily.
Quoting Marchesk
If that's how sweet things are being categorised, then yes. But that might not be the best way of categorising them. One conventional way of categorising colour is by wavelength, but I don't really know of an equivalent way of categorising taste.
Here's an image I created out of two color picked items, one from the teal (what was white-ish) table, and one from a part of a strawberry:
http://imgur.com/a/sumhF
(hopefully that works)
And a bit of a zoom in and stretch out to show a mid-scale version:
http://imgur.com/a/15yRf
Clearly there's no red at the two-pixel level, and you can start to see the red fading in the mid-scale picture. Another way of putting this -- you could take all the pixels of one color and put it on one side, and all the pixels of the other associated color and put it on the other side, and you might see red in the middle, but it would fade out. (wish I had the capability to do that, but I'm not that good)
So, yes, I'm suggesting the image of strawberries in the original picture are red.
Seems to me that this is the same distinction as appearance vs. reality. But I think that this distinction rests on a compositional fallacy. The tiny bits of things are not what a whole is -- what a whole is or what properties it has can have different properties or even be different than what composes said whole.
And we can see this is so because we can look at both the picture and the pixel in isolation.
Point 2 may be a bit poetical, all depending on how we want to hash terms out. I mostly mean that you shouldn't doubt your perceptions of one thing just because your perception of another thing happens to differ, and the other thing happens to make up the one thing.
As for [1]: I'm still moving with the distinction between wholes and parts. That the parts in this case are the pixels (and in the case of the painting the dried oil paint on canvas, or even more broken down if you wish), and the whole is the image, and therefore they can have different properties from one another.
Just seems to beg the question to me when you're proposing it as a means to adjudicate whether something is or isn't within said color category. Seems to me that it goes in the other direction -- first we determine said colors then we assign wavelengths. We can redefine our usage of 'red' at that point, of course -- but I'm telling ya, when I look at that image I see red.
It would be interesting to see what a spectrometer measured of the image, actually -- not sure if there's enough light from a monitor for it to work though.
How do we know that latter bit, there?
Seems to me that it got more vibrant, no?
Right -- grey is part of the picture, as is teal. And the parts are different from the picture, since the picture is a whole. At least, that's how I'd parse it out. So we see the image as red, or perceive the image as red -- and thus, the image is red, just as the pixels are grey and teal. Nothing more to it than that.
Okay, but that doesn't follow from anything you said, except the parts where you said that you see red, by that's false or misleading, since there is no red there to be seen.
Quoting Moliere
I had already considered that objection. There is no compositional fallacy involved. I don't deny that a whole can be different in ways to its parts, and, unlike examples of the fallacy:
[Quote]No atoms are alive. Therefore, nothing made of atoms is alive.
All cells are aquatic. All organisms are composed of cells. Therefore, all organisms are aquatic.
If someone stands up out of their seat at a cricket match, they can see better. Therefore, if everyone stands up, they can all see better.[/quote]
...in [i]this[/I] case, the quality pertains to both parts and whole. The pixels are grey and the strawberries are grey, despite how they look to you under various circumstances. You can zoom in and out or separate this part from that part, but they'll still be grey. Why? Because what you're calling red is actually just how they appear to you, which is different from what they are.
Quoting Moliere
That doesn't demonstrate what you think it does. They're different, but not in terms of what colour they are.
I suppose I would say the way we determine what color quality something has is we look at it -- full stop. I don't think there's a more accurate method, such as designating wavelengths of light, since the designation of the wavelengths depends upon what we perceive in the first place.
By what means would you say the gray quality -- or perhaps we could say "not-red", if we don't get too picky about what we mean by 'quality' ? -- applies to both the parts and the whole? Maybe I'm just dense, but it seems to me that the argument is that since the pixels are gray the image of the strawberries are gray. no?
We do indeed tend to determine what colour something is by looking at it. But there's more to it than that. That's the reason why we tend to fall for optical illusions like the picture of the strawberries. Optical illusions show that this means of determining what colour something is is fallible and sometimes erroneous. That's a much better explanation than that the things themselves change colour. It has more to do with our perception and what we think than the colour of the object.
Quoting Moliere
There is in some cases, such as the case we've been discussing: the picture of the strawberries. Your method says that they're red, but they're not, and my method says that they're some other colour, and they are. Your method either fails to distinguish or erroneously connects how they appear with what they are, and my method doesn't. So my method is more accurate.
Quoting Moliere
That's explained in the articles out there about this: see here.
Quoting Moliere
What if it is? That's not necessarily a fallacy. Either way, there is no red in either the pixels or the picture of the strawberries, so you're still wrong. Your argument can only work if you confuse appearance and reality, but that's not something that I'm willing to do.
These explanations, unless I am missing something in them, more or less amount to "your brain turns this reality into this appearance" -- but that doesn't tell me how they determined the image of the strawberry -- in reality -- is actually grey.
So, in context A the brain makes such and such color stay constant, and here in context B the brain is doing that same thing but we're exploiting it to make these gray-green pixels appear red. Alright. But 'the brain did it' is more or less 'there's a black box between where reality is grey, and after the black box the appearance is red. We know this because of the blue sky is contaminating our perception and our brain corrects for that, and here it's just doing that same thing' -- but so it seems to me, the brain drops out of this story pretty easily. What exactly is the brain doing to the gray reality to make it appear red? "correcting the color to what it should be, were it a natural object outside" seems to be what they're saying. But it's not a natural object outside. It's an image on a computer screen. So it seems to me that the believers in gray are sort of misinterpreting exactly what's before their eyes because of their fascination with brains.
After all -- how do we determine that reality is gray other than just looking at the individual pixel? But if the pixel is not the same thing as the strawberry image, then... we are actually looking at two different things.
And the image of the strawberries appears red. Which is, more or less, how we usually determine the color of something. It's certainly how we assign colors to the electromagnetic spectrum.
Quoting Sapientia
That is exactly a fallacious inference. From the SEP:
While a whole may have the same property as a part, such as a chairs leg being made entirely of wood and a chair being made entirely of wood, it is not that the chair's leg is made entirely of wood which makes the chair made entirely of wood -- but rather, whether or not the chair is made entirely of wood.
So, yes, they can have the same properties. But that one has such and such property does not mean that the other has such and such property -- and so that would be a problem if that's the underlying argument, since it's at least not valid.
You can't infer one from the other. At the very least, if we are to infer one from the other, it'd be nice to know how this inference is safe in this instance. I'm not one for claiming that informal fallacies are devestating to arguments, or anything. They just point at where we might be making a mistake, or at least could clear up what we do precisely mean.
Or, like I said, perhaps I'm just dense and I just don't understand how else this image-argument gets off the ground. I could certainly be painting myself into a corner. But then I'd at least ask how it is you determined the reality is gray.
Eh, I'd say that appearance/reality is a distinction which simply designates inferior/superior with respect to belief. So designating a belief as appearance is kind of the same thing as saying "I don't believe it is real", and designating a belief as reality is kind of the same thing as "I believe it is real" -- or true.
That isn't to say that appearance is reality, note. I certainly don't believe that. But rather I doubt the distinction sets out an ontological truth. (Also, I'd note here that I don't think the topic of perception reveals much about the nature of reality, either -- maybe the nature of perception, but not reality vs. appearance)
What's more, I'd say that what I'm saying is more along the lines of the question "How do we determine such and such?", and so is more geared towards an epistemic approach rather than an ontological approach. Not to be naive and think that we can abandon ontological commitments, but only to say this is the framing I'm attempting -- since we determine the color of some named image, be it strawberry platter or pixel, by looking at it, the rest follows rather easily. It seems to me that if the strawberry images are not red, then there must be some means of determining this in reality, no? What means are those?
I mean, "the brain did it" is all well and good, but if it's doing its thing, then what are we doing to determine the color? Do we just ask the brain? An obtuse question, yes. But I'd say that this is exactly the sort of weird talk you result in when we assign causal power, and almost a kind of pseudo-agency, to our brain.
Anti-realism and realism are well defined and don't need to be redefined, or we end up with endless semantic disputes that go nowhere. Color is real if it's mind-independent, and anti-real if it's not.
Compare with dreams. Some cultures have thought that when you dream, you go somewhere else. That it's an experience of something real. But we understand dreams to be mind-dependent.
Also compare with shape. We say shape is a property of objects, not of perception. Idealists might disagree, but at the very least, color is understood to be objective and not relative to the perceiver.
Your argument exposes that this can't be about simple emergence via compositional interactions. But in talking about a digital pixel display - designed to fool the brain in that precise fashion - then it does start to seem that composition is somehow the right register of thought.
To simplify the story, we should think of the world simply having some wavelength peak of reflectance at some point of the environment. Let's call that X. And then from the get-go, the brain - speaking down at the very front line in the ganglion cells in the retina - are already making a more complex computation. They never see this X. They are already seeking a comparison with other (remembered) values. So X is being compared to Y. Or more generically (that is dichotomously, as in opponent channel processing) X is being compared to not-X.
So the situation is Kantian or semiotic from the neural get-go. We don't see X, the thing in itself. We are already into a response that is the sign representing the psychological "fact" of a contrast. We don't see some pixel scale strength dollop of some particular physical wavelength. We have already crossed the "epistemic cut" and are representing purely some difference that makes a difference - the experience of seeing X in terms of that meaning we are not seeing not-X. That is, we are seeing what we see in terms of an actual contrast with a remembered context or conception. Raw input has already been transformed into pure sign or signal at the first neurological step.
So now we have a story where ordinary visual judgements are made ecologically - we apply everything we know to interpret the scene. And this state of "best fit" conception acts all the way top down to frame our neural responses.
An isolated ganglion cell gets a ton of outside help to make up its mind. The wider brain can see that this is a plate of strawberries in a weird light. It shouts at the ganglion cells, that (using the chat about grey and teal pixels being used here) the grey or low level white actually should be understood as a relative absence of the dominating teal hue and so - by logical implication - a suppressed presence of redness.
The point again is that the brain never sees anything real directly. The world just doesn't have that kind of contextuality in which wavelength peak X is meaningfully an absence of every other wavelength possibility. That comparison - the one that turns a meaningless variation into a difference that makes a difference - depends entirely on the existence of the further thing of a memory-based comparison, a response by an observer who says that the facts have to be either a "this" or a "that". Either the world is X or not-X in terms of our private modelled realm of signs.
So what I am arguing against is any kind of colour realism. And talk of higher level emergence from the collective interactions of composite parts is still going to create the question of what colour are the pixels really.
Instead it is comparisons (counterfactual constraint or forced symmetry breakings) all the way down. Even grey is about the comparative absence and presence of "black" and "white".
This extends to talk about qualia. When we talk about the redness of red, we are repeating what is happening down at ground level on a grand scale. We are stripping away the levels and levels of conception or context that give the "computations" of the brain/mind their ecological validity. We are just saying pay attention to what it feels like to be "seeing red". And that strips away from qualia talk the backdrop truth that what is really going on is that we are (just as much) seeing a mental state of not-green (which more complexly is itself either a dominating presence of red wavelength light, or - another way to see not-green - a relative absence of blue-yellow channel activity).
I don't think it must be so, only that it seems we are deviating from what we normally do in this particular case if we are saying the strawberry image is, in reality, grey.
Because there is no scientific knowledge of 'red' -- there is a loosely designated region of the electromagnetic spectrum assigned 'red' on the same basis that everything is assigned 'red', by its appearance.
I'm not sure I understand this question.
I don't think it's just definitions and semantics. If you stipulate a definition then of course we can all respect that definition within some conversation.
But it would just be a stipulated definition based on what red looks like.
Also, it would be interesting to see what the spectrometer actually did say. If that's how you're using "red", then we would at least have to use one in order to actually determine whether the image is red.
It's a color. The red one ;). It looks like this:
Though that is not an exhaustive set of examples.
I sort of suspected that Kant might come up, given the Kant-esque nature of cog-sci.
I'm not sure exactly how Kant would carry over to the discussion of perception, though. It's not something he really discusses. Or even to what extent, either. Like, color could be a product of the brain, right? But that doesn't necessarily mean there are color-concepts of the mind which impose themselves on intuition. It could be a part of intuition, but even more than that, if it's just 'in the brain', as you note, it wouldn't really be all that Kantian. Colors would just be accidents, and I'd infer that they actually do look different for each of us, in the same way that we have different behaviors which result from various brain functions (behaviors which are products of judgment, at least -- not heart beats and such).
There is definitely a lot of relevance here for the question of qualia, I agree. A lot of my hesitancy is probably based on that. It seems to me that the frame is this weird notional information-centric ontology -- notional because it's not fleshed out, at least from what I can tell (in general, not you in particular -- I may have trouble following you sometimes, but you do at least seem to be consistent ;) ). And that said beliefs about mental processes and a presumed sort of faith in emergence are what give these sorts of inferences from this image their persuasive "umph". And I'd say that these beliefs are fairly acceptable, but I don't believe them myself.
For myself, I think I'm drawn to what you call here:
Quoting apokrisis
"stripping away the backdrop truth" -- because I'm rather uncertain that the backdrop truth is, well, actually true given its Kantian backdrop. It seems to me that a Kanti-esque approach to these phenomena provides a frame of interpretation that is interesting, but will likely suffer from similar problems that Kant's philosophy does. One such problem would be the over-emphasis on the power of judgment with respect to experience, as is revealed by such language as 'the brain talks to the ganglion' -- it's very similar to 'the faculty of the understanding connects to a schemata which brings the concepts into intuition'. In a way it makes sense, but then it also seems like you're cutting yourself off from the very thing which you had previously known in order to explain how it is you know it.
Hrm hrm hrm. Kind of just rambling here at this point. Still thinking it over.
I think the confusion arises from asking types of questions like "what colour is the strawberry really", "what colour is the strawberry independent of mind".
The confusion arises from thinking of the strawberries colour as something existing outside of human perception.
The strawberry appears different to the viewer under different conditions. The scientist measures the same length of light coming from the strawberry under these various conditions. Does this present a problem? Do these NEED to be reconciled? Only if you think the way the strawberry appears to you is directly related to the wavelength of light (as measured by the scientist) the strawberry emits.
My view is these are two different domains, one is phenomenological, the other scientific. The problem only arises when trying to reconcile the two under a single domain. Perhaps they're just separate, and need no attempt to reconcile the apparent contradiction (the strawberry appears different even though the scientist measures the same wavelength).
People seem to have the view that red objects are those that emit x wavelength of light. But this seems to conflate the scientific domain (of measuring wavelength) with the phenomenological domain of how things appear in our visual fields. Probably part of the confusion arises from the word "red" meaning different things under the two domains and yet are used as if they're interchangeable.
Sure, but what colour is grey? In primary school art class we could make greys and browns by mixing all sorts of colours. Grey might be defined as black (whatever colour that is) mixed with white (which is every colour), but "grey" is a very ambiguous colour. So the grey in the picture, no doubt, has red in it.
Now, put a wash of blue on the grey, and surroundings. The blue is lost in the grey, and that's what you see when you zoom in close up to the grey. You see grey. When you zoom out, the blue in the surrounding area creates a contrast with the grey, bringing out the red which is in the grey. The point being, that mixed colours, such as grey, look different under different conditions,
Kant is a familiar reference point. But my argument is more properly Peircean or biosemiotic.
Quoting Moliere
Of course we can't compare our experiences to know that your red is my red. in that final analysis, there is a brute lack of counterfactuality that thus winds up in an explanatory gap. But quite a lot of telling comparisons can be made on the way to that ultimate impasse. So for instance everyone sees yellow as the brightest hue, and also doesn't see brown as the blackish yellow it really is. And that phenomenological commonality is explained in complete fashion by the known (rather jury-built) neurological detail of the visual pathways.
So in the end, our yellows might indeed be different as experiences. Yet we can track the story right down towards this final question mark and find that similar neuroscience is creating similar mental outcomes. Thus we are not getting a strong reason for the kind of doubt - the talk of the purely accidental - that you might want to introduce to motivate a philosophy of mind argument.
Quoting Moliere
I'm trying to be quite clear that talk of emergence is very much reductionist handwaving most of the time. It is taking the idea of physical phase transitions - the idea of properties like liquidity emerging as a collective behaviour at some critical energy scale - and treating consciousness as just another material change of that kind.
But I am arguing the exact opposite. I am saying there is a genuine "duality" in play. The brain is a semiotic organ and so it is all about a modelling relation based on the play of "unphysical" signs. So material physics isn't even seeing what is going on. No amount of such physics could ever produce anything like what the brain actually does by just adding more of the same and relying on some kind of collective magic.
Of course physics does self organise and that kind of emergence is a really important correction to physicalist ontology. But semiosis is yet another story on top of that again.
Quoting Moliere
Ah well. Forget any mention of Kant then. This is Peirce so "truth" is pragmatic. We have already shifted from requiring that the world be represented in some veridical fashion. We are now viewing cognition in the way modern neuroscience would recognise - modelling that is ecologically situated, coding which is sparse, perception that is only interested in the degree to which uncertainty can be pragmatically minimised.
Why does the eye only have three "colour" pigments when evolution could have given us as many as we liked? Less is more if you already have in mind the few critical things you need to be watching out for.
Quoting Moliere
Neuroscience has a ton of more technical jargon. But it is a basic fact of neural design that every neuron has hundreds of times more connections feeding down from on high than it has inputs coming up from "the real world". So just looking at that anatomy tells you that your prevailing state of intention, expectation and memory has the upper hand in determining what you wind up thinking you are seeing.
If you know pretty much exactly what should happen in the next instant, you can pretty much ignore everything as it does happen a split second later. And thus you also become exquisitely attuned to any failures of the said state of prediction. You know what requires attentive effort in the next split second - the hasty reorientation of your conceptions that then, with luck, allow you to ignore completely what does happen after that as you have managed now to predict it was going to be the case.
So yes. This doesn't tally with the usual notions of how the mind should work. But that is because the phenomenology as we focus on it is naturally about all our constant failures to get predictions right. It seems that the homuncular "I" is always chasing the elusive truth of an ever surprising reality. However that introspective view by definition is only seeing things that way because there is such a bulk of events successfully discounted in every passing instant.
For example, in the second that just passed, I was effectively, subconsciously, predicting that Donald Trump was not about to barge into my room, an asteroid was not about to plough into the park outside my window, my foot wasn't about to explode in a shower of fireworks. So that is what brains do - allow us to discount a near infinite ensemble of possibilities as that which is almost infinitely unlikely.
In your terminology, that seems a hell of a lot of judgement in relation to a tiny fraction of experience. It is just that we don't really give much weight to how much we both routinely predict successfully, and also discount unthinkingly as too crazy to even consider (although we can pull them out conceptually at any time as I just did).
So again, that is why I stress this extra constraint of ecological validity. Philosophy of mind does have a habit of stripping it away as it searches atomistically for a foundation of qualia. Yet it is the pragmatic relation that a mind has with the world that is central to accounting for the mind causally.
Interesting. I can see how much of our awareness is all about what doesn't work, like Heidegger's broken tool analogy. We are most aware of that which did not go as planned. That which does go as planned is ignored immediately or soon after. I do not spend time thinking about what it was like to press the letter "a" key on my keyboard, but I do spend more time thinking WHEN i REALIZE i ACCIDENTALLY PRESSED THE CAPS LOCK KEY.
Yet I find it hard to believe that you were actually subconsciously predicting all these insane possibilities as you mentioned. That would require a hell of a lot of energy, would it not? What use would it be for the subconscious to go through all these possibilities - and how do you know your subconscious is, in fact, running through them? It's subconscious!
My point was the opposite. These were all things I could be consciously conjuring up, but then in fact I am effortless ignoring. Just being aware at a general background level of "being in my familiar room" is enough to suppress a vast amount of craziness.
In dreams, of course, we aren't plugged into a real setting and so the imagination does run riot in just that way. The lack of an ecological or situated state of mind means there is no organised state of constraint to suppress the perceptual invention.
Again, this goes back to the top down logic of systems, where the way things work is by the creating of states of constraint that narrow and shape degrees of freedom. So at any moment, it is possible I could be imagining anything. But the more I'm plugged into some actual place with its affordances and the kinds of things natural to the situation, the more constrained my state of mind will be.
So the contrast is with the input/output model of a computer where a vision of the world is thought to be constructed in jigsaw like fashion by the elaborate gluing together of a multitude of sensory data points. The view gets constructed by figuring out the details from the bottom up.
Instead now I start with a head full of every kind of possibility and start to limit that in a top down fashion so it is reasonably predictive of what is likely to happen next in terms of some flow of sensory elements. I generate the idea of the room from memory and so pretty instantly will notice anything that sharply deviates from my forward model of it.
The disconnect is the other way around. We still think we see red even though there is now no actual "red" wavelength light being emitted.
So the brain corrects for the missing light by being able to imagine perceptually what the same scene would look like under ordinary light.
But the upshot is the same. The point is that the world has no colour anymore than a chemical has a taste or an air vibration has a noise. So if we are understanding the world in terms of neurally constructed qualia, then what kind of thing are they really?
My answer is we have to think of them as signs or symbols. Colours, noises, tastes and other qualia are encodings of physical energies.
Now most people don't take that as much of an answer. But it is not as if the physical energies are much less mysterious once we start to delve scientifically into the reality of material being. We soon discover that we haven't really shaken off our qualitative impressions of the world when we try to imagine light as little wriggly lines of something.
So the same applies to the mental side of the equation. Scientifically, a generalised theory of signs - that is, semiotics - is going to have to be the best way of making sense of phenomenal experience.
It says that this is because it consists of grey pixels. There is no specific wavelength on the spectrum for grey, but something is grey when all wavelengths are absorbed at roughly the same percentage.
Quoting Moliere
No, the brain doesn't drop out of the explanation. And it doesn't need to be a natural object outside, so that criticism is based on a false premise that was never part of my argument. And I'm not the one misinterpreting the grey strawberries as red, that's what you're doing. That's the common misinterpretation that is shown to be erroneous, and to which you're clinging, despite the scientific evidence to the contrary.
Quoting Moliere
With science. What you describe above determines appearance. You can conflate that with something else, but that would be erroneous/misleading.
Quoting Moliere
Of course they're two different things, and that is utterly irrelevant. The strawberry image is not a single pixel, it is a whole bunch of pixels. Point out as many differences as you like, but, as I have argued, colour is not one of them.
Quoting Moliere
I've already addressed those first two sentences. They are irrelevant, since they don't support your conclusion. I accept both of them, yet reach a different conclusion.
And I doubt your last sentence. What do you mean by that? That's about wavelengths, language, and categorisation. A colour blind person could understand it enough to determine colours if he had the right tools to determine wavelengths. What's missing would be the kind of colour perception - the "what it's like" - that we have. But that's not objective: it is not a part of the object.
Quoting Moliere
The fallacy of composition is an informal fallacy, so whether or not something counts as this fallacy is not strictly about form, but relates to the content, and there is more room for disagreement. If you see here, for example, it states that it is not always fallacious, but we must be cautious in making inferences of this form. There are clear examples, and possible examples which are not so clear and may be contested, or even widely rejected as valid examples of this fallacy.
[Quote]Not all arguments of this form are fallacious, however. Whether or not they are depends on what property is involved. Some properties, such as lasting less than an hour, may be possessed by every part of something but not by the thing itself. Others, such as being bigger than a bus, must be possessed by the whole if possessed by each part.
One case where it is difficult to decide whether the fallacy of composition is committed concerns the cosmological argument for the existence of God. This argument takes the contingency of the universe (i.e. the alleged fact that the universe might not have come into being) as implying the existence of a God who brought it into being. The simplest way to argue for the contingency of the universe is to argue from the contingency of each of its parts, as follows:
(1) Everything in the universe is contingent (i.e. could possibly have failed to exist).
Therefore:
(2) The universe as a whole is contingent (i.e. could possibly have failed to exist.
It is clear that this argument has the form of the fallacy of composition; what is less clear is whether it really is fallacious. Must something composed of contingent parts itself be contingent? Or might it be that the universe is necessarily existent even though each of its parts is not?
Another controversial example concerns materialistic explanations of consciousness. Is consciousness just electrical activity in the brain, as mind-brain identity theory suggests, or something more? Opponents of mind-brain identity theory sometimes argue as follows:
(1) The brain is composed of unconscious neurons.
Therefore:
(2) The brain itself is not conscious.
It is certainly difficult to see how consciousness can emerge from purely material processes, but the mere fact that each part of the brain is unconscious does not entail that the whole brain is the same.[/quote]
And the very thing that we're discussing here - that, for example, it is acceptable to conclude that a chair is green if all constituent parts of the chair are green - has been argued by philosophers like Nelson Goodman, who called such features "expansive" features, and Frans van Eemeren, who argues that these features are limited only to features that are absolute and structure-independent.
Quoting Moliere
I know that! I'm not making that fallacy! That's either a straw man or a red herring. If [i]all[/I] of the parts are made of wood, then the chair is made of wood. Do you disagree?
Quoting Moliere
It doesn't necessarily mean that. I knew that already. You're preaching to the choir and missing the point.
Quoting Moliere
That's good to know. I think I've already explained this to some extent, and that the extent to which I can explain it is limited, so I think that it's mainly down to you to explain how what I've said is allegedly false or fallacious.
I've acknowledged a number of the differences that you've pointed out, but not in terms of colour, except insofar as appearance is concerned. None of these differences are relevant with regards to the colour of the strawberries, as far as I can tell.
There is a shared property between the parts and the whole, and the whole has the same property because the whole is an arrangement of the parts, and nothing about that arrangement effects the property such that it no longer applies. That last part is not true of uncontroversial examples of the fallacy of composition, but it is true in this case. Although if you're confused about appearance and reality, you might think otherwise.
Quoting Moliere
Okay. But if we're saying that wavelengths or whatever are real - which is the assumption that I'm working under, and which will be agreeable to many - and if we're talking about colour in terms of wavelength or some related scientific description, then it makes sense to say that what we're talking about in such cases is reality. And similarly, with regards to any appearance which seemingly conflicts with this reality, if we're categorising that in contrary terms, then it'd make sense to say that this is not real. Furthermore, if we're attributing properties, and we accept the aforementioned, then we should do so accordingly in the right way, by attributing appearance to the subjective and property to the objective, rather than attributing appearance to the objective, as some people in this discussion seem to be doing by making certain kinds of statements which lack clarity and precision.
Quoting Moliere
Okay, I don't have a problem with that epistemic approach, but it does seem naive to end up with that common means of determination which has been demonstrated to be erroneous in at least some cases, as with the strawberries.
I think I've answered those questions in other parts of this reply, so I refer you back to those parts.
Quoting Moliere
We become conscious of certain things as a result of our respective brains. We see the grey strawberries as red, and, typically, our initial reaction is to think that they are in fact red. I don't think we need to get caught up in the so-called hard problem here, if that's what you're getting at.
Cool.
Quoting apokrisis
Hrmm, not purely accidental I wouldn't think, but accidental. Some people's judgments happen to align, after all -- one could think there is regularity to be found based on some grouping. But as judgments differ from various persons as we can observe by means of the behaviors which are the results of judgment, and color is an experience of judgment, it wouldn't be a function of mere doubting but rather a fair inference from our explanatory frame that we do, in fact, see different colors. If what we are saying is true about color, then there is no explanatory gap -- it is the most sensible thing to believe. (though it does bugger the more functionalist notion of the brain which seems predominant -- at least on its face)
There's another reason why similar neuroscience could be creating similar mental outcomes -- the other flaw of Kant's philosophy, which whether we are Kantian or not these sorts of arguments do seem to follow this form of argumentation, is the transcendental argument.
So we have a gray image with a particular teal chosen to make the gray strawberries red. This is after having asked what are the possible conditions of experience -- the experience being this notion of color constancy. The brain adding colors to appear constant is the necessary conditions for colors remaining constant, or in this case, not doing so. We see that colors are constant(generally) and modified(when exploited) in experience, therefore this precondition is necessary.
But we can come up with other possible pre-conditions which explain the pheneomena. As a for instance, we might say that it is not the brain which judges and adds colors to experience, but the mind which does so. We know this to be so because we actually do see the same colors -- at least the same hues (as you note, yellow is the brightest hue for all of us). This explains the seeming regularity of experience better than reference to an embodied organ which differs from person to person. This organ, like the heart and the lungs and the skin, is certainly necessary for mental activity. Modifying it modifies mental activity. But it is not the best explanation for experience (one way of parsing the transcendental argument is that it's kind of the pre-cursor or model to abduction, hence my use of the term 'best explanation')
However, if we all agree to the same pre-conditions, then all the phenomena start becoming support for the pre-condition -- when, in fact, the pre-condition was meant to explain the phenomena. So this would be another reason why similar neuroscience could be creating similar mental outcomes -- mere agreement on the proper pre-conditions for such and such phenomena.
Quoting apokrisis
OK, cool. We are definitely in agreement here. Though my doubts in emergence were more produced by seeing how arguments for emergence fall to all the same arguments against dualism (in particular the argument about how these two planes interact -- emergence is very hand-wavey on this front, moreso than even the early pituitary-gland positing dualists ;)). And since most emergentists were anti-dualists, it just seemed an inconsistent position since emergence is mostly motivated by trying to find a non-dualist solution to the mind-body problem.
Quoting apokrisis
Cool. Though I'm not sure that K's theory of truth was at issue here as much as his theory of cognition which seems to be in play.
Seems to me this is difficult to explain along evolutionary lines, at least immediately, because the way our species happens to see differs from the way other successful species happen to see. Also, while vision has evolutionary advantages for a land-dwelling species in an environment flooded with light -- or I can see how that makes sense at least - that doesn't mean that the three-color vision we experience is evolutionarily related. It could have been a bi-color, for all we can tell, and the tri-color vision just came along for the ride, or was sexually selected for, or was a random mutation and a seismic event wiped out those with bi-color vision.
It's all rather speculative, no?
Quoting apokrisis
I don't think I'd object to much here. We certainly can be oriented by judgment, and sure, this way of talking is a simplification. I'm not really interested in defending homuncularity or mere introspection or finding an atomistic basis for the mind. And I wouldn't discount judgment, I'd just note that our experiences are structured by more than judgment. Or, even more than this, that judgment is a learned habit taught by our environment -- which is predominantly social. Is it any wonder that an Enlightenment era philosopher interested in explaining the presence of scientific knowledge in light of an abstract philosophical puzzle, when describing the mind, put judgment as the focal point for said mind? Not at all.
Judgment is useful in non-social environments too, to be sure. Learning how to judge, and further how to make adjustments to said judgment, can reap many rewards. But I'd say that the structure of experience, as much as judgment plays a part in our behavior and functions, differs from this.
Then, as I argued in the discussion I created on whether truth is mind-dependent, I'll argue that colour, as I have defined it, is not mind-dependent, but more like rule-dependent. Rules depend on mind for creation, and for being comprehended, but not for persistence and not for application, so in the latter sense, they're mind-independent. Categories are related to rules, may be rule-based, and seem similar enough for my argument there to work here as well.
So, given the above, I'm a realist.
Quoting Marchesk
Sure, dreams are mind-dependent. Dreams are real, the experiences are real, the contents are not. I really did have a dream last night, in which I experienced all kinds of things, but what I dreamed was not real. I didn't really fly around like a superhero.
Quoting Marchesk
Again, that's fine with me. But that doesn't mean that they're right (or wrong). To make that assessment, you'd have to start by analysing what they mean.
We are, but that's the point. It emphasises the fallibility in what we normally do.
I think that one key to understanding the view that red objects are those that emit x wavelength of light, and the reason why it is not a conflation in the way you say that it seems, is that, as you yourself say, it is a view about what red objects are (rather than how things appear). One simple distinction, and the superficial problem seems to vanish. That such talk is about what red objects [i]are[/I] should give you a clue about what is meant by "red". Would a charitable interpretation assume some kind of naive realism whereby these two domains are confused? On the contrary, that's what is being argued against.
I really don't think that the brain is "adding colors". I think that's a mistake, thinking that the brain is adding red. I believe the red is there, as part of the mixture within the grey. I would say that the brain "subtracts" or otherwise tries to account for the teal, because it appears like there is a lens of teal between the eyes and the strawberries. So the teal is subtracted from the grey, and we can see the red within the grey.
What have semiotic theories achieved so far in that respect?
What does it mean, exactly, when you say you start with a head full of every kind of possibility? Do you mean to say that literally every sort of possibility is "implanted" in our heads, or do you mean that the brain merely has the capability to conjure up endless possibilities? As in, the power to actualize these events already makes these events "existent" in some sense?
If we look at the brain, we see it is limited in many respects. It has a certain size, a certain organization, a certain amount of processing power and capabilities. I cannot imagine ten thousand stars, all I can imagine is a very large amount of stars of indeterminate quantity. There legitimately is a limit to how much I can do.
How would something like you're describing evolve in the natural world? From where would the mind come from? From my perspective, a bottom-up view, while perhaps not being entirely sufficient, has leverage here. Consciousness evolves from lesser awareness to more, all in the name of efficiency. You said "less is more", but in my opinion it should be "more is more" so long as efficiency and adaptability are maintained within some set threshold.
So by your dualistic reasoning, every congenitally blind person ought to report imagining colours, every congenitally deaf person would still imagine noises, every teetotaller would still know the feeling of drunkenness, etc. After alll, something may be missing in terms of inputs to drive brain activity but we all partake in the one mind substance, right?
Quoting Moliere
Well the usual speculative evolutionary story goes that mammals generallly did go bicolour or dichromatic and red-green colour blind because they were night creatures during the dinosaur era. Then primates added a pigment to allow for sharp red-green discrimination. And a reasonable reason for that was so they could spot ripe fruit in dense foliage. Which would happen to be a good example of evolving a sign detector to read the signs being made by other parts of nature.
Quoting Moliere
So what does your "judgement" entail as a neurological concept? It does seem to imply a hard dualism of observer and observables. It does give primacy to acts of attentive deliberation where I am pointing out how much is being done automatically and habitually, leaving attention and puzzlement as little to do as is possible. So talk of judgement puts the emphasis in all the wrong places from my anticipatory modelling point of view. Just the fact that judgements follow the acts strikes another bum note if the impressions of present have already been generally conceived in the moment just prior.
I hesitate to give the usual answer, but since you insist, I mean vague possibility. So a state of informational symmetry that could be broken a countable vast number of ways.
Possibility doesn't have to be an ensemble of distinct states like marked balls in a bag. Instead it can be a state or relatively unformed indistinctness out of which distinct possibilities are forced into counterfactual definiteness as the hand reaches in to grasp for some thing.
Quoting darthbarracuda
But I'm not the one trying to impose a monotonic dynamic on the discussion. I am simply trying to correct for that tendency to privilege bottom up construction in telling the story of nature. So I have no problem that there is both construction and constraint, each being fully expressed. That is in fact what full blooded holism demands.
And note how you make consciousness synonymous with in the moment attention. My definition of being mindful extends to include habitual level awareness. So that is the diachronic view of the holist. Memory, or the whole weight of a life of experience, is "doing" the "being conscious". We grow a close modelling fit for the world and so in the moment, only tiny tweaks need to be made to tat running state of mind. Again this is in complete contrast to computational thinking where every moment is a new state of information to be data processed so that it generates some mental representation.
So when I say less is more, I mean the fewer tweaks needed, the better the running model. The less attention needs to fix, the more powerful it becomes as it is being now very narrowly devoted to whatever turns out to be the remaining focus of uncertainty.
This actually shows up physically in comparative neurology. Chimps are smart, but we are smarter. So who do you think devotes more primary visual cortex to the tiny central focus of vision? It is because we are better at predicting the contents of our peripheral vision that we can justify devoting more neural resource to whatever needs to be the centre of our attention. Tunnel vision becomes wired in because we are more successful at ignoring the world in general.
But semiotics - to boil it down - takes the opposite metaphysical position of basing everything on a presumption of fundamental instability (what folk used to call the edge of chaos, or criticality).
So top down regulative constraints work because the underlying material reality is exactly on the point between breaking down and reforming. It is poised in a condition of maximum instability. Which is how a little nudge, an infinitesimal push, can tip the physics one way or the other.
That explains how mental states - as systems of signs, habits of interpretance - can interact in ways that pragmatically connect with the goings on of the material world. The world is poised at its tipping point, not stuck in some undynamic rut from which it would be impossible to budge.
So that regulation of material instability is what semiotic theory can explain. That is its metaphysical paradigm in a nutshell.
In neuroscience, computationalism still dominates. Folk know neuron spikes are some kind of code. But generally, they don't then have a clear way of relating that to a coherent model as they are still thinking that the activity must be computational and so based on some ground of "hardware" stability.
Even in biology, the full force of a semiotic shift in thought is only just beginning. It is only in the last decade that biophysics has had the tools to actually view cellular processes at the level of the nanoscale molecular machinery.
Life is matter poised on the point of falling apart and yet nudged to keep going, continually reforming, by a (genetic) system of signs. Thus the organic can be defined in contrast to the mechanical in terms of this foundational thought - semiosis is the regulation of fundamental instability.
I think we're miscommunicating a bit here. To be fair, your argument was a google search. What I mean by 'drops out of the explanation' is that all that is said is we have reality on one side, and appearance on the other, and two claims about both. When asked how reality becomes appearance, the answer is 'the brain did it, just like it does with other objects to keep the color constant under different light conditions' where the main example was a blue sky.
My question is -- what does the brain do to reality to make the appearance? But the answer is "it makes the appearance appear like the appearance appears, different from reality" -- which just masks the mechanism I'm asking after.
I'm grouping these just as a side note, because it will take us pretty far astray.
A basic view of science:
Science is little more than a collection of arguments about certain topics. There are established procedures in place for certain sorts of questions, there are established beliefs due to said process, but in the end it's a collection of arguments about certain topics on what is true with respect to those topics.
At least, as I see it. We don't science it -- we make an argument. An argument, in this context, can of course include experimental evidence. But said evidence must, itself, be interpreted to make sense.
So really I'm just asking after the arguments in play. What does the scientist say to make his case convincing to yourself? What convinced you?
Quoting Sapientia
I think this is addressed later in your posts.
Quoting Sapientia
I mean that when Newton placed prisms to diffract light from the sun into a spectrum that the red part of the spectrum which came out of the prism was called 'red' not because it was had a larger wavelength and such was proven, but rather because the light was red.
Quoting Sapientia
No, that makes sense to me.
Though if all the parts are made of wood, and some parts are painted green while others are painted yellow, then it wouldn't make sense to say that the chair is green. :D
In fact, what if the chair had a sticky reprint of the pixel-image we're discussing? Just to make it closer. Then, what color would the chair be?
Quoting Sapientia
I'm thinking this is probably where we diverge the most, then. We seem to be in agreement on both the fallacy of composition and whether or not it has merit depends on the circumstances. If, in fact, the image is gray and appears red then certainly I am wrong.
So really it seems we're more in disagreement on determining which color is the real color, and which color is the apparent color.
Quoting Sapientia
Cool. This is much closer to what I'm asking after.
I think this condition: " if we're talking about colour in terms of wavelength or some related scientific description,"
is likely the culprit of disagreement. Electromagnetic waves are real, as far as anything in science goes. But photons, nor atoms, have any color whatsoever. This is not an attribute of the individual parts of what we are saying causes the perception of color. Certain (regular, obviously, as you note about gray not being a regular wave) wavelengths of light correspond with our color-perceptions. But the color is not the electromagnetic radiation.
Color is -- to use your terminology -- subjective. I'd prefer to call it a first-person attribute not attributable to our physics of light, which is a third-person description of the phenomena of light rather than objective/subjective, myself.
Quoting Sapientia
Cool. Then I think we're more or less on the same page in terms of the terms, at least :D
Whether such and such a demonstration is erroneous seems to be the major point of disagreement.
Responding to this in reverse order because I think the latter point is more important:
I don't think we need to get caught up in the hard problem either. I wasn't really trying to go there, but it does seem related to the topic at hand. But it seems like we've managed to pair down our disagreement to one of "how to determine such and such", so there's no need to get into it.
Quoting Sapientia
Honestly, while brains are certainly a part of the picture of human consciousness -- I wouldn't dispute this -- we just don't know how we become conscious. Either there is no such thing in the first place, in which case there is nothing to explain, or if there is such a thing then we don't know how or why it's there.
Quoting Sapientia
I think this is covered at this point. Let me know if you disagree.
I believe that the strawberry-image in the picture is red. But what that says about this or that theory of color or perception, I'm less committed on. I really don't know what I believe there -- I'm just following the arguments where they go.
Not necessarily. Cognition of mental phenomena could depend upon physical inputs, after all -- and then, also, just because there is a single-mind that does not then mean that we are all one. The identity of a person -- from their physical body up -- is constructed out of the raw stuffs of the world. One mind-world -- multiple people within the mind-world.
Brains are salient to individual identities in such a world, so it's not entirely off base to be looking at brains -- that would be one part of the physical-world, after all -- it's just not the whole picture, in accordance with this line of reasoning.
Quoting apokrisis
Hrrmm, I wouldn't disagree with much of judgment being on "auto-pilot", actually. One can consciously judge, of course, but judgment is just the application of concepts to particulars, or the powers of the mind. That doesn't mean it has to be something I consciously do. It just means that the mind is a disciminating-machine, marking differences on the basis of concepts. Actually, your description of visual perception is pretty much what I mean by judgment -- the ganglion, to use the brain-theory of the mind, is judging the light coming in, and is already discriminating from the beginning.
I can see how such language could be confusing. I'd say that while we can pause to consciously consider and judge our mental processes, that the majority of the time they are beyond awareness and not thought too much about -- so, while I'm doing my thing, or focusing on this or that, my mind is judging, i.e., discriminating between particulars, making distinctions (or recalling distinctions learned, also often subconsciously, to further judge/discriminate between particulars and make sense out of what is just too much to take in total while still making sense)
On this front I don't think we have much to disagree on, to tell the truth.
But this is just being inconsistent - choosing dualism or some ill defined brain functionalism depending on which front you are currently mounting a defence.
The logic remains - if dualism is true and qualia are not brain dependent, then the blind should have at least imaginative access to those qualia, despite eyes that have never functioned in a way that would produce the right neural circuits. And you shouldn't be able to zap the V4 colour centre of the brain and produce then a loss of colour qualia as a consequence.
Quoting Moliere
It'd be less confusing to say we prejudge on the whole. And still less confusing to say we positively predict. Conceptions are schemata, to make use of the good old fashioned cogsci borrowing from Kant. We have mental templates to which the world is already generally assimilated. Post hoc judgement is reserved then for where the schema prove to need tailoring.
Quoting Moliere
The way you phrase this again says you find it natural to think about the mind as representational - the cogsci paradigm which is being replaced by the enactive or ecological turn in psychology (or return, if we are talking gestalt dynamics and even the founding psychophysicists).
And that is my point about the paradigm shift represented by semiotics. Representationalism presumes that a stable reality can be stability pictured and so stabily experienced - begging a whole lot of questions about what could ever be the point of there being the observer essentially doing nothing but sitting and staring at a flickering parade of qualia painted like shadows on the cave wall.
But give that observer a job I say. Observation - defined in the general fashion of semiosis - is all about stabilising the critically unstable. So minds exist to give determination to the inherent uncertainty of the material world. If matter is a lump of clay, minds are there to shape it for some purpose.
And uncomfortable though it may seem, the science of quantum theory says observers are needed to "collapse" the inherent uncertainty of material nature all the way down. Existence is pan-semiotic.
Somehow we now have to honour that empirical fact in a way that makes Metaphysical sense. Most folk agree we can't claim that "consciousness" solved the quantum observer problem. But quantum foundationalism does think that some notion of information, contextualism and counterfactuality will do so - which is another way of talking about semiotics.
So I'm talking about a sweeping paradigm shift. The systems view is about how existence has to founded on the primal dynamism of material uncertainty becoming regulated by the sedimentation of informational constraints.
Heraclitus summed up the understanding already present in Greek metaphysics - existence is flux and logos in interaction.
And the mathematical exploration of what that could mean is still being cashed out, as with the return of bootstrap metaphysics in fundamental theory - https://www.quantamagazine.org/20170223-bootstrap-geometry-theory-space/
I'm not so sure about that. What about other creatures? Non-controversial examples of other creatures which have vision and demonstrate intelligent behavior I mean. It seems to me if your reasoning holds then any deviation whatsoever should disprove dualism. But why would I want to defend something which is so clearly and easily refutable by a wealth of counter-examples?
I mentioned color-blindness before, and I'll mention it again. It seems to me that the color-blind look at the same red in a different way. I don't think that perception necessarily displays every aspect of the world.
For the congenitally blind I could see it going either way. Wouldn't it depend on exactly which side of the divide the qualia are on, for example? And why can't qualia only be perceived if one has both the right mind-stuff and the right body-stuff? What if the perception of qualia just is two proto-conscious bits on each side of the divide lining up?
Perception doesn't have to be veridical and univocal for dualism -- dualism would just explain the apparent similarities of experience, since there would be a shared structure of mind.
Besides, I am mentioning this only to show the weakness in transcendental argumentation -- it's valid, but it's far from certain. Often enough what ends up happening is that counter-examples get counted as support in one theory, and vice-versa. The counter-examples just take on a different m
eaning depending on which transcendental conditions we decide are more likely.
And one man's modus ponens is another's modus tollens, after all ;).
Quoting apokrisis
Sounds good to me. I agree with this general notion of cognition, then, let's say?
I still think it is ratio-centric, but I don't think ratio-centric thinking has to be somehow directed by an individual -- it can all take place 'under the hood' of awareness.
Seems we are good here to me. The only thing I'm questioning is whether this under-the-hood cognition is what results in the structure of experience. It seems to me that it's more a learned habit, something taught by the environment, something which can be trained and honed for, but likewise, can be diminished and taken apart.
So rather than it being a model of either the mind or experience, it's just something the mind can do, and it's just a part of what shapes our awareness of experience.
Hope that helps.
Quoting apokrisis
I think we'd have to think of the mind as representational if we believe that in reality the strawberry we see is gray, while in appearance it is red -- at least to some extent. Here I'm just trying to engage the argument as it is presented, not necessarily endorsing this view of things. As I noted to Sapientia, I don't think this distinction is very useful to perception, but there has to be some engagement at some level otherwise we'll just end up talking past one another, it seems to me.
Quoting apokrisis
Sounds neat to me. I don't endorse a representational view of mind, personally. But I'm also uncertain to what extent mind even actually overlaps with experience, personally. I sometimes get to thinking that experience is sort of its own thing -- and that our minds are first collective, and second individual -- there is a pre-existing mind to our birth, one generated by the social interactions of our peoples (sort of like distributed cognition and extended mind, as one could conceive of the scientific project, but less structured or intentional or teleological), which in turn generates our sense of self (usually through a mixture institutions -- the family, the church, school, work), and an individual contact with this more general structure. This individual contact and sense of self is what combines to form our personal mind, which in turn is what directs awareness, but does not generate experience. Rather, it directs awareness of said experience. Or perhaps at this point we could be said to have some agency in the affair and could claim we direct our awareness of experience, if only in part.
But the mind thing isn't making model things of the experience things, so it's not representational. Rather, there's a kind of flow or seepage between the two
Just laying that out there to make some of my statements clear. It's worthwhile to explore the arguments because my notions are quite hazy, merely intuitive, un-argued for, and not really worth considering and certainly not ready to be lain out in argument or for persuasion, and only worth mentioning to make my other statements in this discussion clear.
What about them? If I could look at the world through the eyes of a cat, I wouldn't expect to experience trichromatic vision. Just the same as I wouldn't through the eyes of a colour blind human.
Quoting Moliere
They might look at the same wavelength energy in some sense, but we know that there is no counterfactual sensory judgement taking place, such that they see red and not green. And my argument is that experience is nothing but a concatenation of such base level acts of discrimination. Physical values have to be converted to symbolic values in which an antagonistic switching off a neural response is as telling as switching that response on. Now both 1 and 0 have meaning. Absence means as much as presence, whereas back in the real world, there is only the presence.
Quoting Moliere
You are advocating Panpsychism it appears. For some reason the right wiring of a complex brain adds something different. The complexity of the patterns being woven lines up all the protoconsciousness to create not just bare mentality but mental content.
Yet that is still a mystical tale as the protoconsiousness remains itself rationally unexplained and beyond empirical demonstration. From a theory point of view, it is a hypothesis is not even wrong.
Quoting Moliere
I certainly agree that the self-conscious human mind is socially contructed. The ability to introspect in an egocentric way, rationalise in an explictly logical fashion, reconstruct an autobiographical past, etc, are language-based skills that we learn because they are expected of us by the cultures we get born into.
So that is part of the semiotic story. Adding a new level of code - words on top of the neurons and genes - allows for a whole new level of developmental complexity.
Qualia are perceptual qualities and so are a biological level of symbolisation. Even a chimp will experience red due to a similarity of the circuits. But only humans have the culture and language that makes it routine to be able to introspect and note the redness of redness. We can treat our brain responses as a running display which we then take a detached view of. Culture teaches us to see ourselves as selves...having ideas and impressions.
So the point then about the red strawberries is that there is also still the actual biological response that can't be changed just by talking about it differently. And this shows that the biological brain itself is already a kind of rationalising filter. We never see the physical energies of the world in any direct sense. The world has been transformed into some yes/no set of perceptual judgements from the outset. It is already a play of signs. And so the feeling of what it is like to be seeing red is somehow just as much a sign relatiion as the word "red" we might use to talk about it with other people.
If you are a physicalist, you want to somehow make redness a mental substance - a psychic ink. And if we are talking about colour speech, we are quite happy that this is simply a referential way of coordinating social activity or group understanding. The leap is to see perceptual level experience as also sign activity - a concatenation of judgements - not some faux material stuff.
The mind is a modelling relation with the world. And after all, it should feel like something to be in that kind of intimate functional relation, right?
Quoting apokrisis
Quoting apokrisis
I'd say that any theory of consciousness, from that same point of view, is not even wrong. That's just where we're at. I wouldn't call this pan-psychism, though -- I'd call it (a form of) property-dualism, which seems to fit nicely in with mind-body dualism (considering that they are theories for two different questions). It would take both a third-person proto-conscious bit and a first-person proto-conscious bit to produce some qualia. (so, a rock, having no mind stuff -- let's just say -- wouldn't have qualia, nor would some dis-embodied mind, though it may be thinking of things or making computations).
I mention animals because they would, using your line of arguments against dualism, also count as counter-arguments because they will experience the world differently. What seems to me to be the case is that you believe a dualism couldn't explain deviation in experience, whereas what I'm saying is that a belief that experience is nothing but a concatenation of base level acts of discrimination couldn't explain constancy.
Here are some other things which dualism has to offer:
Explains...
the tendency towards animism.
The existence of relationships becoming de-mystified, including relationships not just with people but also with animals, plants, and objects.
How emotion flows out into the world, and vice-versa -- the inter-penetrable nature of the boundary between mind and world, and why it isn't a hard barrier.
How it is that society is characterizable as a mental phenomena, even when it isn't itself a mental phenomena.
How it is we are able to perceive the minds of others.
De-mystifies the existence of mind in the first place.
And, as I've already mentioned, dualism explains why it is that experience has so many striking regularities.
Were this a research program these would be at the end of my poster board as further areas that need research ;).
But it shouldn't be any surprise that dualism, having fallen out of favor, needs an update. That's what happens to transcendental frames as they are dropped -- they fall out of date, and the new frame is what gets updated with the new information. I just don't think that experiential deviation is enough of a reason to reject it (and, also, I'd include animals, unlike the Cartesian variety of dualism). It seems to me that, just as the strawberries here are being counted as evidence for the brain editing or adding colors, that deviations of this sort would just be examples meant to elucidate the particulars of the mind. i.e. 'needs further research' :D
Quoting apokrisis
Something I'm not quite following here is how you escape the charge of representationalism. Or perhaps this is just something I thought you were trying to say, but aren't? If red is a sign, then it does seem that the mind is representational at least. (at least, as I understand sign -- a signifier and a signified, a mark and a mental-thing-ish-semantic-bit fused together)
Just asking for clarification here.
I don't think so, per se. At least, if we are physicalists. If not, then it seems that red could serve just as well as blue, as the inverted-spectrum argument goes -- and, in fact, if it's just a large functional organic-machine, that wavelengths are just as good as red-ness because that's still information, a pre-sign informational bit which can be converted into an electrical-voltage-sign which enters the dynamic system known as the brain, which sends out its signals to the body to reproduce.
But one need not feel anything in this process for reproduction to occur. All that would be needed is for information to be fed into the functions which generate signals which form the basis of signs.
In that context then the question, “What is an objects’ ‘real’ colour” is surely a contradiction in terms in that only the wave lengths of the light emitted by an object can have an objective existence, 'its colour' being an attribute not of the object itself but a product of the observer's neural processes. It's merely the innate similarity of the neural processes by which perception is enabled existing among individuals that enables a pragmatically useful consistency of agreement between them regarding their interpretation of any given sensorialy perceived phenomena. -Alien beings for example could in principle be characterised by neural processes relevant to sensorial perception effectively inimical to our own – thus rendering mutually consistent interpretation impossible!
The point to recognise – not one of the more difficult concepts in philosophy perhaps - is that sensorial experience must necessarily be a product of the neural processes mediating between the observer and those elements external to him, the idea that such experience is objective being, understandably, just a popularly received illusion!
An objective description of the mechanisms of such mediation (I think personally btw) is likely more an excercise relevant to the methodology of science than the somewhat byzantine and recondite speculations of metaphysics - the sometimes apocryphal complexities tending to be introduced by the latter discipline into this problem being borne perhaps of its origin in an age ignorant of the concept of 'cause and effect', as this type of interaction to describe the relationships occurring between material phenomena came in subsequent ages to be gradually recognised cocurrent with the development of the scientific method itself as capable to adequately describe - ultimately in a comparatively simple and logically coherent manner - genres of phenomena such as this!
I'm saying that the intent is not to re-present reality to the self - display sensory data so it can become the subject of experience. Instead the intent is to form a pragmatic modelling relarion with the world. So signs might mediate that, but the implied need for realism, completeness, faithfulness, etc, drops out.
In reality, the physical difference between green and red wavelengths is nothing more but a slight variation in wavelengths. But the mind sees two absolutely opposed things. Red and green can't mix as far as experience is concerned. So the mind is introducing a completely fake boundary into its view of the world. It is certainly not representing the continuous variation of the same thing - radiation - in constructing a model where a binary difference is what gets represented ... even when the physical display, as with the strawberries, doesn't emit any red.
And we can understand that from the way maps don't have to recreate territories. They just have to tell a tale of critical actions we would take at certain points in a history of motions. That is how they become a model - a model of our interaction with the world, not a model of the world as such, and so that is how a self arises. The self is the thing of the model representing some state of "selfish" intentionality in representing a set of critical actions.
So the mentality becomes the fact of a coordination between a body and a world. The sensory display is not a picture awaiting interpretation, it is the act of interpretation or mediation itself.
So, the intent of your whole account is not to represent reality? Has the " implied need for realism, completeness, faithfulness. etc." "dropped out' of it? If your account is merely a pragmatic model, then what is its actual purpose? If it is to be justified by being purportedly more coherent than 'standard models', and not in terms of its purportedly corresponding to anything, then what if it is found by most thinkers to be less coherent, and thus less compelling than a standard dualistic account? How will its recommendation then be justified?
That's a good point. I was talking about the biological level of neural modelling. And that is much more strictly pragmatic. Animals really are locked into a practical relationship with their environments.
Humans - though the development of words and numbers - have shifted to a far more abstract and philosophical relation with existence ... apparently.
But then the counter to that is check out what we mostly actually do and it is still pragmatic. We are simply learning to see our environment in a way that gives us greater technological control. We are imagining the world as a set of concealed sources of energy and material that can be redirected to fulfill our general (entropic) desires. So a colonial settler arrives in a new country and sees immediately forests that could be fields, hills that could be forts.
And yes, I would be quixotic perhaps in wanting to step back from all that practical activity to try to see its reality - stand outside of it to make sense of it ... knowing it is still just another exercise in mapping perhaps.
But there are reasons to think that it is not just a new level of arbitrary mapping. Reality is turning out to have mathematical or Platonic strength irreducibles. That is how I regard the metaphysics of Peircean semiosis. It captures the fundamental causal logic of existence. And so what begins as mere epistemology becomes the ontological hypothesis being empirically explored.
So semiosis starts as a model of human psychology. And it turns out (the reason I got involved) to be precisely how biology now understands the causal logic of living systems. Then the next step after that is to see that even the new science of dissipative structures (all that stuff that used to be classified as the new maths of fractals, chaos, complexity and self-organisation) is accounted for causally by the rational machinery of semiotics.
Thus semiosis is of course just another metaphysical map. But also it could prove to be the ultimate mapping in being the one that arrives at the mathematical limits of abstract conception.
Yet even if that is so, you could say that knowing this is itself not particularly pragmatic. How does it help to know why the Universe must exist in the form that it does? What use is that information to a biological creature really?
It is like why venture into outer space? You can't breathe there. Ultimately it is quite pointless - a distraction from your job of living a life down here on Earth.
But to get back to philosophy of mind, the semiotic perspective is instead a corrective in that it does bring you down to Earth in fact.
It says that the famous explanatory gap - why is "what it is like" actually what it is like, and not something else? - is a failure of proper pragmatism. It is a mistake to think that this is the kind of thing science should be able to explain. Explanations are there to serve purposes, and so can only deal with differences that make a difference - the actually counterfactual. In Wittgensteinian fashion, if red qualia could be inverted as blue qualia - and it would be impossible to stand at any viewpoint where the difference might show - then it is simply muddled conception to claim to be troubled by a difference that cannot make a difference.
So the thread illustrates that. All the talk about what colour a wavelength is really. All that matters to a modelling mind is the fact that wavelengths are discriminable in a way that has direct ecological validity.
So what should drop out of a science of the mind, or even a metaphysics of the mind, is this obsession with discovering what the "mind" really is. The fact that we even reify the process of being mindful as a noun - the mind - shows that already we are presuming a metaphysics of substantial objects. Instead, we should be in search of a process, and a process we can account for in the most metaphysically generic terms. My argument is that semiosis is turning out to be that generic model - a metaphysics of matter and sign rather than matter and mind.
I agree with that, although I do wonder whether it makes any more sense to ask what matter or the sign "really is" than it does to ask what mind "really is". Also the notion of signs only seems to be intelligible in a context where mind/bodies that can read them and material mediums in which they are instantiated are assumed to exist.
For me intersubjective pragmatic concerns make sense when it comes to politics, economics, ecology, and science in general.
Pragmatic concerns are much more personal when it comes to religion, philosophy and the arts, though. What is it best to believe in those spheres? Whatever is most effective in terms of flourishing; whatever inspires in the creative or religious life, or whatever leads to a most ethical life, or loving attitude towards others. And since we are all unique individuals exactly what that optimum understanding or set of beliefs will be will vary from one person to the next.
Perhaps all the illusion shows is that our ordinary language colour words don't have the meaning we thought they had. Certainly the strawberrys didn't look to have the normal tint of red we associate with them. I'm reminded of Wittgenstein's manometer. Is a mistake 'mere show' here?
And my question is: why do you ask, and why isn't that answer good enough for you? You could go and ask a neuroscientist who could probably give you a more detailed answer, although my guess is that you still wouldn't be satisfied. But why should I care? We only know what we know, and what we know enables us to answer the question in the way that I have done, which is good enough for the sake of this problem of perception, but perhaps not for some other problem that you seem to have introduced into the discussion. But this is a discussion about the former, and it need not digress into a discussion about the so-called hard problem to which you seem to be alluding.
Quoting Moliere
I didn't elaborate because I didn't think it necessary. You already know about this, don't you? And even if you don't, others in this discussion have gone into detail on this. There is an established means of categorising colour based on range of wavelength. That's what I was referring to, and you can look it up yourself if need be. This is what I'm appealing to when I make the claim that the strawberries are not red, and I do so because I think that it makes for a better explanation than the alternative which claims that they are red. I don't really want to go into further detail than that, since I've already done so in previous comments, and I stand by those comments. I'd rather you just address what I've already said on the matter, rather than reiterate from the starting point of this discussion.
Quoting Moliere
Okay, but that's not in itself a good reason to stick by that, is it? Times have changed, discoveries and developments have been made. And sticking by that doesn't resolve the problem of perception or explain optical illusions as well as you otherwise could. If you disagree, then you should explain how, and explain why you think that your explanation is better. I don't see how the better explanation can involve a picture which changes colour, because that just isn't how optical illusions work. Optical illusions are about naturally misleading perceptions, not magically changing realities.
Quoting Moliere
Good. Well, that's analogous to my point, so if you concede to the one, you in effect concede to the other.
Quoting Moliere
Yes, I agree, but that is not analogous. Although if that was just a joke, then that doesn't matter.
Quoting Moliere
The colour of the pixels.
Quoting Moliere
We're in disagreement about which colour is the apparent colour?! That's news to me. Obviously the apparent colour is whatever colour it appears to be, irrespective of the real colour. If it appears red in circumstance X, then red is the apparent colour in circumstance X, and if it appears grey in circumstance Y, then grey is the apparent colour in circumstance Y. Whence the disagreement?
As for disagreement about the real colour, it makes more sense to call real that which is mind-independent, hence that position being known as realism.
Quoting Moliere
Photons and atoms don't need to have colour. If that's what we're talking about, then they're not red.
And the [i]whole point[/I] with the picture of the strawberries is that the wavelengths of light [I]do not[/I] in this case correspond to our colour-perception! Our colour-perception is red, but the wavelengths do not correspond!
It's not about waves, photons, atoms, radiation, or whatever, "having" colour, as such. It's about wavelengths of light according with an established colour categorisation, and it's about how useful this colour categorisation is. It is useful when trying to explain what happens with certain optical illusions, for example.
Colour is not subjective, unless by colour, you just mean colour-perception. But it was you yourself who introduced that latter term, so clearly the distinction is useful, yes?
Quoting Moliere
Okay.
Quoting Moliere
Maybe you're right. It does seem a bit of a mystery. I'm not agreeing or disagreeing with that. I think that that's a different problem that we needn't get into.
Quoting Moliere
Yes, I disagree if you do. That is, I stand by my claim that optical illusions like the picture of the strawberries emphasise the fallibility of what we normally do, viz. jump to the conclusion that the strawberries are red because they appear red, and so if you disagree with that, then I disagree with your disagreement.
I do recognise that. Who here doesn't? It's obvious, isn't it? Phenomena, by definition, as you note, are subjective.
Quoting Robert Lockhart
Well no, not necessarily, since, in accordance with the established categorisation which has been around for quite some time, and is widely accepted in the scientific community, 'its colour' can be determined by the range of wavelength of the light emitted, rather than by appealing to some subjective quality or internal neural process. The wavelengths of light are objective, and that these wavelengths of light correspond to a particular colour category is objective. No need for the subjective there, and no contradiction in terms.
Quoting Robert Lockhart
Well, yes, I recognise that. Of course experience is subjective in the sense that it requires a subject. But why is this supposedly relevant?
Quoting Robert Lockhart
I've argued that the scientific way of categorising colour in terms of range of wavelength of light is useful when dealing with the metaphysical problem of perception.
And, after all of this, you still haven't directly answered my questions, or at least explained why you haven't done so, which I think is bad manners. I think that it's quite important in philosophical discussions to stay on point, to be succinct, and to cut to the chase when need be. That's what I like to see. What I don't like to see so much is jargon, verbosity, tangent, or lack of clarity.
[B]Please pay close attention to this next part, because I think that it's important. This is going to be my last attempt:[/b]
What colour are the strawberries? [U]Just answer the question[/u]. Are they red? Do they just appear red? Are they grey? Do they in fact have no colour? All of the above? Some of the above? None of the above? Surely you have an answer, but even if not, you could just say that you don't know or that it depends, and if the latter, then briefly state what it depends upon. I find it annoying that you aren't coming back around to this point, when this is exactly where you should end up. If you're going to reply, I think that you should start with your conclusion(s) regarding the aforementioned, and then, only once you've done that, you may proceed with how you got there, and lastly anything else you think is of relevance.
Well, the question was "What colour are the strawberries?" -- and your answer is that they are gray, in reality, but red, in appearance. My answer is that the strawberries are red, while the pixels are gray. Your answer seems to rely upon some kind of mechanism which the brain does, no? So, we can tell the strawberries are really gray because the brain does such and such. It seems a natural enough question to ask what it is that the brain does to make it appear as such and such when in reality it is this or that. Or, at the very least, how it is you determined this, and why we might want to determine things differently in this case than in other cases.
I'd think you would care for the answer because it would explain your belief here. I suppose you don't have to care though. You could certainly just believe it's true because a scientist says it's true.
If the explanation boils down to the brain does stuff here like elsewhere that's not exactly persuasive when we have a perfectly reliable method for determining color, I'd say. If we don't have a mechanism, then the explanation really does amount to about the same thing as magic. It's like all the neuro- talk you see in the papers everywhere meant to explain everything -- and the explanation boils down to the same: "The brain made you do it"
Here, at least, there's this notion of color constancy, so there's a bit more than this -- but not much.
I'd suggest that we could at least admit that we don't know the mechanism, but presume that the strawberries are really gray because the pixels are gray, and it seems like this brain-thing does stuff with perception so we believe that it might have something to do with it. At least, we could say that maybe someone with more knowledge than ourselves -- of which I am certainly not the most knowledgeable on the subject, I hardly even qualify as a hobbyist -- might know, but we ourselves don't understand the process, and so it would be unwise to claim we know in the first place.
But if that were the case, then I'd also suggest that it is quite reasonable to believe the strawberries are red, since we determine the color of images and things by looking at them -- and that it is the one who is claiming to know the real reality that should explain themselves in light of this.
Quoting Sapientia
OK.
Quoting Sapientia
As far as I can tell no one here or elsewhere has actually verified this. We have extracted colors of pixels through a color picker, but no one has used a spectrometer or anything.
If we were able to shoot the light through a prism, I betcha we'd get some red.
Colour is colour-perception, yes. I think that's about right, though we have to be careful here -- there are obvious traps in saying it just in this way, and in using the term 'subjective'. Color is not subjective in several senses of the word 'subjective', either, I'd say. Hence why I'd prefer to avoid using the word 'subjective' -- first-person is better, I think.
Quoting Sapientia
Quoting Sapientia
I just mean that I think we've found where our disagreement lies. You believe that this normal way of determining color is fallible in this case. This is what I'm contending is not the case -- that the method of using a color picker on the picture to determine the color of a pixel is not a good way for determining the color of the strawberries, that our looking at the image of the strawberries is adaquate for telling us the color of the strawberries in most cases, and that it is so in this case as well.
At the weakest I'm claiming that to continue in this belief without some kind of argument about the nature of color, the brain, and reality (in the case of this image) is rational.
So what I mean is that I believe we've honed down where our disagreement is. Not that we don't disagree.
Your answer is false or misleading in this context. My answer doesn't have that problem. In this context, it is not misleading to say that the strawberries are not red, because we know I'm not talking about how they appear, or jumping to a conclusion about what colour they are based on how they appear, as we are likely to do in an ordinary context, where we don't think about things philosophically. But your answer doesn't work here, on a philosophy forum, where it's all about analysis, clarity and accuracy.
It also, in contrast to my answer, lacks plausibility when it comes to accounting for optical illusions - at least those relating to colour and perception in a similar way to that of the picture of the strawberries.
Quoting Moliere
That in combination with what I've said about colour categorisation. And so does yours, does it not? Don't you similarly think that we can tell that the strawberries are red because the brain does such-and-such?
Quoting Moliere
And a similarly worded question applies to you too, does it not? Why do you seem to think that this burden is on me, but not you? What would you be without your brain? What would you be capable of, if anything? Would you even be you? Would you be able to perceive colour or to determine anything at all without your brain? No, you wouldn't. So clearly your brain has an essential function here. So please explain to me in detail what your brain is doing in all of this, and I'll sit back and judge whether or not your answer is satisfactory. Does that seem fair to you?
Look, an explanation has already been given. If you can convince me why that explanation isn't good enough, then maybe I'll try to do better, or maybe I'll concede that I personally cannot do any better. I don't see why I should have to go into this in my own words, rather than just refer back to what has already been said or the related articles and scientific literature on this. Why do you want to know the ins and outs of the workings of the brain, anyway? What good will it do? It might well be interesting, but the conclusion won't change. You'd just have a more elaborate explanation.
Quoting Moliere
I could believe it because I find it convincing [I]and[/I] because a scientist says it's true, and the latter could be a valid appeal to authority. What I do know about this, I find convincing, and there are authorities who could do a better job than I can of explaining in detail what the process involves as well the various related implications.
Quoting Moliere
Ha! Perfectly reliable? You [i]might[/I] have gotten away with that if it wasn't for those meddling scientists, who came along and discovered that colour is inextricably related to light emissions, and that particular ranges of wavelength in normal circumstances cause us to perceive particular colours - and were thus categorised accordingly - almost without exception. Then exceptions were discovered, and this is one of them. Hence the grey coloured strawberries appearing red, hence the unreliability of your method.
According to your method, it can't even [i]be[/I] an optical illusion. It's just a picture of red strawberries. They appear red because they're really red. That's not very insightful, accurate or plausible, and lacks explanatory power with regard to the peculiarity of the grey, as opposed to red, pixels. That's just naive realism.
Quoting Moliere
We [i]do[/I] have an explanation. The brain [I]is[/I] the mechanism. One doesn't need to elucidate a mechanism within a mechanism within a mechanism [I]ad infinitum[/I] or until you're satisfied, if that's even possible.
Quoting Moliere
Yes, there's a start for you. Don't expect a lecture from me - I'm not a specialist on this subject. I'm not an authority. But it is possible for me to validly appeal to one if need be. But you shouldn't expect even such an expert to have [i]all[/I] the answers. Our knowledge is limited. It would be misguided, I think, to keep pressing on and on like a child persistently asking "Why?", expecting an answer for everything when the answers already given are good enough for effectively dealing with many problems which might arise.
Quoting Moliere
You and I might not know it, but that doesn't mean that it isn't known. But either way, that doesn't really matter, since we nevertheless have very good reason to believe that the brain has something to do with it. I'll settle for the above, especially if that means we can move on.
Quoting Moliere
So it's unwise to claim to know something in light of what the experts know, when we don't know it in the way that they do? I don't think that that's necessarily true. We have good reason to believe that the experts know what they're talking about, and it would be unreasonable to expect those of us who are not experts to expound upon these things to the extent of the experts.
Quoting Moliere
No, that's not quite reasonable, because an explanation has already been given, just apparently not to your satisfaction. The two are not one and the same. On the one hand, there's the explanation, and on the other hand, there's your satisfaction. Which one is unreasonable is arguable. Your lack of satisfaction does not of course mean that an explanation hasn't been given.
Quoting Moliere
No need. This has most likely been verified by scientists before we were even aware of it. The work has most likely already been done, and we can appeal to these authorities. Or we could harbour unreasonable doubt. Perhaps it's all just a joke or a conspiracy! Yeah, I don't think so. In this case, it is valid to appeal to authority and to make certain reasonable assumptions about what was done to verify the hypothesis.
Quoting Moliere
Some red isn't red though, is it? We're talking about grey, which, as we know, contains some red. But if you conclude that it's red on that basis, you'd also have to conclude that it's yellow, and that it's blue, and so on. Which is just nonsense. It's grey.
Quoting Moliere
No.
Quoting Moliere
Okay. Contend all you like, but you're still wrong. X-)
Quoting Moliere
There is some kind of argument as you describe above, so that's that box ticked. And you've focussed a lot on the brain - too much, perhaps - but don't forget about the established colour categorisation, and that whether or not something corresponds accordingly doesn't matter one iota about the brain. The brain has to do with why we perceive it a certain way, not why it is the colour that it is.
This just begs the question, though. It is only an optical illusion if there is an illusion.
Quoting Sapientia
No, not at all in fact. All you need do is look at something to tell the color of something. That the brain is doing something to make the gray appear red seems to be the argument on the opposing side, by my lights.
Quoting Sapientia
Eh, scientists must make arguments like anyone else. I don't need to believe what a scientist has to say just because a scientist says it. There isn't such a thing as a valid appeal to authority in science. You can trust authority for certain purposes, and must do so very often in life, but that is no reason to believe something is true.
That's not how science works. You're perfectly rational to not believe something until you understand the demonstration -- you don't have to disbelieve it, either, per se. It doesn't have to be forbidden. But you certainly don't have to take a scientists word on anything.
That's, like, the whole point of science. It is open to anyone to interrogate and understand. It may take some time and effort to understand, and it's fair enough to say that you or I aren't up to snuff on a topic -- but that doesn't mean you have to believe anything. That's just anti-scientific thinking.
Quoting Sapientia
The brain is a black box. There are inputs and outputs being defined, but that's about it.
A chemical equation works in a similar manner.
H20 -> h2 + 1/2 o2
The "->" stands for "yields" -- while we may observe the beginning and ending products of a chemical reaction what is not demonstrated is the step-wise process which occurs. Many experiments are set up for the very purpose of determining the mechanisms of even singular chemical reactions. It is by no means an easy thing to determine, considering that you can't exactly observe the mechanism but, instead, have to infer it based on other measurements. (such as the rate of reaction, for instance).
So what I see when I hear "the brain does it" is "photons -> images" where "->" is "the brain does".
That is no mechanism.
Quoting Sapientia
Why?
:D
Quoting Sapientia
Yup.
At least if you're claiming the mantle of science. Scientific arguments are straightforward enough that given enough time they make sense. Claims of 'complexity' and 'difficulty' are just mystifications.
Evolution is probably my favorite scientific theory because it demonstrates this so very well. The arguments for evolution are easy to lay out and explain to someone. You have more advanced topics in biology, of course. But the overall theory of evolution? It is elegant and easy for most anyone of average intellect to grasp and understand.
Quoting Sapientia
"because", without qualification, is also an explanation. And it is the sort of thing one gives to stop questions, for certain.
But there's no reason to think that because this explanation has been given that one should be satisfied with it, or that it is reasonable either.
What counts as either a reasonable or satisfactory explanation, clearly, needs something more to it than simply that it has been given.
This is just to knock down the notion that because an explanation has been given that we must accept it as satisfactory or rational -- I don't think this is the explanation you are giving, just that it passes the criteria you're proposing here for the acceptance of an explanation as rational or satisfactory.
Quoting Sapientia
That's just bonkers. At the very least you cannot be claiming any kind of scientific value -- as you said earlier, 'to science' the problem -- if you aren't even willing to verify a belief with some kind of standard of measure, but just take it on faith that this was done. Even if the scientists have done this, it is on the basis of reproducibility that scientific argument is built.
You don't need to have faith in the priests of scientific knowledge that what they translate from the book of nature into the vernacular is the truth, may Darwin be praised. You just do the experiment yourself. You may do the experiment wrongly, of course, but so may they.
At least, insofar that we are defining color along the lines of wavelength, and not what it looks like, it does seem reasonable to ask -- what wavelength have you measured?
Quoting Sapientia
I conclude that it's red on the basis of what it looks like. This is my standard.
Quoting Sapientia
My focus on the brain is an extension of the argument for why the strawberries only appear red, when in reality they are gray. The brain, after all, is the causal agent proposed here.
As for what colour it is -- it seems to me that you're taking on faith that it is the color it is, since there hasn't been a measurement, no?
Or. . . maybe you're just using the standard I've proposed? Given what you have said about the lack of need to measure I'd say this is a fair inference.
You look at the pixel, it's gray, and therefore the strawberries are gray, because the strawberry image is made of the pixels, and color is the sort of property which translates from its bits to what it makes up, therefore the color of the strawberry image in reality is gray, though it appears red. Scientists explain the causal mechanism somewhere behind the scenes, but ultimately that's not what matters -- what matters is what color the pixels are.
But then you're just looking at the pixel to determine its color. Which is exactly what I've said we should do to determine something's color. It's just in the case of the strawberry, you believe the image stays gray because the pixels are gray. I'd say that without some kind of argument to the contrary, we should just determine color in the exact manner that we did the first time around -- by looking at it.
If we drop out the brain entirely, and we aren't measuring wavelengths -- and if we don't know what the brain is doing aside from vague hand-wavey references to 'color constancy', why should it be referenced at all except to say it does something somewhere? Which is hardly and explanation -- then the strawberry image is red, and the pixels are gray.
FWIW, I decided to hunt down some kind of image of monitors being measured by spectroscopes. The following websites abliges: http://www.chemistryland.com/CHM107Lab/Exp7/Spectroscope/Spectroscope.html
Assuming that their results are accurate:
This is what he got by aiming the spectroscope at the white portion of a screen. Not the image we're talking about, by all means, but this is what he gets.
What I don't see by looking at this is white -- I don't see how you get white from these results. I see how, knowing that when light combines such and such colors evenly you get white you can predict white. But I don't see how you get white from this. It seems to me that you must first know what white light looks like in order to know what colors you are going to get by combining this particular array of colors.
What would be of particular interest, I think, would be to see the spectroscopic results of one pixel compared to the entire photo. I don't think they'd be identical. I don't think anyone would think they'd be identical, either, for that matter. But if they're not identical, by your own theory of color, then the pixel and the image are not the same color, at least. Maybe you wouldn't go so far as to say they are red. You'd explain the difference in color by the differences in the gray palette of the picture, I'd say. That would save your theory.
But at the end of the day given that there are no such spectroscopic tests, I'd say that we really are just looking at such and such to determine such and such, and it is your belief that color is the sort of property which does not change as it aggregates into a whole which yields your belief that the strawberry image is gray, while it is my belief that we determine color by looking at it and there is nothing more to it than that which yields my belief that the strawberry image is red.
EDIT: 10 minutes after -- there's a very good image on that website which explores this difficulty more, too. The yellow one, when measured by the spectroscope, only comes out as a mixture of green and red -- it is not a 'pure' yellow, i.e. the yellow associated with the particular wavelength on the electromagnetic spectrum. Yet, clearly, the box is yellow.
Pointillism explores this notion quite well, too -- individual dots from a pen can be one color, but when you stand back, the picture is a mixture of the colors there. Impressionism does as well, and sort of pushes against the lay notion of color constancy presented in the pop articles so far -- that things do stay the same color as the light changes. But I'd have to know more about what is really be proposed to say for certain.
I think they require an additional distinction between perceptual colour and verbally reported colour.
For although a subject's verbal behaviour might narrowly imply that they are percieving red strawberrys, the rest of their behaviour might indicate otherwise. The meaning of "red" after all, is a public definition and not in terms of private ostensive definition.
I think what you propose would seperate our positions neatly. But I am uncertain that said distinction would actually address where the disagrement is occuring. Not that said disagreement has to be resolved here -- maybe that should occur in another discussion -- I'm just noting why I am uncertain.
We could adopt this distinction, but at the same time I sort of wonder if it would resolve our real dispute -- though, for sure, I'm not sure if we even have a real dispute or if we have hammered down where the best point of disagreement is at at this point.