Fill in the blank. White is light with a wavelength of ___ nm. — InPitzotl

White. White is a mixture of, at the very least, red, blue, and green. Each has a specific wavelength.

Loner to Social Butterfly: Are We Alone? Where is everybody?

Red is light with a wavelength of 750 nm. This is not equivalent to saying red is red. The definition isn't circular as some seem to be claiming.

Point to note here is I'm trying to establish a connection between language (specifically the constant informational content when translations are done) and perception.

Like words in natural language are abstractions, the 750 nm (for red) is too. So, when I read/hear/feel the word "feather", the idea of feathers is what I have in my mind.

Similarly, when I see the color red (red is simply a word in eye dialect), I'm actually thinking of 750 (nm). I know this is contrary to experience but imagine now that your brain speaks the lingo of eyes - it wouldn't need to translate redness into 750 (nm), it would simply see red. If you were fluent in Arabic and English, you wouldn't need to translate a conversation in Arabic into English or vice versa.

Seeing red is like reading 750 (nm) in eye tongue. It would be odd to say that one gained extra knowledge/information just because you used a different language. Reading "sifr" (0) in Persian doesn't give me additional knowledge than reading "zero" (0) in English.

A moral claim is not gauged by generalized criteria. Our lives have specific histories of judgments and interests and what matters, but the difference in this question is not a matter of judging its adequacy, but accepting its implications for you, for the other. — Antony Nickles

That sounds like consequentialism, a full-fledged although incomplete moral theory, unless you have something else in mind when you speak of "implications".

I don't get it. The OP, rather vaguely and elliptically, makes truth claims about morality being not truth-apt or something like that. By what standards does the OP judge the truth of his pronouncements and why do they not apply to ethics? Double standards or something else? :chin:

I'm allowed to be critical. Whatever. :sad: — Wheatley

Indeed. :up:

So physics and biology answer Mary's room. Brilliant. — Wheatley

You don't have to be so condescendingly sarcastic. Come back, if you wish, when your mood improves. G'day.

What about biology? How does my brain perceive red? — Wheatley

Biology & physics. Sorry to have forgotten about that.

It's not really the same thing, in short. Language does more than what perception does, and perception does more than what language does. They deserve different concepts. I don't think I want to elaborate here; I haven't bothered with the other thread yet (and once I do, I might just lurk, as I typically do way more often than comment). — InPitzotl

I hadn't thought it through too. It just seemed to make sense to me, intuitively that is. I guess it's nothing. G'day.

How do you know? — Wheatley

Physics? :chin:

A reason for what? — Wheatley

Hmm.. I bet that's controversial and an oversimplification.
— Wheatley

Explain why? — TheMadFool

:chin:

It might work as a metaphor, but I wouldn't go further than that. — InPitzotl

Why?

If it were that simple we wouldn't be spending so much money researching consciousness. — Wheatley

Fair point but that's not actually a reason is it?

Hmm.. I bet that's controversial and an oversimplification. — Wheatley

Explain why?

Before we go any further, what do you think of the idea that perception is a language? It seems to be one; after all, the brain is interpreting the neural signals pouring into it through the senses.

Because it seems like describing red scientifically is different that perceiving red. The word "learning" is thrown into the conversation and I don't know why. :chin: — Wheatley

Red is 750 (nm). The perception of red is merely the eye translating 750 (nm) for the brain. You could, hypothetically, change the perception red, say into some other color (I believe there's a quaint thought experiment on just that) but you can't change that red is 750 (nm).

Are these two statements equivalent? — Wheatley

Why do you ask?

That's the wave length of red.

That's not the answer you get if you ask any person to point to you to something red.

If you ask a scientist, then they'll speak of wavelengths.

Red is the colour of blood, or certain apples or of fire hydrants. — Manuel

Yet, you grasped my point.

A child knows what red is. — Wheatley

So? It's the eye's, child's or adult's, way of translating 750 (nm) for the brain.

Can your prove that? — Wheatley

How do we know red is 750 (nm)? Isn't that a bridge we've already crossed?

Red happens to be quantifiable to that wavelength. But a quantity is not a quality. — Manuel

Begging the question.

Not in the same sense that we learn math. If Mary does actually learn anything, we need to broaden our concept of learning. — Wheatley

What is red? It's the eye's way of perceiving 750 (nm). It's like a way of looking at something, a perspective if you will. The ears perceive of 750 (Hz) differently. Translations, back and forth, between languages (of the senses).

A little more vivid, perhaps. You can discuss a punch in the nose all day long. I would argue that you learn something from being punched in the nose that cannot otherwise be learned. Do you argue against? — tim wood

You get used to it. I don't even see the code. All I see is blond, brunette, redhead. — Cypher

Fair enough. It needs expansion. But I don't have the inclination to write an essay now. — Banno

No problemo.

A certain aspect of reality (quantity) is discovered all over the world
— TheMadFool

I think that's not what happens. Rather, a certain way of talking about the world is found in many places. There are, after all, languages without much by way of number. Would you say that the folk who speak them have failed to notice an aspect of reality, or would you say that they have no use for a particular process, a certain way of speaking? — Banno

Well, it wouldn't be wrong to say that, necessity is the mother of invention, if a people had no use for math, they wouldn't have ever adapted language to make it math-apt.

Your point then is...I draw a blank at this point.

Eyes do not perceive, so the answer to the question is no (I'm sure you didn't literally mean that eyes perceive, but you have to be specific here enough for me to know what you did mean).

Color vision in most humans is trichromatic; to such humans, 750nm light would affect the visual system in a particular way, that contrasts quite a bit from 550nm light. The tristimulus values for each would be X=0.735, Y=0.265, Z=0 and X=0.302, Y=0.692, Z=0.008 respectively. A protanope would be dichromatic; the protanope's visual system might have tristimulus values for each color as X=1.000, Y=0.000 and 550nm light as X=0.992, Y=0.008.

Assuming Jack is typical, Jane has an inverted spectrum, and Joe is a protanope, Jack and Jane agree 750nm light is red and 550nm light is green; and Joe doesn't quite get what the fuss is about. — InPitzotl

Languages maybe mutually unintelligible but nothing new is added in translation from one to another. Joe's knowledge that red is 750 nm, even when he's blind to red, is equivalent to Jack and Jane seeing/perceiving red. Red is, after all, light of 750 nm in eye dialect.

Here's a little thought experiment:

If I say out loud to you "seven" and then follow that up by writing "7" and showing it to you, is there any difference insofar as the content of my spoken and written message is concerned?

No!

Both "seven" (aural) and "7" (visual) contain the same information - seven-ness.

Likewise, seeing the actual color red is equivalent to knowing the number 750 (nm) - they're both the same thing and nothing new is learned by looking at a red object.

1. Deism: God as creator (of the universe) but who doesn't intervene.

2. Pantheism: All is God.

3. Pandeism: God became one with the universe [Deism + Pantheism].

4. Panentheism: All is God but God is much more. [Pantheism + God transcends all].

5. Panendeism: Deism + Panentheism = (Your) Enformationism

Ultimately, in the very distant future, God will come into existence (The Omega Point).

:chin:

So folk become puzzled as to why it should turn out that 2 is so useful for Fijians as well as for Europeans. All languages use nouns, too, but this does not lead to puzzlement. Some ways of talking are better than others. — Banno

Indeed, it puzzles me. A certain aspect of reality (quantity) is discovered all over the world almost simultaneously, accepted, fast & furious, by everyone. There are non-mathematical entities of course that too enjoy a similar status e.g. morality, variations don't detract from the overall universality of the notion of right and wrong. That's intriguing as hell.

Adopting an argument from Davidson, what would a community look like in which 2+2=3? What utterances or behaviours of theirs would convince us that they thought this? How could they be seen to bring two groups of two together and get 3? How could they behave as if that were what happened? Perhaps they pretend that the fourth item has disappeared; but what would that look like to us - a ritual? — Banno

Couldn't parse that to respond sensibly.

:up:

I couldn't find that quote... — Wheatley

Same here. I wanted to quote an intellectual giant on the issue but I don't even know where to begin. So, I'll try to convey my thoughts in my own words.

When a photograph isn't clear, there are two possibilities:

1. Something's wrong with your eyes. Correctable with the help of an ophthalmologist

2. The photograph itself is fuzzy/blurry. Impossible to correct. — TheMadFool

Good, but not sure of the inter alia...

What else is it? — Banno

:chin: You have a point. Mathematics, I wanted to say, is abstractions but so are the words in natural language. Yet, very thought-provoking, is it not?, that mathematics seems to be universal; that is to say it doesn't seem to be culturally/geographically constrained. Everyone everywhere, it appears, hit upon the idea of numbers & shapes - there are numerous mutually unintelligible natural languages but math stands out as one language that everybody understands (trade, money, engineering). This to the extent that scientists, mainly astronomers, are under the impression that the safest bet in re communicating with aliens is to use math. Is there something we're missing here?

1/10+1/100+1/1000... become the very same as 1 — Banno

$\frac{9}{10}+\frac{9}{100}+\frac{9}{1000}+...= 1$

My hypothesis is that it's not a name because that which has a name has a creator — MAYAEL

Interesting! Names are given, requiring a giver and that which is named.

The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao; The name that can be named is not the eternal name. The nameless is the beginning of heaven and earth. — Laozi

Looks like a digression but certainly worth pondering over.

The impression I have got from trying to understand (i.e., not just translate) ancient Greek is not that primitive speakers were unable to figure out vowels or nuance or complexity, but rather that language itself was incidental in conveying meaning and significance, those things being presupposed to be shared, particulars being communicated by reference to that which was shared. And these things being shared, the language itself could and did remain crude (by modern standards). — tim wood

We're talking about the written word here and yes, it ultimately is about language but...the focus is on how writing seems to add another layer of complexity to understanding a message. In spoken language, ambiguity is a function of polysemy only. In a piece of text with only consonants, the possibilities extend beyond puns.

And I can further imagine that the development of the literatures of the world led slowly and then increasingly to the showing in the language itself of what was once understood external to language, thus the words evolving from tokens that referred to actualities, knowledge of which presumed shared and effectively communicated by mere reference, to meanings transferred to language itself and thus conveyed no longer by mere reference but by the language itself. - How often do we read, in approaching ancient literature, even up through Icelandic sagas, that the audience - the ones hearing - — tim wood

1. It was assumed that the correct vowels were universally known. Ergo, there would be no confusion. — TheMadFool

@Banno

I believe math is, inter alia, a language.

Going by what Israeli-born historian Yuval Noah Harari says in his book Sapiens, the written word was created to handle mathematical information (accounting, inventorying) - partial scripts they're called. Only later did people expand written language to full scripts, ones capable of recording any and all conversations (poetry to prose).

Man, if you don't believe I'll just die. Just do a little more reading, and you too, will agree. lol — Sam26

:ok:

I am right, this is a common misunderstanding. — Sam26

Maybe.

It's a misinterpretation of Schrodinger's cat to think the cat is both dead and alive. You can never observe the cat in both states. And, once you do observe it, it's then in one state or the other, so no contradiction. — Sam26

Somehow I don't believe you and in a certain sense I think you're right.

What you've set out here is just one side of the disagreement about Mary's Room, but I am suggesting that not just red but everything you have learned comes from experience. Do you have a counter to that? — Daemon

Yes, I think so. I'll give you an argument Socrates made.

1. Nothing in our experience is truly, precisely, equal. Everything we encounter around us is either never equal or only approximately equal.

Yet,

2. We have the concept of perfect equality.

Ergo,

3. Not everything we know is drawn from experience.

Mary's deficit in the room is only that she hasn't seen red. Apart from that she is a normal experiencing human being.

A computer doesn't experience anything. All the information you and I have ever acquired has come from experience. — Daemon

As I tried to explain with Mary's room thought experiment, redness is just 750 nm (wavelength of red) in eye dialect. Just as you can't claim that you've learned anything new when the statement the burden of proof is translated in latin as onus probandi, you can't say that seeing red gives you any new information.

About Gödel's Incompleteness Theorems

Gödel sentence (G): This (mathematical theorem) is unprovable (within given system)

P = G is provable (G has a proof)

Gödel's argument

1. P $\rightarrow$ ~P
2. P [assume for reductio ad absurdum]
3. ~P [1, 2 MP]
4. P & ~P [2, 3 Conj]
Ergo,
5. ~P [2 - 4 reductio ad absurdum]

~P = G is unprovable: Incompleteness theorem

However, take a look at statement 1:
6. ~P v ~P [1 Imp]
7. ~P [6 Taut]

In other words, 1. P $\rightarrow$ ~P = 7. ~P

Gödel's argument becomes:

1. ~P [substituting P $\rightarrow$ ~P with ~P]
2. P [assume for reductio ad absurdum]
3. P & ~ P [1, 2 Conj; contradiction]
Ergo,
4. ~P [2 - 3 reductio ad absurdum]

But the conclusion (4. ~P) appears in the premises (1. ~P). Circulus in probando.

The electron is not in any state until it's measured, so there is no contradiction. One could think of it as the potentiality of states, or, there is the probability that it will be in this state or that state when measured. So, it's not that it's both up and down at the same time.

This reply is only meant to address some of your concerns. It doesn't address your comments or questions about Godel. — Sam26

Schrödinger's cat?



A = Axiomatic system of math we're currently using (could be unknown)

S = Schrödinger's equation (superposition)

C = the cat is both dead and alive (Schrödinger's cat) = the spin is both up and down [English language equivalent of Schrödinger's equation]

1. A $\rightarrow$ S [premise]
2. S $\rightarrow$ C [premise]
3. A [assume for reductio ad absurdum]
4. S [1, 2 MP]
5. C [2, 4 MP; contradiction]
Ergo,
6. ~A [3 - 5 reductio ad absurdum]

~A = There's an inconsistency in the axioms of math we're currently using.

I'm not sure whether a contradiction in the English language equivalent of an equation in physics (Schrödinger's equation) is a contradiction in math though. Thrice removed from the real McCoy, like art according to Plato.