Nothing he says aligns with the mistake your entire philosophical edifice, informed stance, rests its laurels upon. See the top of this post. — creativesoul

My "stance" is repeating what those more knowledgeable of the matter have said:

Maund: "It is this problem that historically has led the major physicists who have thought about color, to hold the view that physical objects do not actually have the colors we ordinarily and naturally take objects to possess."

Newton: "For the Rays to speak properly are not coloured. In them there is nothing else than a certain Power and Disposition to stir up a Sensation of this or that Colour."

Kim et al: "Color is in the perceiver, not the physical stimulus."

Palmer: "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."

Maxwell: "Color is a sensation."

You drew a hard equivalency between four separate things.

My "stance" is repeating what the scientists have said: — Michael

None of them did.

Newton: "For the Rays to speak properly are not coloured. In them there is nothing else than a certain Power and Disposition to stir up a Sensation of this or that Colour."

Kim et al: "Color is in the perceiver, not the physical stimulus."

Palmer: "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."

Maxwell: "Color is a sensation." — Michael

The second and third are at odds.

You believe em both?

I edited this, so please keep this in mind.

Newton: "For the Rays to speak properly are not coloured. In them there is nothing else than a certain Power and Disposition to stir up a Sensation of this or that Colour." — Michael

Alternatively, Newton, From Opticks, said,

“From what has been said it is also evident, that the Whiteness of the Sun's Light is compounded all the Colours where with the several sorts of Rays whereof that Light consists, when by their several Refrangibilities they are separated from one another, do tinge Paper or any other white Body whereon they fall. For those Colours ... are unchangeable, and whenever all those Rays with those their Colours are mix'd again, they reproduce the same white Light as before.”

Searle presents the example of the color red: for an object to be red, it must be capable of causing subjective experiences of red. At the same time, a person with spectrum inversion might see this object as green, and so unless there is one objectively correct way of seeing (which is largely in doubt), then the object is also green in the sense that it is capable, in certain cases, of causing a perceiver to experience a green object.

This seems to be arguing that colours are mental phenomena and that the predicate "is red" is used to describe objects which cause red mental phenomena. — Michael

He acknowledges and talks about both internal and external components of color vision and seeing color. He makes good points regarding the subjective aspects of color vision/seeing red as well as the objective ones.

Nothing here to support the presupposition that four different things are equivalent. That's what you've done. 

It's odd that @Michael sees Searle as a friend, when Searle has spent so much effort in showing the intentional character of perception.

Searle eviscerates the Bad Argument - "that the existence of hallucinations and other arguments show you never see the real world, you just see your own sense data" - which looks to be the very case that @Michael is attempting to make, that we never see red, only ever percepts-of-red.

I asked what the difference was between seeing red stuff, hallucinating red stuff, and dreaming red stuff, .

"Nothing" was your reply.

On this view you're advocating for, you're clearly stating that there is no difference between seeing, hallucinating, and dreaming.
— creativesoul

I didn’t say that. — Michael

What's the difference between seeing red and the mental percept that 620-750nm light ordinarily causes to occur?
— creativesoul

Nothing. — Michael

And what's the difference between hallucinating red and the mental percept that 620-750nm light ordinarily causes to occur?

Or between dreaming red and the mental percept that 620-750nm light ordinarily causes to occur?
— creativesoul

Nothing. — Michael

Sigh.

And Lastly, from Seeing Things as They Are by John Searle:

"Question 2 How does the account deal with color constancy and size constancy? I will consider these in order. Imagine that a shadow falls over a portion of the red ball so that part of it is in shadow and part not. Did the part in shadow change its color? Well, obviously not, and it is obviously not seen as having changed its color. All the same, there is a difference in the subjective visual field. The subjective basic perceptual properties have changed. The proof is that if I were drawing a picture of what I now see, I would have to include a darker portion of the part in shadow, even though I know that there has been no change in its actual color. It is extremely misleading to describe this phenomenon as "color constancy", because of course the experienced color is precisely not constant. It is because of my high-level Background capacities that I am able to see it as having the same color even though at the lower level I see it as having in part changed its color. I want to emphasize this point. At the basic level, the color is precisely not constant, neither subjectively nor objectively. It changes. It is just at the higher level that I know, because of my Background abilities, that it still keeps the same color." — Richard B

This would be a neat argument for why colors and percepts are not the same thing. The percept of the ball changed, but its color stayed the same.

It's odd that Michael sees Searle as a friend, when Searle has spent so much effort in showing the intentional character of perception.

Searle eviscerates the Bad Argument - "that the existence of hallucinations and other arguments show you never see the real world, you just see your own sense data" - which looks to be the very case that @Michael is attempting to make, that we never see red, only ever percepts-of-red. — Banno

Cherry picking one liners as a means of putting forth a position. Doesn't work very well if the authors do not agree with one another.

Michael might claim here that the colour does change - it becomes darker as the shadow crosses the ball. But this is to see only one use for "colour": as a "mental percept" (that's an odd phrase, isn't it - what sorts of percepts are not mental?)

But the example gives is telling.

And hallucinations are what? A type of mental phenomenon, not a mind-independent property of tomatoes. Therefore colours are a type of mental phenomenon, not a mind-independent property of tomatoes. — Michael

So now provide the link to the study in which some neurobiologist looked at someone's mental phenomenon while the subject was looking at a ripe tomato as observed red mental phenomenon.

If red cannot be a property of tomatoes the how are they the property of neurons?

Yes, the hard problem has not been solved yet your explanations assume that it has. That's the issue.

Colors are a type of information.

The percept of the ball changed, but its color stayed the same. — Leontiskos

No, the change is the shadow falling over a part of the red ball, making that part look dark red. That's what there is to see.

The "percept" (or mental phenomenon) is the seeing, not the colour that one sees. Even if the colour is a systematic hallucination, it is not a percept. What makes it systematic is the fact that the hallucination is causally constrained by the eye's interaction with wavelength components of light.

The next step, I believe, after freeing oneself from naive realism, is to free oneself from materialism altogether, and understand that the so-called "effects of the stone upon himself" are not properly called "effects" at all. The percept is a freely constructed creation of the living being, rather than the effects of a causal chain. This understanding enables the reality of the concept of free will. The living being's motivational aspects, which are very much involved in all neurological activity, and appear to allow the being to act with a view toward the future, (understood in its most simple form as the will to survive), cannot be understood as the product of causal chains. This is what science reveals to us, through its inability to understand such aspects in determinist terms. — Metaphysician Undercover

What makes causality and determinism necessarily materialistic? My thoughts naturally lead to other thoughts. Certain experiences are prerequisites for certain thoughts. It seems to me that my thoughts can "bump into" other thoughts and create novel thoughts. New thoughts are an amalgam of prior thoughts and experiences. It seems to me that causality and determinism could be just as immaterial as material.

The only thing that is relevant is that the visual quality that we naively think of as being a mind-independent property of a tomato's surface is in fact a mental phenomenon either reducible to or caused by neural activity in the brain, usually in response to optical stimulation by light. — Michael

It seems as if you are rather arbitrarily cutting off consideration of the scientific picture somewhere in the brain or at the retina.

However the light source being reflected off of the tomato and into the eyes is no less a relevant part of the scientifc understanding of what is happening.

What makes causality and determinism necessarily materialistic? My thoughts naturally lead to other thoughts. Certain experiences are prerequisites for certain thoughts. It seems to me that my thoughts can "bump into" other thoughts and create novel thoughts. New thoughts are an amalgam of prior thoughts and experiences. It seems to me that causality and determinism could be just as immaterial as material. — Harry Hindu

OK then, just take "materialism" out of that post, and replace it with "determinism", if it offends you.

I said that the tomato does not have the property that it appears to have. The property that it appears to have is in fact a subjective quality, and so is a percept, not a mind-independent property of material surfaces. — Michael

What if I said that the tomato appears ripe? Do we really need to make it clear whether we are talking about the appearance or the tomato when talking about the tomato to others?

No, the change is the shadow falling over a part of the red ball, making that part look dark red. That's what there is to see. — jkop

Yep. There is naught to talk about but our experience of anything. Otherwise, Noumena.

The speculative metaphysics going on in here to support the idea that colour is "out there" is really weird. It's gotten very boring though as no one seems to be understanding each other, and I apologise to anyone who wanted a direct reply. Having read these last two pages, I cannot understand how half of you tie your shoes :nerd:

:grin: I wasn't offended - just asking for your reasoning for saying what you did. I don't understand why we would need to escape determinism, or why free will is necessary. In a deterministic universe, we all do what we naturally do. All acts feel natural and intended.

I don't understand why we would need to escape determinism, or why free will is necessary. — Harry Hindu

To have a true understanding of the human condition.

In a deterministic universe, we all do what we naturally do. All acts feel natural and intended. — Harry Hindu

A true understanding does not simply consist of "things are as they are".

No, the change is the shadow falling over a part of the red ball, making that part look dark red. That's what there is to see. — jkop

Yet the ball does not change colour...

It might change colour if someone painted it, or if the surface faded in the sun.

So we have an superficially enigmatic situation in which the ball does not change colour but the colour changed. Is this a paradox? Not at all. We understand the background of each description, and we acknowledge the truth of both: this is what a red ball in part shade looks like.

Which brings out again the falsehood of thinking there is one notion of colour to rule them all.

Which brings out again the falsehood of thinking there is one notion of colour to rule them all. — Banno

So some locutions would have more phenomenological accuracy? Curious that you might want to contradict yourself so blatantly.

What?

Brilliant stuff, Apo. :rofl:

Yes, what indeed.

You're welcome.

I don't have a copy of Searle, but according to this:

Searle presents the example of the color red: for an object to be red, it must be capable of causing subjective experiences of red. At the same time, a person with spectrum inversion might see this object as green, and so unless there is one objectively correct way of seeing (which is largely in doubt), then the object is also green in the sense that it is capable, in certain cases, of causing a perceiver to experience a green object.

This seems to be arguing that colours are mental phenomena and that the predicate "is red" is used to describe objects which cause red mental phenomena. — Michael

I little more exposition on Searle's view of colors:

From Seeing Things as They Are:

"Color is a bit tricky because of such phenomena as spectrum inversion and color constancy, and we will get into those issues in the next chapter. Let us now examine our visual experience of the red ball. Is the visual experience itself red? Emphatically, visual experiences are not colored. Why not? Colors are observable to all, and visual experiences are not. The color red emits photons of about 6500 angstrom units and the visual experience emits nothing. So it is wrong to think of the visual experience as itself colored. Also, to think that visual experiences are colored is almost inevitably to commit the Bad Argument because one has to ask who is seeing the color."

(The Bad Argument Searle refers to is any argument that attempts to treat the perceptual experience as an actual or possible object of experience.)

He continues, "First, for something to be red in the ontologically objective world is for it to be capable of causing ontologically subjective visual experiences like this. The fact of its redness consists at least in part in this causal capacity (with the usual qualifications about normal conditions and normal observers) to cause this sort of ontologically subjective visual experience. There is an internal relation between the fact of being red, and the fact of causing this sort of experience. What does it mean to say that the relation is "internal"? It means it could not be that color if it were not systemically related in that way to experiences like this. Second, for something to be the object of perceptual experience is for it to be experienced as the cause of the experience. If you put these two points together, you get the result that the perceptual experience necessarily carries the existence of a red as its condition of satisfaction."

Colors are observable to all, and visual experiences are not. — Richard B

An absolutely crystal example of Searle's inability to think clearly. He very much likes his hand waving.

- Good stuff. These are very similar to the arguments I had considered putting forward were Michael less intransigent.

(The Bad Argument Searle refers to is any argument that attempts to treat the perceptual experience as an actual or possible object of experience.) — Richard B

It is uncanny how close this sort of thing is to Aquinas. I think Searle would've been edified to read the pre-modern realists who dealt with some of the same problems in a less skeptical age.

Yep, I often thought if Wittgenstein wanted to theorize instead of just describe he might have moved in the direction that Searle has.

I will have to take your word about Aquinas as I am only familiar with his arguments for the existence of God.

This is based on Searle's ontological distinction between modes of existence. Entities like mountains, molecules, and tectonic plates have an existence independent of any experience. They are ontologically objective. Entities like pains, tickles, and itches exist only insofar as they are experienced by a subject (for Searle this is either a human or an animal). They are ontologically subjective.

However the light source being reflected off of the tomato and into the eyes is no less a relevant part of the scientifc understanding of what is happening. — wonderer1

Of course it's relevant, but it's not colour. Just as stubbing one's toe is relevant to explain pain, but isn't itself pain. Pain and colour are what happen in the head after.