Imagine that we're in an alternate world (called WG) where everything is green. — frank

Are you saying 1) that the only electromagnetic radiation that exists in that world has wavelengths between 500 and 565 nanometers? Or 2) do you mean that that is the only light that people could detect visually? Or 3) something else?

If you mean 1), I doubt that that world could exist. If you mean 2), I would guess that people would break the spectrum they could see into many colors with their own names just as we do. The distinctions they made between colors would be just as real to them as the distinctions we make between red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet are to us.

I would imagine that no term could describe what "green" connotes in WG. WH would only have a rudimentary term that would never apporach what is meant by "green" in WG. For someone to speak of "green" in WG to someone in WH would require something like that the other person would learn another language.

:up:

I think the question is paradoxical. I don't think people in WG would be aware of color at all. They would focus on light and dark. They might have words for different shades, but no word for green for lack of anything to compare it to.

The idea here is that what we're aware of, and therefore think in terms of, is contrast and opposition.

Our thoughts don't simply "follow what is."

So it would follow that you wouldn't be able to think about what I just said unless you could compare it to the negative of the thesis!

I don't actually agree. I think that the people in WG would have a plethora of terms to describe "green". It'd be like what they say about Inuits and words for snow, which apparently is a bit of a myth.

I don't actually agree. I think that the people in WG would have a plethora of terms to describe "green". It'd be like what they say about Inuits and words for snow, which apparently is a bit of a myth. — thewonder

But dont you think they'd need to be able to compare greenness to something else in order to be aware of it?

In a monochrome world, colour words would have no application. In particular, the term 'monochrome' would have no application.

But we have gone from our RGB world of 3 dimensions of colour to a 1 dimensional 'black and white' one. Why not consider the colour language of 2 dimensions - a world of red and green but no blue for instance? Or the world of some insects and others that have more than three kinds of colour receptors?

In a monochrome world, colour words would have no application. In particular, the term 'monochrome' would have no application. — unenlightened

Wow. I really didn't expect anybody who understands that to post on this thread.

The totally green world is a colorless world. The totally green world is a contradiction.

I can go to my grave knowing that at least one living person on this barren world gets that.

Thank you. (for real)

I think that they'd be acutely aware of green. I don't necessarily know a lot about water, but I feel like a chemist would be be able to tell you all sorts of things about the properties of water. It could go unnoticed, though. It's your hypothetical.

So you're thinking that something like greenness would be detected by scientists?

Ok. I have another question. It'll take a while to formulate it.

The people in the green world would still experience dark and light areas, or else how would they distinguish objects from the background, or from each other? What color do they experience when they close their eyes? If they still see green then how do they know if their eyes are closed or their eyes are open? This seems to be just another silly philosophical question about impossible situations that we cant learn anything useful from.

That 'colorless world' conclusion seems self evident to me. Nor are 'scientists' from such a world likely to be interested in the rest of what we call 'the visible spectrum' except in terms the behavior of other species who might be 'sensitive' to other wavelengths.

From a general philosophical pov, 'color perception' has been been a central microcosm for debate, from the ontological status of qualia through to Wittgenstein's interest in Goethe's phenomenological 'color theory' which allegedly caused W to reject his own earlier Tractatus. Such 'color issues' in particular, and 'concept boundaries' in general, have also formed the backbone of some of the experimental studies of 'Embodied Cognitionists', like Rosch, who have researched W's 'prototype concept' within semantics.

And more generally, this microcosm the cutural differentiation of color categories in humans, and the species differential in physiological receptors, has raised the issue of 'anthropocentrism' in macrocosmic discussions of 'realism'.

theyd have a word for green but it would mean what we mean by 'color'

Another question: if everything was green would they even perceive it the way we perceive green? isn't perception as contrast-centric as language? At some point, the very idea of everything being green falls apart, even as an an imaginative hypothetical, and we have to resort to saying they can only perceive this subsection of light, and find a material basis for what green means. One could, as un hinted at, consider more color-perceptive species than us for whom everything we consider as 'the spectrum of color' is just (the analogical equivalent of) 'green.'

Yes...you've reached the foothills ...keep going !

Yep. I think the basic idea here runs through philosophy from at least Plato onward. I'd like to hear more about Goethe's color theory.

theyd have a word for green but it would mean what we mean by 'color' — csalisbury

Exactly. The other thought experiment I was thinking of is about a spaceship full of men. After millions of years (where I guess they clone themselves), they've lost any memory at all of female-ness. They don't even have female plug adapters. The question being: would they know that they're male?

As you hinted, their concept for what they are would stop at human. They don't know that they're male because they don't have anything to compare that to.

So we can see that being able to conceive of maleness isn't just a matter of being exposed to the positive qualities we think of as maleness. Conceiving of maleness is a matter of holding it up against a background of its negation. Conceiving of anything is a matter of doing something with an opposition.

At some point, the very idea of everything being green falls apart, even as an an imaginative hypothetical, — csalisbury

Exactly. Yay!

Yes...you've reached the foothills ...keep going ! — fresco

Explorer's hubris has led me the mistake the lower ascent for the summit. I guess I need a sherpa who can see the full spectrum. What's the next foothold?

Goethe's color 'theory' was opposed to Newton's 'physics' of color, in that it stressed color as a phenomenological experience in which, for example 'black' and 'white' were still 'colors'. Wittgenstein, despite his earlier scientific training, had moved on to his adage 'meaning is usage' and seems to have taken Goethe as illustrative of this.
Note that this is my simplistic view of what was going on, and you might need to read up on W's 'Remarks on Color' for a more definitive view. But all of this needs to be set against the background that there is no strict isomorphism between physical 'wavelength' and perceptual 'color category' which loosens any propposed ties between 'physicality' and 'realism'. That's where the 'summit' lies IMO.

Exactly. The other thought experiment I was thinking of is about a spaceship full of men. After millions of years (where I guess they clone themselves), they've lost any memory at all of female-ness. They don't even have female plug adapters. The question being: would they know that they're male?

As you hinted, their concept for what they are would stop at human. They don't know that they're male because they don't have anything to compare that to. — frank

ah. Maybe, but - what that dick for then? whys it get hard? whats the weird white fluid all about?

So we can see that being able to conceive of maleness isn't just a matter of being exposed to the positive qualities we think of as maleness. Conceiving of maleness is a matter of holding it up against a background of its negation. Conceiving of anything is a matter of doing something with an opposition[

yeah definitely. That's why in almost every action movie there's either a cowardly sidekick, or the villain himself has some cowardly flaw, which fuels - and explains - his villainy. But I suppose thats an intra-male dramatization of masculinity.

I agree, in general with what you're saying.

:up:

Exactly. The other thought experiment I was thinking of is about a spaceship full of men. After millions of years (where I guess they clone themselves), they've lost any memory at all of female-ness. They don't even have female plug adapters. The question being: would they know that they're male?

As you hinted, their concept for what they are would stop at human. They don't know that they're male because they don't have anything to compare that to.

So we can see that being able to conceive of maleness isn't just a matter of being exposed to the positive qualities we think of as maleness. Conceiving of maleness is a matter of holding it up against a background of its negation. Conceiving of anything is a matter of doing something with an opposition. — frank

From Carlo Rovelli’s ‘Reality Is Not What You Think’:

“A physical system manifests itself only by interacting with another. The description of a physical system, then, is always given in relation to another physical system, one with which it interacts.

“A description of a system is, therefore, always a description of the information which a system has about another system.”

While you're thinking about how concepts come in oppositions, focus on one of the more structural concepts:

changing ---- unchanging

This concept obviously has to do with time. If time is change, then how are we aware of it if not because we can conceive of its negation: timelessness.

If everything is changing (I think that's the conventional view), then where does this idea of timelessness come from? Is it a figment of the imagination? Did we invent it? Or is it based on experiences of apparent stasis, IOW: an illusion?

Our awareness of time is dependent on the concept of the eternal. What is it?

Interesting, but I think that's over my head. I don't quite understand what he means by "manifests itself."

It’s a description of the structure of quantum mechanics in terms of information. By ‘manifests itself’ I think he’s talking about reality from the POV of the observer, but that’s not related to the point I’m trying to make.

Extrapolated out, what he’s saying suggests that our description of an experience derives from how it interacts with or relates to information we have about different experiences.

So we cannot describe an experience of ‘greenness’ if every experience we’ve ever had has ‘greenness’ as a property. If the experiencing system has no experience that isn’t green, then green doesn’t exist for the system.

No, it would be pointless. If everything is one color then there would be no need for words of separate colors. Color would mean nothing to people who live in a world with only one color.

Is green a kind of system? Or does it imply a system?

Is it the outcome of a system? Or would it be a name for one?

The parts of a system are described relative to the whole (or to each other). Does greenness have parts?

Or maybe we're using Rovelli's explanation as a simile?

, it would be pointless. If everything is one color then there would be no need for words of separate colors. Color would mean nothing to people who live in a world with only one color. — luckswallowsall

I agree. So what about the next question: if time appears to the mind only in contrast to its negation, what do we make of its negation: stasis?

Or the world of some insects and others that have more than three kinds of colour receptors? — unenlightened

Some humans, most of them women, have four colour receptor types. It's quite rare, I think.

It'd be like what they say about Inuits and words for snow, which apparently is a bit of a myth. — thewonder

This is is true, but in a very mundane way. I don't think Inuits have so many distinct words for snow, but their language does allow them to describe it in many different ways. Just as we have the word "rain", but we use it as "heavy rain", "light rain", driving rain", "frozen rain" and so on, giving us a lot more phrases to describe the weather than we have individual words. The same applies, I think, to describing snow as an Inuit.

There are tribes in Africa that have distinctions between contrasts of blue and green. There can see subtler differences that we cannot and vice versa

I agree. So what about the next question: if time appears to the mind only in contrast to its negation, what do we make of its negation: stasis?

I agree also viz color.

With respect to time, relative to the OP of Being and its negation = anxiety or angst.

However if, say, the residents in WG were unaware of time, it would follow that there would be no conception of the so-called temporal-ness of time. And as such, (relative to Being) there would be no cause for anxiety or angst.

But I'd like to further expand on the metaphorical color experiment. What if residents of WH somehow had a brief period of awareness or knowledge about the world of WG?

Or better said, what if WH residents were allowed to access residents of WG. Could they speak to each other in terms of color language? Probably not. Could it be in some ways ineffable? I suppose so. Could they learn new language?

It would be a strange and completely novel experience nonetheless. (Assuming of course that the concept of experience is in itself even something available to be experienced in that [WG's] world.) In other words, just like color, the idea of experience may not exist in that world. And maybe then, viz the experience of timelessness; it just is.

(In a timeless-ness world, what's more conceivable: would you say' I am', or ' I is'.)

There are tribes in Africa that have distinctions between contrasts of blue and green. There can see subtler differences that we cannot and vice versa — I like sushi

That's cool.

agree. So what about the next question: if time appears to the mind only in contrast to its negation, what do we make of its negation: stasis? ↪ — 3017amen

Time is change. Its negation is changelessness or eternity.

With respect to time, relative to the OP of Being and its negation = anxiety or angst. — 3017amen

The negation of being is angst? Why so?