Not at all. See above. Seeing is the process of updating predictions about external states. Two people can have different predictions about the same state. Seeing differently does not necessitate seeing different things. — Isaac

Seeing is what is meant when we say "person A sees a red dress" and "person B sees a blue dress."

To take your approach, the grammar is clear; they're seeing different things.

They're just doing it differently so getting different results. — Isaac

Doing what differently? Seeing? What does it mean to see differently other than to see different things?

So person B can still 'see' the same hidden state as person A even though they respond differently to it because having a policy toward X is part of the process of 'seeing' X*. — Isaac

The "response" is the seeing. If they're responding differently then they're seeing differently, and seeing differently is seeing different things.

So person A and person B are not seeing the same thing, therefore one (or both) of them isn't seeing the hidden state X.

I think what this shows is that you're equivocating on two different senses of "seeing". I don't know what your second sense of "seeing" is as distinct from the ordinary understanding of person A seeing a red dress and person B seeing a blue dress.

@Isaac, this is the crux of my position:

1. Some hidden state X causes person A to see a red dress and person B to see a blue dress
2. A red dress isn't a blue dress
3. Therefore, person A isn't seeing the same thing as person B
4. Therefore, person A and/or person B isn't seeing hidden state X
5. Therefore, the red dress and/or the blue dress isn't hidden state X

Here you said "the colour of the hidden state is either red (and person B is wrong), or blue (and person A is wrong)."

So, let's assume that the hidden state is red and not blue as in your example. Given this, you cannot respond to my argument above by suggesting that 2 is wrong because the dress is both red and blue. By your own admission, the dress is red and not blue.

So 3-5 follow. Specifically, person B isn't seeing hidden state X and the blue dress isn't hidden state X. So what is person B seeing and what is the blue dress? Because it isn't hidden state X.

So answer me this: are there true propositions of which we do not know the truth value? — Banno

Sure. Either "the real part of every nontrivial zero of the Riemann zeta function is 1/2" is true or it's false, but we don't (currently) know which.

I think that there are, when we talk about stuff like cups and eggs and planets and so on. — Banno

In the counterfactual sense of "if we were to interact with the environment over there then we would see an egg in the fridge", sure. But the (naive) realist would be trying to say something more than just this, and I think that their interpretation is wrong.

DO you really think that the view described as "enactivism"view is a form of idealism? — Banno

I think it fits within Kant's transcendental idealism or Putnam's internal realism. Colour, shape, eggs, etc. aren't "things" or "properties" in our environment that are then "encountered." Rather we interact with the environment and then colour, shape, eggs, etc. are "enacted" by that interaction.

Kant would describe this pre-enacted environment as being otherwise unknowable "noumena". I'm unsure if I'd go as far as him in saying this or if I'm happy to think of this pre-enacted environment as being the wave-particles of the Standard Model (or the superstrings of M-theory, or whatever our best physical theories suggest), although in this discussion I've been tending towards the latter.

Here's something I referenced a while back:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enactivism

Enactivism is a position in cognitive science that argues that cognition arises through a dynamic interaction between an acting organism and its environment. It claims that the environment of an organism is brought about, or enacted, by the active exercise of that organism's sensorimotor processes. "The key point, then, is that the species brings forth and specifies its own domain of problems ...this domain does not exist "out there" in an environment that acts as a landing pad for organisms that somehow drop or parachute into the world. Instead, living beings and their environments stand in relation to each other through mutual specification or codetermination" (p. 198). "Organisms do not passively receive information from their environments, which they then translate into internal representations. Natural cognitive systems...participate in the generation of meaning ...engaging in transformational and not merely informational interactions: they enact a world."

Ovoids are a shape — Banno

Yes, and shapes are an appearance.

Eggs are ovoid, and are in the chicken coop or fridge, not in your mind. — Banno

An ovoid egg being in the fridge isn't an external cause of perception. It can't be reduced to just being the wave-particles of the Standard Model. It's something seen or felt.

Ovoid is a property of some hidden state which causes your 'ovoid-as-seen' and 'ovoid-as-felt'.

There. What's not clear about that? — Isaac

It's red₁ and red₂ all over again. You can use the word "pain" to refer to the external cause of pain if you like, but when I talk about pain in everyday conversation I'm talking about the feeling, not any external cause. The same with colour. The same with shape. Your position just leaves us susceptible to equivocation which I would prefer to avoid.

No. Rather, I've no clear idea what oviod-as-seen might be as distinct from ovoid. — Banno

And I agree; I have no clear idea what "ovoid" might be as distinct from either ovoid-as-seen or ovoid-as-felt. Ovoids are only meaningful as an appearance (either visual or tacticle), not as some external un-seen and un-felt property.

No. Rather, I've no clear idea what oviod-as-seen might be as distinct from ovoid. — Banno

But you don't think the same about ovoid-as-felt?

So the egg is not ovoid? What could "mistaken" mean here? — Banno

The egg is ovoid, external things (i.e. waves/particles) aren't ovoid, and so eggs aren't external things. I have said several times that I think it's a mistake to reduce the everyday objects of perception to being the external causes of perception (i.e waves/particles).

It is easier to think of a thing no longer being red when the light goes out than to think of it no longer being ovoid. — Banno

So you think of it being oviod-as-seen when the light goes out? And ovoid-as-felt when you stop touching it? I think both are a case of mistaken projection. It's as naive as thinking the same about colour.

Again, it pays to consider a wide range of examples. I think your argument here has complications caused by colour being a secondary quality. Try making the same point with a primary quality instead - does it still work?

SO the eggs might be rendered something like:

"Some object is an ovoid if it causes most humans to see an ovoid ..."

Is that something you wish to assert? Because it seems to me to be wrong. — Banno

Yes. Shape is as much a feature of experience as colour. There are ovoids-as-seen, ovoids-as-felt, and these aren't at all similar (see Molyneux's problem). To think that one or both of them are "external" to the experience is a mistake.

An even simpler example: fire causes most of us to feel pain. Pain isn’t some external “hidden state”; it’s a quality of our experience. Colour is of the same kind.

People seem so bewitched by the complexity of visual experiences that they think sight works differently to other senses. If a dog could talk it would probably make the same mistake about smell.

We need an explanation for this extraordinary consistency — Isaac

The explanation is that they scatter light at a wavelength of 650nm and that when light of this wavelength stimulates the sense receptors in our eyes it triggers brain activity from which visual experience emerges and that colour is a quality of these visual experiences. Given that we tend to have the same eye and brain structure and given that physical processes are mostly deterministic the quality of our visual experiences are mostly the same. And when someone has tetrachromacy or brain damage or the like then they respond differently to the same stimulus and so the quality of the emergent visual experiences are different, i.e they see different colours.

Whereas your theory requires this “hidden state” invention and the requirement that the external stimulus has as many “hidden states” as there are ways of experiencing it. It’s overly complicated, there’s no evidence for it, and I would even say it’s incomprehensible. Something can’t be both all red and all blue. The fact that your theory requires this should show how problematic it is.

Because the colour one sees is determined by how one’s brain responds to signals from one’s eyes. The same external stimulation but different colour experience. Therefore colour isn’t a property of that external stimulation or of whatever is responsible for that external stimulation.

With colour, some people do claim to see blue where others see red, so that's default reason to believe that colour is the sort of property which can be of two kinds at the same time. — Isaac

No, it’s a reason to believe that colour is in the head.

Why can a dress not be two different colours at the same time? — Isaac

Because that's a contradiction. You might as well ask why something can't be both a rabbit and a duck.

I'm asking about dresses which are both all red and all blue — Isaac

If red and blue are different colours then it is a contradiction for it to be all red and all blue.

Saying that a red dress isn't a blue dress isn't saying that a dress can't be both red and blue.

Here's a red dress:



Here's a blue dress:



Here's a red and blue dress:

So you keep saying, but you've not given any account of why a dress cannot be both a red dress and a blue dress. — Isaac

I haven't claimed that it cannot. In fact I explicitly said above that it can. Maybe I should repeat myself?

A dress can be red and blue. Or it can just be red. Or it can just be blue. Or it can be some other colour or combination of colours.

Right. But how does that make it that the dress must be one or the other? — Isaac

A dress can be red and blue. Or it can just be red. Or it can just be blue. Or it can be some other colour or combination of colours.

In this scenario neither person sees a red and blue dress. One person sees a red dress, the other a blue dress. A red dress isn't a blue dress. The fact that some other dress can be both red and blue is irrelevant.

:rofl:

I don't quite understand what we're talking about now. My only point has been that even though the Constitution doesn't explicitly say "it is unconstitutional to outlaw abortion" it is reasonable to interpret the Constitutional right to privacy and liberty as including such things as having an abortion.

The Constitution doesn't explicitly list which things are covered by the right to privacy and liberty and so it is for the Supreme Court to use their best judgement. They did so for abortion (until recently), and have done so for contraceptives, sexual activities, and many other things.

But why can't a dress be two different colours at the same time? — Isaac

Maybe it can, but in this scenario it isn't. Neither person A nor person B sees a white and gold and black and blue dress. Person A only sees a white and gold dress. Person B only sees a black and blue dress.

I don't agree with your analysis of Roe or Casey in terms of the Court ever having considered the rights of the fetus. — Hanover

I was paraphrasing this:

"Though the State cannot override that right, it has legitimate interests in protecting both the pregnant woman's health and the potentiality of human life, each of which interests grows and reaches a 'compelling' point at various stages of the woman's approach to term."

So perhaps I should have said the interests of prenatal life can take precedence over the woman's right to privacy.

Consider, though, the other argument, from Justice Scalia in Toxel v. Granville (2002): — Hanover

The Constitution doesn't tell anyone how to interpret the Ninth Amendment. The Supreme Court has to interpret it by other means. Some, like Scalia, will interpret it as "the Constitution’s refusal to ‘deny or disparage’ other rights is far removed from affirming any one of them" whereas others, like Goldberg, will interpret it as "the Ninth Amendment, in indicating that not all such liberties are specifically mentioned in the first eight amendments, is surely relevant in showing the existence of other fundamental personal rights, now protected from state, as well as federal, infringement."

So my point still stands. You can't just look to the text of the Constitution to interpret it.

Why not? — Isaac

Because neither white nor gold is black or blue. They are different colours.

Why not? I don't understand why you're invoking this rule that a hidden state has to have the same effect on all people at all times. Where does that rule come from? — Isaac

I'm not saying that it has to. I'm saying:

1. Some hidden state X causes person A to see a white and gold dress and person B to see a black and blue dress.
2. A white and gold dress isn't a black and blue dress
3. Therefore, person A isn't seeing the same thing as person B
4. Therefore, person A and/or person B isn't seeing hidden state X
5. Therefore, the white and gold dress and/or the black and blue dress isn't hidden state X

Why? Why must the property of the external state we're labelling as 'green' be such that it causes the same response in all people at all times? — Isaac

I'm not saying that it must. I'm saying that if two people are seeing different things (one a black and blue dress, the other a white and gold dress) then they are not seeing the external state because the external state is the same for both of them. It doesn't make sense to say that they are seeing the same external state but also seeing different things. You have to pick one.

Then when I say "I'll meet you by the postbox" I'm expecting you to get into my mind and wait next to my mental representation? — Isaac

No. You're expecting to meet them by the postbox. And "meeting someone by the postbox" isn't an external hidden state.

The grammar could not be more clear. — Isaac

I didn’t realise that English grammar dictates/reveals the (meta-)physics of perception.

Blue being the name given to the property we're seeing. The property of the external hidden state. — Isaac

But people see different things despite the same external hidden state, e.g some a white and gold dress and some a black and blue dress. Therefore it’s not the external hidden state they see.

But we clearly aren't referring to the properties of the experience. When I say "the post box is red" I'm clearly referring to the post box. The grammar could not be more clear. — Isaac

And as I have previously said, the postbox isn’t an external hidden state either.

Same hidden state causes one person to respond in the way we call 'seeing blue' and another person to respond in the way we call 'seeing red'. — Isaac

Responding in the way called "seeing blue" is just seeing blue, and responding in the way called "seeing red" is just seeing red. We have experiences, and we use words to refer to properties of these experiences. Colour, texture, pleasure, pain, and so on.

If you want to use the words "red" and "blue" to refer to some hidden state then you're welcome to do so, but it's wrong to deny that in normal conversation they refer to something else; something that isn't hidden but instead is immediately apparent.

One has green as a property of some mental representation, the other as a property of the hidden state.

The former is without warrant. — Isaac

Then you still have to explain what you mean by one person seeing something as red and another person seeing that same thing as blue. Does each person have different hidden states?

Because it seems to me that when we say that one person sees something as red and another as blue that the words "red" and "blue" are referring to the particular qualities of their individual experiences. That's colour as everyone ordinarily understands it.

So? What's the difference between saying "x causes us to see green" and saying "x causes us to respond in the way described as 'seeing green'"?

It's the exact same thing, you're just wording it in a needlessly convoluted way.

It's like saying "that's the person named 'Jack'" instead of just saying "that's Jack."

Hidden states cannot cause us to see colours. — Isaac

What? Here are your words:

I'm saying that 'green' is a property of a hidden state which cause most humans in most situations to respond in the way we describe as 'seeing green' — Isaac

If the same hidden state causes you to see the colour on the left and me to see the colour on the right then we are seeing different colours. You're seeing red and I'm seeing blue. The word "red" refers to the colour that you see and that I don't see (the colour on the left), and the word "blue" refers to the colour that I see and that you don't see (the colour on the right).

If you want the words "red" and "blue" to also refer to the hidden state that causes us to see what we do then we have two different meanings of "red" and "blue" as I mentioned above.

Red₁ is the colour on the left, blue₁ is the colour on the right, and red₁ and blue₁ are different colours.

Red₂ is the hidden state that causes you to see the colour on the left, blue₂ is the hidden state that causes me to see the colour on the right, and red₂ and blue₂ are the same colour.

This makes us susceptible to equivocation and a confusing metaphysics, as exemplified by your comments.

The colour of hidden state X. — Isaac

If both "red" and "blue" refer to hidden state X then red and blue are the same colour, and the person who sees red and the person who sees blue are seeing the same thing.

This is evidently not the case. Your account of colour makes no sense.

No. Same hidden states. I don't understand why you're having so much trouble with the idea of a hidden state having a different effect on different people or in different contexts. — Isaac

Hidden state X causes me to see red and you to see blue. What does "red" and "blue" refer to here? It doesn't refer to hidden state X, otherwise we would both be seeing red and both be seeing blue.

The properties of hidden states. — Isaac

So when I see a white and gold dress and you see a black and blue dress we're seeing different properties of hidden states?

Why not? — Isaac

Because I can see the difference between red and blue. It's immediately apparent. Therefore red and blue aren't hidden states.

Then how did we learn to use the words? If they describe private experiences, how is it ever learnt their use. — Isaac

Because we're shown a bunch of things that share the same colour-appearance and told that this colour is to be called "red". We then come to associate the word "red" with this appearance.

A better question is this: if colour is a hidden state then how can we learn to use colour words?

How do we even know that what I call 'black' today is the same thing I called 'black' yesterday? — Isaac

Because we have a memory and can remember how things appeared in the past and how they appear now, and which words we used then and which words we use now to refer to that appearance? I don't really understand your question.

There's no reason at all to consider the existence of red2. — Isaac

When I see the dress as white and gold and you see the dress as black and blue, what do the words "white", "gold", "black", and "blue" refer to?

They don't refer to some hidden state. They refer to immediately apparent features of our experiences. The words "white" and "gold" refer to features present in my experience that aren't present in your experience, and the words "black" and "blue" refer to features present in your experience that aren't present in my experience.