Then you render your position unfalsifiable? Or you classify Subject 1001 as abnormal?

You see, it's not only about biomechanics because it involves the subject's report. This is the bit that goes unrecognised in the "mental percept" account.

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. I was only saying that the percepts that occur when dreaming red and hallucinating red are the percepts that ordinarily occur when 700nm light stimulates our eyes. That's why they're all referred to using the word "red".

It's certainly not the case that a red hallucination percept is a blue dream percept is a green waking percept.

Dreams, hallucinations, and non-hallucinatory waking experiences differ in what causes these percepts to occur. With dreams it's internal processes when asleep, with hallucinations it's internal processes when awake, and with non-hallucinatory waking experiences it's sensory stimulation when awake.

What are we to make of this? Will we be good scientists and acknowledge the theory falsified, because Subject 1001 reports that they see blue? Or are we going to say instead that Subject 1001 is mistaken? — Banno

Your experiment takes as a given that asking the subject is the gold standard for determining color. That is, you take their word as truth and you try to find what the cause of the truth is.

And that seems right because it'd be odd to tell someone they can relax because their test results showed they weren't in pain after all.

But, you raise another point and that is if stimulation of V4 resulted in the subject seeing red and numbing V4 eliminated red from their seeing it, we'd be forced to conclude red was quite literally in their head and not in the pen.

Would not such a finding about V4 disprove that red is in the pen? If not, what would? Is your position falsifiable?

My suspicion is that the only way for you to concede that the red is not in the pen is for people to stop saying it is. That is, when they call the pen blue, then you know it's not red.

If that's the case, why even entertain the scientific arguments? Your claim is not scientific. It's linguistic.

Then you render your position unfalsifiable? Or you classify Subject 1001 as abnormal?

You see, it's not only about biomechanics because it involves the subject's report. This is the bit that goes unrecognised in the "mental percept" account. — Banno

Ok, this clarifies what you're trying to say which I very much thank you for.... But this is just a silly as the previous version.

It is about Biomechanics. Otherwise, your TE is pointless. If it were about self-report the first 1000 are unreliable anyway.

That is fine, but it still does not answer my question:

What creates the depth perception of pain inside your lungs instead of a pain inside your bowels? — Lionino

How can you tell it happens inside the lung and not inside the intestine?

That is, it seems to me that the question is about the use of the word "red" rather than about the appearance of red. — Banno

Except he says “the colour ‘red’” and not “the word ‘red’”.

I think it more likely that he is misusing quotation marks than misusing the word “colour”. To give him the benefit of the doubt, he’s saying “the colour referred to by the word ‘red’”, with his use of the word “colour” referring to a type of visual appearance.

But, you raise another point and that is if stimulation of V4 resulted in the subject seeing red and numbing V4 eliminated red from their seeing it, we'd be forced to conclude red was quite literally in their head and not in the pen. — Hanover

Sure - in this case. But it would be wrong to conclude that therefore the only way we use "red" is to refer to firing of certain cells in V4 - as worng as to conclude that "red" just is light at 700nm.

Your claim is not scientific. It's linguistic — Hanover

Yep.

But the argument being presented by Michale, Amadeus and perhaps yourself has the pretence of being scientific. Hence my pointing out some methodological flaws.

It is about Biomechanics. Otherwise, your TE is pointless. If it were about self-report the first 1000 are unreliable anyway. — AmadeusD

Ok. There's no reply to that, it's so far off track. Central to the experiment are reports of colours seen.

More likely that they had not given consideration to the difference.

More likely that they had not given consideration to the difference. — Banno

I doubt anyone who would not give consideration to the difference is going to be asking for a linguistic analysis of the word “colour” in a discussion entitled “Perception”.

He’s most likely asking the simple question that I am answering.

Then why the quote marks? But the speculation can be ended by the author.

What has been presented here by myself and others shows that there is more to the way we use the word "red", and hence to the place of red in our dealings with the world, than can be accounted for by the simplistic assertion that red is one of various purely mental or neurological phenomena.

This is not to say that the use of the word "red" does not involve individual mental or neurological considerations.

We know how things affect the world and so can know about a thing from its effect.

Perhaps a different analogy is more helpful. A blind man can know that he is eating an apple because he knows what apples taste like, but the taste of an apple does not “resemble” the apple or any of its properties. An apple’s taste is a phenomenological consequence of the apple’s chemicals interacting with the tongue’s sense receptors. — Michael

I see what you're saying. But consider the spoon dipping into the two dimensional world. Everyone sees the same thing. There is therefore agreement about what's happening, and further, causality is noted. The passing of the spoon causes things to disappear from the world because it bumps them out of the film or plane. Can these guys say they understand the world?

Nobody in the world realizes what's happening, and indeed, they can't even imagine it. There's no telling what's really going on.

This is all to point out the biggie from Hume: our confidence in our knowledge of the world is not based on anything logical or empirical. I'm not arguing for direct realism because it doesn't need an argument. You can't live without it. Indirect realism inevitably opens up into global skepticism. It's an unsolved puzzle.

Ok. There's no reply to that, it's so far off track. Central to the experiment are reports of colours seen. — Banno

It's directly on track, for the discussion - but you're right, there is no response. If what you're trying to point out is that my use of 'Red' runs up against this, because we're relying on self-report. Yes. Yes, that is the point. Red doesn't obtain other than as an agreement between self-reports and so is instantiated only in the experiences we are agreeing about. Clear?

You can't live without it. Indirect realism inevitably opens up into global skepticism. It's an unsolved puzzle. — frank

This is, to me, a complete and utter cop-out. YOu seem to accept that indirect realism is actually hte case, but that we have to pretend direct realism. This is, I would think, the position of indirect realists in geenral? Not the debate here, but that struck me as odd.

But the argument being presented by Michale, Amadeus and perhaps yourself has the pretence of being scientific. — Banno

Which, as far as defeating the notion of Red being 'out there', it is. The discussion you're having (which is a bit muddled and equivocal - might be hte point, though) is about how we use the word Red. Fine. That's not what Michael and I are getting at. We're talking about the colour 'red' as-experienced. That has been clear for pages and pages.

How can you tell it happens inside the lung and not inside the intestine? — Lionino

You can't. You can infer based on a pretty nifty evolutionary trick of pain signalling through neurons. But pain signals get mixed up all the time and we perceive pain incorrectly as to the injury that caused us to feel any pain at all. I've given a few examples. Feelings of pain are patently not occurring inside the injured area for two reasons:

1. The above - pain signals are not apodictic indicators of anything; and
2. An injured body part doesn't 'feel' anything. The perceiving mind does.

That's not what Michael and I are getting at. — AmadeusD

Yep.

to the way we use the word "red", and hence to the place of red in our dealings with the world, than can be accounted for by the simplistic assertion that red is one of various purely mental or neurological phenomena. — Banno

You're having a separate conversation. This is not a thread about linguistics.

Yep. — Banno

Respectfully, not enough to understand what you might mean here. An attempt to respond: Okay, well I would assent to most of what you've said about the every-day use of the word Red.
Not sure how that relates to the wider discussion here though. That understanding of the word being multiply-used is taken as an observable phenomenon. It doesn't seem to me this is capable of betraying a discussion around whether or not the colour Red is a mental percept. Or being particularly relevant - more of a "Yes, and?" type of statement.

A methodological point. There's a mistaken view of language games that sees them as involving only words. the examples given in PI make it very clear that language games involve our interaction with the word - builders calling for slabs or blocks, grocers counting apples and so on. If one is looking at use instead of meaning, one is looking at how the words are used in the world, not at disembodied locutions.

Some here have failed to see this. They complain that looking at language is not looking at the world. But nothing could be further from the case. To look at how words are used is to look at the way the world is. Talk of the experience of red is talk of the way we use "red". Failing to account for this is failing to look at what you are doing.

I'm an ontological anti-realist. Both direct and indirect realism are facets of our present psychology. I can't take either seriously because I don't have a vantage point from which to determine .

Plus I think you've overlooked the Geiger Counter.

Some here have failed to see this. — Banno

I do not think this is the case. The complaint (using that word mildly) you're making, and the 'confusion' you seem to want to point out isn't a confusion. IF your point is that the conversation being attempted is not apt due to the issues you see with the language, that's also fine - but I would disagree. It hasn't been missed - I don't think it's a problem for the discussion.

This is now extremely off-track. The colour Red is not anything else but hte experience of hte colour - so either we're dealing with purely self-reportage, in which case, who cares - this is a dead end - or we're trying to figure out why those reports, in almost every case, seem to agree. This is likely because 'red' is a sensation which language can approximate with reference to other things. This means that calling something 'Red' is a helpful fiction - similar to my comment in the other thread. It has nothing to do with whether or not the object contains or doesn't contain what our mind assigns Red to.

I can't take either seriously because I don't have a vantage point from which to determine . — frank

That's fair. Can you elaborate on how you feel i've missed the Geiger counter? And in waht way? Genuinely a bit lost lol - i did respond to that exchange a couple of times.

The colour Red is not anything else but hte experience of hte colour — AmadeusD

Again, this is blatantly false. Your gears are spinning but not making the connection.

Can you elaborate on how you feel i've missed the Geiger counter? — AmadeusD

I was just kidding.

Again, this is blatantly false. Your gears are spinning but not making the connection. — Banno

I think the exact reverse is true.

"the colour red" is not anything but the experience of Red. Otherwise, you're talking about a symbol. And there are many symbols which we use the word Red to refer to. But using the word Red to refer to a colour has my position relatively vouchsafed against the issue you're trying to push in here.
Again, the issue is acknowledge, it just has nothing to do with referring to the colour Red rather than "a Red X". You are plainly missing this distinction in service of pretending word games matter to what we're talking about. And again, so this cannot be missed - the connection has been made. It is not an obstacle.

If I convinced someone that I was raised to call what they mentally apprehend as Red as Blue, we would still come to terms. Because when refering the colour, the symbol isn't relevant. It's relevant when you want to connect something else to the colour such as when you say "hand me that Red pen".

"the colour red" is not anything but the experience of Red. — AmadeusD

The absurdity of this should be plain. How do you tell that you are experiencing red? Well, because you know what "the colour red" is. So what is the colour red? Well, it's the experience of red. And what is the red in your experience? Why, it's the colour red, of course...

Let's just say that this is not amongst those things from which I would expect to learn much, and leave this silliness behind.

How do you tell that you are experiencing red? — Banno

The moment I hand you a red pen, of course. :snicker: More than 20 pages discussing about this. Ea! Philosophers enjoy twisting basic trifling matters!

"the colour red" is not anything but the experience of Red — AmadeusD

Therefore, a blind (and colourblind) person would not experience red in their lives. Yet we made symbols or writing systems to help them understand what is red. Hmm... colours are tiresome often.

The absurdity of this should be plain. How do you tell that you are experiencing red? Well, because you know what "the colour red" is. So what is the colour red? Well, it's the experience of red. And what is the red in your experience? Why, it's the colour red, of course... — Banno

It's no more absurd than saying the same thing about pain. Pain is the experience of pain.

I'm not arguing for direct realism because it doesn't need an argument. — frank

It needs the support of physics and the neuroscience of perception, which it doesn't have. It's not the sort of thing that can be proved a priori or just assumed.

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.

The percept that occurs when we hallucinate red is the percept that occurs when we dream red is the percept that optical stimulation by 620-750nm light ordinarily causes to occur.

Or if you prefer, the neural activity that is responsible for dreaming red is the neural activity that is responsible for hallucinating red is the neural activity that optical stimulation by 620-750nm light ordinarily causes to occur.

When this neural activity occurs when asleep we call it a dream. When this neural activity occurs when awake but not in response to optical stimulation we call it an hallucination. When this neural activity occurs when awake and in response to optical stimulation we call it a non-hallucinatory waking experience.

@Banno Do you have a digital copy of Searle's Seeing Things as They Are? I seem to recall that you agree with his theory of perception?

I ask because according to this:

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 consistent with what I have been arguing, and so I want to see for myself if the author of the above is reading Searle correctly.

Sure - in this case. But it would be wrong to conclude that therefore the only way we use "red" is to refer to firing of certain cells in V4 - as worng as to conclude that "red" just is light at 700nm. — Banno

If Witt is correct, then the engagement in language games is inescapable. It's not like I get to be a Kantian metaphysician and you a Wittgensteinian linguist and we then go about proselytizing our respective positions.

So, to the extent @Michaelargues the pen is not red and you say it is, the dispute per Witt is over proper usage. Since our community of speakers does typically defer science to scientists, it is proper to argue the pen is not red based upon best scientific theory.

That is, your commitment to your unsophisticated definition of red that doesn't take the full neuroscience involved is just a stubborn nuance of yours. That I insist upon calling Pluto a planet because that's what I've always done, simply means I obtain usage through a relatively ignorant community of speakers.

If the best scientific description of an object places color as a brain construct, then we should deny the pen itself is red if we want to side with the educated community as opposed to those who've not truly considered the issue.