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Michael

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It's clearly useful to visually distinguish objects which reflect 400nm light and objects which reflect 700nm light. Colour sensations is how we do th...
September 12, 2024 at 14:43
Is it possible to smell and taste things more accurately? Does the world contain smell and taste even when we're not smelling and tasting things?
September 12, 2024 at 07:16
You seem to be under the impression that there’s a way things look distinct from the way things look to us. That makes as much sense as saying that th...
September 11, 2024 at 17:09
I was including black, white, and grey as colours. But if we're excluding them and NOS4A2 is asking what the world looks like to someone with complete...
September 10, 2024 at 20:48
I don't even know what a colourless visual sensation could be, and so I think without colour sensations you'd just be blind.
September 10, 2024 at 19:24
Not sure what you mean by "how it really looks", just as I wouldn't be sure what you'd mean by "how it really smells" or "how it really tastes". Yes, ...
September 10, 2024 at 15:58
No, and nor is my claim that colour is a fiction. My claim is that pain and colour are sensations, and the fiction is that colour is not a sensation b...
September 10, 2024 at 08:29
And stubbing one's toe is painful, but pain is still a sensation. We've been over this so many times. Your reasoning is a non sequitur.
September 10, 2024 at 07:24
Maybe that's true, but I'm more arguing against those who seem to be saying that because we say such things as "the box is red" then it must be that t...
September 09, 2024 at 18:35
We see a red box and a blue box. The colour is the relevant visual difference between the two. I don't think that this visual difference has anything ...
September 09, 2024 at 14:42
Sure, but I don't think all that other stuff has anything to do with the colour, and the discussion is about colour.
September 09, 2024 at 14:05
All I am saying is that a deaf illiterate mute can see the difference between a red box and a blue box. That visual distinction has nothing to do with...
September 09, 2024 at 13:54
I have simply quoted what the scientists have said about colour. I'll do it again for you: As the SEP article on colour explains: If you disagree with...
September 09, 2024 at 09:21
I haven't claimed otherwise. I have explicitly stated that ~700nm light is the usual cause of red colour experiences (because it is the usual cause of...
September 09, 2024 at 08:18
The ball just has a surface layer of atoms with an electron configuration that absorbs and re-emits particular wavelengths of light; these wavelengths...
September 09, 2024 at 08:13
And as I've said, you're welcome to only use the verb "to see" in that sense if you like, but there's nothing wrong with the rest of us being more inc...
September 08, 2024 at 18:21
All that is required to have a visual experience is for there to be the appropriate neural activity in the visual cortex, and all that is required to ...
September 08, 2024 at 18:21
But other mechanisms such as a cortical visual prosthesis can help (or will be able to help in a few decades). Much like a cochlear implant helps wher...
September 08, 2024 at 18:14
They are seeing in the sense of having a visual experience but not seeing in the sense of responding to and being made aware of some appropriate exter...
September 08, 2024 at 18:10
No I haven't.
September 08, 2024 at 18:02
I'm not confusing myself because I haven't claim that "hearing voices" isn't a euphemism for "hallucinate". I am simply saying that it is ordinary in ...
September 08, 2024 at 17:59
They hear because of the cochlear implant, much like I can see the words on the screen because of my glasses.
September 08, 2024 at 17:58
That doesn't follow.
September 08, 2024 at 17:57
It's not equivocation to say that the schizoprenic hears voices. That's just the ordinary way of describing the phenomenon. Verbs like "to see" and "t...
September 08, 2024 at 17:56
The deaf can't hear without a cochlear implant but can hear with one. It's quite simple.
September 08, 2024 at 17:50
Why does that matter? It is still normal to describe someone with a cochlear implant as hearing things, and the same for those with an auditory brains...
September 08, 2024 at 17:03
And perhaps more fittingly than a cochlear implant is an auditory brainstem implant.
September 08, 2024 at 15:11
Colour is the look, not a wavelength of light (which you seem to be saying here). There is usually a correspondence between the two, but dreams, hallu...
September 08, 2024 at 14:44
Although re-reading this, maybe I've misunderstood you. Are you saying that these are three distinct things? 1. 650-720nm light 2. The colour red 3. R...
September 08, 2024 at 11:57
Sure, like getting stabbed or burnt or whatever are elements for the emergence of pain experience(s). But pain is nonetheless the experience. My claim...
September 08, 2024 at 11:54
By this do you mean that 620-750nm light must have stimulated my eyes for me to see the colour red? Why do you think that? What’s the relationship bet...
September 08, 2024 at 11:44
Well, whether you’re convinced by it is irrelevant. What matters is that both a) I see a can of red Coke and b) the photo does not emit 620-750nm ligh...
September 08, 2024 at 10:40
I use Discord for work so I avoid it otherwise.
September 03, 2024 at 09:58
No, what they're saying is that the subject sees colours when there is activity in the V4 and VO1 areas of the visual cortex. Normally these areas are...
August 31, 2024 at 19:13
And what does that have to do with anything I have said here, in particular that comment that you replied to? I am simply reporting that "the major ph...
August 31, 2024 at 18:12
Not quite. I'm saying that colour and pain are percepts. We can still talk about tomatoes being colourful and stubbing one's toe being painful; we jus...
August 31, 2024 at 18:05
I don't know what you're talking about. This has nothing to do grammar. This has to do with physics and physiology. Maxwell knew better than you about...
August 31, 2024 at 17:49
Feeling pain does not entail a "Cartesian theatre" or a homunculus, even though pain is a sensation, and seeing colours does not entail a "Cartesian t...
August 31, 2024 at 17:46
I'm not committed to any metaphysics. I'm only committed to physics, and as the SEP article on colour explains, "the major physicists who have thought...
August 31, 2024 at 13:06
We see colours "directly", just as we feel pain "directly".
August 31, 2024 at 10:15
It's not circular, just as noting that the predicate "is painful" is used to describe things which cause pain mental percepts is not circular. The fac...
August 31, 2024 at 10:11
That's just begging the question. Rainbows are just refracted light, with longer wavelengths at the top and shorter wavelengths at the bottom. It's an...
August 30, 2024 at 21:26
But plaster walls don't emit (visible) photons, which is why I can't see them at night when I close the curtains and turn off the light. Like most oth...
August 30, 2024 at 15:28
I think the term you're looking for is "fluorescent", not "pigmented". If we're talking about the powder, conventional pigments don't emit light (alth...
August 30, 2024 at 14:48
There are no arguments against naive realism; there is experimental evidence against it. Physics and neuroscience disproved it a long time ago.
August 30, 2024 at 12:47
Not sure what you mean by "pigments" here, but it's usually things like stars and torches and lightbulbs and fire that emit photons, not powder.
August 30, 2024 at 12:36
It baffles me that people still think it's a matter for philosophy, as if we can use a priori reasoning to figure out the nature of sensory experience...
August 30, 2024 at 10:17
It is an arbitrary fact about English that the adjectives are "red" and "painful" rather than "redful" and "pain". If language had developed different...
August 30, 2024 at 09:50
Yes, that's what I said in that previous post: "the predicate 'is red' is used to describe objects which cause red mental phenomena." But our ordinary...
August 30, 2024 at 09:37
This has nothing to do with intentionality. This has to do with colours.
August 30, 2024 at 09:32