It's pretty simple guys, red is either something there can be a fact of the matter about at some level or it is not. And there either exists a science of colour that is not nonsensical or there does not. If every human being in the world right now put on red tinted glasses that would not in the slightest change the scientific understanding or abrogate the scientific meaning of the term "red". — Baden
Sure it is. If you appear red then you're red. — Michael
What else would it mean to be red? Perhaps "have a surface that reflects light at a wavelength of ~620–740nm" or "appears red to most people in ordinary lighting conditions"? — Michael
However, if you claim that to be red is just to look red, that's equivalent to saying there can be no science of colour. — Baden
"How can you see the cup if you can't see the atoms? You cannot. The cup would not appear to you if not for the many tiny atoms which form the object which we recognise as a cup."
It's not absurd at all, it's a perfectly legitimate way of speaking. — Baden
Anyway, if you accept there is a science of colour then you accept that to be red is not just to appear red. — Baden
They do in this context. — Michael
If by that you mean only the way that you're using them, then sure. In that context, they mean the same thing.
And I can create a context in which thinking means doing, such that thinking that I've jumped off a cliff means that I've jumped off a cliff. :-}
What else shall we conflate? Walking and running? Sinking and rising? Smelling and hearing? Take your pick. — Sapientia
Then what does it mean to be red? — Michael
Philosophical gerrymandering. — Baden
There doesn't have to be a single meaning. There can be multiple meanings, and some can be more sensible than others. I have highlighted the shortcomings of your meaning, so we should seek a better one - one that is more flexible and which doesn't lead to seeming absurdity. — Sapientia
There's two ways of looking at it. I made it clear in my first post. I'm not saying either is nonsensical on its own terms. However, if you claim that to be red is just to look red, that's equivalent to saying there can be no science of colour. But there is. So, you're wrong. — Baden
Seems perfectly ordinary to talk about people seeing things that aren't really there. — Michael
Never hear of a retina screen? I guess I must have a better phone than you. :P But even when the pixels are theoretically visible, we don't generally see them, we just see the words. As I said before, I don't think it's illegitimate to say you see pixels, but it's not nonsense to say you don't either. — Baden
My phone has a retina screen. — Sapientia
The pixels are visible to the naked eye, but the atoms are not. — Sapientia
I am nevertheless seeing a number of pixels, am I not? That's what those dark shapes are. — Sapientia
This is the gerrymandering. My objection was to the statement "to be red is just to appear red" not to the statement "to be red is just to appear red when what I mean by red is...". You don't get to define "red". — Baden
How many were there?
— unenlightened
Irrelevant. — Sapientia
Why are unindividuated pixels more visible than unindividuated atoms? — Baden
What are the dark shapes? Do atoms have colour? I see the dark shapes, and the dark shapes are pixels, therefore I see the pixels, or I see the pixels as dark shapes. — Sapientia
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