Never read Kafka, although of course I do know something about him as he's a cultural icon.

Incidentally - a Medium essay on the origin of 'transjective'.

So, you think this thread is about the distinction between appearance and existence? If so, I don't agree. It has mostly been argued by the antirealists that there is no sense in saying that objects are this or that colour, but that is a different and merely semantic issue, whereas there is a cogent distinction between objects and their appearances.

The word 'colour' is commonly used to refer to both objects and experiences of objects, and it is not a matter of it being appropriate to use the word only in one context or the other, but the word is appropriately used in both, although obviously in different senses.

It doesn't have to be left there, if you like. So long as it is noted that we do agree that tomatoes are (sometimes) red, and that a theory which cannot account for this is thereby inadequate.

So any theory that claims colour to be a something in an individual's head, and no more, is inadequate. — Banno

The question is "do objects like tomatoes, strawberries and radishes really have the distinctive property that they do appear to have?". Any interpretation of the proposition "the tomato is red" that does not concern the appearance of the tomato is a red herring.

But also, we agree that stubbing one's toe is painful, but pain is nonetheless in the individual's head, and so your claim above is also a non sequitur. Our words can, and do, refer to mental phenomena, and we can agree which things are causally responsible for that mental phenomena.

We agree... — Michael

I don't. And I'm not the only one. I pointed out the rather large difference between colour and pain previously.

Can you pass me the red pen in your hand? Can you pass me the pain in your hand?

These are quite different.

Can you pass me the red pen in your hand? Can you pass me the pain in your hand?

These are quite different. — Banno

You cannot pass me pain or colours.

You cannot pass me pain or colours. — Michael

Odd. Fine. Toot toot.

Of course. It just seems to me that if one sets out to measure the height of a mountain, one already presumes it has a height to be measured. — Banno

That is a faulty assumption. When one sets out to measure a mountain, they assume that the mountain is likely measurable. You are making the cliche mistake of confusing the map with the territory. The "height" is what is on the map, it's not a part of the territory.

"Height" is defined as "the measurement from base to top". "The measurement" is a product of the act of measuring. The height of a mountain simply does not exist prior to the measurement of the mountain, it is a value, a number which is produced from the measurement. Are you not familiar with Wittgenstein's "standard metre"?

Incidentally, physicist John Bell had some interesting things to say about this common mistake. The common misunderstanding of "measurement", expressed by Banno in the statement above, misleads many people in their interpretation of quantum mechanics. To properly understand quantum mechanics it is necessary to recognize that a measurement is something produced by the act of measuring, and it does not precede the act of measuring.

Nevertheless, after having been taught this numerous times, Banno will continue to make similar statements, indicating that the ignore function in Banno's brain is often turned on.

This is why I have recommended the paper Hoffman has jointly co-authored on Eigenforms and Holography.

The answer, simply put, is that yes, objects do have the properties we perceive them to have because they are observer-dependent. Hoffman's layman level work leaves the causal, knowable nature of the world ambiguous and that to me sounds like Kantianism.

But this newer work makes some good headway on the metaphysical implications of ITP. I believe they say quite adamantly that there is no world sans observation, without observation/decoherence, we have the quantum state of indeterminate possibilities/properties. Upon observation, a classical state is registered:

" If interfaces encode information about fitness, then they do not encode information
about the observer-independent ontology or causal structure of the world. In the present
conceptual framework, of course, this is tautologous: there is no observer-independent
ontology or causal structure in any world that is defined only relative to an observer. "

As they continue, space just is icons/eigenforms encoded into a 2D surface - where an icon's 3D appearance is encoded informational redundancy not only about an object's appearance,but possible actions one can take WRT to it. Apple can be eaten, thrown, smashed, juiced etd. "Space" is just how many bit-flips you need to get from one icon to another.

Objects in space are there to communicate information about your fitness. They are not apart from you - Yourself and the environment are co-dependent and co-arising. You're entangled. A system dividing itself into two -- but not separate things-- to communicate information to itself about how to perpetuate its own existence. If you don't interpret the icons properly, the Conscious Agent-Decision-Action loop breaks and both you and the environment "die".

So there is nothing "behind" or "underneath" appearances. Without observation, there is just superposition of quantum possibilities, but no "unknowable" world out there. I do believe, though, that there are many observers and many concomitant worlds, but these are their worlds, so this might actually be a kind of ontological pluralism.

The point is, colour is not a beetle. Lionino cannot see your beetle, by definition, but you both see the red pen. You both see red. — Banno

This strikes me as incorrect. What we both see is the beetle, which would include its properties, including its redness. I speak of my beetle and you of yours, but it becomes irrelevant as to what it actually is. All that is relevant is we speak consistently enough to play our word game. That is, don't speak of what I see.

It's when you ask what actually we see you run into problems. You can point to the pen as evidence of what is being seen, but you can't then in turn say the beetle is X in an ontological way. All you can say is that red is defined as that pen we both see, but not suggest you have any idea what we both see.

Indeed. And if colour is only in your head, then how is it that Lionino is able to use the word in a way that is consistent with what is in your head? Could it be because there is a shared pen that is red? — Banno

If I say that color is entirely in my head, you can't disagree with this, else you fall into metaphysics. You've committed to a linguistic model, so you violate your principle to suggest to know what my beetle is. Your position is that the beetle is irrelevant for our conversation and so you'd ask I remain silent about it

So, assuming your linguistic model true, Lionino and I have no knowledge of redness or pens in an ontological way. We have words and only words. I see you do things and hear sounds associated with that and from that I figure out what game you must be playing, and from that, I join in and we word play.

The pen is just the thing we hang a word on. Saying it "is" red must be kept clear. "Is" is being used to state a definition, not an empirical fact here. As is in "the bachelor is unmarried" versus "bob is unmarried."

Where I find this unsatisfactory is that if you ask what this pen is in an empirical sense, not a definitional sense, you get no response. Literally, silence. And I'd like to know what a pen is other than that indescribable thing we've labeled "pen."

That exploration is worth having even if you've figured out how to communicate without it.

These are quite different. — Banno

No, they aren't. They refer the exact same categories of property and present hte exact same distinction, lost in common-use of hte words involvd.

You seem to note that the distinction is key in the analysis, and deny it's effect. Interesting. Then again, you miss, completely, and in a pretty cartoonish way, the difference between "look", "perceive" and "see". All discreet events which provide different elemtsn of a single process of apprehension through perception from stimulus to expereince. So, the discussion has been entirely on-point. References need not be anything deeper than reference. "Red pen" is a reference not a description. It seems to me you want to call the pen Red because it causes red experiences which is correct. But, you seem unable to accept that this si the claim being made. The pen isn't red, on any description given in this thread.

It's a misuse of your own theory to make the claims your making, even if we accept that common-use matters as much as you seem to think, in conceptual analysis (BIG hint: Common use of words has precisely zero to do with conceptual analysis until you're in the realm of analysing language which is not happening here. Seems to be your pet area - and, to that degree, go for gold. You're good at it).

And I'd like to know what a pen is other than that indescribable thing we've labeled "pen." — Hanover

Missed then why writing the above response - sorry, think it's a really, really good point. I think it is describable, but only describable by reference to our experience (aesthetically, even!). This removes any certainly outside of hte word game - but it does present the exact delineation you've aptly outlined. I just think Banno is sitting pretty on "thats nonsense. This is how we refer to things.."
Unsatisfactory indeed.

All that is relevant is we speak consistently enough to play our word game. That is, don't speak of what I see. — Hanover

Yes! More small steps. A small progress. One can have a conversation concerning the beetle: 'But suppose the word "beetle" had a use in these people's language?—If so it would not be used as the name of a thing'.

It wouldn't be the name of a thing. No ontology of beetles.

You've committed to a linguistic model, — Hanover

That's your painting of the arch linguistic philosopher rather than anything real. "We have words and only words" is far from what is the case. We have pens. There are things shown, not said. Like what a pen is.

The beetle analog was written about pain, not colour. While to some extent there is an overlap, one can produce samples of colour and chat about whether these are red, and what shade of red. One cannot do the came with pain; what one sees is the manifestation of pain, the groaning and grimacing. One cannot see into the box.

Supose that we all do see colours differently, and named them accordingly - so what @Lionino sees as red, you see as blue, and you both use the name for what you see. This is to take @Michael's suggestion literally! If @Lionino were to ask for the red pen, you might say "There is no red pen here, but there is a blue pen, and from past experience I know that Lionino is content for me to pass the blue pen when he asked for a red. At the least, it shuts them up.'

But this is not what happens, at least in my case. I undertake no such ratiocination. If you do, or if Michael does, then so be it. At the least, that would explain why these threads are interminable. The question, then, is how it came to be that you learned these words?

But what we see is a red pen, not a blue. And this is not only a result of our physiology, but of the way in which we learn to use colour words.

And now we have Meta claiming maps have height, but mountains do not, and AmadeusD claiming to be unable to tell colour from pain. Fine. I'll leave them to it.

But this newer work makes some good headway on the metaphysical implications of ITP. I believe they say quite adamantly that there is no world sans observation, without observation/decoherence, we have the quantum state of indeterminate possibilities/properties. Upon observation, a classical state is registered: — Bodhy

Interesting. But "there is no world sans observation", and yet "without observation/decoherence, we have the quantum state of indeterminate possibilities/properties" - so isn't "the quantum state of indeterminate possibilities/properties" just the world as it is without observation?

If so, then it is not the case that we have no world without observation?

This brings out part of what appears so circular in Hoffman - he uses the physics of the world to show that there is no world. This leads me to supose he has missed something important. Or perhaps I have. Is physics like Wittgenstein's ladder, to be thrown away once climbed? That would be odd, given how effective physics is at doing things.

So there is nothing "behind" or "underneath" appearances. Without observation, there is just superposition of quantum possibilities, but no "unknowable" world out there. I do believe, though, that there are many observers and many concomitant worlds, but these are their worlds, so this might actually be a kind of ontological pluralism. — Bodhy

It’s also perfectly compatible with the Buddhist philosophy of śūnyatā, the absence of own-being of particulars, and the doctrine of dependent origination. (I thought perhaps with your forum name, this might ring a bell.)

I downloaded and tried to read that article, but I am not the audience for it. The audience is other academics, cognitive scientists, and cognitive realists who need to be persuaded in their own terminology and using their own methods. It’s above my pay-grade.

This brings out part of what appears so circular in Hoffman - he uses the physics of the world to show that there is no world. This leads me to supose he has missed something important. — Banno

But he doesn’t say that. What he’s disputing is the mind-independent nature of the objects of physics. Whereas for you, what is real is by definition what is mind-independent. As I said earlier in this thread the thread about Hoffman, his book could be called ‘the case against cognitive realism’. He doesn’t say ‘nothing is real’. He has a lot to say about science, and bases his arguments on science, so he’s not calling the efficacy of science into question, which would indeed be self-contradictory. He’s pointing to physics itself as undermining the claim that objects of cognition are mind-independent. That’s one crux of the argument.

and AmadeusD claiming to be unable to tell colour from pain — Banno

No. You do not have this.
It may be helpful that where you clearly do not understand what someone is saying, you simply ask for clarification. This seems to be somewhat hard for you, as opposed to assuming and putting words in people's mouths. If you have to make genuinely stupid assertions like this to get around things people put in front of you, that's something to reflect on :)

Objects in space are there to communicate information about your fitness. They are not apart from you - Yourself and the environment are co-dependent and co-arising. You're entangled. A system dividing itself into two -- but not separate things-- to communicate information to itself about how to perpetuate its own existence. If you don't interpret the icons properly, the Conscious Agent-Decision-Action loop breaks and both you and the environment "die". — Bodhy

that's one for the scrapbook!

Yes, and yes. Primary qualities or attributes are just those which are measurable, and, crucially, those that are said to be mind-independent. A hue may look different to different observers - although that’s hard to tell - but any value that can be measured objectively is not subject to opinion. Principally: mass, charge, velocity, dimension, and location. Just those elements of matter and chemistry which are said by materialism to be the foundation of all else that exists. — Wayfarer

Though I am loath to wade into this discussion, and two pages behind, I can't resist pointing out that the optical absorption spectrum of a tomato, and the emission spectrum of light illuminating a tomato are both measureable.

But carry on.

Of course, they are measurable, but how it appears to the subject is dependent on her faculties. She might, for example, be red-green colorblind. Besides, making the distinction between primary and secondary qualities was in the context of explaining the origin of those distinction in early modern science and their consequences in philosophy.

And now we have Meta claiming maps have height, but mountains do not, — Banno

By definition, "height" is a measurement. You just like to use words in a realist way, and claim that since you can use them in this way, it makes what you say true. You do the same with "change", claiming that since you can use "change" in a way which doesn't imply the passage of time, then it is true that "change" doesn't imply the passage of time. I can do the same with "arsehole", claiming that if I use "arsehole" to describe Banno, this means it's true that Banno is an arsehole. This is the failure of "meaning is use". It only accounts for one side of meaning. the using, it doesn't account for the other side, the interpreting.

It seems to me that the distinction between direct and indirect realism is useless. Would you say that you have direct or indirect access to your mental phenomenon? — Harry Hindu

Direct - there is nothing between my mind and itself. That's the nature of the distinction. I have direct access to my experiences. Not their causes.
It might not 'mean much' out there in the world, but in terms of the discussion we're having its the central, crucial thing to be understood. So, I reject your opener on those grounds. But i acknowledge that for a certain kind of philosopher, this is going to look like a couple of guys around a pub table arguing over the blue/white black/gold dress. I disagree is all :)

How did scientists come to realize how pain works and that our experience of it is incorrect if all they have to go by is their own observations which you are calling into question? — Harry Hindu

By noticing that pain doesn't exist outside the mind. We can acknowledge things exist outside the mind - I am not an idealist. Inference is good, but not good enough for this type of thing. Banno's "there is a red pen" claims are experience-bound, so pose no issue for this account. Your point, though, might.

I think the response is something along the lines of, well that's what science does. Eliminates possibilities. If pain exists sans any injury (or even limb!!) then it would seem it is a referent, which can experience aberration. I think that's right, and tracks with both my experience, and the apparent observations of physiologists and pain researchers(nociplastic pain is a great exemplar of where this throws spanners in the works of traditional treatment for pain, but opens up avenues for solving other chronic pain issues with novel, psychological approaches - results may vary!)

I interpret the pain as being located in my foot because most, if not all, of the other times the pain was located in my foot I had an injury on my foot. — Harry Hindu

This seems right.

s I said before, we have more than one sense for fault tolerance - to check what one sense is telling us, and we have the ability to reason, to compare past experiences with current ones, and to predict what experiences we can have. — Harry Hindu

Yes, I also agree with this. You're describing the mechanism by which our mind successfully, in most cases, has us attend to our injuries. I see no issues.

The question, then, is how it came to be that you learned these words? — Banno

How have I come to learn the meaning of the word "pain"?

Does the color “red” exist outside of the subjective mind that conceptually designates the concept of “red?” — Mp202020

This is the question that the OP poses in the first sentence. But the question is actually not about 'perception'. The study of perception is (as many on this thread have pointed out) a matter for cognitive science. But whether the color red exists apart from experience is not about perception as such. It's a philosophical question related to 'the hard problem of consciousness' and the relationship between perception and experience.

Supose that we all do see colours differently, and named them accordingly - so what Lionino sees as red, you see as blue, and you both use the name for what you see. This is to take @Michael's suggestion literally! If @Lionino were to ask for the red pen, you might say "There is no red pen here, but there is a blue pen, and from past experience I know that Lionino is content for me to pass the blue pen when he asked for a red. At the least, it shuts them up.' — Banno

The suggestion is that I am on the left, Lionino is on the right, and that the colour we each see the apple to be is a mental phenomenon, falsely projected onto the apple. The apple does not really have the property that it appears to have.

The fact that I pass Lionino the apple when he says in our non-English language "flurgle nurgle blurgle" is utterly irrelevant to the issue being discussed.

The percept that occurs when we hallucinate red is the percept that occurs when we dream red is the percept that optical stimulation by 620-750nm light ordinarily causes to occur.

Or if you prefer, the neural activity that is responsible for dreaming red is the neural activity that is responsible for hallucinating red is the neural activity that optical stimulation by 620-750nm light ordinarily causes to occur.

When this neural activity occurs when asleep we call it a dream. When this neural activity occurs when awake but not in response to optical stimulation we call it an hallucination. When this neural activity occurs when awake and in response to optical stimulation we call it a non-hallucinatory waking experience. — Michael

So then, there is a difference between seeing red, hallucinating red, and dreaming red. Hence, if they all include "the mental percept", and yet they are distinct, then it only follows that the notion of the "mental percept" is inadequate/insufficient for explaining those differences.

Hence, if they all include "the mental percept", and yet they are distinct, then it only follows that the notion of the "mental percept" is inadequate/insufficient for explaining those differences. — creativesoul

The differences are explained by the cause of the mental percept, as I literally explained in the comment you quoted.

What causes hallucinations of red?

When this neural activity occurs when asleep we call it a dream. When this neural activity occurs when awake but not in response to optical stimulation we call it an hallucination. When this neural activity occurs when awake and in response to optical stimulation we call it a non-hallucinatory waking experience. — Michael

Did you even read the comment you quoted?

Of course, smart ass. What we call something is not equivalent to causation.

We know what causes seeing red. What causes hallucinations and dreams of red?

https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/symptoms/23350-hallucinations#possible-causes

https://health.clevelandclinic.org/why-do-we-dream

The beetle analog was written about pain, not colour. While to some extent there is an overlap, one can produce samples of colour and chat about whether these are red, and what shade of red. One cannot do the came with pain; what one sees is the manifestation of pain, the groaning and grimacing. One cannot see into the box. — Banno

This strikes me as special pleading and a category error, holding a special rule to the sense of sight as opposed to touch and then asking why we can't publicly see the pain in the object. It's just such a confused statement. If we insist the red is in the pen (which is your thesis), the we must insist the pain is in the knife (which would avoid the special pleading). We then need to publicly experience that pain, which would be performed by each of us touching the blade of the knife and feeling the pain as a group. To demand that we must experience the pain distantly like we do color just makes a category error. Touch doesn't require photons for perception.

And note that the above doesn't suggest the color or the pain was in the mind. I'm keeping this consistent with the thesis that the object contains the attributes, not the mind. The fact that we have to reach out and touch the knife for the pain in the knife to be known to us doesn't anymore suggest the pain is an object of the mind than is color because you also must open your eyes to see the color. That is, with regard to any sense, you must make your perceptions available to the object to experience it, whether that be looking at it across the room or touching it with your finger.

I recognize this is a criticism and not a recitation of Wittgenstein which I've otherwise been delighting you with, but it just makes so little sense to me how you can concede to pain all the indirect realism concerns, but then just decree that the same things don't apply to color. For the sake of this academic experiment, I'm willing to consider the idea that we are compelled to limit our understanding of the world to that which can be spoken of, but I have to apply this game we're playing consistently. That is, if the pen has color we can point to and it remains something beyond just subjective experience, then I can't suddenly stop playing your game and then worry about pain being in its own special class that is just subjective experience.

That is, let's pick a model: Either we have these qualitative states of red and pain we can speak of and we have this world of phenomena and noumena or we just have our community of words. I'm saying pain is no different than red. Either they're both phenomenal states or neither is.