I'm thinking a thread on The Concept of Mind might be fun.

Who's interested? An appropriate follow up to this.

I'm thinking a thread on The Concept of Mind might be fun.

Who's interested? An appropriate follow up to this. — Banno

:up: Definitely. Ryle's book was a landmark for me.

But on ordinary usage, as in scientific practice, there are red apples. In my view, ordinary language is straightforward, coherent and useful. And isn't susceptible to the kinds of philosophical problems that arise for subject/object dualism. — Andrew M

Ordinary language has naive realist assumptions. I really don't understand the obsession with ordinary language philosophy. Ordinary language has all sorts of assumptions baked into it. Why take those at face value?

Also, science doesn't say the apple is red, it says the apple reflects light of certain wavelength that we see as red. Important distinction.

Just dropping this link off here so I can access it elsewhere - PF as dropbox...

The Concept of Mind

I really don't understand the obsession with ordinary language philosophy. Ordinary language has all sorts of assumptions baked into it. Why take those at face value? — Marchesk

Especially when one goes about picking which parts of ordinary language to rely on in ad hoc manners. In ordinary language, intentions are not illusory, for one example. We all speak as though sentient beings are endowed with agency (granted, and sometime speak of insentient things, like computers, as though they are endowed with agency; such as in, “it's thinking,” when a computer program doesn’t process information fast enough).

Apples aren't red. — Marchesk

There are red apples. You're not bothered to be saying something so obviously false? — Banno

To whomever might be interested, my take on red apples:

In short, apples are red, intersubjectively. To make it explicit, this relative to the vast majority of the human species, a populace in which ab-normalities such as color blindness and blindness occur.

Apples are not red in a (intra-)subjective manner, such that their redness is exclusive to the private experiences of one individual and no other. The apple is red to you, is red to me, is red to most humans we interact with, and, therefore, it is (intersubjectively) red - for all of us (save color blind and blind people).

Nor are apples red objectively, such that their redness is universally applicable to all sentient being save for those who are (intentionally so expressed) malformed. As one example, if one accepts biological evolution, lesser animals endowed with sight which don’t see the apple being red are equally evolved in biologically functional manners as are humans; i.e., they don’t have malformed sight. All sentient beings, however, will witness the same spatiotemporal properties of what we humans (intersubjectively) experience as a red apple, this when in proximity to it. Given that objective reality is universally applicable to all sentient beings, this then makes the apple's spatiotemporal properties objective - but not its color, nor its taste, etc., with all the latter being intersubjective realities.

Especially when one goes about picking which parts of ordinary language to rely on in ad hoc manners. In ordinary language, intentions are not illusory, for one example. We all speak as though sentient beings are endowed with agency (granted, and sometime speak of insentient things, like computers, as though they are endowed with agency; such as in, “it's thinking,” when a computer program doesn’t process information fast enough). — javra

Yep. I edited my post to remove that part as unnecessarily argumentative, but yeah, I have issues with ordinary language philosophy. Another part of or ordinary language is universals. But ordinary language philosophy is not very keen on Platonism. So colors are real, but not categories.

Ordinary language has naive realist assumptions. I really don't understand the obsession with ordinary language philosophy. Ordinary language has all sorts of assumptions baked into it. Why take those at face value? — Marchesk

I don't think it has the metaphysical assumptions you think it has, and the assumptions it does have (logical constraints, really) turn out to be very useful.

Instead think of ordinary language as a natural and useful abstraction over the physical processes that operate in our world.

Also, science doesn't say the apple is red, it says the apple reflects light of certain wavelength that we see as red. Important distinction. — Marchesk

Scientist: So in this experiment, I'd like you to push the red button when I say.
Philosophy student: There is no red button.
Scientist: That button right there in front of you.
Philosophy student: It's not red.
Scientist: What do you mean? Are you color-blind?
Philosophy student: No.
Scientist: Well what color do you think it is?
Philosophy student: It doesn't have a color. However there is red qualia in my mind that appears right where the button is. Maybe that's what you mean?
Scientist: That will be all, thanks. Could someone get me a physics student?

(A little while later...)

Scientist: So in this experiment, I'd like you to push the red button when I say.
Physics student: Wait a moment! (Get's out light detector. Measures wavelengths of light reflecting off the button. Checks chart to confirm within red wavelength range.) OK, that's red alright!
Scientist: OK... Couldn't you just like, I don't know, look at the button?
Physics student: No, I only trust what my light detector says. It's possible the environment, not to mention my visual system, was influencing what color I thought the button was.
Scientist: (Face palms.) OK, are you ready to push the red button now?
Physics student: Wait a sec. (Get's out light detector again.)
Scientist: What are you doing now?
Physics student: Well, I thought it best to check again. Repeatability and all that. Minimize the possibility of experimental error. Maybe I should get a different detector, just on the off chance this one is faulty.
Scientist: That will be all, thanks. I'll push the damn button myself!

This just shows scientists are human too, and use ordinary language like the rest of us. The debate is going around in pointless circles at this juncture.

:up:

Correct. The word "red" is associated with awareness of a certain mental state. Now if I told you "but actually, you formulate the word before you become aware of the mental state" what bearing does that have on the statement? — khaled

That I am prone to use it even then does not invalidate the statement "red is associated with a certain experience". And again, I don't see how they're related. If you're going to continue down this path then for the next neurological fact you cite, can you explain how it invalidates the statement "red is associated with a certain experience" — khaled

I really don't know what to say. Your claim is that X is associated with Y, I show and example of X without Y and you say it's irrelevant. I don't know what more I can do if you can't understand such a basic rational method.

Do you mean that under the 'normal' range of light temperature and intensity the constitution of what we call a red apple is such that its surface will reflect that part of the electromagnetic spectrum such as to appear red to any creature with the requisite visual system or something else?

What about "seeing red" when someone is angry? The image being your entire visual field turns red in a fit of rage. That doesn't happen to me, but I can imagine it, and maybe it happens for some people. — Marchesk

I'm not sure what your ability to imagine that something might be the case has to do with a discussion about whether something is in fact the case.

That can only work on immediate responses prior to being conscious and not when taking your time to reflect on the red cup before you. — Marchesk

How do you know this?

Also, this is a learned response, not something infants do. They don't utter "red" the first time they see a red object. You're talking about a learned reflex. — Marchesk

Yep. That's right, I'm not sure what bearing you think that has on the issue. It's a fairly simple matter of demonstrating pretty conclusively that the use of the word 'red' does not reference a conscious experience. It can't do because the decision to use the word has already been made prior to any occipital originating signals in areas of the brain associated with conscious awareness. How that connection got made originally is a different matter. We can go into that too if you like (spoiler - it's not by association with conscious awareness of 'redness' either), but it's not relevant to the argument here which is much more simple.

The responses we make which indicate to us that something red is in our field of vision (or in our imagination) - which include saying the word 'red', or feeling more 'angry', or picking it when asked to "pick the red one" - are initiated prior to any conscious awareness of the colour aspect of the perception model that is being processed at any given time. They are post hoc. Stories our brain makes up to give the mental events coherence where otherwise they might have been contradictory.

I'm calling them stories in a technical sense. We treat these stories as reality whether we like it or not, even whilst we're trying to investigate them scientifically (a position @Banno and @Andrew M seem to be advocating - I think, and one I have a lot of sympathy with). Yet, if we're doing some form of cognitive science, we might need a technical language to allow us to break the stories apart, just for the purposes of understanding brain function.

What we have no use for at all is armchair speculation about what the constituents of our perception-response system might be without any cause or evidence for such an arrangement.

Yep. That's right, I'm not sure what bearing you think that has on the issue. It's a fairly simple matter of demonstrating pretty conclusively that the use of the word 'red' does not reference a conscious experience. It can't do because the decision to use the word has already been made prior to any occipital originating signals in areas of the brain associated with conscious awareness. — Isaac

Assuming what you're saying is actually true. I've heard of this sort of study in reference to decision making (when its immediate, not following deliberation), but not reports of conscious experience. I've also seen criticism of conclusions reached regarding this sort of study, as many neurological studies engendering bold claims are often criticized for unwarranted conclusions.

But regardless, I can sit here and stare at a red object for five seconds before commenting on it, which means I've had time to be consciously aware before deciding to speak. And during that time, I may notice detail that wasn't immediately obvious and report that

We can go into that too if you like (spoiler - it's not by association with conscious awareness of 'redness' either), b — Isaac

I disagree. How could we talk of being in pain or having dreams without there being such experiences?

What we have no use for at all is armchair speculation about what the constituents of our perception-response system might be without any cause or evidence for such an arrangement. — Isaac

It's armchair speculation to suppose it's some form of self-reporting illusion. You have also equivocated between sensations being identical to certain neuronal activity and them being illusions. Which is also armchair speculation.

'm calling them stories in a technical sense. We treat these stories as reality whether we like it or not, even whilst we're trying to investigate them scientifically ( — Isaac

Conscious experience isn't a story we tell ourselves. It just is how we experience the world and our own bodies.

Your claim is that X is associated with Y — Isaac

I am not claiming that when someone says "the apple is red" that they are necessarily having a certain experience. I am claiming that in general use (and assuming one isn't lying of course), "the apple is red" is used to indicate a certain experience produced by the apple. You have shown that saying X, and Y occuring are two seperate operations in the brain which occur at around the same time. So what? You have disproven the former claim but did nothing to the latter.

the use of the word 'red' does not reference a conscious experience. It can't do because the decision to use the word has already been made prior to any occipital originating signals in areas of the brain associated with conscious awareness. — Isaac

Again, I don't see how the first part ("red" does not reference a conscious experience) follows from the second (because the decision to use the word had already been made)

To borrow Marchesk's example, if I look at a red apple and say nothing, then describe to someone the color of the apple 3 minutes later, what am I referencing? What does "the apple is red" then mean if not "The apple invoked the experience we agreed to dub 'red' "?

It can't do because the decision to use the word has already been made prior to any occipital originating signals in areas of the brain associated with conscious awareness. — Isaac

You have some data to back this up?

Do you mean that under the 'normal' range of light temperature and intensity the constitution of what we call a red apple is such that its surface will reflect that part of the electromagnetic spectrum such as to appear red to any creature with the requisite visual system or something else? — Janus

No, it's more straightforward than that (or, at least, doesn't depend on language like "light temperature and intensity", "reflect", "electromagnetic spectrum", "visual system", "appear").

I mean that there are features of the environment that are naturally distinguishable by normally-sighted human beings in decent lighting (whatever the physical details of that happen to be). Further, it has been useful to create language to designate those features.

So the apple grower decides to categorize the apples here as "red" and the apples there as "green". When he explains this to his customers, they can also see the distinguishing features of the apples that he is pointing to. If that seems to them a useful distinction to make, they will go on to use those color terms as well. And so a new language use is born.

Now the scientist comes along and wants to investigate all this in further detail. He discovers that light has wavelengths which are reflected in different ways off different things and that this results in people perceiving things in specific ways. He decides to give color names to various ranges on the spectrum which have an approximate relationship to what people report, but also some differences. These scientific color terms are conceptually different to the color terms the apple grower uses. It's a bit like the relationship of polling to actual election results. Not totally unrelated, but should be understood to be different things.

The point to note here (which I tried to illustrate in the physics student story earlier) is that scientific language doesn't supersede conventional use. Instead, it logically assumes it. That is, the scientist's specialized language is ultimately grounded in ordinary, everyday experience. It's a human view of the world as distinct from a Platonic "view from nowhere".

Naturalism - what you see out the window.
Phenomenology - you looking out the window.

That is, the scientist's specialized language is ultimately grounded in ordinary, everyday experience. — Andrew M

Isn't the domain of ordinary, everyday experience precisely what is categorized under 'folk psychology' by eliminative materialists? Isn't it precisely that which is to be superseded by properly-formulated scientific expression?

No, it's more straightforward than that (or, at least, doesn't depend on language like "light temperature and intensity", "reflect", "electromagnetic spectrum", "visual system", "appear").

I mean that there are features of the environment that are naturally distinguishable by normally-sighted human beings in decent lighting (whatever the physical details of that happen to be). Further, it has been useful to create language to designate those features. — Andrew M

I'm not sure what you mean by "doesn't depend on language like....". What doesn't depend? Seeing colours? Or talking about seeing colours? If the former then that would seem obvious since (some) animals also see (some) colours as far as we can tell. If the latter then that would also seem obvious, since people talk about seeing colours routinely without referring to any scientific accounts.

"That there are features of the environment that are naturally distinguishable by normally-sighted human beings in decent lighting (whatever the physical details of that happen to be)." is basically the same story I told without specifying as many details as I included.

Since we are human and our perceptual organs are generally much the same, and since the usual reflected light and ambient light conditions determine what colours we will see objects as being, of course it is useful (and inevitable) to create a language to distinguish the different colours we encounter.

However, when you say unreflectively that an apple is red that should not be taken to imply that the apple is red when no one is looking at it, because colours are qualities that exist only by virtue of being seen. It is not wrong to say that apples are red, but it is merely shorthand for saying that we see apples as red.

An animal that has no red photo-receptor cells in its retina cannot see red, and so for that animal apples are not red. If humans had been lacking red photo-receptors then we would never have said that apples are red. So, beyond the context of ordinary communication, it seems to make no sense to speak of apples being red tout court.

The point to note here (which I tried to illustrate in the physics student story earlier) is that scientific language doesn't supersede conventional use. Instead, it logically assumes it. That is, the scientist's specialized language is ultimately grounded in ordinary, everyday experience. It's a human view of the world as distinct from a Platonic "view from nowhere". — Andrew M

I agree that scientific language does not supercede conventional use in the sense that the former is built upon the latter. Science is founded on everyday experience, to be sure. There is nothing wrong with saying that apples are red or that the sun rises, but scientific investigation and analysis can reveal the limited context in which such statements find their provenance and coherency.

I'll just leave this hear since it will be covering some of the topics in this thread.

Minds and Machines

An introduction to philosophy of mind, exploring consciousness, reality, AI, and more. The most in-depth philosophy course available online.

Topics include:

The Chinese Room
The Turing Test
Mind-Body Dualism
The Identity Theory
Functionalism
Knowledge
Belief
Color
Perception
Consciousness
'What it's like' to be a bat
The Knowledge Argument
David Chalmers on dualism — https://www.edx.org/course/minds-and-machines

I can sit here and stare at a red object for five seconds before commenting on it, which means I've had time to be consciously aware before deciding to speak. And during that time, I may notice detail that wasn't immediately obvious and report that — Marchesk

How would you do that when the sensory input resulting from that detail fired the relevant neurons many minutes ago? How can you 'notice' the detail after five minutes when the signal causing it has either stopped (if it was detail that you noticed five minutes ago, or has just fired (in which case you're in no better situation that the instantaneous response? Obviously what's really happening is that you're manufacturing an idea of what you're 'noticing', a story of what's happened. You can possibly be actually 'noticing' the things in this deliberation because the sensory memory only hold images , sounds ect for a few seconds.

How could we talk of being in pain or having dreams without there being such experiences? — Marchesk

I don't understand at all the link you're making here. If I had a wire directly running from my knee to my mouth which formed the word 'fish' every time my leg bent I would say 'fish' a lot while running. There's no intrinsic need for me to be having any kind of conscious experience whatsoever in order to produce language.

It's armchair speculation to suppose it's some form of self-reporting illusion. — Marchesk

No it isn't. I've provided a substantial amount of empirical research showing that our intuitions on this matter are at odds with what seems possible from the neurology. Of course it's not a 'done deal', but it's just insulting to suggest it's just as much 'armchair speculation'. A massive amount of hard work has gone into it.

You have also equivocated between sensations being identical to certain neuronal activity and them being illusions — Marchesk

No I haven't. What I'm showing is that certain neural activity precludes some intuitive explanations for our responses.

It's no different to the standard knee-reflex test. It's not possible for you to voluntarily decide whether to raise your knee or not. We know this because we can trace the signal from you knee to your muscles and prove it does not even get to the brain (it's dealt with by the spinal column), so even if you 'feel' like you're moving your knee voluntarily (as some people do) then you must be experiencing an illusion of voluntary action because the signals do net get to a part of your brain where such action can be decided upon.

All I'm doing here is showing that this seem very likely to be the case with responses to stimuli. We can see from fMRI and other interventions that the signals from certain stimuli to certain responses do not pass through areas of the brain which could even feasibly be responsible for conscious decision, so we can show, just like the knee-jerk, that if you think you're making a conscious decision about the response, you must be experiencing an illusion of some sort. It's not equivocation. It might be wrong (but if it were it would be wrong on the basis of better neurological evidence), but it's not equivocation. If you feel like you're conscious of something which the best neuroscientist evidence tells us you can't possibly be conscious of then the best theory is that your feeling is illusory.

Conscious experience isn't a story we tell ourselves. It just is how we experience the world and our own bodies. — Marchesk

Those two things are not mutually exclusive.

I am not claiming that when someone says "the apple is red" that they are necessarily having a certain experience. I am claiming that in general use (and assuming one isn't lying of course), "the apple is red" is used to indicate a certain experience produced by the apple. You have shown that saying X, and Y occuring are two seperate operations in the brain which occur at around the same time. So what? You have disproven the former claim but did nothing to the latter. — khaled

That's fine, but then all you've got is the intent behind the expression, but we're talking about ontological commitments here. "Harry Potter" is used to refer to the child wizard in JK Rowling's stories, we wouldn't want such a use to commit us to the real-world existence of Harry Potter would we?

if I look at a red apple and say nothing, then describe to someone the color of the apple 3 minutes later, what am I referencing? What does "the apple is red" then mean if not "The apple invoked the experience we agreed to dub 'red' "? — khaled

It 'means' whatever the term was used to do. It might be to get you to pick one of a similar colour, or to evoke some emotion, or to get a refund on purchase of five green apples... we use words to do things, so long as the ting gets done, the word has been used well. They do not have 'meanings' held in perpetuity in some platonic realm.

but we're talking about ontological commitments here. — Isaac

No, you're talking about ontological commitments here. I only meant intent behind the expression

It 'means' whatever the term was used to do. — Isaac

So if someone asks me to describe the apple 3 minutes after seeing it, and I go to that person and say "The apple is red" 3 minutes after seeing it. What do I mean? What am I reporting?

They do not have 'meanings' held in perpetuity in some platonic realm. — Isaac

I never claimed that the meanings of words never change. But your position would judge all dictionaries as nonsense then no? Are you ok with that? After all words apparently can't mean anything outside of the context of their use.

Isn't the domain of ordinary, everyday experience precisely what is categorized under 'folk psychology' by eliminative materialists? Isn't it precisely that which is to be superseded by properly-formulated scientific expression? — Wayfarer

That would be a case of throwing out the baby (ordinary language) with the bathwater (language implying ghostly entities).

"That there are features of the environment that are naturally distinguishable by normally-sighted human beings in decent lighting (whatever the physical details of that happen to be)." is basically the same story I told without specifying as many details as I included. — Janus

OK.

However, when you say unreflectively that an apple is red that should not be taken to imply that the apple is red when no one is looking at it, because colours are qualities that exist only by virtue of being seen. It is not wrong to say that apples are red, but it is merely shorthand for saying that we see apples as red.

An animal that has no red photo-receptor cells in its retina cannot see red, and so for that animal apples are not red. If humans had been lacking red photo-receptors then we would never have said that apples are red. So, beyond the context of ordinary communication, it seems to make no sense to speak of apples being red tout court. — Janus

The apple's composition is such that a normally-sighted person in decent lighting would use the word "red" to describe it. That is, for the apple to be red is for the apple to have that composition (which it has independent of being seen).

Human color terms won't necessarily be applicable when describing what other creatures perceive, as with your example. The apple is nonetheless red, but the animal is unable to perceive that.

The apple is nonetheless red, but the animal is unable to perceive that. — Andrew M

Nonsense. The only reason apples and other fruits exist in the first place as sugary edible stuff, and are colored in a way that makes them stand out from the green background, is precisely to be seen and ingested by animals. This is a well-documented seed dissemination strategy: the animal spots the fruit, eats it, and excretes the seed around, allowing the seeds to fall far away from the tree, so to speak.

Apples are red so that monkeys can see them.

Properties of consciousness would be more like the pattern of signals it has, the causes and consequences of it,...etc — Isaac

In that case, I think you and I each mean something different by "conscious experience".

If conscious experience is no more than a "pattern of signals" or "neural activity", and if seeing things is just "a convenient fiction", then how are you able to read what I've written? By your logic you are unable to show me any proof or experimental evidence to support your claims because there is no seeing/showing.

The apple is nonetheless red, but the animal is unable to perceive that.
— Andrew M

Nonsense. — Olivier5

Here is the context from the quoted post that I was responding to:

"An animal that has no red photo-receptor cells in its retina cannot see red..."

Here is the context from the quoted post that I was responding to:

"An animal that has no red photo-receptor cells in its retina cannot see red..." — Andrew M

Fair enough, apologies for not reading the thread.

Still, the point remains that the apple's color is far more than a passive sensation by some animals. It is an active signal from the tree to certain animals able to see it, and as such it is already loaded with meaning and potentiality.

A signal is a sort of sign, a symbol, one that is difficult to miss. It is a sign drawing attention to itself, like a loud siren. Hence the red, which is basically non-green (to simplify, red is what happens when you substract green from natural light). A red patch is hard to miss in foliage. It "pops out".

A signal calls for an action, typically. That's why it's urgent. It comes at a certain moment, when a certain action is required and not before. In this case, the apple turns red when it is ripe, i.e. when the fruit and its seeds are ready for consumption by animals. So basically the tree is calling an animal as a sort of taxi, when it's ready, to transport its kids to a new neighborhood (the seeds, that will be excreted a few miles away). The cab fare is the sugar in the fruit.

It has worked well for apple trees, who have managed to colonise the whole world thanks to a certain primate species appreciative of its fruits: us.

And all new varieties of apples are red because that's what the primate spots best at the supermarket.

No, you're talking about ontological commitments here. — khaled

Khaled might be right, @Isaac; there is a syndrome found in poor philosophisers that might be termed "failure to commit". Perhaps Khaled never buys red apples, bit only ever has the experience of buying apples that seem to be red; perhaps he has qualia of apples and grocery shops but without committing to their existence...

That's part of the philosophical absurdity that talk of qualia sometimes induces induces. Usually the victim only has these delusions while on philosophy forums.

It 'means' whatever the term was used to do. It might be to get you to pick one of a similar colour, or to evoke some emotion, or to get a refund on purchase of five green apples... we use words to do things, so long as the ting gets done, the word has been used well. They do not have 'meanings' held in perpetuity in some platonic realm. — Isaac

Spot on.

I never claimed that the meanings of words never change. But your position would judge all dictionaries as nonsense then no? Are you ok with that? After all words apparently can't mean anything outside of the context of their use. — khaled

The belief that a dictionary contains the meaning of a word. Naive. Indeed, silly. We don't need more holy books.

as such [the redness of an apple] is already loaded with meaning and potentiality. — Olivier5

This means that there is a broad biological (ecological) meaning to the perception of a red apple by a potential apple consumer, human or animal. The apple physically looks "red" (pigments are produced by the apple skin to absorb green wavelengths) right in time to signal its maturity to the consumer.

One could object that the apple is just an example amongst many things looking red. And that red itself is just an example of color. But then, isn't red the color that's always invoked in qualia talks? And isn't that because it is "eye-catching"? Red is the somehow the queen of all qualia, the king of all colors. For us humans, red is a remarkable color, one once worn by emperors, now painted on firefighter trucks, calling drivers to stop at a traffic light, shining on women lips. Red is often a signal. It calls our attention, us primates.

And isn't the apple a frequent example? Apples are in a way the prototypical red object. It is a natural example to take. Our nature, our biology involve a certain semantic of colors. And none of it can be captured in a reductionist outlook, e.g. through biochemistry. It is about inter-species communication in a given ecosystem.

So the redness of the truck or of an apple is not a passive sensation, a mere impression on some physical sensory systems that would deliver a mere quality (red) to an observing subject. It has meaning before it was even perceived by anyone. It's generally a signal, a beckon. And it is perceived as such.

Of course if our world was predominantly red, green would be the way to signal something important.

And of course, there might be more than one biological meaning to red. And to other colors. Green of course signals plants to animal etc.

This is not to say the whole universe is permeated by meaning or anything as ridiculously panglossian. Just that coexistence between species implies endless possibilities of predation, competition, parasitism and cooperation. In such a context, messaging (including fake messaging) between species is commonplace, in a very practical biosemiotic manner. And therefore our senses are not just passively sensing: they are actively decoding signals sent by our own and other species, noting important patterns, some of which are biologically determined. Our senses do more than inform us, they alert us.