The point is that immediately understanding and/or apprehending redness as a property of conscious experience requires metacognition — creativesoul

How is that different to saying that it requires language to identify the colour as "red"?

However that use is derivative from situations where we observe an object in normal lighting which is where color distinctions are originally made. That's the reference point in the world. Without that reference point, you have to contend with the private language argument.
— Andrew M

That I do agree with! — Janus

:up:

For colors, the looking and the being are dentical. — Olivier5

Yet we do make the distinction in practice - see below.

An apple that receives no light cannot absorb part of the visible spectrum and reflect the other. It has the pigments to do so but not the light that would be playing with the pigments.

There's more: in the absence of light, maturing apples will become pallish, not red. So apples need to sense some light in order to even bother producing pigments to color that light. The same apply to leaves: if kept in the dark for a while, they will lose their green chlorophyll and turn white. — Olivier5

Yes. So that's a physical process. In the absence of light, the colors of the apples and leaves change over time independently of anyone being there. So looking red (or pallid, or green, or white) and being red (or pallid, or green, or white) are different. That is, apples don't look red in the dark, yet they are red (until they become pallid).

The point is that immediately understanding and/or apprehending redness as a property of conscious experience requires metacognition
— creativesoul

How is that different to saying that it requires language to identify the colour as "red"? — Luke

Identifying the color as "red" does not require metacognition.

apples don't look red in the dark, yet they are red — Andrew M

Okay, whatever. It makes no philosophical difference that I can see to my perception of red.

Identifying the color as "red" does not require metacognition. — creativesoul

Why not? I'm trying to understand the distinction between "talk of redness" requires metacognition and "talk of redness" requires language. Why does "talk of redness" require metacognition, or what do you mean by that?

Identifying the color as "red" does not require metacognition.
— creativesoul

Why not? — Luke

And why does it matter?

That is, apples don't look red in the dark, yet they are red — Andrew M

That's two different meanings for the word "red". One is how it looks to us, the other is having the property of looking red to us under normal lighting conditions. That is to say, the chemical structure of the red apple's surface is such that it reflects visible light of a certain wavelength.

I do not think that you understood the argument given. Merely distinguishing between red and blue is inadequate for understanding and/or immediately apprehending redness as a property of conscious experience. — creativesoul

That was not the extent of my argument. Try not to cherry-pick. If, say, a crow can distinguish between a red ball and a blue ball, and can correlate a red ball and a red cup, that is more than sufficient to have a property 'redness' even without the word 'red' or indeed any other word.

Knowing that red things have that in common requires isolating and focusing upon the fact that the same frequencies are emitted/reflected by different things. — creativesoul

No it doesn't, as had already been pointed out. Our concept of redness precedes our knowledge of the wave nature of light and cannot depend on such knowledge.

I'm trying to understand the distinction between "talk of redness" requires metacognition and "talk of redness" requires language... — Luke

I suggest a revisitation...

Immediately apprehending and/or understanding "redness" requires already knowing how to use "red", and is metacognitive in it's constitution. Knowing how to use the term "red" to talk about red things is thought and belief that is linguistic in it's constitution, but not metacognitive. So, it is either the case that raw, basic, fundamental, private, ineffable immediately apprehensible conscious experience involving red cups, balls, and tulips does not include the property of redness, or raw, basic, fundamental, private, ineffable, immediately apprehensible conscious experience requires metacognition. Not all conscious experience involving red cups, balls, and tulips requires language. All metacognition does. So, the property of redness is disqualified(pun intended).

Talk of redness as a property of conscious experience requires both language and metacognition.

Understanding and/or immediately apprehending redness requires considerable previous usage of "red" to pick out red things, and then rather extensive subsequent careful consideration about that previous use of "red"(that's metacognition).

And it matters because qualia are supposed to be basic, fundamental, private, ineffable, immediately apprehensible, etc. but redness is none of those things.

I agree that some language less creatures can distinguish between red things as well as gathering different red things. I agree that some language less creatures can perceive the frequencies of light that we've named "red", and can distinguish between those frequencies and others. I agree that some language less creatures can gather different things that emit and/or reflect the aforementioned frequencies as well...

Where's the concept of "redness" in all of that? It's nowhere to be found because it's not necessary in order to do all of those things. It's not even necessary in order to explain all of those things.

The concept of "redness" emerges from careful and very deliberate consideration of previous normal everyday use of "red". Without the normal everyday use of "red" there would have never been "redness".

Try not to cherry-pick. — Kenosha Kid

The irony of pots and kettles...

Understanding and/or immediately apprehending redness requires considerable previous usage of "red" to pick out red things, and then rather extensive subsequent careful consideration about that previous use of "red"(that's metacognition). — creativesoul

Apart from your repeated assertions, I still don't see much justification for "metacognition" or much distinction of it from linguistic competence. What does "rather extensive subsequent careful consideration about that previous use of "red"" add that linguistic competence can't already do? What makes it necessary for "immediately apprehending redness"?

And it matters because qualia are supposed to be basic, fundamental, private, ineffable, immediately apprehensible, etc. but redness is none of those things. — creativesoul

Not sure where you get "basic" and "fundamental" from. Not from Dennett's paper. And "immediately apprehensible" is something you appear to acknowledge as being characteristic of qualia, given your claim that it requires metacognition.

And it matters because qualia are supposed to be basic, fundamental, private, ineffable, immediately apprehensible, etc. but redness is none of those things — creativesoul

But red is, so it doesn't matter.

Not sure where you get "basic" and "fundamental" from. Not from Dennett's paper. — Luke

Good point. People keep loading the concept with extraneous baggage.

By the way, Dennett's pumps illustrate that qualia are objective to a degree, and therefore can be studied by science. Hence all the neuroscientists he summons, who are connecting qualia, changing them, inverting them, etc. in his 'intuition pumps'. He could not imagine any of that if deep down (unconsciously), he did not see qualia as objective phenomena.

apples don't look red in the dark, yet they are red
— Andrew M
Okay, whatever. It makes no philosophical difference that I can see to my perception of red. — Olivier5

Cool. It relates to philosophical issues such as dualism, qualia, the hard problem, and what not.

That is, apples don't look red in the dark, yet they are red
— Andrew M

That's two different meanings for the word "red". One is how it looks to us, the other is having the property of looking red to us under normal lighting conditions. That is to say, the chemical structure of the red apple's surface is such that it reflects visible light of a certain wavelength. — Marchesk

The word "red" has the same meaning in both phrases, it's just qualified in the first phrase. It's the same form as "the stick doesn't look straight (partly submerged in water), but it is straight."

Distinctions are made in ordinary experience. And those distinctions can be qualified (by "seems", "appears", "looks") in subsequent experiences. Only one meaning is operative here, not separate "subjective" and "objective" meanings. Again, this just comes down to whether one accepts the philosophical subject/object distinction or not. As I've mentioned before, I reject it.

It relates to philosophical issues such as dualism, qualia, the hard problem, and what not. — Andrew M

It may relate to these issues but it does not impact on them. E.g. you can think apples are red and still be a dualist.

this just comes down to whether one accepts the philosophical subject/object distinction or not. As I've mentioned before, I reject it. — Andrew M

You cannot actually reject anything if you are not a subject.

Where's the concept of "redness" in all of that? It's nowhere to be found because it's not necessary in order to do all of those things. — creativesoul

Yes it is. A crow cannot be trained to collect red things without some crow equivalent of a concept of redness. There is a phenomenological similarity that the crow must grasp in order to do this. For two phenomena to be similar, they must share properties.

The concept of "redness" emerges from careful and very deliberate consideration of previous normal everyday use of "red". — creativesoul

Your argument is that because we encode our understanding of red linguistically, redness is a fundamentally linguistic process. This is not shown. You need to show that redness disappears without language, and that's a tall order. All you can demonstrate with this is that the way we discuss redness disappears with the language. We'll still be able to learn that this colour of mushroom is good eating while that colour makes us ill.

By the way, no one in real life behaves as uber-rationally as philosophers insist. Everyone gets by fine without careful and very deliberate consideration of "red", or indeed most other things.

I agree that some language less creatures can perceive the frequencies of light that we've named "red", — creativesoul

You're relying too much on this. We have no phenomenal awareness of frequency. There isn't even a fixed one-to-one mapping between frequency and colour perception, as you can demonstrate to yourself quite easily by taking a video recorder into a white room with a standard light bulb. The walls look white to you, but appear yellow on the recording. This is because your brain adjusts the ambient light temperature toward white if it can. None of this process is present to you in your apprehension of a white wall.

Either way, the EM theory of optics is a theory -- a very good one -- to explain why certain things have certain colours. It is likely important to the operating of the brain in producing images, however it is not shown to be fundamental to our or any other animal's phenomenal *perception* of colour. Predicating a description of colour perception that relies on a theory of optics is well and truly putting the cart before the horse. In short, if a better theory of optics comes along, we won't start seeing red grass and green skies.

The irony of pots and kettles... — creativesoul

Ahh, I see. I ought to lower my expectations somewhat. As you were, then.

Everyone gets by fine without careful and very deliberate consideration of "red", or indeed most other things. — Kenosha Kid

Indeed, and this shows us that "redness" is neither necessary nor useful aside from creating a bottle to buzz around in...

I still don't see much justification for "metacognition"... — Luke

And something tells me you never will...

The Redness of Red, by Emily Downe

Where's the concept of "redness" in all of that? It's nowhere to be found because it's not necessary in order to do all of those things. It's not even necessary in order to explain all of those things. — creativesoul

Yes it is. A crow cannot be trained to collect red things without some crow equivalent of a concept of redness. There is a phenomenological similarity that the crow must grasp in order to do this. For two phenomena to be similar, they must share properties. — Kenosha Kid

Not to derail the discussion, but I think what you're discussing here is Sellars' distinction between "pattern governed behavior" and "rule obeying behavior"; see "Some Reflections on Language Games". Roughly, the former is a matter of conditioning, standard learning processes, etc., while the latter relies on a meta-level recognition of something having the status of a rule that authorizes inference.

(This is not the same as but next-door to Ryle's observation in The Concept of Mind, also taking chess as the prime example: he imagines a researcher observing a game of chess and afterward commiserating with the players about how their every move was "determined" by the rules, and Ryle explains the difference between "determined by" and "in accordance with".)

(Btw, I'm not offering to defend Sellars here, as any Sellars I read more than an hour ago tends to be less clear to me than I'd like, but it's an extraordinary paper and worth reading.)

Try critical self-analysis, rather than metacognition.

Indeed, and this shows us that "redness" is neither necessary nor useful aside from creating a bottle to buzz around in... — creativesoul

Eh, you know what it means, so it must have some use.

Indeed, and this shows us that "redness" is neither necessary nor useful aside from creating a bottle to buzz around in... — creativesoul

That's also not shown.

Not to the flies anyway...

Try critical self-analysis, rather than metacognition. — Mww

If someone does not realize that there is no such thing as a property of language less conscious experience that we've called "redness", then there's not much more that can be said.

there is no such thing as a property of language-less conscious experience that we've called "redness" — creativesoul

It is perfectly possible to experience the redness of an object, and to call it thus... I don't see what your problem is.

I still don't see much justification for "metacognition"...
— Luke

And something tells me you never will... — creativesoul

Perhaps, but not for lack of trying. I have asked for clarification.

Not to derail the discussion, but I think what you're discussing here is Sellars' distinction between "pattern governed behavior" and "rule obeying behavior"; see "Some Reflections on Language Games". Roughly, the former is a matter of conditioning, standard learning processes, etc., while the latter relies on a meta-level recognition of something having the status of a rule that authorizes inference. — Srap Tasmaner

I think that's apt, although I cannot speak for cs as to what they meant. Linguistic handling of object properties are obviously very different from phenomenological manifestation of object properties, and both are different to (models of) objective properties.

this just comes down to whether one accepts the philosophical subject/object distinction or not. As I've mentioned before, I reject it.
— Andrew M
You cannot actually reject anything if you are not a subject. — Olivier5

You can't reject anything if you're not a human being. But that doesn't imply subject/object dualism, which divides the human being in Cartesian terms. (Which I briefly discussed here.)

A human being has a perspective of the world. The distinctions we make and our representations of the world presuppose that human perspective. But that perspective doesn't itself have properties (qualia) or a substantial existence (res cogitans), contra dualism.

It's a different perspective to dualism, so to speak.

You can't reject anything if you're not a human being. — Andrew M

It's not about your species. Animals can reject things. Dogs tend to reject salad. Cats tend to reject swimming (and dogs). The capacity to reject things is about being a self-aware decision-making center, i.e. a subject. Note the common etymology.

To reject = to ‘throw back’, from the verb reicere, from re- ‘back’ + jacere ‘to throw’
Subject = ‘lying beneath’, from subiectus, past participle of subicere, from sub- ‘under’ + jacere ‘throw’.