If the direct realist thinks the world is exactly as it phenomenologically appears, then their argument is still so embarrassingly ridiculous as to force us to consider our own misunderstanding as the more plausible explanation. — Isaac

They certainly thought so of at least some appearances, hence Locke's distinction between primary and secondary qualities.

And see color primitivist realism for the view that objects have an objective colour appearance:

Color Primitivist Realism is the view that there are in nature colors, as ordinarily understood, i.e., colors are simple intrinsic, non-relational, non-reducible, qualitative properties. They are qualitative features of the sort that stand in the characteristic relations of similarity and difference that mark the colors; they are not micro-structural properties or reflectances, or anything of the sort. There is no radical illusion, error or mistake in color perception (only commonplace illusions): we perceive objects to have the colors that they really have. Such a view has been presented by Hacker 1987 and by J. Campbell 1994, 2005, and has become increasingly popular: McGinn 1996; Watkins 2005; Gert 2006, 2008. This view is sometimes called “The Simple View of Color” and sometimes “The Naive Realist view of Color”. Primitivist Color realism contains a conceptual (and semantic) thesis about our ordinary understanding of color, and a metaphysical thesis, namely, that physical bodies actually have colors of this sort.

One entity represents a massive thought complex. — Metaphysician Undercover

Sure. Mathematics comes to mind.

But if colour is a property of experience, then the statement "an object cannot be two colours at once" is incoherent. — Isaac

Hardly. It just means color as we experience it isn't a property of the object.

Colour is not a property of objects so there cannot be physical laws about how many such properties it can have at once. — Isaac

Other than none. Which is kind of the point.

The best you can say is that if colour were a property of objects, then it could not be two colours at once. But here you're creating a counterfactual world in which colours are the properties of objects and claiming you know what physical laws would exist in such a world. Which is an unsupported claim - we only know the physical laws of our own world, the one in which you claim colour is a property of experience, not objects. — Isaac

Before modern science, skeptics made these sort of arguments to claim objects as we experience them don't have those properties. If their arguments were incoherent, then skepticism would have been easily dismissed.

There are some contemporary philosophers who do argue for color realism, and they try to make it compatible with science. I'm not convinced those arguments work.

The counterfactual world you're talking about is the world of our experience. It looks like colors are properties of objects and light sources. The world of our experience came before science was developed.

And what is this thing? Is it physical (if so in what form?). If it's not physical then in some other realm? — Isaac

Consciousness.

Dualism here? — Isaac

Probably not physicalism.

I can't see how any amount of thinking is going to pin down the nature of this 'experience of red' since it has no laws governing it. — Isaac

How do you know this? Chalmers proposed a law binding consciousness with informationally rich systems. So property dualism for him. It's just one possibility. Some have tried to work on making a panpsychist theory built up form minimally conscious subatomic particles.

I'd probably opt for neutral monism. The world is neither all physical or mental, but something that gives rise to or contains both.

If they're really arguing that we're never wrong, however the world seems, that's how it is, then they should consider the earth flat, the sun in its orbit, dragons exist, and the weather caused by an angry God as these are all ways the world has appeared to us to be. — Isaac

It's odd because I've made those sort of arguments to the direct realists in this forum before and got argued down. They didn't seem to think there was problem in the world appearing differently than our scientific account, since I guess those were two different modes of experiencing and explaining.

They certainly thought so of at least some appearances, hence Locke's distinction between primary and secondary qualities. — Michael

Indeed, but you're using the vagueries of colour sensation (which Locke already decided was a secondary quality) to show that objects do not resemble appearances. Locke already covered that by using secondary qualities. His claim about primary qualities was things like solidity, extension, shape, and mobility. So, using Locke, it seems insufficient to show the direct realist os wrong using differences in colour perception as they (Locke being an example) already differentiate two types of property and colour is not primary. What am I missing here?

And see color primitivist realism for the view that objects have an objective colour appearance: — Michael

The article you provided says..

the only way to determine what primitivist color a body has is by the way it appears, this raises the question of which is the body’s real color. Normal perceivers, for example, divide into different groups on whether a body’s color is, say, unique blue, or rather, a slightly reddish-blue, an even more reddish blue, or, alternatively, a greenish blue. Cohen and Hardin argue that there is no non-arbitrary way to pick out one group of perceivers as identifying the “real” color. At most, one group is correct, but we would not know which

So it appears even the critics are agreed that the colour primitivists are still assuming colour is a property which we detect and produces the way it appears, not that colour actually is 'the experience of red' in an object.

I'm not finding, in the sources you've provided, the idea that any direct realist considers objects to actually have (rather than have a property which causes) the 'experience of red'. Do you have any less ambiguous sources, or perhaps you could explain them more clearly?

It just means color as we experience it isn't a property of the object. — Marchesk

How could it possibly mean that?

Colour is not a property of objects so there cannot be physical laws about how many such properties it can have at once. — Isaac


Other than none. Which is kind of the point. — Marchesk

No. there can't be any physical laws about it at all. You can't claim colour is not a physical property of objects and the use, in your argument, aspects of that physical property.

Your claim is that colour cannot be a property of physical objects because objects cannot have two colours at once, but if colour is not a property of physical objects then there is no such law, so your argument fails.

The counterfactual world you're talking about is the world of our experience. It looks like colors are properties of objects and light sources. The world of our experience came before science was developed. — Marchesk

But no-one here has presented any science showing that world of experience to be wrong. If we assume colours are the properties of objects and light sources, what science shows that to be wrong?

Chalmers proposed a law binding consciousness with informationally rich systems. So property dualism for him. It's just one possibility. Some have tried to work on making a panpsychist theory built up form minimally conscious subatomic particles. — Marchesk

Chalmers can 'propose' whatever he likes. I can 'propose' the world is really made of jelly and we're tricked into thinking it isn't by space aliens. If there's no laws governing what can be then all theories are equally valid. Since we (broadly) agree on coherence with physical laws, then agreeing something is physical puts constraints on what it can be, thus not all theories are valid. If we say that something is in some other realm that we can't even see let alone measure, has no discernible laws governing it and can't be proven either way, then all theories are game.

There are some contemporary philosophers who do argue for color realism, and they try to make it compatible with science. I'm not convinced those arguments work. — Marchesk

Uh huh. As you say...

If their arguments were incoherent, then [color realism] would have been easily dismissed. — Marchesk

If there's no laws governing what can be then all theories are equally valid.[/quote]

No laws or no physical laws? Why do laws have to be physical?

So it appears even the critics are agreed that the colour primitivists are still assuming colour is a property which we detect and produces the way it appears, not that colour actually is 'the experience of red' in an object. — Isaac

The way it appears would mean the color in our experience. Except that one thing is a property of the object and the other is a perception of that same property.

'm not finding, in the sources you've provided, the idea that any direct realist considers objects to actually have (rather than have a property which causes) the 'experience of red'. Do you have any less ambiguous sources, or perhaps you could explain them more clearly? — Isaac

They certainly don't mean panpsychism. They mean the world is as it looks to us under proper lighting conditions, at least in the visible light range.

No laws or no physical laws? Why do laws have to be physical? — Marchesk

They don't, they just have to be roughly agreed for us to talk. We have to have some common ground. If you get to make up the laws as well as the theory, then clearly anything goes.

We agree about our basic empirical experience of the world, so we can develop and talk about theories which make coherent sense of that. If you want to claim that our 'experience of red' exists in some non-physical realm, then that's fine, but since we cannot measure or sense this realm in any inter subjective manner, we cannot develop and talk about theories of its function. What possible critique could be brought to bear?

The way it appears would mean the color in our experience. — Marchesk

Yes. The idea that seems to be bring presented is that red is some property of an object which produces the response we call 'seeing red'.

They mean the world is as it looks to us under proper lighting conditions, at least in the visible light range. — Marchesk

I can find no support for this. Both Locke and the colour primitivist agree that we can be mistaken. So they do not think the world is as it looks to us under proper lighting conditions, at least in the visible light range. Otherwise we couldn't be wrong and both admit that we can be wrong.

Yes. The idea that seems to be bring presented is that red is some property of an object which produces the response we call 'seeing red'. — Isaac

No, the idea is that red is a property as we see it, not something that causes us to have a response, which could be something unlike color, such as a photon's wavelength.

can find no support for this. Both Locke and the colour primitivist agree that we can be mistaken. So they do not think the world is as it looks to us under proper lighting conditions, at least in the visible light range. Otherwise we couldn't be wrong and both admit that we can be wrong. — Isaac

Under normal conditions, when there's not an optical illusion, and taking into account whatever details about color vision need to be accounted for. The claim is the world is basically colored-in as we perceive it to be.

Just on the subject of colour...

I've been reading Color Realism and Color Science and Color Properties and Color Ascriptions: A Relationalist Manifesto. The first one is a good overview of colour realism and its discontents.

The crucial question for me, which I don't think is answered in them, is whether colour relationism implies that perceived objects are not coloured. I think not necessarily, although I can see why some would think so.

Intuitive first step: my brother is a brother despite brother or being a brother being a relational property. The tomato is red despite its colour being a property of the relation between an object and a particular kind of perceiver.

the idea is that red is a property as we see it, not something that causes us to have a response — Marchesk

But in Locke it says...

the ideas produced in us by secondary qualities don’t resemble them at all. There is nothing like our ideas ·of secondary qualities· existing in the bodies themselves. All they are in the bodies is a power to produce those sensations in us. — Locke - An Essay Concerning Human Understanding Book II: Ideas

...and he was cited as an example of these direct realists. IF you have a different source, perhaps you could cite it for me?

Under normal conditions, when there's not an optical illusion, and taking into account whatever details about color vision need to be accounted for. — Marchesk

Right. So given these caveats, how does two people perceiving different colours from the same object count as evidence against the theory? One of those people can just be said to be under one of the factors that need taking into account.

It's quite simple actually. The OP's question answers itself for it indicates that there's a real possibility that the external world is mind-generated/mind-sustained/simulated (re Cartesian skepticism and the famous brain-in-a-vat gedanken experiment). In other words we don't/can't know whether an external world exists or not.

We could however attempt to deduce/verify the presence of telltale signs of mental objects as opposed to non-mind-dependent entities. Either mental constructs are distinguishable from the non-mental or not. If the former, we have to work them out and conduct relevant tests. If the latter, the question becomes meaningless - if we can't tell the difference between x and y, x = y for all intents and purposes, oui?

...and he was cited as an example of these direct realists. IF you have a different source, perhaps you could cite it for me? — Isaac

I didn't cite him. I'm not aware of Locke being a direct realist. Maybe with regards to primary qualities?

You can read a summary about color primitivism and other theories of colors here: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/color/#RivaTheoColo

Direct realism is a separate but related debate, just depending on what the direct realist has to say about color. As you can see on SEP, there different theories of colors, and a direct realist might choose the one they think offers the best defense for direct perception.

I've been reading Color Realism and Color Science and Color Properties and Color Ascriptions: A Relationalist Manifesto. The first one is a good overview of colour realism and its discontents. — Jamal

I've read Color Realism and Color Science before. It is a good overview. Seemed like a quality attempt at defending color realism, even if I'm prone to disagree.

Indeed, but you're using the vagueries of colour sensation (which Locke already decided was a secondary quality) to show that objects do not resemble appearances. Locke already covered that by using secondary qualities. His claim about primary qualities was things like solidity, extension, shape, and mobility. So, using Locke, it seems insufficient to show the direct realist os wrong using differences in colour perception as they (Locke being an example) already differentiate two types of property and colour is not primary. What am I missing here? — Isaac

I am simply pointing out that people believe(d) that the world resembles how it appears to us. Locke, an indirect realist, argued that it doesn't resemble appearances in the cases of what he considered the secondary qualities. Direct realists didn't make this distinction.

So it appears even the critics are agreed that the colour primitivists are still assuming colour is a property which we detect and produces the way it appears, not that colour actually is 'the experience of red' in an object.

I'm not finding, in the sources you've provided, the idea that any direct realist considers objects to actually have (rather than have a property which causes) the 'experience of red'. Do you have any less ambiguous sources, or perhaps you could explain them more clearly? — Isaac

As the quote I provided says, they claim that colours "are not micro-structural properties or reflectances, or anything of the sort." And I'll add, color realist primitivism isn't color dispositionalism, which is the position that colours "are dispositional properties: powers to appear in distinctive ways to perceivers (of the right kind), in the right kind of circumstances; i.e., to cause experiences of an appropriate kind in those circumstances" (which seems to be your view).

I'm not saying that their claim is that objects have "the experience of red". I'm saying that their claim is that objects have a red appearance. They're saying that an object's colour resembles how it appears to us (in the same way that Locke would say this about his primary qualities).

From your quoting of the article, "at most, one group is correct, but we would not know which." What they mean here is that the object's colour is revealed in the experience of one group, not just that it causes the "appropriate" experience (as per colour dispositionalism) in one group.

@Isaac

And on the topic of color dispositionalism, as it appears at first glance to be your view (and please correct me if I'm wrong), but from that article on it:

For our current purposes, there are two crucial components to this package. The first is the idea that we should distinguish between two notions of color: color as a property of physical bodies, and color as it is in sensation (or, as it is sometimes described, “color-as-we-experience-it”).

This was the point I tried to make several times regarding the two different meanings of "red".

This is needed to avoid the circularity problem:

The circularity problem reflects the way the dispositionalist thesis is usually formulated:

X is red = X has the disposition to look red to normal perceivers, in standard conditions.

If we understand the phrase “to look red”, on the right hand side, to mean “to look to be red”, then it would seem we have troubles. As Levin puts it:

If an object is red iff it’s disposed to look red (under appropriate conditions), then an object must be disposed to look red iff it’s disposed to look to be disposed to look red … and so on, ad infinitum. (Levin 2000: 163)

You can read a summary about color primitivism and other theories of colors here: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/color/#RivaTheoColo — Marchesk

Yeah, thanks. Michael linked me there too, but I'm not seeing the theory you and Michael are expounding about direct realists believing colour actually is the same thing as our 'experience' but in objects. None of the theories talked about in that article seem to make such a claim (not that I can see, anyway).

The closest might be primitivism, but in the section on Primitivism, it says (of one proponent)...

The properties that do the causing of these experiences seem to be complex, micro-structural properties of surfaces of bodies (and similar properties for seeing volume colors, diffraction colors, scattering colors, etc). This problem is addressed by Hacker in his defense of the claim that colors are intrinsic features of physical bodies. He insists that colors are properties that are used to provide causal explanations.

Hacker's main argument (according to his critics) seems to be grammatical...

Hacker believes that an investigation into the ways in which we ordinarily talk about perception will lead to an understanding of the grammar of our language ans thus the way we see the world around us — From David Stern's review of Hacker's

I've obviously still got a lot of reading to do, but if you (or @Michael) have any more direct link to the actual target of your objections I'd be grateful.

people believe(d) that the world resembles how it appears to us. — Michael

That far I understand. Where I'm coming unstuck is on what anyone means by the world "resembling" how it appears. I don't understand what it could even mean for a world (by which I assume we mean the external world) to 'resemble' how it appears. If we eliminate the whole oddness about mistakes (ie we assume we can be mistaken), then it seems to be saying that if the world appears to have a red apple in it, then it has a red apple in it. But nowhere in that simple exposition does it say what kind of thing a red apple is, so it doesn't seem to address any of the concerns we've been discussing.

If a 'red apple' is a hidden state in a particular configuration, then when it appears to me that there's a red apple in the world, then there actually is one (by which I mean a hidden state in a particular configuration). Likewise if it turns out that a red apple is a figment of God's imagination, then when it appears to me that the world contains a red apple (a figment of God's imagination) then it actually does contain a red apple.

There seem to be an assumption that what appears to us is some clearly defined thing for us to examine if something resembling it exists in the world (and so prove direct realism), but there clearly is no such clearly defined thing. The way the apple appears to me doesn't tell me anything about whether it's a hidden state, a figment of God's imagination, a trick of the light, an electrochemical signal from the electrodes attached to my en-vatted brain... Nothing about how the 'appearance to me' tells me about the apple's make up, it's just not data that forms part of the appearance.

So the question is, when we're examining the world (testing the direct realist's hypothesis) looking for something which 'resembles' the way things appear to us. What are we looking for? What data are we going to find which either confirms or denies this hypothesis?

If we find objects which produce more than one appearance in different people, that doesn't help because all direct realists include the possibility of being wrong - so, one person's wrong. Simple.

If we find our scientific instruments record a world of atoms and electrons, that doesn't help because the way the apple appears to me doesn't include what it's made of, there's simply no data on that. Plus, I could be wrong - all direct realist theories include the possibility of being wrong.

If cognitive science finds our brains use models to help perceive the environment, that doesn't help because direct realism is about what we're seeing, not how we're seeing it.

So I just don't get what evidence we're looking for to counter the direct realist.

we should distinguish between two notions of color: color as a property of physical bodies, and color as it is in sensation (or, as it is sometimes described, “color-as-we-experience-it”).

Yes, that's a position I'd agree with, but I take the view that we do not in any way 'see' this second notion. It is a post hoc construct of meta-theory, not a part of perception. It's something we hypothetically construct after having 'seen' the object as a meta-theory of how our perception works. It could also (though I'm less convinced of this) be a tool in our construction of priors about other objects "what would happen if I saw the same thing but a different colour?". This is Friston's theory. But as I say, I'm not fully convinced of it.

If a 'red apple' is a hidden state in a particular configuration — Isaac

And that's where you're getting confused. Direct realists don't claim that a red apple is a hidden state. Direct realists claim that a red apple is a directly visible thing. Direct realists have a fundamentally different view of perception than your free energy principle/active inference interpretation.

That far I understand. Where I'm coming unstuck is on what anyone means by the world "resembling" how it appears. — Isaac

Imagine a set of identical twins. The twin on the left resembles the twin on the right. Now imagine that the twin on the left is an apple-as-experienced and the twin on the right is an unexperienced-apple.

Direct realists don't claim that a red apple is a hidden state. Direct realists claim that a red apple is a directly visible thing. — Michael

A hidden state is directly visible. The process of 'seeing' is one of inferring what hidden states are. Again, if you want anything more direct than 'inference' then you eliminate the possibility of being wrong and no direct realists claims we can't be wrong, hence everything we think about hidden states must only be an hypothesis, it cannot be a direct transferal otherwise we couldn't be wrong.

Imagine a set of twins. The twin on the left resembles the twin on the right. Now imagine that the twin on the left is an apple-as-experienced and the twin on the right is an unexperienced-apple. — Michael

Right. But to tell the twins resemble each other I look at their properties (they both have red hair, they both have high cheek bones, etc). What are we looking for in the "apple-as-experienced" and the "unexperienced-apple" to tell if they're similar, or not?

The process of 'seeing' is one of inferring what hidden states are. — Isaac

Except it's not about inference. They claim that the external cause is directly presented in experience, and so it isn't hidden. Direct realism is nothing like Friston's theory.

Again, if you want anything more direct than 'inference' then you eliminate the possibility of being wrong — Isaac

And that's why the arguments from illusion and hallucination are evidence against direct realism, as is the fact that different people see different colours.

Right. But to tell the twins resemble each other I look at their properties they both have red hair, the both have high cheek bones, etc). What are we looking for in the "apple-as-experienced" and the "unexperienced-apple" to tell if they're similar? — Isaac

The twin on the right resembles the twin on the left even if you never meet him.

They claim that the external cause is directly presented in experience, and so it isn't hidden. — Michael

Then how are we ever wrong? The direct realists you've cited for me all say we can be wrong.

And that's why the arguments from illusion and hallucination are evidence against direct realism, as is the fact that different people see different colours. — Michael

But all the direct realists you've cited include the possibility of us being wrong, so all those situations just count as situations in which we were wrong.

The twin on the right resembles the twin on the left even if you never meet him. — Michael

That doesn't answer the question about what properties we're supposed to be matching. The twin on the right has a different spatio-temporal position to the one on the left. So they don't resemble each other after all?

Then how are we ever wrong? The direct realists you've cited for me all say we can be wrong.

But all the direct realists you've cited include the possibility of us being wrong, so all those situations just count as situations in which we were wrong. — Isaac

That's for them to explain, not me. That we can be wrong shows that something other than an external object being directly present in experience must be happening. Their attempts to solve the problems of hallucination and illusion seem like special pleading to me. See the disjunctive theory of perception where they argue against the Common Kind Claim and say that only in veridical perception is an external object being directly present in experience.

So for them, a veridical perception isn't one where we "correctly infer" the nature of a hidden state, or whatever it is you're saying. For them, a veridical perception is one where the state isn't hidden.

That doesn't answer the question about what properties we're supposed to be matching. The twin on the right has a different spatio-temporal position to the one on the left. So they don't resemble each other after all? — Isaac

Their appearances resemble. Their shape, the colour of their hair, etc.

Their appearances resemble. Their shape, the colour of their hair, etc. — Michael

But not their position? Is where they are not an appearance, but hair colour is? What about if one twin was facing one way and the other twin another?

See also Colour Resemblance and Colour Realism

The account of colours to be discussed in this essay endorses naive realism about colours. The realist aspect of this endorsement is that the view under consideration assigns colours the status of features that are actually instantiated independently of our particular experiences of them and therefore are open to genuine recognition. And the naive aspect consists in its acceptance that colours possess also the qualitative (as well as any additional) features which they are presented as having. Both aspects together ensure that colours really are as they are subjectively given to us – and thus that the first ambition is satisfied.

...

The view at issue combines this naive realist stance with a reductionist approach to colours which identifies them with third-personally accessible – and typically, though not necessarily, physical – properties. This means, among other things, that the subjective presentation of colours in fact amounts to a presentation – or representation, if one prefers – of the properties identified with colours. For instance, it is these properties which are given to us as being similar or different in certain respects, or as instantiated independently of our perception of them.

...

It suffices to note that they all accept that colours are properties, which are really as they are subjectively given to us...

...

This idea presupposes that there is a robust correlation between the presentational first-personal aspects of colour experiences, on the one hand, and the relevant third-personal aspects of whichever properties are identified with colours and taken to be represented by those experiences, on the other. That is, how colours are subjectively presented as being should be correlated to how they are from the third-personal perspective.

And more.

But not their position? Is where they are not an appearance, but hair colour is? What about if one twin was facing one way and the other twin another? — Isaac

Ask direct realists, not me.

Ask direct realists, not me. — Michael

But you're arguing against direct realism. You must have an understanding of their position in order to do so, surely?

You’re asking me to give an internally (and scientifically?) consistent account of direct realism. I can’t do that because it isn’t consistent, hence why I’m not a direct realist. They are the ones claiming that in the case of veridical perception an external object is directly present in experience (and so not “hidden”) and so that the object (independently) is as it appears.

The very questions you’re directing at me, issues with hallucinations and illusions and perspectives and differences in colour perception and the sensibility of objects independently being as they appear, etc. are the very criticisms that indirect realists levy against direct realism, and which I feel direct realists fail to overcome. At best their position is false, at worst it’s incoherent.