Colour vision and the use of colours evolved millions of years before dogs, humans, and socially biased conventions. Colours are used as natural signs for fresh food, nutrients, fertility, health, camouflage etc.

the mind could be trained to use ideas or visions from past memories or brain activity patterns? — Kizzy


Our ability to remember and imagine and dream is astonishing. It's fairly easy to imagine what a red pen might look like, or a floroucent pen that glows red in the dark etc. Past memories might help, but with basic language skills one can compose infinitely many descriptions of what a red pen looks like, or might look like, in real or fictional worlds etc.

However, I don't know how to imagine what it might be like to see something invisible, or a pen that is red yet green in the same respect. It's easy to write or say, but not so easy to imagine. — jkop

It is astonishing, I do agree! I could go on and on and on and on about all the potential and power in/of/from our abilities to do many things BUT no.

The ability to recall memory, IMPRESSIONS, dreams, daydreams is yes astonishing, like you said. I think its equally impressive that ability we have (consciously or not) to block or "black-out" memories as well. I find myself throwing out this question from time to time when relevant to the discussion being had: If I am daydreaming while I am driving or lets say daydreaming during a group conference call or daydreaming during a Zoom meeting, could it be considered, multitasking?

Ha! You say, "It's easy to write or say, but not so easy to imagine" I wish it was easier for me write, say, and communicate the words that race through my mind. I cant even catch up or comprehend it for myself half the time... Forget discuss. The fire in the imagination is "communicated" to me in the privacy of my mind. The fire burns and I think getting out what I can is important. If I am wrong, it matters even less. The fire seems to be controlled though in a way. It just stops and its gone. No smoke, no ash. Like it never happened. Just me and my next move to worry about....

I want to continue with my inquiry a bit more if you don't mind,

Are impressions causes to remember? What is relevance, if any, to the speed one is recalling a memory? How much are you actively trying to "think" about a memory you may or may not recall completely...

- "I would've never guessed that?"
- "C'mon! Give me a hint, I will remember!"
- "Do I know it?"
- "Wait, what was that lovely ladies name we met at the mall?
- "Oh no, I forgot her name!
- "Hold on, its on the tip of my tongue."
- "Give me a minute..." *she stops moving and shuts eyes*
- "Let me THINK", *brain is directed and in FOCUS*
- TIME PASSES [choose your own pace]
- "ALICE! It was ALICE!"
- "Damn, I'm good"

Do we use our "words" and basic language OR our "thoughts" and basic language skills to communicate the message to self. How can talking to our self out loud differ from talking to ourselves privately in the our mind? Is the last "Let me THINK" above, the/a trigger that the body needs to feel to start focusing intentionally? Its almost like we are hyping the body up to find the will [1]* to focus for one moment. Or forever? How long it matters for you only, then...


I wonder if we are actually navigating while recalling a memory (that we are SURE we know and will remember)[2]* Also, how fixed are the memories and how strong/how deep are/can the impressions be or vise versa - how weak and how shallow controlling the search for memories. If recalling something learned is it relevant to consider when the knowledge WAS shared (entered the brain via communicated in some form)[3]* and if that has anything to do with how information is retained completely...hearing? perceptions? interests? location? circumstance? complexity of understanding? Is time constraining at all this process of recollection?

Lastly, Is it reasonable to forget after certain amount of time or strain? What about just plain ole bad memory - short or long term, it doesn't matter at the moment. I also tend to mention the term "Forgetfulness". Forgetfulness VS Memory. Is memory a skill? Is forgetting a skill? What was the cause to forget? Is that natural to try and actively forget something?[4]*

I appreciate the thoughtful responses, guidance and patience you expressed in replying even if you didn't mean to be or do that...It's worth saying even if I am wrong. I am glad you were encouraging and welcoming for further discussion on some ideas a bit deeper. It's important I think because for me I can understand how it can be intimidating to contribute in a thread you may not be an expert in or fully up to speed. Its okay to slow it down and set the pace for yourself although I don't blame people for hesitating to contribute...BUT to those people I'd only say this: Doubt your self but not for too long!
Thanks

• [1]*- (if it exists or not- we CAN learn that intel at this state)
• [2]* - [expectation set now- fail or success- personal hurdle?]
• [3]* - (if it is I don't think we as subjective individuals can feel happening--does this count as experiencing it--if this is happening in our brain activity without out bodies feeling the firing of neurons while recalling a memory)
• [4]* - I'm not sure but i think it works with and in time? Did it just happen? Did the person just keep going on with their circumstances of life? I guess it is true that with some time, people and thoughts move on at a pace that may or may not be foreseeable or adjusted? Can we get a better time? eg. like running a 50 yard dash with a faster speed then before

Colours are used as natural signs — jkop

Are you referring to the light that reflects those colours right? because the amount of cone cells in the electromagnetic spectrum and the colour wheel differs. As a result, although humans and animals sense colour in different ways, we are both simultaneously stimulated by light.
The "natural sign" is the light not the colours.

We can even perceive the colours in different shadows and reflectances! Our eyes are tricky. Let's play the following classic illusion game:

If "red" is just in your mind, when you ask for a red pen, how is it that the person you are asking hands you what you want? — Banno

A regularity between a cause and the perception it creates between two different people. It is at least the case with colour-blind people, who will often still give you the right pen, even though we know they don't see the same as we do, as the shade of brown of red is a bit different than the shade of brown of green.

Without Y, what can be said of X? How do you know it exists and what are its properties? — Hanover

Mary's room?

Are you referring to the light that reflects those colours right? — javi2541997

I'm referring to the biological evolution of colour vision.

because the amount of cone cells in the electromagnetic spectrum and the colour wheel differs. — javi2541997

Huh?

The "natural sign" is the light not the colours. — javi2541997

Why would you want to get rid of the colours?

Objects and materials reflect, scatter, or absorb light in different ways depending on their physical and chemical properties. Several hundred million years ago organisms adapted and began to use the behaviour of light for seeing objects, materials, nutrients etc.

What matters for an animal is what it sees, e.g. a flower, not the light nor the mechanism that together enable the seeing.

Our eyes are tricky. — javi2541997

The eyes of a mantis shrimp are way trickier.

Let's play the following classic illusion game: — javi2541997

Why? Arguments from illusion suck.

I'm referring to the biological evolution of colour vision. — jkop

:up:

What matters for an animal is what it sees, e.g. a flower, not the light nor the mechanism that together enable the seeing. — jkop

How does an animal know that it is seeing a colour? These are part of the human vocabulary and language. A dog expresses himself using the sound ‘word’ and a cat ‘meow’ etc. I can agree with you that the cone cells and perception of colours in animals have been evolving, but colours are still something related to vocabulary and social conventions. I don’t know if my dog sees that the ball is red, or, more specifically, if she is aware that the ball is red or not.

The eyes of a mantis shrimp are way trickier. — jkop

Yep. But is the mantis shrimp 100% aware of its beautiful colour scale? 

Why? Arguments from illusion suck. — jkop

That game demonstrates how colour is arbitrary. In my opinion, it effectively illustrated the significance of light, shade, and shadows in our discussion. There are many more, but if you consider them to be useless, I will not disclose them.

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


If "red" is just in your mind, when you ask for a red pen, how is it that the person you are asking hands you what you want? — Banno

You didn't respond to this, so I'll fill in the argument a bit.

If you ask for a red pen and are indeed usually handed a red pen, then red is not just in your mind; at the least it is also in the mind of the other person.

But also, the red pen satisfies both you and your helper. We agree that the pen is red, so "red" belongs to pens as well as to minds.

So there is something odd about claiming red is no more than a perception.

But also, the red pen satisfies both you and your helper. We agree that the pen is red, so "red" belongs to pens as well as to minds.

So there is something odd about claiming red is no more than a perception. — Banno

Yeah.

It would be interesting to think about the eventual scenario where you have to teach the helper what the red pen is. When I attended kindergarten, teachers taught us the colour wheel without questioning it by ourselves. We just accepted that red is red and orange is orange. Otherwise, if a child ever dared to colour a sun purple instead of yellow, he would be called a weirdo.

So, it deserves a lot of recognition for how silently those social conventions enter our knowledge. We think they have always been there, but they haven’t.

How does an animal know that it is seeing a colour? — javi2541997

By seeing it or knowing its conditions of satisfaction.

That game demonstrates how colour is arbitrary. — javi2541997

No, it demonstrates colour vision under selective conditions of observation. Not the same under ordinary conditions in which colour vision evolved.

No, it demonstrates colour vision under selective conditions of observation. — jkop

So not like dawn or dusk? Hmm.

From a neuroscience view, the point of colour vision is not because the world is coloured. Or even because it makes vision aesthetically pleasing. It just evolved to make the shape of objects pop out of the visual clutter. We can instantly compute that an object is an object because it is all "one thing" as betrayed by its light scattering surface.

A ripe fruit pops out of the clutter that is green bush. Mammals had given up and downgraded to two cone vision as that was enough. Primates added back a third cone precisely where it would create a sharp bivalent contrast between red and green in terms of the light frequency being scattered.

Likewise the colour vision "module" in the primate brain is right where you would expect. Part of the shape decoding and object recognition brain pathway.

So we evolved not to see red but to see fruit in a world otherwise many shades of tan and khaki. Trees likewise evolved red fruit to call in the seed dispersal brigade.

That red "looks like something" – ineffable redness – is not nature's point. The point is what red emphatically does not look like. And that is green.

You can see this counterfactuality baked into the circuitry of the opponent channel process of the retina.

I think you know what I’m trying to get at.

We both agree the pen is “red,” but because we’ve been conditioned to agree it is red. But what we actually perceive may be different and we’d be non the wiser.

I’d have you go a step further by considering how you use “red”.. it’s more than “the subjective mind that conceptually designates the concept of “red”.

So how could that conditioning work were there not already red things in the world?

And how could someone hand you the red pen unless they understood much the same thing as you about the world?

the light wavelength that equals “red” is universal- that doesn’t change, and which is why when I ask you for the red pen you would know the exact pen I am asking for.

But, who is to say that we are actually perceiving the same subjective experience of color? If we’ve all been conditioned to say something giving off the same wavelength is “red,” then we would all be able to agree on what red is.

However, it is plausible that the subjective experience of “red” may differ, and we would never know.

Some folk say red is a particular wavelength of light as if that answered your question. Folk managed to make use of the word well before we understood what wave length is.

But it seems we agree there are red things around in the world.

So if what you see as red were different to what I see, how would that make itself apparent? What would that mean for the notion of red? Which pen would you hand me?

I agree it wouldn’t have any meaningful impact to how our day-to-day lives work, nor would it ever. It’s more of an interesting thought exercise, which to me, pulls into question the confidence one can have in how similar our experiences may be despite their apparent sharedness. The duality of objective reality and subjective reality may dance with each other, the agreed being obvious to us (our agreeing what is “red”) and the disagreed being hidden from us (the experience of “red”).

But what are the implications for the nature of red? We can hardly claim it is a “perception” if seeing something completely different doesn’t matter.

well, we can switch the word “perception” with “experience,” perhaps that word would be more appropriate. There wouldn’t necessarily be any “implications” despite our calling to question our assuredness of certain seemingly shared agreements.

By seeing it or knowing its conditions of satisfaction. — jkop

Okay. Let's say the mantis shrimp sees red pigment. When it sees it, what does the mantis shrimp call it? "Red", "rojo", "rosso" etc. This is the point I am trying to make. When the light does the reflexion on 'red', it could be that the mantis shrimp sees it, but I don't know to what extent the animal is aware that the reflected colour is called 'red'.

No, it demonstrates colour vision under selective conditions of observation. — jkop

Hmm... I think the drawing shows the importance of light and shade in colours. It is not only a matter of observation – which is also important – but how the colours are projected and, therefore, how we perceive them. I don't think we could be able to perceive a colour without light and shade getting involved.

If we’ve all been conditioned to say something giving off the same wavelength is “red,” then we would all be able to agree on what red is. — Mp202020

Imagine you ask a colour blindness for a 'red' pen, and he gets it right handing you the red pen. Why did this happen? Your colour-blindness classmate gave up his biological condition to accept the agreement of the concept of red.

color blindness to me is a phenomenon that even more posits my question. Unless put to certain tests specifically designed to determine colorblindness, one may go their entire life not knowing they were ever colorblind.

does that help? We can hardly call red an experience if you have a completely different experience to me.

we can call red a “color.” The experience of red may differ however.

I’d rather not fall into semantic rabbit holes

ok. So we agree that red and the experience of red differ. And that there are red things in the world around us.

So red does not seem to be something only in the mind.

certainly, but moreover “red” being merely a word representing an experience that may or may not be the same.

I really do appreciate the time you’ve taken to discuss with me Banno.

cheers.

But if red refers to the experience, then when you say “red” it refers to your experience, but when I say it it refers to my experience. If we are going to be talking about the same thing then we need something that we both have access to.

thus the intrigue I have with this question. What is red but a word we’ve agreed to call something that looks red?

From a materialistic perspective, red is a specific light wavelength. This is universal.

But the subjective experience of red may be the same, or perhaps different, and we wouldn’t ever know because we’ve grown up and been conditioned to point to the same wavelength and call it red.

So how do we demarcate the objectivity of “red” from our experience of “red” other than it being merely a word?

We are able to give a red pen to another because, whatever our or his experience is, those two experiences are both caused by the same thing in the world:

A regularity between a cause and the perception — Lionino

If thing J causes experience X in person A and experience Y in person B, everytime person A uses the word that to him makes him think of X, we will think of Y instead. We assume our experience X and his experience Y are the same because there is no reason to suppose otherwise. We suppose otherwise when there are known physiological facts about him:

It is at least the case with colour-blind people, who will often still give you the right pen, even though we know they don't see the same as we do, as the shade of brown of red is a bit different than the shade of brown of green. — Lionino

What is red but a word we’ve agreed to call something that looks red? — Mp202020

Bang. What reason is there to think that red is more than a word we use for certain purposes?

From a materialistic perspective, red is a specific light wavelength. This is universal. — Mp202020

Even if this is so, "red" can't mean "Light with a frequency of around 430 terahertz"...

After all, folk who do not know this use the word quite adequately. And we don't see light, we see with light. It's the pen that is red, not the light. (Some folk have quite a bit of trouble with this simple observation.)

absolutely. If someone doesn’t understand “wavelength of x is actually what red is” all they are actually speaking of is their visual experience of red when speaking of “red.”

OK, so what reason is there to think that red is more than a word we use for certain purposes? Or is the meaning of "red" pretty much what we do with the word? What more is needed?