I little more exposition on Searle's view of colors:

From Seeing Things as They Are:

"...So it is wrong to think of the visual experience as itself colored. Also, to think that visual experiences are colored is almost inevitably to commit the Bad Argument because one has to ask who is seeing the color..."

(The Bad Argument Searle refers to is any argument that attempts to treat the perceptual experience as an actual or possible object of experience.) — Richard B

This is closely related to and in another thread:

Austin spends quite a lot of time in 'Sense and Sensibilia' explaining that there is no point in claiming that we only ever see things indirectly, just precisely because, if that is the case, we no longer have any idea what seeing directly would even mean. There would no longer be any such thing as 'seeing directly'. And thus (Austin argues) the term 'seeing indirectly' when used in this way appears to mean something but actually doesn't. — cherryorchard

When Michael says that colors are percepts or that we only ever see percepts and never colors, he is in a very real sense committing himself to the position that we only ever see colors indirectly.

Yep, I often thought if Wittgenstein wanted to theorize instead of just describe he might have moved in the direction that Searle has. — Richard B

That makes sense.

I will have to take your word about Aquinas as I am only familiar with his arguments for the existence of God. — Richard B

Here is an example where Aquinas is considering the question of whether the impression is related to the intellect as that which is understood or that by which it understands. The Bad Argument would reflect the idea that understanding terminates in the impression. In terms of this thread we would ask whether the percept is what is seen, or whether the percept is that by which we see:

Some have asserted that our intellectual faculties know only the impression made on them; as, for example, that sense is cognizant only of the impression made on its own organ. According to this theory, the intellect understands only its own impression, namely, the intelligible species which it has received, so that this species is what is understood. This is, however, manifestly false for two reasons. . .

...

Secondly, it is untrue, because it would lead to the opinion of the ancients who maintained that "whatever seems, is true" [Aristotle, Metaph. iii. 5], and that consequently contradictories are true simultaneously. For if the faculty knows its own impression only, it can judge of that only. Now a thing seems according to the impression made on the cognitive faculty. Consequently the cognitive faculty will always judge of its own impression as such; and so every judgment will be true: for instance, if taste perceived only its own impression, when anyone with a healthy taste perceives that honey is sweet, he would judge truly; and if anyone with a corrupt taste perceives that honey is bitter, this would be equally true; for each would judge according to the impression on his taste. Thus every opinion would be equally true; in fact, every sort of apprehension.

Therefore it must be said that the intelligible species is related to the intellect as that by which it understands: which is proved thus. There is a twofold action (Metaph. ix, Did. viii, 8), one which remains in the agent; for instance, to see and to understand; and another which passes into an external object; for instance, to heat and to cut; and each of these actions proceeds in virtue of some form. And as the form from which proceeds an act tending to something external is the likeness of the object of the action, as heat in the heater is a likeness of the thing heated; so the form from which proceeds an action remaining in the agent is the likeness of the object. Hence that by which the sight sees is the likeness of the visible thing; and the likeness of the thing understood, that is, the intelligible species, is the form by which the intellect understands. But since the intellect reflects upon itself, by such reflection it understands both its own act of intelligence, and the species by which it understands. Thus the intelligible species is that which is understood secondarily; but that which is primarily understood is the object, of which the species is the likeness. This also appears from the opinion of the ancient philosophers, who said that "like is known by like." For they said that the soul knows the earth outside itself, by the earth within itself; and so of the rest. If, therefore, we take the species of the earth instead of the earth, according to Aristotle (De Anima iii, 8), who says "that a stone is not in the soul, but only the likeness of the stone"; it follows that the soul knows external things by means of its intelligible species. — Thomas Aquinas, ST Ia.Q85.A2 - Whether the intelligible species abstracted from the phantasm is related to our intellect as that which is understood?

When Michael says that colors are percepts or that we only ever see percepts and never colors, he is in a very real sense committing himself to the position that we only ever see colors indirectly. — Leontiskos

I would say Michael, and others, are committed to a particular metaphysical worldview I like to call “The Private Theater.” In this worldview, they imagine they are in a theater where they alone are watching a series of images being projected onto a screen. Based on their memory, they have been in this theater all their lives. With time they have learned to use language and logic from rather useful pedagogical images. Fortunately, or unfortunately, this language and logic has revealed a rather uncertain existence. Ideas of cause and effect have made them realize that these projected images have some kind of cause of some unknown nature. What could be these images “really” be like they wonder. If only their scientific laws could remove this doubt, but unfortunately no matter how many times they predict future images, the next one could undermine everything. Doubt creeps in again. But if one thing they can gain comfort in is the certainly that what appears to them in the theater is always certain.

There's that vicious circularity again. — Banno

It's not circular, just as noting that the predicate "is painful" is used to describe things which cause pain mental percepts is not circular.

The fact that we say "is red" rather than something like "is redful" seems to have you confused.

"It seems to me that the philosophy of color is one of those genial areas of inquiry in which the main competing positions are each in their own way perfectly true."

Naive colour realism certainly isn't true. Even the paper you quoted seems to agree with that:

The dispositionalist should not be disturbed by the fact that this admission is at odds with a naive conception of color, i.e., a conception which conforms to Revelation and as a result thinks of surfaces as wrapped in phenomenally revealed features which will always make it a determinate fact what the real color of the surface is. (For we have shown that such a conception is not coherent, not consistent with the idea that we see colors.)

The science is clear that with respect to these phenomenal qualities, eliminativism and subjectivism are correct.

When Michael says that colors are percepts or that we only ever see percepts and never colors, he is in a very real sense committing himself to the position that we only ever see colors indirectly. — Leontiskos

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

I would say Michael, and others, are committed to a particular metaphysical worldview I like to call “The Private Theater.” — Richard B

I'm not committed to any metaphysics. I'm only committed to physics, and as the SEP article on colour explains, "the major physicists who have thought about color ... hold the view that physical objects do not actually have the colors we ordinarily and naturally take objects to possess", which is why such luminaries as James Clerk Maxwell, the scientist who first developed the theory of light as electromagnetism, said "colour is a sensation".

That's it. You are reading something into my words that just isn't there.

That's just begging the question. — Michael

:rofl:

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

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.

...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.

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...

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.

Why do you enjoy running into the hard wall of the hard problem?

You keep posting scientific studies while ignoring the science of quantum physics with the observer effect and state "collapse". Maybe neurobiologists and quantum physicists should start sharing notes.

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?

To have a true understanding of the human condition. — Metaphysician Undercover

Having a true understanding of the human condition would come first and from that extrapolate whether our actions are free or determined. I don't want to steer to far off-topic but what is meant by "free" in "free will"? It seems to me that the more options you have the more free your will appears to be, but it would be illogical to believe that you would have made a different choice given the options (information) you had at that moment - as if the same causes (options and circumstances) would produce a different effect (decision).

A true understanding does not simply consist of "things are as they are". — Metaphysician Undercover

What else would a true understanding consist of if not an understanding of how things actually are?

That's it. You are reading something into my words that just isn't there. — Michael

Feel free to keep your grammatical fiction, it may serve you well.

I would say Michael, and others, are committed to a particular metaphysical worldview I like to call “The Private Theater.”

...

Doubt creeps in again. But if one thing they can gain comfort in is the certainly that what appears to them in the theater is always certain. — Richard B

Yes, this captures it well. It's not an indirect seeing of color; it's an inability to see beyond percepts.

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.

Feel free to keep your grammatical fiction, it may serve you well. — Richard B

I don't know what you're talking about. This has nothing to do grammar. This has to do with physics and physiology. Maxwell knew better than you about how the world works, especially when it comes to light. As he says, colour is a sensation.

He's said there's no colored things aside from mental percepts. — creativesoul

Not quite. I'm saying that colour and pain are percepts. We can still talk about tomatoes being colourful and stubbing one's toe being painful; we just have to interpret such talk according to something like dispositionalism, whereas you seem to be interpreting tomatoes being colourful according to something like naive realism, and it this naive realist interpretation that the science has disproven.

It is not the case that colour is a property of tomatoes but only that tomatoes have a surface that reflects ~700nm light, and this light happens to cause red percepts in most humans, with different organisms possibly having different colour percepts in response to that same light, e.g. see the difference between the visible spectrum for humans and dogs, or even the dress that some see to be white and gold and others as black and blue.

I don't know what you're talking about. — Michael

Science studies stuff like brains, nerves, cells, molecules, etc… Not sensations and mental percepts. But scientists certainly are free to talk about sensations and mental percepts, anyone can be a philosopher.

With regards to “grammatical fiction”, this is one of Wittgenstein ideas he expressed in PI 307,

“Are you not really a behaviorist in disguise? Aren’t you at the bottom really saying that everything except human behavior is a fiction?” - If I do speak of a fiction, then it is of a grammatical fiction.”

With regards to “grammatical fiction”, this is one of Wittgenstein ideas he expressed in PI 307,

“Are you not really a behaviorist in disguise? Aren’t you at the bottom really saying that everything except human behavior is a fiction?” - If I do speak of a fiction, then it is of a grammatical fiction.” — Richard B

And what does that have to do with anything I have said here, in particular that comment that you replied to? I am simply reporting that "the major physicists who have thought about color ... hold the view that physical objects do not actually have the colors we ordinarily and naturally take objects to possess" and that Maxwell has said "colour is a sensation".

Are you saying that Maxwell and most major physicists are wrong? Are you suggesting that somehow Wittgenstein's analysis of language can tell us about the physics of tomatoes and the physiology of visual experience, including colour experience?

Science studies stuff like brains, nerves, cells, molecules, etc… Not sensations and mental percepts. — Richard B

Neural representations of perceptual color experience in the human ventral visual pathway

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).

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. — creativesoul

This is really very meaningless. It's like saying that a good act is one capable of being seen as good by a creature so capable. Notice, you take something purely subjective, a creature's capacity for discernment, and create the illusion that the discernment "red" is a property of the thing, rather than being the judgement produced by the subject.

You do this by saying that the thing itself is "inherently capable of being seen as red". However, if you think about this statement, we could say it about anything. Anything in the universe, whatsoever, has the capacity to been seen as red, by a creature which is capable of seeing it as red. And so the statement is completely meaningless.

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).

Yep, is “color in a perceiver”? Well, sure if you open the skull to see the brain, it may appear grayish. But I suspect they are saying something rather metaphysical here, unverifiable. And now we are in the “Private Theater” realm. Imagining all sort things we wish we can describe with a private language. But I will agree they are talking about physical stimulus, neurons, and reports of color, a scientific way to describe how a human experiences color.

Yep, is “color in a perceiver”? Well, sure if you open the skull to see the brain, it may appear grayish. But I suspect they are saying something rather metaphysical here, unverifiable. — Richard B

No, what they're saying is that the subject sees colours when there is activity in the V4 and VO1 areas of the visual cortex. Normally these areas are active in response to retinal stimulation by light, but that's incidental to seeing colours.

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?
— 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.

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.

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. — creativesoul

I would say something else as well. A human community who has a general consensus in color judgment. Without this general consensus, there is no language game of colors.

Having a true understanding of the human condition would come first and from that extrapolate whether our actions are free or determined. — Harry Hindu

No, that doesn't make any sense. Obviously, having a true understanding of the human condition requires knowing about free will, as a part of the human condition.

I don't want to steer to far off-topic but what is meant by "free" in "free will"? — Harry Hindu

What is meant by it, is irrelevant to this point. Since it is commonly said that human beings have free will, then we need to know what is being referred to in order to understand the human condition, of which free will is said to be a part of.

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

This doesn't affect the point I made. "Things capable of being seen as colourful by a creature so capable" is really a meaningless statement. Different creatures could see different things as colourful. And when you consider that absolutely anything could be seen as colourful, you will start to understand that the "thing capable of being seen" is not even necessary for the experience of colour. That's what Descartes demonstrated in his "evil demon" thought experiment, which is now commonly presented as "brain in a vat". The reality of dreams and hallucinations demonstrates that your stated condition is really not required.

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. — creativesoul

That's only by your definition of "seeing red". But that definition is clearly debatable, so who knows what range of experiences could be known by other creatures as "seeing red".

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.

Dreams and hallucinations are existentially dependent upon veridical perception. — creativesoul

That is an unwarranted assumption. It is quite possible, and even likely I would say, that dreams are prior to sense perception.