Is my red the same as yours? — TiredThinker

The analytic answer is that there is no my red; that rather, red is a notion constructed by our communal use of language.

The analytics - that would be Wittgenstein, Austin, such like folk.

What do you mean? I am referring to the concept and specific impression of the color red.

The analytic answer is that there is no my red; that rather, red is a notion constructed by our communal use of language. — Banno

Is there a Banno's mother? (as a concept)

What do you mean? — TiredThinker

Just that there is more to red than sense perception.

I didn't say there was no such thing as red.

I didn't say there was no such thing as Banno's mother.

So do you care to be less obtuse?

Do you?

the perception of color is as defined as the wavelengths that produce it? — TiredThinker

Yes, violet/blue have shorter wave lengths, and reds have the longest. I don't think birds see reds as well as humans do though they see more ultraviolet light.
And we all experience phenomena differently. You can see this when you start discussing with another person. They can never quite experience the things you're are at that time.
Often it doesn't make a difference, colors are one such example and we get by fine with traffics lights (the majority of the time). But even then people will quarrel over the color of a dress to use an example from the past five years.
And of course our perception changes over time too. So you might quarrel with yourself, especially if you keep a lot of notes and journals which I am an apt to do.

What do you mean — TiredThinker

Heh, heh. Ask a neurobiological question and get some rando pushing philosophy of language.

Sorry about your retinal disease. I’m sure it is more than a linguistic notion.

I was wondering if the perception of color is as defined as the wavelengths that produce — TiredThinker

You are asking what is in the end an impossible question because no one else can see inside your head to check. But we can say enough about how the eye and brain process colour experience to at least limit the scope for a difference.

There are for example tetrachromates who have a fourth pigment. The prediction from neurobiology, from how the peak sensitivies of the four cone pigments were arranged, was that they ought to be able to discriminate an awful lot of extra shades of orange that regular folk can’t see. And light mixtures were devised to find subjects for whom this was so.

The tetrachromates said things like that was why they must have struggled in the shop to get the right thread to colour match a garment. The shop assistant thought the orange was a perfect match and couldn’t see how far off it was.

So we can’t get inside heads to say experiences are the same. But we can use discrimination tasks to see if people experience the same distinctions.

The tetrachromates said things like that was why they must have struggled in the shop to get the right thread to colour match a garment. The shop assistant thought the orange was a perfect match and couldn’t see how far off it was. — apokrisis

I imagine a group of tetrachromates developing their own language to name the varieties of orange from 'crumby to 'gooey' or whatever. And Some tetrachromate philosopher will of course want to know, " is my crumby orange the same as your crumby orange?"

I think @Banno's point is more that the only sense in which senses can sensibly be said to be 'the same' is that they pick out the same things consistently. There is no internal red versus external red, only a relational red that relates our sensual relations; we can talk only to the extent that our sensory worlds coincide. Red is the 'same' for everyone who can see and say that London buses are the 'same' colour as tomatoes and blood.

How do we know that my same is the same as your same?

The analytic answer is that there is no my red; that rather, red is a notion constructed by our communal use of language. — Banno

Just as we use our fingers to point we use language to point. So it's more like our communal pointing to a colored experience. The OP is asking how do we know that what we are pointing to is the same? Being that words are just other sensory impressions, we use sensory impressions to point to other, more complex, sensory impressions. Language is used to communicate complex ideas more efficiently.

Is the way I perceive the scribble or sound, "red" the same (or similar to the) way you perceive it? How about how we first perceived how "red" was used? Was that the same or similar?

When we say, "The apple is red", are we saying that the apple is a scribble/sound, or made of scribbles/sounds, a communal use of language, or what? If "apple" is a communal use of language and "red" is a communal use of language, then all you are saying when using any scribble/sound, is that "The communal use of language is a communal use of language".

Is my red the same as yours? — TiredThinker

Red is an interaction between the world and your sensory system. Once the apple-light system interacts with your eye-brain system, it no longer is the same interaction as the interaction of the apple-light system with my eye-brain system. We are two separate beings, and our systems process the information of the apple-light system separately. So to ask if your red is the same as my is red is silly question to ask.

If we want to know about the apple-light system prior to interacting with any eye-brain system, then we shouldn't be asking questions about color, as color is a property of an eye-brain system interacting with the world. This is impossible as every thought we could possibly have takes the form of those sensory impressions, of how the body interacts with the world.

I think that is the issue with QM, in that it hasn't quite accepted that consciousness itself is a causal part of what we experience and how we perceive the world, in that we can never experience, or talk about, the world just by itself.

All experiences include information about the body as well, and trying to understand which information is about the apple and which is about me, can sometimes be difficult. At what point in talking about the apple are you ever talking about just the apple not also talking about yourself, or your perception of it?

I was wondering if the perception of color is as defined as the wavelengths that produce it? — TiredThinker

Humans generally have three cone types and see colors under well lit conditions. The primary bio-physical layer is established by photopsins, which are light sensing proteins. Each photopsin has a particular probability of absorbing each photon that goes by; this probability changes as a function of frequency and the photopsin. When absorbed the photopsin folds (isomerizes), releasing a chemical that begins a chain reaction leading to your cone signals. There are three photopsins involved here; erythrolabe, chlorolabe, and cyanolabe. Since they either fold or not, and each is sensitive to a broad range of frequencies (just by different amounts), the eye isn't really measuring wavelengths; the best way to describe what this is a measure of is simply to point to the photopsins... it's a three dimensional measure of three kinds of photopsins folding.

A lot of stuff happens from here to your brain, but fast forwarding through all of this, at the other end (in the brain) there are more adjustments made to color, as made evident by the subjective perceptual properties of optical illusions of color. The main categories of such adjustments seem to have to do with color being a virtual property of objects. Specifically, color adjustments seem to be consistent with the effects that shadows and lighting have on the "eye color" (the three-dimensional measure cited above). To speak loosely at an intuitive level (invoking a pseudo-teleology), it's a misnomer that the color visual system is attempting to reconstruct wavelengths, or model the wavelengths of light. Our color visual system apparently does not care one iota what the wavelengths really are, and why should it? What our visual system seems to focus on, instead, is recognizing and distinguishing objects. If the same object projects a different one of those three-dimensional values mentioned in the first paragraph, your brain tries to "fix" it by calculating a virtual invariant that particular objects should have particular colors.

odd, that folk seem to think explaining the physiology answers the question...

odd that folk seem to thing that philosophy of language explains away the question ... as if there were no experience, just its notion.

...and yet you agreed with what I said.

we can use discrimination tasks to see if people experience the same distinctions. — apokrisis

Sure. In the context of a neurobiological discussion, that certainly does become a meaningful use of words.

Cool. Notice that we can only see if people experience the same distinctions if there are other people.

"Red" is part of a language game played by a community.

"Red" is part of a language game played by a community. — Banno

Does the same go for Locke's primary properties?

"Red" is part of a language game played by a community. — Banno

Sure. There is a distinction to be made. But is it due to a "language game" or is it due to neurobiology?

One starts to sound awfully Whorfian about colour perception otherwise.

Is my mass the same as yours?

I'm going to think on that. Good question.

But is it due to a "language game" or is it due to neurobiology? — apokrisis

Both?

What kind of answer did you think the OP wanted? Were not its language and concerns explicitly neurobiological?

But I guess you have your Procrustean metaphysics and every conversation must be cut to fit. :hearts:

Much as I love how you make these threads about me, the repetition is tedious.

What did you make of

Does the same go for Locke's primary properties? — Forgottenticket

Red is frequency of light. There are different Reds with frequencies that approach purple which are higher frequencies and frequencies that approach IR light and those are lower frequencies. Cameras see your red as my red however i suppose its possible i see red as blue and you and a friend of yours sees red possibly as someone elses yellow. Basically the frequencies are consistent but the eye and brains interpretation might be different from person to person. I suppose this might be why there are color blind People.

the repetition is tedious. — Banno

But you keep avoiding direct questions.

What kind of answer did you think the OP wanted? Were not its language and concerns explicitly neurobiological? — apokrisis

As well as those of others.

Does the same go for Locke's primary properties?
— Forgottenticket

odd, that folk seem to think explaining the physiology answers the question... — Banno

Not sure what you mean:

"Red" is part of a language game played by a community. — Banno

...but how do you play this game?

To speak loosely at an intuitive level (invoking a pseudo-teolology), it's a misnomer that the color visual system is attempting to reconstruct wavelengths, or model the wavelengths of light. Our color visual system apparently does not care one iota what the wavelengths really are, and why should it? What our visual system seems to focus on, instead, is recognizing and distinguishing objects. — InPitzotl

Here is someone who knows what he is talking about! :strong:

This is bang on. It is not about seeing "colour" as it is in the world. Reflectance is simply a valuable property to make things in the world "pop out".

The appealing idea is that primates re-evolved red-green hue discrimination after shifting back from a nocturnal to diurnal lifestyle. If you want to see ripe fruit in distant trees, the three pigment visual system looks well designed to make that kind of discrimination as effortless as it could be.

So colour is primarily about making quick sense of shapes - discriminating the reflectance properties of surfaces and so being able to see through to the objects that might have that particular kind of surface.

well, I’m just taking my wife in for surgery, so you will have to forgive me if my attention is elsewhere.

To speak loosely at an intuitive level (invoking a pseudo-teolology), it's a misnomer that the color visual system is attempting to reconstruct wavelengths, or model the wavelengths of light. Our color visual system apparently does not care one iota what the wavelengths really are, and why should it? What our visual system seems to focus on, instead, is recognizing and distinguishing objects. — InPitzotl


Here is someone who knows what he is talking about! :strong:

This is bang on. It is not about seeing "colour" as it is in the world. Reflectance is simply a valuable property to make things in the world "pop out".

The appealing idea is that primates re-evolved red-green hue discrimination after shifting back from a nocturnal to diurnal lifestyle. If you want to see ripe fruit in distant trees, the three pigment visual system looks well designed to make that kind of discrimination as effortless as it could be.

So colour is primarily about making quick sense of shapes - discriminating the reflectance properties of surfaces and so being able to see through to the objects that might have that particular kind of surface — apokrisis

Red objects reflect red light and absorb blue light and all other frequencies. Roses essentially cause red light to bounce off of them. Black objects absorb all light. White objects reflect all frequencies. Our eyes and brains interpret frequencies.

Red is frequency of light. There are different Reds with frequencies that approach purple which are higher frequencies and frequencies that approach IR light and those are lower frequencies. Cameras see your red as my red however i suppose its possible i see red as blue and you and a friend of yours sees red possibly as someone elses yellow. Basically the frequencies are consistent but the eye and brains interpretation might be different from person to person. I suppose this might be why there are color blind People.

Our eyes and brains interpret frequencies. — turkeyMan

But our eyes and brains interpret a world of objects. If representing actual frequency were so important, why would the eye sample the world at just three wavelength peaks?

Evolution could produce a vast array of photopigments. But it seems to want to use as few as possible. Explain that.

Cameras see your red as my red however i suppose its possible i see red as blue and you and a friend of yours sees red possibly as someone elses yellow. — turkeyMan

But cameras see those colours because they are also designed to capture light using three "pigments" with the same very narrow response curve. We designed that wavelength selectivity into them so we would get a result that was tailored to our neurobiology.

Get real close to any TV screen. The only colours you can see are the three different LEDs.

Where did all the pinks, yellows, turquoise and a million other discriminable hues go? They aren't in the actual light being emitted by the screen. What now?

And to the degree we all share the same neurobiology, it is at least more plausible than not that our inner experience is going to be the same. We have that weak argument.

Then we can make a stronger argument in terms of our ability to discriminate hues - to be able to say the same thing in picking out the reflectance properties that make one surface vividly unlike another.