We see color before language acquisition begins in earnest. Color is not borne through language. Calling colors by name is. Further differentiation between is. To even think that color is completely independent of the external world is mad in light of the relevant facts.

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.

Isn't one of the issues here now "What is to count as seeing?"

Kinda where we came in. — Banno

I thought that that 'issue' had been long since resolved. Seeing. Dreaming. Hallucinating. The former always includes some thing, whereas the latter two never do.

The factual explanation is that the colours we see are determined by what the brain is doing.
— Michael

The bolded word is where Michael oversteps... — Banno

Yup. My reply was "in part"...

We see colored things before learning the names of colors. We learn how to use "red" by picking out red things. Language is unnecessary for seeing red things.

The question is whether there is an ontological difference that impacts the truth value of the judgment that requires differing descriptive words. — Hanover

Indeed. The question is whether or not there is an ontological difference between veridical perception, dreaming, and hallucinating.

The difference is the things. In the first, they are always included. In the second and third, they are never included. Seeing rainbows always includes rainbows. Dreaming and hallucinating rainbows never does.

Pretty simple.

Same with hearing voices, hallucinating voices, or dreaming them. The voice is absent in the latter two, but always present in the first.

An unseen tomato does not look red it is red. — Janus

I agree, if by "is red" we mean is capable of causing red experience in those capable of having them.

Well, they're different sets of meaningful marks(names). For me, the last two are inseparable, whereas they are both existentially dependent on the first.

Unless having already seen red is necessary for the illusion to work.
— creativesoul

By this do you mean that 620-750nm light must have stimulated my eyes for me to see the colour red? — Michael

Must have already in past...

Why do you think that?

That's how gestalts work.

What’s the relationship between 650-720nm light and the colour red?

They're both elements for the emergence of red experience(s).

What matters is that both a) I see a can of red Coke and b) the photo does not emit 620-750nm light are true. So one’s account of seeing the colour red cannot depend on 620-750nm light. — Michael

Unless having already seen red is necessary for the illusion to work.

The factual explanation is that the colours we see are determined by what the brain is doing. — Michael

In part.

And now they've been convinced to be mad at all the wrong people for all the wrong reasons.

Threats of violence are not a part of informed willful consent. Call it "manufactured consent", if you like. I won't mind that. The American public have been convinced to consent to all sorts of things that were harmful to them, in the financial sense. Quantifiable financial harm. "What are the damages?" That's a common question.

Look at the spread of wealth around the world after WWII. Pay particular attention to the flatline in real blue collar wages. Watch the power of their dollar wane over time. Watch the under 100k blue collar lifestyle require more than one income. Watch the companies who treat their workers worse obtain a financial advantage for having done so. Much easier to do without legal enforcement of binding arbitration agreement. Ronnie Raygun started that. Much easier to do if enough people portray working folks' unions in nothing but a negative light. Do it long enough and vwahlah. Magic. People are convinced that one of the best things for them is not. Watch the birth of many ghost towns, replete with walking zombies.

No, sir. You're wrong. The smartest bipeds known to man are capable of being happily led to their own slaughter. No physical violence or threat thereof necessary for that to happen.

Yep. And understanding the order of events is paramount. The role that language can and cannot play in our lives; particularly early on. That seems crucial to me.

We are picking out color - to the exclusion of all else - each and every time we gather red things. We even use the same biologically activated structures(brain areas). Such activities go hand in hand - so to speak - with correctly, appropriately, and hence sensibly... uttering "red". There are other ways to use the word.

We are not picking one or the other. We are connecting them. All red things share that in common, even if the common denominator boils down to being capable of causing those capable of having subjective color experiences of red to do so.

I think Searle would distinguish between the subjective and objective aspects of experience.

Red things are not in the head even if they do not look red unless their being viewed.

I suspect a notion of 'violence' stretched beyond its breaking point to include mental violence.

To herd or control apes you have to commit violence against them, or proceed with the threat thereof. — NOS4A2

That contradicts both, current and historic facts. See the last post for the beginning of a list of things that happened, and/or are currently happening. It negates the statement quoted above.

A sheepdog gone rogue can herd a flock of sheep over a cliff without touching them.

How do they do with apes? — NOS4A2

Vietnam War. Iraq War. Consent to remove workers' rights. Consent to dismantle/defund public schools. Jan. 6 2021. Etc.

Pretty well, if the sheepdog is also an ape, or a few of them.

The reality of dreams and hallucinations demonstrates that your stated condition is really not required. — Metaphysician Undercover

I've already addressed this. I'm neither inclined nor required to go over it again. It's a matter of existential dependency and elemental constituency. Dreams and hallucinations are existentially dependent upon veridical perception. To the rest...

Of course it depends on the sense of the terms I'm using. As if that counts as a problem.

You've misunderstood.

Color experience requires both, colorful things(things capable of being seen as colorful by a creature so capable) and a creature so capable.

Things capable of being seen as red are those with physical surfaces reflecting the appropriate wavelengths of the visible spectrum. A capable creature is one capable of detecting and/or distinguishing those wavelengths.

We see colours "directly", just as we feel pain "directly".
— Michael

:lol:

We see our color percepts?
— creativesoul
It all reeks of a misuse of language. Where is the "we" relative to our colors? What use is the word, "directly" here? How does it help us understand the process? — Harry Hindu

Yup, and good points.

We see colours "directly", just as we feel pain "directly".
— Michael

:lol:

We see our color percepts?

Yup. There's the Cartesian theatre. Homunculus lives on.. — creativesoul

Feeling pain does not entail a "Cartesian theatre" or a homunculus, even though pain is a sensation, and seeing colours does not entail a "Cartesian theatre" or a homunculus, even though colour is a sensation.

You're arguing against a strawman. — Michael

Am I?

I'm saying that colour and pain are percepts. — Michael

Percepts are in the head.

We see colours "directly", just as we feel pain "directly". — Michael

:lol:

We see our color percepts?

Yup. There's the Cartesian theatre. Homunculus lives on...

...it's quite difficult to articulate this; put the green tomatoes in one box and the red tomatoes in another, and close them in - are the tomatoes in that box still red, despite being unobserved? Of course. — Banno

They are inherently capable of being seen as red by a creature so capable. They do not look red unless they are capable of being seen as red by a creature so capable and they're being looked at.

If there's nothing more to being red than being capable of being seen as red by a creature so capable, then they are always red, regardless of whether or not they're being looked at. I think that's where Searle is on that. What's below seems to support this. I'm fairly certain that I've listened to that series of lectures on more than one occasion. Many thanks to UC Berkeley...

"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." — Richard B

If being red requires looking red, or being seen as red, then unobserved things that are capable of being seen as red are not red unless they're being observed. I think that's where I am.

Then is there a way in which Michael is right, that without the creature capable of seeing colour, there are no colours? — Banno

Well, I am agreeing with "without the creature capable of seeing color; there are no colors". Colored things are also necessary. Searle seems to say much the same thing.

Michael's not right. He's said there's no colored things aside from mental percepts.

That's just begging the question. — Michael

:rofl:

Coming from one who assumes what's in question and admittedly does not have an argument.

If there is no color in the world, then rainbows and visible spectrums are colorless.

I'm not okay with that, because rainbows and visible spectrums are colorful. They may not exist without being looked at, which is fine, but they most certainly do while they are.

There are all sorts of things within one's experience that are not located just in the head. Color is one.

I miss Isaac in these discussions.

One need not have the artist on hand to hear their music. Their music is not 'in the recording'. We could transfer the recording from an album to an 8-track to a cassette to a cd to an ipod to whatever they have nowadays.

One could say they no longer need the artist. One could say that because the music is being experienced via using an ipod that the music is in the ipod and not the world...

One could say...

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). The distinction between these two different neural representations advances our understanding of visual neural coding.

The bolded portion needs unpacked.

The physical retinal image does not come from within the perceiver. It is not that image being recorded. Rather the physical retinal image is the recording. Color perception is being recorded.

Color requires both, colorful things(things capable of being seen as colorful by a creature so capable) and a creature so capable.

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.

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.

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. 

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.

You drew a hard equivalency between four separate things.

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

None of them did.

You should try quoting more carefully.

It does not follow that there are no differences between hallucinating, dreaming, and seeing red things.
— creativesoul

I haven't claimed that there is no difference. — Michael

Sir. You most certainly did.

You drew a hard fast equivalency between four different things. When I asked you what the differences were between them the answer was the same.

"Nothing"

That is most certainly to claim that there are no differences!

Fer fuck's sake!

We've been over this. They differ in what causes the mental percept.

Indeed we have. Very little attention has been payed to this. You've yet to have responded to the important parts. Ignoring issues does not make them go away.

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

Okay.

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 he says aligns with the mistake your entire philosophical edifice, informed stance, rests its laurels upon. See the top of this post.

It's not my conclusion; it's what the science says — Michael

No, it's not.

Science shows that certain biological structures are necessary for all perception. Makes perfect sense in my book.

It does not follow that there are no differences between hallucinating, dreaming, and seeing red things. Science does not say that. You do. Your arguments have recently led to absurd conclusions. I've thought of this more and more recently.



Well put.

Well said.

...my concern is with the nature of a tomato's appearance. — Michael

As is mine. I've no idea how you arrive at the notion that color is nothing but a mental percept, which is to say that biological machinery alone is enough. Brains in vats.

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.

There's nothing in the science that contradicts what I've offered here. It takes more than just biological machinery doing its job... mindlessly.

Subjectivism and eliminativism are both philosophical positions, so to speak. So, this...

This combination of eliminativism—the view that physical objects do not have colors, at least in a crucial sense—and subjectivism—the view that color is a subjective quality—is not merely of historical interest. It is held by many contemporary experts and authorities on color,

... strikes me as a very odd combination. Dennett laid waste to the subjectivist notion/tenet of qualia(tastes, smells, colors, etc.) using physicalist eliminativism in "Quining Qualia".




What's bothering me about this thread is the fact that many of us agree about the biological machinery and the irrevocable role it plays in all veridical perception, hallucination, and dreams. I'm interested in how that all works, from an evolutionary progression standpoint.

I almost want to treat the autonomous biological machinery doing its work as if it were some sort of living recording.

Hallucination and dreams are to veridical experience as a video recording is to experience. Sticking with that analogy renders some folk hereabouts wanting to equate the experience with the record thereof. I don't know if that's a great analogy, as they all fail when pushed far enough, but hopefully that makes some sort of sense.






You're making a number of excellent points. I appreciate the patience and willingness to do so. I'm sure I'm not alone.

It does not follow that no pain is located in limbs.
— creativesoul

Yes, it does actually. — AmadeusD

Care to shoulder that burden?

Edit: Nevermind, I see you just claimed that hallucinations of red pens include red pens.

To place the idea in an image: someone in Michael's group might claim that, via the scientific findings of a microscope, they have proved that the human eye does not perceive reality. But without the legitimacy of the human eye the findings of a microscope have no value, for the microscope presupposes the human eye. More subtle iterations of this idea are percolating throughout this thread. — Leontiskos

Exactly. Unspoken necessary presuppositions. Collinwood comes to mind.