Michael

It's not even a philosophical issue; it's a scientific issue. And the neuroscience shows us that visual percepts exist when there is neural activity i...

Your explanation of what causes variations in colour perception is not relevant to the claim I am making. I see white and gold when I look at the phot...

Two people looking at the same photo on the same screen can see different colours. See the dress. I see white and gold, my colleague in the same room ...

Maybe quote the rest of the sentence: Do you agree or disagree with this? When looking at the photo of the dress, some see white and gold, some black ...

I'm not arguing that here. I'm simply responding to the question asking if brains can generate experiences in the vacuum of space. The Boltzmann brain...

We look at the same distal object (the pixels on the screen), our eyes react to the same proximal stimulus (the light), and yet we see different colou...

So you're denying the existence of dreams, hallucinations, synaesthesia, variations in colour perception, and basically the entire neuroscience of per...

Yes there is; to make sense of dreams, hallucinations, synesthesia, variations in colour perception (e.g. the colours of the dress are white and gold ...

How do we perceive a fire’s propensity to cause pain? By putting our hand in the fire and being hurt. In the case of colour, we look at the pen and se...

I have repeatedly drawn a distinction between the adjective “red” and the noun “red”. We can use the adjective “red” to describe a mind-independent pe...

In the case of colour there is no such thing as veridical. It’s not “correct” that light with a wavelength of 700nm causes red colour percepts, such t...

Things are black when they absorb all (visible) frequencies of light, and so do not re-emit any (visible) frequency of light. As such there is no (vis...

The surface layer of atoms with a configuration of electrons that absorbs certain wavelengths of light and re-emits others exists regardless of being ...

Such as a brain: Although this seems to be moving beyond the relevant point, which is that colour percepts are the product of neural activity in the v...

No, I’m saying that they are a coherent concept and consistent with current scientific understanding.

They change the way their skin reflects light. Different wavelengths of light elicit different colour percepts.

You asked if brains can generate experiences in the vacuum of space. Boltzmann brains are formed in the vacuum of space, and “in Boltzmann brain scena...

You should read up on Boltzmann brains.

We talk about various things in the world. Some of those things are mental phenomena, some aren't. Some of those things are trees, some aren't. I don'...

Because some words pick out mental phenomena and some words don't? Even the naive realist must accept this; words like "mind", "consciousness", "pain"...

The noun "pen" refers to a mind-independent object. The adjective "red" describes this mind-independent object's causal role in eliciting a particular...

Yes. The fruit just reflects light at various wavelengths and various intensities; that's it. Our eyes and brain then respond in deterministic ways to...

No I'm not.

No, because we're using "red" as an adjective to describe the mind-independent pen. We all agree that this pen is red (causes red mental percepts), ju...

They emit the same wavelength of light, but produce different colour percepts. It's the same principle involved with the photo of the dress. Colour te...

I clarified what I meant in that aforementioned post. The nouns "sour" and "red" refer to mental percepts – those things that also exist when we dream...

I think you're misunderstanding my position. Here and here set it out clearly.

I always have. I just deny that colours are something other than mental percepts, just as I deny that pain is something other than a mental percept. T...

No, I'm saying that I can talk about them, just as I can talk about your thoughts even though I can't think them.

Maybe this will make my position clearer: 1. Colour percepts exist. They are what constitute (coloured) dreams and hallucinations. 2. These colour per...

How do you infer that? Pain is a mental percept, but when I use the word "pain" I am not referring only to my pain, just as when I use the words "thou...

And, yet again, I accept that the apple is red, where "red" is an adjective and "the apple is red" means something like "the apple is causally respons...

As an adjective, yes, where this means that eating a lemon will elicit a sour-type mental percept. Well I do. My dreams and hallucinations aren't only...

Then you're wrong. Because a sour taste is a mental percept, caused by activity in the gustatory cortex in response to stimulation of the tongue by ac...

If by "the lemon is sour" you just mean " the lemon will cause a sour-type mental percept" then I agree. But if by "the lemon is sour" you mean "a sou...

And again, I addressed this in my distinction between adjectives and nouns above.

Colours, like smells and tastes and pain, are mental percepts. They are what occur/exist when we dream and hallucinate – and also when having an ordin...

I didn't say it was. There's ambiguity here with the English grammar. The words "coloured" and "painful" are adjectives, the words "colour" and "pain"...

So the overwhelming agreement that some X is Y is not proof that Y is not a mental phenomenon. Whether Y is "red" or "painful", there can be an overwh...

That overwhelmingly folk agree that stubbing one's toe is painful does not show that pain is not a mental phenomenon. Pain is a mental phenomenon, des...

"presume" doesn't mean "know". No it doesn't.

Different token doesn't mean different type. Pain is a mental phenomenon, but presumably the pain I feel when I stub my toe isn't "quite different" to...

And you can say that words like "pain" and "sour" and "funny" refer to distal objects or their properties, but you'd be wrong.

English words like "tree" and "cat" and "bacteria" refer to distal objects. English words like "position" and "momentum" refer to a distal object's pr...

I don't think anyone is suggesting that. The second and third paragraphs of the OP make it clear that he isn't saying that colours are just his person...

The Standard Model certainly says so, so I accept that. But what evidence is there of colours as something other than mental phenomena? We have empiri...

I haven't said anything about illusions or being "less real". I'm just saying that it's wrong to claim that colours are mind-independent properties of...

Yes. Mental phenomena are either reducible to brain activity or are caused by brain activity. We dream/hallucinate/see (in colour) when the visual cor...

Like a world of inorganic matter? Sure. What’s the relevance?

Yes. We don’t explain them by positing the direct acquaintance of some distal object. I don’t dream about dragons because my eyes are open and I’m loo...