Do you understand what pain is? What smells and tastes are? Vision isn't special.

I know we smell, taste, and see our environment, yes.

I'm not concerned with the adjective "red". I'm concerned with the noun "red". I've been over this with Banno and others.

You can talk about pens as being coloured, just as you can talk about stubbing one's toe as being painful. But colours and pain are not mind-independent properties of pens or stubbing one's toe; they are the mental percepts (which may be reducible to brain states) that pens and stubbing one's toe cause to occur.

Besides, I can dream about red dragons. The adjective "red" is not being applied to some mind-independent dragon that reflects 700nm light.

But if I were to give a general account of the meaning of "the X is red" or "red X" it would be something like "the X looks red" or "red-looking X". The noun "red" in the phrases "looks red" and "red-looking" does not refer to a mind-independent property.

The noun “red” doesn’t refer to anything, save for maybe a concept or some other string of words like a definition. Nouns are persons, places, or things, and “red” is neither of the above.

But your general account uses adjectives, not nouns. There is no noun “red” in the phrase “looks red” because the noun is X and “looks red” is the predicate modifying it. You can try using “red” in the place of X and see what you come up with. “The red looks…”.

The noun “red” doesn’t refer to anything — NOS4A2

It does, just as the nouns "colour" and "pain" do. It refers to those things that exist when we dream and hallucinate, that are caused to occur when we use visual cortical prostheses, and which explain variations in colour perception, such as the dress that some see to be white and gold and others as black and blue.

But your general account uses adjectives, not nouns. — NOS4A2

Good catch. I was caught up in the preceding paragraphs. I just meant "word" there rather than "noun". But the point still stands that the word "red" in the phrase "looks red" isn't referring to some mind-independent property of pens. It is referring to the type of experience that the pen causes to occur.

I know we smell, taste, and see our environment, yes. — NOS4A2

I'm not concerned with the verbs "smell" and "taste". I'm concerned with the nouns "smell" and "taste", e.g. a sweet smell and a sour taste. These are not mind-independent properties of flowers or food but mental percepts caused by brain activity in response to sensory stimulation of the nose and tongue.

And some of those things, like colour and pain, aren't. — Michael

You confuse them.

I sense a headache by having it, but having a brain-event is insufficient for having the systematic colour experiences that we have under ordinary conditions

A colour is open to view, while its seeing is in the head. The seeing is just the conscious awareness of the colour, while the colour is the bundle of lights and pigments that emerge as a colour when seen under ordinary conditions. It's a way of using light, which is open for anyone who has the ability. It ain't in the head.

The "naive" belief that the world is coloured, and that colours exist outside the mind, is perfectly compatible with ordinary language and the science.

A colour is open to view, while its seeing is in the head. The seeing is just the conscious awareness of the colour, while the colour is the bundle of lights and pigments that emerge as a colour when seen under ordinary conditions. It's a way of using light, which is open for anyone who has the ability. It ain't in the head. — jkop

Do you deny that dreams and hallucinations have colour? Because they do. Do you believe that the colours in dreams and hallucinations “emerge” from bundles of light (seen when my eyes are closed in a dark room?). Because they don’t.

These colours are percepts, they occur when the visual cortex is active, and all of this happens when awake as well.

The "naive" belief that the world is coloured, and that colours exist outside the mind, is perfectly compatible with ordinary language and the science. — jkop

It is not compatible with science. I’ve referenced several scientific articles and quoted the SEP summary on the matter.

Do you deny that dreams and hallucinations have colour? — Michael

Everyone denies it. Dreams may use memories and imaginations of colour that evoke a feeling that you incorrectly pass for color-vision.

Children who draw pictures are aware of the difference between an imagined colour and a visible colour on the picture in front of their eyes.

But for a science-buff like you they're all "percepts" :lol:

But for a science-buff like you they're all "percepts" — jkop

Yes, that’s what neuroscience shows. Human consciousness does not extend beyond the brain. It certainly does not reach out beyond the body to contain distal objects such that they and their properties are constituents of experience. Any qualitative feature of conscious awareness - smell, taste, colour, pain - is either reducible to or a product of brain activity.

Waking sensations differ from dreams and hallucinations only in their cause, consistency, and intensity, but they are fundamentally the same kind of process.

The fact that depth is a qualitative feature of visual sensations has deceived you into thinking that things like colours are mind-independent features of objects outside the brain, like being convinced that your phantom limb is real.

The science is overwhelmingly clear on this, whether you accept it or not. I’ve referenced the studies. To deny them is to commit to a delusion.

the colour is the bundle of lights and pigments that emerge as a colour when seen under ordinary conditions — jkop

Hmmm this seems a really, really difficult account to accept. Is this to say that there is a 'correct' mode of seeing, and anyone who sees 430THz and does not accept they are seeing 'Red' is objectively wrong, or has retarded(in the medical sense) vision?

Unfortunately for parts of your account, there are some fairly glaring issues. Michael has picked up on one (but I think been less-than-direct about it):

These colours are percepts, they occur when the visual cortex is active, and all of this happens when awake as well. — Michael

If your take is correct, then the same experience is being had by the mind when dreaming, even if this is 'artificial' according to your view(memory, or some such being utilized by the unconscious mind). How is the colour actually outside the mind, when there is no possible way to even indicate that it is 'the colour' without this mind-bound experience?
I don't personally have a fundamental issue with saying 'colours' are simply (arbitrarily) defined as their wavelength of light, rather than any experience they invoke. But this doesn't seem to be how the word is used in every-day language.

But for a science-buff like you they're all "percepts"
— jkop

Yes, that’s what neuroscience shows. — Michael

Nope.

Other science-buffs believe that physics shows that only particles in fields of force exist, and everything else, including neuroscience and percepts, is delusion.

Which is just as selective, unscientific and false as your belief that colour perception is all about neuroscience.

Which is just as selective, unscientific and false as your belief that colour perception is all about neuroscience. — jkop

So you think that this quote from Vision Science: Photons to Phenomenology is unscientific?

People universally believe that objects look colored because they are colored, just as we experience them. The sky looks blue because it is blue, grass looks green because it is green, and blood looks red because it is red. As surprising as it may seem, these beliefs are fundamentally mistaken. Neither objects nor lights are actually “colored” in anything like the way we experience them. Rather, color is a psychological property of our visual experiences when we look at objects and lights, not a physical property of those objects or lights. The colors we see are based on physical properties of objects and lights that cause us to see them as colored, to be sure, but these physical properties are different in important ways from the colors we perceive.

Or this from Neural representations of perceptual color experience in the human ventral visual pathway?

There is no color in light. Color is in the perceiver, not the physical stimulus. This distinction is critical for understanding neural representations, which must transition from a representation of a physical retinal image to a mental construct for what we see. Here, we dissociated the physical stimulus from the color seen by using an approach that causes changes in color without altering the light stimulus. We found a transition from a neural representation for retinal light stimulation, in early stages of the visual pathway (V1 and V2), to a representation corresponding to the color experienced at higher levels (V4 and VO1).

I'm going to believe what these scientists say over what you say.

colour perception is all about neuroscience — jkop

Are you suggesting that the science of vision doesn't explain Red? Then how can you claim what you've claimed?

the colour is the bundle of lights and pigments that emerge as a colour when seen under ordinary conditions — jkop

I smell Tuna...

Hmmm this seems a really, really difficult account to accept. Is this to say that there is a 'correct' mode of seeing, and anyone who sees 430THz and does not accept they are seeing 'Red' is objectively wrong, or has retarded(in the medical sense) vision? — AmadeusD

Why difficult, and where does that idea come from that there could be a 'correct' mode of seeing?

Color-vision is a biological phenomenon, like photosynthesis, digestion etc. Would you ask if there is a 'correct' mode for digestion?

Perhaps if you fear that your digestion might malfunction or the like. Some seem to think that their visual system malfunctions, as in hallucinations, and a few think that all vision is hallucination, which would be an intellectual disaster to say the least and life threatening if it was true.

But to answer your question, no there's no duch thing ss s correct way of seeing a colour. To see it is a biological fact, just how nature works, and some of us may have better eyes than others. Eagle eyes are impressive, the eyes of a mantis shrimp are super weird.

Why difficult — jkop

Because of the remainder of my post...

where does that idea come from that there could be a 'correct' mode of seeing? — jkop

The majority of your responses seem to indicate this. That colour is mind-independent and that the eye and mind must be in order to 'accurately' apprehend the 'colour' out there (this is plainly wrong, though) seems to be baked-in to your position on this.

Would you ask if there is a 'correct' mode for digestion? — jkop

Yes. When my tummy is being funny, i digest 'incorrectly' because of an aberration in the alimetary canal somewhere. Generally, these can be found, diagnosed and treated (though, that's not relevant). This can be applied to vision. I'm asking if you position is that this applies to colour. It seems you want to say no, but...

To see it is a biological fact, just how nature works, and some of us may have better eyes than others. — jkop

This is, in fact, to say there is a 'correct' way of viewing hte world, biologically. Someone looking at 430THz of light, and seeing Blue, is 'wrong' (whether that's a physical aberration or otherwise..).

colour perception is all about neuroscience
— jkop

Are you suggesting that the science of vision doesn't explain Red? — AmadeusD

No, are you trolling?

when seen under ordinary conditions
— jkop

I smell Tuna... — AmadeusD

Why, would you prefer extraordinary conditions?

For example, why would you select the colour for painting the exteriors of a house at night when you barely see it and not in daylight?

I'm going to believe what these scientists say over what you say. — Michael

Selective references to authority are unscientific.

No, are you trolling? — jkop

No, I am responding to what you are saying. There's not a lot of point quoting previous statements, and they would contradict what I'm trying to clarify (which is that there are contradictions all through this exchange...)

Why, would you prefer extraordinary conditions? — jkop

I have addressed this and why I've honed in on it. You seem to have missed:

To see it is a biological fact, just how nature works, and some of us may have better eyes than others.
— jkop

This is, in fact, to say there is a 'correct' way of viewing hte world, biologically. Someone looking at 430THz of light, and seeing Blue, is 'wrong' (whether that's a physical aberration or otherwise..). — AmadeusD

If this is the case, then there's a strict contradiction in your approach. You are insinuating there is no 'correct' way for the human vision to apprehend colours, but you want colours to be "out there" independent of our experience? Pls hlp lol.

Yes, that’s what neuroscience shows. Human consciousness does not extend beyond the brain. — Michael

It sounds like you're saying that neuroscience shows that human consciousness doesn't extend beyond the brain. It doesn't show that. We don't presently have a working theory for how experience works.

It sounds like you're saying that neuroscience shows that human consciousness doesn't extent beyond the brain. It doesn't show that. — frank

At the absolute minimum, it is stuck at that position. So, I think Michael's position is entirely tenable. Neuroscience doesn't indicate that consciousness extends at all.

Neuroscience doesn't say anything one way or the other about extension of consciousness. Therefore, if we want to talk about it, we'll have to back down into philosophy.

LOL, well okay that's fair! I think that's why Chalmers does (and should) get the respect his book actually commands. We don't have much to go on, lol.

Therefore, if we want to talk about it, we'll have to back down into philosophy. — frank

To the extent that one might want to argue for something like idealism or substance dualism or panpsychism, sure. So if that's how you want to defend naive colour realism then commit to one of them.

But as it stands the scientific view is that colour experiences correspond to neural processes (specifically those in the visual cortex) such that there are no colour experiences without corresponding neural processes and that different colour experiences correspond to different neural processes – and so that distal objects and their properties cannot causally influence colour experience except by causally influencing neural processes.

To the extent that one might want to argue for something like idealism or substance dualism or panpsychism, sure. So if that's how you want to defend naive colour realism then commit to one of them. — Michael

I was criticizing your use of science to support your argument. It's your worldview that says consciousness is confined to brains. Science does not confirm that.

But as it stands the scientific view is that colour experiences correspond to neural processes — Michael

Experience is associated with neural processes. If that's what you meant by "corresponds" then fine. If you meant something more, you'd have to explain what you mean. Due to multiple realizability, there isn't any straight forward correspondence. Check out the strawberries that are experienced as red, when they're really black and white. That's an example a gross disconnect. Minor ones are happening all the time.

and so that distal objects and their properties cannot causally influence colour experience except by causally influencing neural processes. — Michael

There isn't presently any working scientific theory about how experience works. It could involve some entanglement of the thigh bone for all we know. Again, you're confusing worldview for science.

Science has led to automation capable of color matching nearly any surface presented to its scanner. It does so to near perfection. Funny how that can happen if color is psychological/mental and nothing more.

Automation can mix physical pigments to perfectly match the color sample.

The scanner cannot see/detect/perceive color if color is nothing more than neural/psychological events.

That's not doing any lifting at all. A scanner can match frequencies of light based on a human programme of light=experience tables.
This doesn't help the problem..

Did science abandon the visible spectrum? The infrared? The ultraviolet?

:brow:

There's something awefully funny going on in here.

Frequencies of light are not color... according to those I'm arguing against.

"Mental percept"

Occam's razor.

What's being explained by the invocation of "mental percept" that cannot be explained without it?

Rainbows have no color.

Prisms do not refract the light into the visible spectrum, or the visible spectrum is colorless.

Yeah. Seems there are some rather absurd conclusions lurking hereabouts.

Frequencies of light are not color... according to those I'm arguing against. — creativesoul

Yes, that is why my response is a bit of an objection. "colour" formally, is the experience of (sorry, caused by, in most cases) such and such light frequency. That these very rarely vary independently doesn't instantiate a 1:1 match.

My point about the scanner is that it cannot detect colour. Colour is an experience.