I don’t need words to see that there are lighter and darker — Michael
Colour experiences, like other experiences, concerns sensory percepts, and often the sense organs and stimuli that they react to. It doesn’t concern speech or writing. — Michael
If that was true you would have easily been able to pick them out in the apple picture. You need an external crutch to distinguish between them. — frank
And I can see this despite not having individual names for each hue, proving my point and refuting yours. — Michael
My point is that you need both internal and external data to distinguish between colors. — frank
Which is wrong, because I don't (except insofar as an external stimulus is causally responsible for the sensation). — Michael
All I need is visually distinguishable percepts (whatever their cause — Michael
Language is irrelevant. — Michael
Animals can distinguish between the poisonous red frog and the non-poisonous brown frog without having to converse with one another. — Michael
As described above, this is not in keeping with the present scientific view. — frank
How do you know how I experience?
I'm telling you there are plenty of experiences I have that language plays no role in. How do you know that to be false? — Hanover
Your question was, as I understood it, that you get how we can doubt the redness of the ball is part of the ball but we can't doubt the roundness is part of the ball.
Is that a correct restatement? — Hanover
Why must there be a direct link from what is "out there" to what is in your experience when it comes to touch but not vision. — Hanover
If it is, my response is to ask what you're relying upon other than your senses to distinguish primary qualities (the roundness) from secondary ones (the redness). — Hanover
I'm guessing you're like me. — frank
I'll trust you if you say you do, but I don't — Hanover
Quite a bit. If your "mental percepts" are individual, in your mind only and unsharable, then they are tantamount to the private sensation "S" used by Wittgenstein. You might now be calling "red" the percept you yesterday called "green"; you have no way of checking except your own memory.What does Wittgenstein's private language argument have to do with anything we're discussing here? — Michael
Not quite. The argument is more that you and I can both choose the red pen from a container of various other colours, and hence that we agree as to which pen is red, and that hence being red is different to being black or blue - and that this is a difference in the pens, not just or only in your mind. We agree as to which pen is red and so being red involves pens as well as sensations....your reasoning seems to amount to nothing more than "pens are red, pens are mind-independent, therefore red is mind-independent." — Michael
I agree with this, mostly. It is important to keep in mind that it's not language alone, but use that is relevant here. A male bower bird will collect blue things to decorate its bower because the female has a preference for blue items. The male collects blue things in order to get laid. The use is there without the need for language.I think Witt's point would be that cognition is heavily influenced by language, which in turn reflects history, culture, and biology. — frank
All this means is that scientists use that term to talk about seeing colours.colour percepts exist — Michael
Yep.Yea, I don't think that's the whole story. — frank
Quite a bit. If your "mental percepts" are individual, in your mind only and unsharable, then they are tantamount to the private sensation "S" used by Wittgenstein. You might now be calling "red" the percept you yesterday called "green"; you have no way of checking except your own memory. — Banno
The way we talk about colours and pains are different. They involve, in Wittgenstein's terms, different grammars. — Banno
And pain works somewhat differently to colour. There is no equivalent to the box, no something that is available for us both to examine. — Banno
Not quite. The argument is more that you and I can both choose the red pen from a container of various other colours, and hence that we agree as to which pen is red, and that hence being red is different to being black or blue - and that this is a difference in the pens, not just or only in your mind. We agree as to which pen is red and so being red involves pens as well as sensations. — Banno
All this means is that scientists use that term to talk about seeing colours. — Banno
Ok, let's follow through on this.The difference here is that we have a relatively easy way to "share" color (pointing at some colored object) but not for pain. But this is merely a practical restriction. If you could accurately measure neuron firings in your hand, you could also "share" that pain. — Echarmion
. How do you know your memory is sufficient? Because you remember? Somewhat circular, don't you think?My memory is sufficient. — Michael
You know Wittgenstein used the term "grammar" more broadly than do grammarians.English grammar does not determine what's true and what's false. — Michael
Sure we talk about pain, and so far as we do it is not private.And yet we can, and do, talk about pain, which you seem to admit is a private sensation. — Michael
That's not the argument I gave. If we agree that this pen is red, and the others are not, then we agree to something about this pen, and not to something that is only in your mind.And you're back to using "red" as an adjective. That pens are red and that pens are mind-independent is not that colours are mind-independent. — Michael
Michael might well be able to see different shades of red without having names for them, and demonstrate this by matching colour swatches. — Banno
How do you know your memory is sufficient? Because you remember? Somewhat circular, don't you think? — Banno
Sure we talk about pain, and so far as we do it is not private. — Banno
If we agree that this pen is red, and the others are not, then we agree to something about this pen, and not to something that is only in your mind. — Banno
It's that thinking about it in terms of things being mind-dependent or mind-independent is muddled, and can best be replaces by thinking about the actions of embodied people in a shared world. — Banno
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