COLOUR

[Koyaanisqatsi]

Iow, is “red” an intrinsic quality of the wavelength? The answer is both yes and no. Yes, as proved by the facts that we are able to use the wavelengths universally for signs and signals and that some among us (myself included) can suffer from color blindness (and we can test for this).

What can’t ever be established, of course, beyond inference is whether or not the particular shade/hue/whatever you want to call it of any given wavelength is identical to you as it is to me, but then we don’t have to deal in absolutes. We have color spectrography that can do that consistently, thus affirming our inference. Hell, a simple prism—or rainbow—affirms it.

It it weren’t intrinsic, then there would be no way to replicate it, let alone consistently replicate it for utilitarian use, let alone have a test that can confirm malfunction from the norm.

Unless you are not talking about color per se (the “no” part) and are instead really talking about all of the experiential associations (aka, “memories” aka, “qualia”), that are triggered by any given wavelength, which is a different matter entirely and has little to nothing to do with the triggering mechanism/stimulus that causes such a cascade of information.

In short, you can easily and non-controversially infer that the color “blue” is indeed an intrinsic quality of the wavelength, but the triggered associations/information packet, if you will, of stored memories and experiences unique to each individual that has its tendrils connected to the wavelength of the color “blue” and get triggered/updated with every interaction with the wavelength is technically a separate process that our brains simply don’t separate, because all we are ultimately and literally is a sensory input/output processing machine.

That is the sum total non-stop function of every part of our bodies; multi-functional data processing—both “internal” and “external”— of an infinite amount of data bombarding us at all times.

So, the color blue and the “experience of the color blue” are technically two different processes, but they all ultimately get categorized under “color: blue” until the next time that particular wavelength hits our eyeballs and then the updating/associations/information packet explosion happens all over again.

And since the “I”—the “perceivor” or the “self”—is a secondary construction/animation by the brain and is therefore always created/updated just after any external facts have been processed—and for limited specialized purposes never fully revealed by the brain to the self—“we” are like the mentally impaired “slow” child looking at the whirring of a super computer and saying, “Neat” as we let spittle drip down our chins.

That’s where “philosophy” was born and resides—with the mentally impaired slow child animated analogue imbued with an ultimately false sense of autonomy we call “I”—and why most everyone’s first bong hit seems to them like an awakening.

ETA: And thank you for your concerns regarding my current status. It is oddly comforting that the entire world is undergoing something similar, but still jarring nonetheless.

 

[fromderinside]

For example, what I basically said in the particular post you replied to was that regardless of which of us is right and which is wrong (which I doubt we can decide for sure) objects or light of themselves being coloured is fully redundant to explanations. If you disagree about that statement specifically, please explain on what grounds you disagree with it.

It's pretty clear that through evolution some frequencies of light are relevant to fitness and some aren't relevant, Which is which depends on the species and niche in question.

So much for fully redundant anything.

 

[ruby sparks]

It's pretty clear that through evolution some frequencies of light are relevant to fitness and some aren't relevant, Which is which depends on the species and niche in question.

So much for fully redundant anything.

Frequencies, yes. Exactly.

 

[ruby sparks]

Iow, is “red” an intrinsic quality of the wavelength? The answer is both yes and no. Yes, as proved by the facts that we are able to use the wavelengths universally for signs and signals and that some among us (myself included) can suffer from color blindness (and we can test for this).

What can’t ever be established, of course, beyond inference is whether or not the particular shade/hue/whatever you want to call it of any given wavelength is identical to you as it is to me, but then we don’t have to deal in absolutes. We have color spectrography that can do that consistently, thus affirming our inference. Hell, a simple prism—or rainbow—affirms it.

It it weren’t intrinsic, then there would be no way to replicate it, let alone consistently replicate it for utilitarian use, let alone have a test that can confirm malfunction from the norm.

Unless you are not talking about color per se (the “no” part) and are instead really talking about all of the experiential associations (aka, “memories” aka, “qualia”), that are triggered by any given wavelength, which is a different matter entirely and has little to nothing to do with the triggering mechanism/stimulus that causes such a cascade of information.

In short, you can easily and non-controversially infer that the color “blue” is indeed an intrinsic quality of the wavelength, but the triggered associations/information packet, if you will, of stored memories and experiences unique to each individual that has its tendrils connected to the wavelength of the color “blue” and get triggered/updated with every interaction with the wavelength is technically a separate process that our brains simply don’t separate, because all we are ultimately and literally is a sensory input/output processing machine.

That is the sum total non-stop function of every part of our bodies; multi-functional data processing—both “internal” and “external”— of an infinite amount of data bombarding us at all times.

So, the color blue and the “experience of the color blue” are technically two different processes, but they all ultimately get categorized under “color: blue” until the next time that particular wavelength hits our eyeballs and then the updating/associations/information packet explosion happens all over again.

If I understand you right, I myself would go further. I'd say that red is not an intrinsic quality of light, that light is not coloured, that it's energy, wavelengths, photons, information and/or whatever, but in no way red, or any other colour. You might not agree. I obviously can't say that I am sure that I am right.

This video, posted earlier, which you may not have seen, explains my preferred model fairly well I think, especially after about 2:08.

(The video was made for 11-year-olds).

[YOUTUBE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQczp0wtZQQ[/YOUTUBE]

 

[fromderinside]

It's pretty clear that through evolution some frequencies of light are relevant to fitness and some aren't relevant, Which is which depends on the species and niche in question.

So much for fully redundant anything.

Frequencies, yes. Exactly.

light runs from

Radio: Your radio captures radio waves emitted by radio stations, bringing your favorite tunes. Radio waves are also emitted by stars and gases in space.

Microwave: Microwave radiation will cook your popcorn in just a few minutes, but is also used by astronomers to learn about the structure of nearby galaxies.

Infrared: Night vision goggles pick up the infrared light emitted by our skin and objects with heat. In space, infrared light helps us map the dust between stars.

Visible: Our eyes detect visible light. Fireflies, light bulbs, and stars all emit visible light.

Ultraviolet: Ultraviolet radiation is emitted by the Sun and are the reason skin tans and burns. "Hot" objects in space emit UV radiation as well.

X-ray: A dentist uses X-rays to image your teeth, and airport security uses them to see through your bag. Hot gases in the Universe also emit X-rays.

Gamma ray: Doctors use gamma-ray imaging to see inside your body. The biggest gamma-ray generator of all is the Universe.

and the particular light waves to which we are referring, visible, only run from about 400 nanometer wavelength to somewhere in the vicinity of 700 nanometer wavelength. In that the human eye is most sensitive to 450 to 510 nanometer light in daylight and from 650 to about 700 nanometers in darkness. That means humans through evolution don't respond to all light (electromagnetic energy), nor even visible light across all living things, just to a very narrow spectrum of light constituting that from 450 to 700 nanometers. Even there humans evolutionary best trends to be around reflected EM energy of plants (450 to 540 nm).

So one cannot say either light that one sees or light=Em energy spectrum (radio waves to Gamma rays and beyond) is redundant with a limited suite of visible wavelengths, trending to 510 nm wavelength, color, under any stretch of definition.

As for frequencies, its a limited defined narrow set of frequencies as reflected as a range of colors from prisms and rainbows running, violet to red, VIBGYOR or ROY G BIV. I've already gone over evolution processes trend to specific energy that can be reflected as frequency. They always result physically as measured as the same in earth's near sea level atmosphere which in humans leads to receivers tuned to the colors of plants.

Time to dismount your light is light 'xplanation.

 

[ruby sparks]

light runs from

Radio: Your radio captures radio waves emitted by radio stations, bringing your favorite tunes. Radio waves are also emitted by stars and gases in space.

Microwave: Microwave radiation will cook your popcorn in just a few minutes, but is also used by astronomers to learn about the structure of nearby galaxies.

Infrared: Night vision goggles pick up the infrared light emitted by our skin and objects with heat. In space, infrared light helps us map the dust between stars.

Visible: Our eyes detect visible light. Fireflies, light bulbs, and stars all emit visible light.

Ultraviolet: Ultraviolet radiation is emitted by the Sun and are the reason skin tans and burns. "Hot" objects in space emit UV radiation as well.

X-ray: A dentist uses X-rays to image your teeth, and airport security uses them to see through your bag. Hot gases in the Universe also emit X-rays.

Gamma ray: Doctors use gamma-ray imaging to see inside your body. The biggest gamma-ray generator of all is the Universe.

and the particular light waves to which we are referring, visible, only run from about 400 nanometer wavelength to somewhere in the vicinity of 700 nanometer wavelength. In that the human eye is most sensitive to 450 to 510 nanometer light in daylight and from 650 to about 700 nanometers in darkness. That means humans through evolution don't respond to all light (electromagnetic energy), nor even visible light across all living things, just to a very narrow spectrum of light constituting that from 450 to 700 nanometers. Even there humans evolutionary best trends to be around reflected EM energy of plants (450 to 540 nm).

So one cannot say either light that one sees or light=Em energy spectrum (radio waves to Gamma rays and beyond) is redundant with a limited suite of visible wavelengths, trending to 510 nm wavelength, color, under any stretch of definition.

As for frequencies, its a limited defined narrow set of frequencies as reflected as a range of colors from prisms and rainbows running, violet to red, VIBGYOR or ROY G BIV. I've already gone over evolution processes trend to specific energy that can be reflected as frequency. They always result physically as measured as the same in earth's near sea level atmosphere which in humans leads to receivers tuned to the colors of plants.

Time to dismount your light is light 'xplanation.

Thanks, but if you don't have anything to say on the issue that is actually being raised, I think we can stop discussing.

 

[ruby sparks]

I'm going to run with my model and take it a bit further. If it's correct that colours (other than as convenient names for uncoloured light energy) are only brain experiences, then I think it follows that so are shades, as in levels of apparent brightness. These would then be the mind's response to waves of different amplitude rather than different frequency or length (or the equivalent features of the behaviour of photons).

It would be tempting to then say that we are all, despite what it seems, living and moving around in the equivalent of complete 'darkness', except that that is probably a misleading term. It might be better to say that there is merely the absence of either different colours or different levels of brightness.

For a partial and imperfect analogy, image a creature that lives at or near the bottom of the deepest ocean, where no sunlight penetrates, but the creature can readily detect certain other forms of energy around it (electricity for example) in a sophisticated way, and it uses this form of detection to navigate, catch its prey, avoid predators, find suitable mates, etc. There are such creatures, apparently. Now imagine a hypothetical version of such a creature that has a brain complicated enough for it to have accompanying conscious experiences in a similar way to us. Such a creature could have vivid brain experiences to accompany such detections that could be very much like our vivid experiences of colour and brightness. But it would actually be swimming around in the dark. So perhaps we are a bit like that hypothetical creature, but in a different sense. Its world would seem to it to be bright and coloured with electricity, ours seems to us to be bright and coloured with light. But neither are actually bright or coloured.

 

[fromderinside]

Cummon. We've known about Ockham's razor for millenia. Leaving it to the mind to create begs the question of from whence mind? If you admit senses you need to admit something to interpret them. Mind isn't just a stage conveniently there. It was caused. Yes. That brings us to another long accepted relationship cause and effect. if you are claiming common sense you are begging the question. There is none without precedent.

Oh shit. there's that cause thing again.

Why not just cut to the chase? Replace Common sense with empirical tool results like those I mention above. Understanding becomes much easier when one who doesn't know doesn't insist on adding patina to well understood things.

You seem to be taking a Trump approach. You are trying to add consciousness supports - we need business to start up again - to things already well empirically understood - communicable disease requires isolation - through use of scientific method. Really.

Don't try to design a fortress for the imagined. I just can't get over your insistence that "it's only mental" the chemical changes producing a color photograph.

There is no need to add a mental machine to reify what is already in the information transposed into the nervous system. Let frequency/color stand along with intensity/brightness-shade as reflecting what humans see.

 

[Koyaanisqatsi]

I'd say that red is not an intrinsic quality of light, that light is not coloured, that it's energy, wavelengths, photons, information and/or whatever, but in no way red, or any other colour.

"Red" is the wavelength and thus a "quality of light." Calling it "red" or calling it "450 THz" isn't the relevant takeaway.

This is no different than how a computer uses binary code or your computer screen uses pixels to model/mimic/copy/reflect (whatever you want to call it) an objective reality. A photograph isn't the subject of the photograph, but that doesn't change the fact that the camera has captured an accurate representation of the subject of the photograph.

Iow, WHY do we have cones in our eyes to differentiate the various wavelengths into unique, yet universal color patterns unless it is a way for our brains to take the information it receives to better replicate it? And, more importantly, why would EVERYONE--billions upon billions of case studies--see the same color patterns (including those of us with malfunctioning color patterning) unless it were something intrinsic?

We know, for example, that there are certain photon patterns (just drop the word "color" for a moment) that warn us of deadly poisons and for camouflage. We know (as others pointed out) that there are spectra we can't (yet) perceive with our "naked" eye, but we can with technology. What does that tell us? What can we infer from that fact? That there is an intrinsic quality that our (biological) technology has not yet evolved to be able to process. Why not? Because it's not important to our continued survival, evidently, for that to be a biological necessity.

But all we're talking about is a mechanism for processing overwhelming amounts of information that right now in our evolution we don't need to process without technology assisting us.

Does that mean "red" is not intrinsic to color? No. Quite the contrary. It means that "red" is the way our brains differentiate/code/replicate/track a particular wavelength.

Iow, what's important is that wavelengths are intrinsic qualities of "light." And, evidently, it is important/necessary for us to differentiate that fact in a manner that is universal.

But, again, the fact that we all see the same color--and have tests to measure it (and some, like me, fail those tests) and know things like raccoons only see in black and white or the like--is likewise significant and again argues for an underlying universality/objectivity to the phenomenon.

In short, I think you're getting hung up on the terms rather than what they signify and the fact that we're still infant primitives when it comes to evolution and understanding our place within this overwhelming large pool of infinite information we are submerged within. But at the same time, you can't simply discount the fact that we evolved these abilities in response to, not ex nihilo.

 

[ruby sparks]

But at the same time, you can't simply discount the fact that we evolved these abilities in response to, not ex nihilo.

Sure. No problem. I’m not doing that.

Almost all living things, including plants, have evolved responses to light.

 

[Koyaanisqatsi]

But at the same time, you can't simply discount the fact that we evolved these abilities in response to, not ex nihilo.

Sure. No problem. I’m not doing that.

Well, it certainly seems that way when you post something like this:

It might be better to say that there is merely the absence of either different colours or different levels of brightness.
...
Such a creature could have vivid brain experiences to accompany such detections that could be very much like our vivid experiences of colour and brightness. But it would actually be swimming around in the dark. So perhaps we are a bit like that hypothetical creature, but in a different sense. Its world would seem to it to be bright and coloured with electricity, ours seems to us to be bright and coloured with light. But neither are actually bright or coloured.

Unless you are trying to say something like the universe is primarily "dark matter" or the like?

Almost all living things, including plants, have evolved responses to light.

I would argue that billions of case studies seeing the same color patterns--that can be replicated and codified--as well as patterns that allow for danger signals and camouflage, etc., goes slightly beyond "responses to light."

 

[ruby sparks]

Well, it certainly seems that way when you post something like this:

It might be better to say that there is merely the absence of either different colours or different levels of brightness.
...
Such a creature could have vivid brain experiences to accompany such detections that could be very much like our vivid experiences of colour and brightness. But it would actually be swimming around in the dark. So perhaps we are a bit like that hypothetical creature, but in a different sense. Its world would seem to it to be bright and coloured with electricity, ours seems to us to be bright and coloured with light. But neither are actually bright or coloured.

Unless you are trying to say something like the universe is primarily "dark matter" or the like?

No. I'm only saying there's no colours or levels of brightness, other than as 'internal' conscious, usually vivid, brain experiences.

Almost all living things, including plants, have evolved responses to light.

I would argue that billions of case studies seeing the same color patterns--that can be replicated and codified--as well as patterns that allow for danger signals and camouflage, etc., goes slightly beyond "responses to light."

Obviously, the responses will not all be of equal sophistication, and may differ greatly. It seems unlikely that a sunflower, for instance, has any conscious experiences to accompany the sensing that is leading to the responses. The sunflower's responses will be very rudimentary generally.

 

[fromderinside]

FDI here with my usual material comment.

No. I'm only saying there's no colours or levels of brightness, other than as 'internal' conscious, usually vivid, brain experiences.

Internally there are neural proxies for frequency and intensity in nervous activity without even going to something like consciousness. The wiring produces outputs proportional to frequency (color) associated with particular combinations of receptors and brightness related to level neural activity resulting from photic stimulation. Green is just what we call it when we verbally report it. But hey, its reporting photic energy centered around 510 nm and intensity of whoop'dedo lumens.

I have no doubt that we can visualize green, probably recovering it from experience processing stored in memory. That's a lot of intellectual power wasted on explaining something so minor and secondary.

 

[ruby sparks]

Unless you are trying to say something like the universe is primarily "dark matter" or the like?

I think maybe I misinterpreted your inverted commas. I thought you were referring to what is normally called dark matter, now I'm thinking you probably weren't.

As such, my answer might instead be...

Yes. I'm saying there's no colours or levels of brightness, other than as 'internal' conscious, usually vivid, brain experiences.

 

[ruby sparks]

fromderinside, I can't even tell if you're agreeing or disagreeing with what I said, let alone why. But I'll try to reply.

Internally there are neural proxies for frequency and intensity in nervous activity without even going to something like consciousness.

I'm not sure what you mean. If you mean that we can perceive colours without the perception entering consciousness, then yes. But I suspect you don't mean that. If you mean that we don't need to consider consciousness at all then I think you have a very unusual aversion, in the form of a model that seeks to discount consciousness. My view on this, as I said before, is that all that seems to me to do is leave out an apparently relevant consideration because it's not your cup of tea. It doesn't make it go away. I take it that like the rest of us you do have vivid conscious experiences. Not understanding them is not, imo, a good enough reason to rule them out of consideration. Better to say, 'ok we don't understand them'.

The wiring produces outputs proportional to frequency (color) associated with particular combinations of receptors and brightness related to level neural activity resulting from photic stimulation.

Personally, for the purposes of this discussion, I would take the word colour out of that.

Green is just what we call it when we verbally report it.

In going from the last sentence to that one, imo you have left out a part of the process, the conscious experience, which comes after the neural perception and before any naming. It occurs to me to wonder why you left it out, as you have done before. My guess is that there is no room for it in your model, for some reason or other.

But hey, its reporting photic energy centered around 510 nm and intensity of whoop'dedo lumens.

Yes.

Well, to be precise, when it's the reporting of a conscious experience, it's the reporting of a conscious experience associated with the perceptions of those.

I have no doubt that we can visualize green....

I don't know what you mean when you say 'visualise green'. If you think the green is already out there in the light, then I would disagree.

......probably recovering it from experience processing stored in memory. That's a lot of intellectual power wasted on explaining something so minor and secondary.

How it happens is not something I am as interested in at this point as that it happens.

But I would say this, infants visualising green for the first time may not be using memory, so I'm not sure if the experience relies on memory in the first instance.

 

[Koyaanisqatsi]

I'm saying there's no colours or levels of brightness, other than as 'internal' conscious, usually vivid, brain experiences.

Let’s unpack. First, since literally nothing “we” experience is ever anything other than an “‘internal’ conscious, usually vivid, brain experience” it’s unnecessary to include that second part. You can make that statement about everything that a self “experiences.”

You can’t make that same statement, however, about what a body or brain “experiences.”

Here, of course, is where the differentiation in context of the word “experiences” is so often overlooked and where the term “qualia” usually gets abused. The way I differentiate it is that the self watches the movie, the brain/body shoots the movie. Or, to put it into literary terms, the self reads the book that the brain/body writes.

The only problem is that some don’t also understand that the self does not exist in the same sense that a brain/body exists; it’s also generated/animated by the brain, so it’s inaccurate/confusing/unnecessary to equivocate the already loaded term “experience” when applying it to an illusory self and an objectively existing object like a brain or body.

Iow, the “experience” of reading a book is a distinctly different one from writing it, so it’s not kosher to throw around the word “experience” as a blanket that smothers both.

Second, since “colours” really just means “wavelengths” and “levels of brightness” refers to the relative amount of photons, you’d actually be saying, “There are no wavelengths or differing numbers of photons.”

So the whole thing (to keep it properly parsed), would be either:

1. There are no wavelengths or differing numbers of photons that the brain/body sensory input/processing devices can objectively measure.
   OR
2. What we call a “self” is an illusory abstraction that the brain constructs/animates and therefore what it “experiences” is never anything directly and always constructed by the brain.

Which of the two entirely different concepts are you wishing to address, because it seems like you’re conflating them both into one?

 

[fromderinside]

If you mean that we can perceive colours without the perception entering consciousness

Yes. It's an unnecessary construct to explain behavior.

If you mean that we don't need to consider consciousness at all then I think you have a very unusual aversion, in the form of a model that seeks to discount consciousness. My view on this, as I said before, is that all that seems to me to do is leave out an apparently relevant consideration because it's not your cup of tea. It doesn't make it go away. I take it that like the rest of us you do have vivid conscious experiences. Not understanding them is not, imo, a good enough reason to rule them out of consideration. Better to say, 'ok we don't understand them'.

If interposing consciousness is not necessary to explain behavior then why do it. IMHO it is better to refer to underlying nervous activity than imagine intervening variables as 'explaining' mechanisms. Omitting an adhom decider and seer lessens the problem of understanding behavior. Self reference as explanation doesn't cut it.

So on what we disagree, I agree we do disagree. On why we disagree I agree to this this extent. We don't agree that consciousness is a relevant construct for explaining behavior. Perhaps we should leave it at that since I'm not getting through to you at all on the notion of self referencing as invalid rationale for explaining.

I think Kovaanisqatsi does a pretty good job of explaining what I am getting at.

 

[ruby sparks]

If you mean that we can perceive colours without the perception entering consciousness

Yes. It's an unnecessary construct to explain behavior.

If you mean that we don't need to consider consciousness at all then I think you have a very unusual aversion, in the form of a model that seeks to discount consciousness. My view on this, as I said before, is that all that seems to me to do is leave out an apparently relevant consideration because it's not your cup of tea. It doesn't make it go away. I take it that like the rest of us you do have vivid conscious experiences. Not understanding them is not, imo, a good enough reason to rule them out of consideration. Better to say, 'ok we don't understand them'.

If interposing consciousness is not necessary to explain behavior then why do it. IMHO it is better to refer to underlying nervous activity than imagine intervening variables as 'explaining' mechanisms. Omitting an adhom decider and seer lessens the problem of understanding behavior. Self reference as explanation doesn't cut it.

So on what we disagree, I agree we do disagree. On why we disagree I agree to this this extent. We don't agree that consciousness is a relevant construct for explaining behavior. Perhaps we should leave it at that since I'm not getting through to you at all on the notion of self referencing as invalid rational for explaining.

Is conscious experience a behaviour?

 

[ruby sparks]

I'm saying there's no colours or levels of brightness, other than as 'internal' conscious, usually vivid, brain experiences.

Let’s unpack. First, since literally nothing “we” experience is ever anything other than an “‘internal’ conscious, usually vivid, brain experience” it’s unnecessary to include that second part. You can make that statement about everything that a self “experiences.”

You can’t make that same statement, however, about what a body or brain “experiences.”

Here, of course, is where the differentiation in context of the word “experiences” is so often overlooked and where the term “qualia” usually gets abused. The way I differentiate it is that the self watches the movie, the brain/body shoots the movie. Or, to put it into literary terms, the self reads the book that the brain/body writes.

The only problem is that some don’t also understand that the self does not exist in the same sense that a brain/body exists; it’s also generated/animated by the brain, so it’s inaccurate/confusing/unnecessary to equivocate the already loaded term “experience” when applying it to an illusory self and an objectively existing object like a brain or body.

Iow, the “experience” of reading a book is a distinctly different one from writing it, so it’s not kosher to throw around the word “experience” as a blanket that smothers both.

Second, since “colours” really just means “wavelengths” and “levels of brightness” refers to the relative amount of photons, you’d actually be saying, “There are no wavelengths or differing numbers of photons.”

So the whole thing (to keep it properly parsed), would be either:

1. There are no wavelengths or differing numbers of photons that the brain/body sensory input/processing devices can objectively measure.
   OR
2. What we call a “self” is an illusory abstraction that the brain constructs/animates and therefore what it “experiences” is never anything directly and always constructed by the brain.

Which of the two entirely different concepts are you wishing to address, because it seems like you’re conflating them both into one?

I'm definitely not saying 1, but I don't think I'm saying 2 either. What I was trying to say is that unlike wavelengths (or photic energy) there is no colour or brightness (or for example pain) 'out there'. Ditto shapes and forms (eg walls). Now, it may be that there are no wavelengths or walls out there either, so all I'm saying is that colour and brightness are not out there in the same way that walls and wavelengths are out there. In other words, I'm making that distinction.

I'm also trying to avoid the issue of self. I know it's related and possibly strongly intertwined, so I'm only trying to leave it out for the specific purposes of isolating the topic. You could say I'm trying to discuss the topic as if there were baseline 'experiences' that do not necessarily require a self. I know that colour (and pain) experiences normally do, but I am not sure if it is a necessity. I know that I could be wrong. It's possible that a sense of self is a prerequisite to having conscious experience. I believe it's an open question. Some say that it's the other way around. That would be my preferred take on it.

For example, I'd say a mouse can experience stuff (eg pain, possibly colours I'm not sure I would claim that) without having a sense of self.

Or maybe mice do in fact have some sort of very rudimentary sense of self.

It might be better if I covered my bets by only saying that a robust or sophisticated sense of self (such as most normal humans have during wakefulness) is not a prerequisite to having 'bare' experiences.

And I might also say that I am not sure it even matters whether there is or isn't a self deemed to be having the experiences, since I am mainly only trying to explore the issue of location of properties (in particular colour, also now brightness, but I have also resorted to comparing these with pain on the one hand and shape/form on the other).

 

[fromderinside]

Is conscious experience a behaviour?

No. Experience is considered to be behavior

Experience:
1a: direct observation of or participation in events as a basis of knowledge
b: the fact or state of having been affected by or gained knowledge through direct observation or participation

2a: practical knowledge, skill, or practice derived from direct observation of or participation in events or in a particular activity
b: the length of such participation has 10 years' experience in the job

3: something personally encountered, undergone, or lived through

4a: the conscious (documented/expressed?) events that make up an individual life
b: the events that make up the conscious past (documented?) of a community or nation or humankind generally

5: the act or process of directly perceiving events or reality