The bolded word is where Michael oversteps. Things in the word, and the people around us, also have a say in what colours we see. — Banno

I haven't claimed otherwise. I have explicitly stated that ~700nm light is the usual cause of red colour experiences (because it is the usual cause of the brain activity that corresponds to red colour experiences).

[Michael] was never willing to try to explain how his conclusions followed from "the science." — Leontiskos

I have simply quoted what the scientists have said about colour. I'll do it again for you:

Colour is a sensation. — James Clerk Maxwell

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. — Isaac Newton

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. — Stephen Palmer

As the SEP article on colour explains:

One of the major problems with color has to do with fitting what we seem to know about colors into what science (not only physics but the science of color vision) tells us about physical bodies and their qualities. 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.

If you disagree with the science then simply say so, but don't pretend that the science isn't saying what the science is saying. How much more explicit does the above need to be for you?

instead of making arguments for his position he would only ultimately make arguments from authority from "the science." — Leontiskos

Yes, because the scientists are the ones who have carried out the experiments to figure out how the world works, so they better know what they are talking about. You can't determine what colours are just by sitting in your room and using a priori reasoning.

It's 'percepts not 'precepts'. Michael has been arguing that colour is nothing but "mental percepts". I formed the impression you were supporting this claim. If I am mistaken then my bad. — Janus

As @Michael argues, color is not within the external object, but it is within brain. That I am agreeing with. If you limit the term percept (which was what I was trying to understand by asking for a definition) to those perceptions you receive solely from your senses, then I suppose I do disagree with Michael to the extent that I allow that some of my interpretation of the external data might arise from language (and all sorts of other mental processes).

That Michael might allow interpretation of the external object by the sense organs alone and not allow it to also be interpreted by language just seems an odd limitation (if that's at all what he's even saying, as that doesn't seem correct). I see no need to limit how the interpretation occurs, whether it be by language or otherwise.

That is, what seems critical here in response to the OP (and we can't lose sight of the fact that the OP asks the question in this thread, regardless of how meandering the conversation might have become) which is:

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

To that question, the answer is that the color red does NOT exist outside the subjective mind if the color is entirely caused by the senses OR if it is caused by language. An admission therefore that language causes us to perceive red in a way peculiar to our language lands red as a subjective entity.

That was the question, not whether red is in its entirety mitigated only by the sense organs. It can be affected by language as well, and that would result in the same answer to the OP.

That Michael might allow interpretation of the external object by the sense organs alone and not allow it to also be interpreted by language just seems an odd limitation (if that's at all what he's even saying, as that doesn't seem correct). — Hanover

All I am saying is that a deaf illiterate mute can see the difference between a red box and a blue box. That visual distinction has nothing to do with language and everything to do with what the brain does (in response to what the eyes do in response to what the light does in response to what the box does).

Or for a more self-evident example, I can see the difference between two shades of red despite not having an individual name for each shade.

All this talk of language is utterly irrelevant.

All I am saying is that a deaf illiterate mute can see the difference between a red box and a blue box. That visual distinction has nothing to do with language and everything to do with what the brain does (in response to what the eyes do in response to what the light does in response to what the box does). — Michael

I agree with that, but whether I'd foreclose the role of language in the perception of all things, I don't know I'd go so far and I don't know it matters for the purposes of the OP.

My hesitation is in defining the phenomenal state in terms of just raw images in one's brain. It's not like I just see red in a vacuum, but there are all other sorts of things going on in mind, many of which I'm interpreting as I see the thing.

That is, if I see a cardinal, I don't just see the red of the bird, but I see the whole bird and I also have all sorts of thoughts about what that thing can do and what it is at the same time. I don't just get a raw feed of red.

But to say that I must have language to see a bird is equally wrong. Babies see birds. Why the fetish with language as a particular influencer of reality, I don't really know.

That is, if I see a cardinal, I don't just see the red of the bird, but I see the whole bird and I also have all sorts of thoughts about what that thing can do and what it is at the same time. I don't just get a raw feed of red. — Hanover

Sure, but I don't think all that other stuff has anything to do with the colour, and the discussion is about colour.

Sure, but I don't think all that other stuff has anything to do with the colour, and the discussion is about colour. — Michael

But I don't think phenomenal states of a single ingredient exist. The perception is complex, but to the extent you want to hypothesize a perception of red devoid of any other mental activity, then I guess it could exist without language, although I don't think such a thing could exist at all.

We see a red box and a blue box. The colour is the relevant visual difference between the two. I don't think that this visual difference has anything to do with language. The difference is entirely in how the boxes reflect light and then how our body responds to that light.

We see a red box and a blue box. The colour is the relevant visual difference between the two. I don't think that this visual difference has anything to do with language. The difference is entirely in how the boxes reflect light and then how our body responds to that light. — Michael

Specifically it would be our neuronal response to the stimulus that determines how we see the color. I'm trying to understand why it matters in this discussion whether our neuronal response to light is altered by our language skills. I admit that it is doubtful the language bone is connected to the seeing bone, but what would the philosophical import be if it was?

As with hearing, for example, I hear someone say "hello" and I would expect that would elicit my language skills despite the word being just air waves. Whether my mind is so constructed to reduce visual inputs into symbols or representations as well so that they're in some way linguistic in the most general sense, I don't know or see what it matters here. That is, maybe I see red and it makes me mad, or happy, or it reminds me of the time I cut my finger and its visualization is imbued with subjective representations.

Or maybe I'm overthinking this and the point of this discussion is just to tell the Wittgensteinians that their assumptions regarding language are non-scientific horseshit?

I'm trying to understand why it matters in this discussion whether our neuronal response to light is altered by our language skills. — Hanover

Maybe that's true, but I'm more arguing against those who seem to be saying that because we say such things as "the box is red" then it must be that the colour red is a property of the box and not a property of our bodies.

Maybe that's true, but I'm more arguing against those who seem to be saying that because we say such things as "the box is red" then it must be that the colour red is a property of the box and not a property of our bodies. — Michael

That's my issue as well.

What I actually think linguistic philosophy holds is simply that "the box is red" means the "box" is "red." That is, they're never actually talking about boxes or redness as a metaphysical entity, but they're instead just talking about how we define words and use words. Under this framework, when @Banno says the box is red, his comment is deflationary, meaning to claim "the box is red is true" is meaningfully indistinct from saying "the box is red." All you can do is define your terms and agree on usage.

When you say the box is red and that it's a product of the mind, that attempts to establish a subjective metaphysical reality to the redness, whereas, from the best I follow, Banno attempts to say "the box is red" just means the box is red as defined and distinguishing which part is subjective and which is objective is folly.

The correspondence theory of truth holds no value in this way of thinking, and so the talking around each other follows.

If this weren't the case, then the obviousness of the brain's role in determining perceptions would be conceeded, but the fact it isn't means there's a larger refusal to even consider the underlying metaphysical structure of objects.

All we have are words in this world, which is an interesting puzzle to construct and sort of admire, but it's largely horseshit as far as it is true.

As Michael argues, color is not within the external object, but it is within brain. — Hanover

Of course the experience or the appearance of colour is not within the object. So it all comes down to what you mean by saying that colour is or is not in the object.

What a mess. After reading this I've no idea of what what I am accused.

But since repetition is de rigueur, Here's my observation. I agree entirely with the scientific account of the physiology of colour. However, this account is not well reported by abbreviating it to "colours are just mental percepts" or some such. Overwhelmingly, we agree as to the colour of the things around us. It follows that colours are constructed from information about the world around us. We have also been able to constructed various group enterprises concerning the colours of our world - those involving red pens and red tomatoes, for example. This shared facet of the nature of colour involves more than just the firing a few neurones in an individual.

So I'll go along with an analysis that says that red is a property of most ripe tomatoes, depending on variety.

Some folk claim properties must in some way inhere in the individual in question, and so suppose that while the tomato might be round and firm, it is not red. That strikes me as unneeded philosophical theorising.

I'll also say things such as that this is a closed box of red tomatoes. Some philosophers will claim that such knowledge is impossible. I find their accounts unconvincing.

All this by way of pointing out that while being red involves the firing of certain neurones in an individual brain, there are in addition an assortment of other issues. Colours are more than individual mental percepts.

46 pages. Even @Mp202020 gave up long ago.

The ball just has a surface layer of atoms with an electron configuration that absorbs and re-emits particular wavelengths of light; these wavelengths being causally responsible for the behaviour of the eye and in turn the brain and so the colour experienced.

Physics and neuroscience has been clear on this for a long time. — Michael

Yup. Red balls cause color experience.

We might talk about the ball as having a colour but that's a fiction... — Michael

Not "a" as in singular, but rather 'a' as in a two sided fiction. One side claims color is in visible objects. The other side claims color is in the brain.

They are both half-ways right, and completely wrong. Color - as we know it - is within color experience. Veridical color experience includes red balls. The 'scientific' account in the above quote is commensurate with that.

Hallucinating red balls is one kind of color experience that never includes red balls. The 'scientific' report in the above quote does not take that into account. According to that report, hallucinating and or dreaming about a red ball is not a color experience. There is no surface layer of red ball atoms within one's dream. There are no red balls in hallucinations thereof.

What you've put forth in support of your own claims stands in direct contradiction to them.

We might talk about the ball as having a colour but that's a fiction... — Michael

THis alone should be sufficient to show Michael's error. The ball is red.

Isn't that like: we may talk about the sun rising, but that's a fiction?

Sunrise is an issues of differing coordinate systems. Is that what is being said about colour?

I guess so. We say the sun rises in the east when it's really that the earth is spinning. We say the ball is red when redness is really a product of the brain.

Everything is the product of the brain. The question is what stimulates the brain to cause that perception. The stimulus is not the perception, but just the cause of it. All I know is that I see a pen. If you want to call the pen the stimulus, you can, but you can't say the pen looks like the stimulus anymore than you can say the pain feels like the blade.

We say the sun rises in the east when it's really that the earth is spinning. — frank

Well, yes. It is true that the sun rises in the East; and we say it is true that the ball is red. What is "really" doing there? Prioritising one narrative over another?

Everything is the product of the brain. The question is what stimulates the brain to cause that perception — Hanover

If everything is the product of the brain, then what simulates the brain is the product of the brain. Your narrative leaves you unable to interact with the world. But of course for you the world is just a product of the brain.

You built yourself a self-consistent self deception. Solipsism.

Well, yes. It is true that the sun rises in the East; and we say it is true that the ball is red. What is "really" doing there? Prioritising one narrative over another? — Banno

Yes. We have the common figures of speech and then the narratives that help out in the areas of science and engineering, plus aesthetics: the statue is beautiful, but beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Midgley's idea of differing areas of discourse.

Midgley's idea of differing areas of discourse. — Banno

If you squash them together you get directly opposing truths.

Everything is the product of the brain. The question is what stimulates the brain to cause that perception
— Hanover
If everything is the product of the brain, then what simulates the brain is the product of the brain. Your narrative leaves you unable to interact with the world. But of course for you the world is just a product of the brain.

You built yourself a self-consistent self deception. Solipsism. — Banno

Yeah, and I think it's clear that my use of the term "everything" references perceptions, which is all you experience, not all that there is , as it's clear I've distinguished between the brain and the stimulus, which means I've admitted to something other than the brain, thus denying solipsism.

I'm not a mind monist. There are bodies. Yours and mine.

Speaking of deception and all things Descartes, which many blame for this whole mess anyway. You are aware that the positing of the great evil deceiver did not lead Descartes to solipsism?

One can consistently believe that the Earth spins and that the sun rises in the East. These two statements depend on differing frames of reference, and say much the same thing when suitable transformations are applied.

Who are you talking to? I'm just one of your perceptions.

Yes. And you can say the statue is beautiful while knowing that beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Who are you talking to? I'm just a perception. — Banno

Don't ask me. I'm just a word in your game, constructed from usage without metaphysical composition.

I do thank you for speaking my name so that I come into existence.

Yes. And you can say the statue is beautiful while knowing that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. — frank

Yep. Although the two are not exactly analogous. We can agree the fork is on my right while still maintaining that it is on your left. We can agree that the statue is beautiful for you while I find it only curious. If we swap places, we will swap what we say about the forks, but not what we say about the statue. If subjective and objective mean anything, this is a case in point.

I'm just a word in your game — Hanover

Language games do not involve only words. They are locked into the world by what we do. So fortunately or unfortunately, you are not mere words.