COLOUR

[steve_bank]

I don’t know what your point is in relation to THIS topic.

If by "THIS topic" you mean color, in light of the previous thread, and as I said, I have no interest in debating this matter with you.
My point is in relation to the point you made in this thread and to which I replied.

Nice piece of metaphysical gymnastics. A few point deduction for a wobbly landing.

 

[fromderinside]

Ruby Sparks wrote: I don’t know what you mean by ‘needs to be the same’


Needs to be the same means that the several processes that use information from light input to processes found in each percept being constructed must be the same for the many resulting percepts to be stitched together in a sequence, collage, or whatever.

Since you missed that the rest of your post doesn't communicate much. Imaginings, personal takes and views, should never replace evidence consistency when considering 'this then that' in processes.

You use conscious as if it were a single thing. It isn't. It's many things which are cobbled together through arousal and attending mechanisms throughout the midbrain and cortex which becomes proxied in lateral-medial frontal cortex as a scene or scenes composed of history and predicting components all available together. How one is conscious depends on other factors including selective chemical states covering recent history. Its amazing that one can go from fear to action within fractions of a second. That's only because we have both being prepared at the same time.

One cannot sit outside and use one's "reason" to consider such issues from a rationalist perspective. Rationalism depends on self evidence which you obviously don't have for electrical stimulation. Electricity has the quality of conduction which interferes with the living being's chemically produced electricity and that interaction produces all sorts of biological consequences. Saying it does not include pain is not true, It does in both cells and in resulting nervous processes conducting 'harm' information to the brain as well as messing up processes in the brain itself.

 

[ruby sparks]

Electricity has the quality of conduction which interferes with the living being's chemically produced electricity and that interaction produces all sorts of biological consequences. Saying it does not include pain is not true,.....

I agree that electricity has the quality of conduction, which interferes....etc etc, but there at the end you seem to make the unwarranted jump to saying that another one of the qualities of electricity is pain. You'd be saying that the electricity that's on the planet Venus has the quality of pain. Don't you just mean that electricity has various other qualities that have the potential to cause the sensation of pain in certain organisms?

It does in both cells......

That's inside the body though, which is a different matter (when we were talking about light having colour we weren't talking about light inside the body) and probably isn't pain in the case of the cells initially bing electrocuted.

It does in both cells and in resulting nervous processes conducting 'harm' information to the brain as well as messing up processes in the brain itself.

We're doing pain, not harm. The harm might be in your feet (and elsewhere) if your feet get prodded with a cattle prod, but the pain is apparently only in your brain (and only when there's conscious perception of the stimulus, which there isn't always). You just mistakenly think it's in your feet, it seems, possibly because the illusion is normally very useful. Exceptions might include if you think you have a pain in a foot that was amputated last year.

 

[fromderinside]

Just as sound corresponds to acoustic frequency so does light correspond to photic energy. In the case of acoustic energy is converted to mechanical energy, preserving the nature of the acoustic energy thence to nervous impulses preserving spectral and amplitude attributes of the physical stimulus as neural information. In the case of light photic, say 500 nm, energy is is translated by specific photic sensing energy sensing materials responsive to selected, say 500 nm, photic energy by mechanical means to neural impulses preserving the nature of the photic stimulus as neural information.

It's a bit of a reach to say that what the brain does with the information is not related to the information it receives. If the brain processes photic energy using three or four specific photic responsive frequency responding over the range of human light sensitivity then it makes sense that the brain evolved to interpret this range more or less faithfully. See  Cone cell

I thought I didn't need things that are so painfully obvious. Obviously I was wrong.

As for the difference between pain and harm it is well known that many skin receptors, joint receptors, and motion receptors transmit when they are stressed, harmed, by external circumstances like excessive heat, cold, or mechanical stress. We call the response to harm alerting signals pain. A good starting point pain understanding would be a read of  Gate control theory

You need to get away from this inside outside paradigm you are trying. It's a very strong reason why classical philosophy devoid of empirical connections has been failing for the last 300+ years.

It's crystal clear there is a definitive causal relationship between nature of stimulus and nature of encoding for photic, acoustic, touch, taste, pain, position, balance and flavor. It is also clear that ascending and descending sensory processes are designed to retain and interpret these fundemental relationships. Even in cortex these relationships are preserved and emphasized in context building and experience building processes.

It's our ways for interpreting and communicating information that needs updating. The time for thought magic has past.

We're way beyond "let's all just get along" think.

 

[ruby sparks]

Just as sound corresponds to acoustic frequency so does light correspond to photic energy. In the case of acoustic energy is converted to mechanical energy, preserving the nature of the acoustic energy thence to nervous impulses preserving spectral and amplitude attributes of the physical stimulus as neural information. In the case of light photic, say 500 nm, energy is is translated by specific photic sensing energy sensing materials responsive to selected, say 500 nm, photic energy by mechanical means to neural impulses preserving the nature of the photic stimulus as neural information.

And your telling me this because........you think I disagree? Even though I already said as much myself.

It's a bit of a reach to say that what the brain does with the information is not related to the information it receives.

Yeah, it would be, if anyone was actually making that claim, or a number of others that you have attributed to me mistakenly.

See  Cone cell

Gosh. If only I'd thought to google cone cells.

You need to get away from this inside outside paradigm you are trying. It's a very strong reason why classical philosophy devoid of empirical connections has been failing for the last 300+ years.

I see. Well then it's just awful that the psychologists and cognitive scientists and physicists who would disagree with you obviously haven't even thought about such things.

A good starting point pain understanding would be a read of  Gate control theory

Possibly, except that it wouldn't address anything I've been talking about regarding pain.

It's crystal clear there is a definitive causal relationship between nature of stimulus and nature of encoding for photic, acoustic, touch, taste, pain, position, balance and flavor.

No shit. Seriously?

The time for thought magic has past.

Well let's not have any more of that then.


I think maybe you're having a conversation with someone else about something other than the questions at hand.



Why don't you recap and expand on your claim that electricity has pain in it. Then you can do feathers, and explain how they contain tickles.

 

[Politesse]

It seems to me that this whole thread is people reacting emotionally to their mistaken impression that the legitimacy of science has been challenged, when it has not been.

 

[steve_bank]

The legitimacy of science being challenged, I meme really dude?

There is an old saying, science always works. It does not matter how you think about it. Which is what fromder was alluding to. There is nothing that can not generally be explained by physical science. Your thoughts and philosophies are all nased in the physical brain described by our science.

Photons hit retina. Nevers transmit to the brain-neural net for processing, and out pops a word to describe the color. It is all chemistry and electricity. Any non science metaphysical or psychological description are themselves rooted in the physical brain. Self referential. Even the word color is imprecise and contextual. Wavelength is not.

In electrical engineering it is common to refer to all EM radiation as light in general conversation even out of the visible spectrum. The use of the word colors can mean a set of wavelengths outside the visible spectrum.

It makes communication easier in communicating issues and ideas.

 

[Politesse]

Even the word color is imprecise and contextual. Wavelength is not.

Exactly the point. "Wavelength" and "color" are not and never could be synonyms. Observing this doesn't violate or attack science in any way, yet three of the thread participants are acting as though critiquing "color" is critiquing the entire empirical method. Rather than, as is more true, applying it.

 

[ruby sparks]

The legitimacy of science being challenged, I meme really dude?

I think he specifically said it wasn’t actually being challenged.

Which is what fromder was alluding to. There is nothing that cannot generally be explained by physical science.

Cool. Now all I need to know is why both he and you are explaining that to me, since I wasn’t suggesting otherwise.

 

[steve_bank]

The legitimacy of science being challenged, I meme really dude?

I think he specifically said it wasn’t actually being challenged.

Which is what fromder was alluding to. There is nothing that cannot generally be explained by physical science.

Cool. Now all I need to know is why both he and you are explaining that to me, since I wasn’t suggesting otherwise.

I was just pontificating with no one in particular in mind.

 

[steve_bank]

Even the word color is imprecise and contextual. Wavelength is not.

Exactly the point. "Wavelength" and "color" are not and never could be synonyms. Observing this doesn't violate or attack science in any way, yet three of the thread participants are acting as though critiquing "color" is critiquing the entire empirical method. Rather than, as is more true, applying it.

Now you are invoking the 'empirical method'? There is philosophical empiricism and there are empirical methods in both science and engineering. Please elaborate what you mean by empirical method. We will become hopelessly lost in a debate over mining, with my interpretation being collored(there it its again) by my technical experience.

In his text on quantum physics David Bohm made a passing case for an 'uncertainty principle of the mind'. The more precise you try t narrow thinking the more dispersed another aspect of it becomes.

Like all things regarding meaning, except the Systems International definitions, the word color is contextual.

 

[Politesse]

Even the word color is imprecise and contextual. Wavelength is not.

Exactly the point. "Wavelength" and "color" are not and never could be synonyms. Observing this doesn't violate or attack science in any way, yet three of the thread participants are acting as though critiquing "color" is critiquing the entire empirical method. Rather than, as is more true, applying it.

Now you are invoking the 'empirical method'? There is philosophical empiricism and there are empirical methods in both science and engineering. Please elaborate what you mean by empirical method. We will become hopelessly lost in a debate over mining, with my interpretation being collored(there it its again) by my technical experience.

In his text on quantum physics David Bohm made a passing case for an 'uncertainty principle of the mind'. The more precise you try t narrow thinking the more dispersed another aspect of it becomes.

Like all things regarding meaning, except the Systems International definitions, the word color is contextual.

Uh, you seem to be trying to get us lost in a hopeless debate over meaning..

 

[steve_bank]

Now you are invoking the 'empirical method'? There is philosophical empiricism and there are empirical methods in both science and engineering. Please elaborate what you mean by empirical method. We will become hopelessly lost in a debate over mining, with my interpretation being collored(there it its again) by my technical experience.

In his text on quantum physics David Bohm made a passing case for an 'uncertainty principle of the mind'. The more precise you try t narrow thinking the more dispersed another aspect of it becomes.

Like all things regarding meaning, except the Systems International definitions, the word color is contextual.

Uh, you seem to be trying to get us lost in a hopeless debate over meaning..

Useless drebate like empirical scince and the issues of meaning in general?

You opend a wider debate by accident or design, can't tell which.

You brought up the word empirical as part of a response, so go ahead and run with it.

The problem for you is this is not an idle philosophical debate for me. Meaning and context of words was a daily reality for me.

It was often problematic in what you think would be rational objective technical debate, but that is not always the case.

Let us reset. What do you mean by color if not a measured wavelength in the context of the thread and perceptions.

 

[Politesse]

Now you are invoking the 'empirical method'? There is philosophical empiricism and there are empirical methods in both science and engineering. Please elaborate what you mean by empirical method. We will become hopelessly lost in a debate over mining, with my interpretation being collored(there it its again) by my technical experience.

In his text on quantum physics David Bohm made a passing case for an 'uncertainty principle of the mind'. The more precise you try t narrow thinking the more dispersed another aspect of it becomes.

Like all things regarding meaning, except the Systems International definitions, the word color is contextual.

Uh, you seem to be trying to get us lost in a hopeless debate over meaning..

Useless drebate like empirical scince and the issues of meaning in general?

You opend a wider debate by accident or design, can't tell which.

You brought up the word empirical as part of a response, so go ahead and run with it.

The problem for you is this is not an idle philosophical debate for me. Meaning and context of words was a daily reality for me.

It was often problematic in what you think would be rational objective technical debate, but that is not always the case.

Let us reset. What do you mean by color if not a measured wavelength in the context of the thread and perceptions.

Wavelengths are objective facts. "Color" is a filing system, which is applied inconsistently between individuals, cultures, and languages. "The chair is blue" has meaning in the same way that "the man is tall" has meaning. In that it describes an empirical fact with subjective and variable language.

 

[fromderinside]

Let's quacking and chirping at each other. Electricity causes tissue harm and it causes harm sensing neurons to fire thereby inducing processes leading to a an exclamation by the shocked "I feel pain". My interpretation without the need to find some inner reason for the exclamation being different from "harm". It is permissible to say that electric stimulation causes pain in the one shocked as she will report on any medical pain scale.

What you rail against is the idea that philosophers have gotten used to using sloppy casual terms for what persons experience. It is that sloppy adherence to useless words, words not descriptive of the underlying processes, I'm trying to get changed to more empirically rooted terms descripting process. Red, green, blue, color, are not an affect they are proper language for describing perceptions of light experience. Wallah, the homunculus is dead, long live red.

In conclusion I provide an read related to my convictions that input (material) and percept (information) are related. It is in the wiki article on  Entropy in thermodynamics and information theory ) ..." ....which explores what links there are between the two concepts, and how far they can be regarded as connected."

 

[fromderinside]

Wavelengths are objective facts. "Color" is a filing system, which is applied inconsistently between individuals, cultures, and languages. "The chair is blue" has meaning in the same way that "the man is tall" has meaning. In that it describes an empirical fact with subjective and variable language.

I would dial that back in two ways. First waves and particles are material facts. Second should change "filing system" to a more general "information" where more direct comparisons and methods can be applied as suggested in my previous post.

Basically what I've been saying over this entire thread are that through evolution material has been converted as close as practicable to usable information. And I'm really bothered by the insistence of philosophers particularly that street terms be applied whenever possible with as much hand waving as they can generate to keep them employed without adapting to more modern methods.

A few years ago we wrapped ourselves around the axle when 'experimental' philosophy was said to have been introduced. Fortunately all the journals folded within a few years for lack actual experimental product. Now here we are dancing around mind, intuition, instinct, and the like chasing dead ducks like distinctions between electromagnetic frequency (matter) description and red (precise information percept) description. Jeez.

And no it doesn't matter that an individual experience exactly the same red as a previous experience because conditions have changed. It also turns out that the same drill bit drills different diameter holes cycle to cycle that require quality assurance persons to test them for meeting rivet hole standards within predefined bounds.

 

[ruby sparks]

Wavelengths are objective facts. "Color" is a filing system, which is applied inconsistently between individuals, cultures, and languages. "The chair is blue" has meaning in the same way that "the man is tall" has meaning. In that it describes an empirical fact with subjective and variable language.

But the chair is not actually blue (or any colour) though.

The surface of the chair absorbs EM radiation of most wavelengths except those of 650 nanometers. These bounce off instead. If and when some of the bounced 650 nm radiation hits a human retina, a particular set of retinal cone cells which respond to radiation of that wavelength (and only that wavelength, or thereabouts) are triggered to send electro-chemical signals into the brain. The other types of cone cell aren't triggered. If the amplitude of the 650 nanometer radiation is large enough and the radiation hits the retinal cone cells for a long enough time, a conscious sensation is created in the brain, otherwise it isn't, although the brain system can still respond to the electro-chemical inputs without the associated conscious experience.

We could equally talk of oscillating photons instead of wavelengths but the upshot would be much the same.

Apologies if you knew that already.

Point being the chair is not blue. Or at least this is generally agreed to have been established by science.

Whether the 650 nanometer EM radiation (or the photons oscillating at 650 trillion cycles per second), which is what is/are actually being detected by the retina, is/are blue, is another question. I tend to think that just as it's a misconception to say the chair is blue, it is another misconception to say the EM radiation or photons are blue. I, and many cognitive scientists, neurobiologists, physicists, psychologists and others, tend towards saying that the blueness is the private conscious experience and is not a property of the EM radiation/photons, or of the chair. Just as pain is not actually a property of anything entering the body (or brain) and is a private conscious experience that is merely caused by that stimulus entering the body (or brain). As with a colour-causing stimulus, if the pain-causing stimulus is not strong enough or does not last for a long enough duration, there is no pain experience.

Your point about the variance in the use of descriptors for the experience still stands (and would likely apply to pain as well as colour). And it also seems very likely that the quality of the actual experience itself varies between individuals, at least somewhat, though not very much. Even when there is no variance, there can be experience errors that every normal brain makes (eg experiencing two colours when there is only one EM radiation input). This illuson seems to occur because it's pragmatically useful for navigating the world.

Almost all of the above has come from fairly recent science of one form or another. Philosophy, as far as I know, has been hanging onto the coat-tails of science about this and many other things, for quite a long time. Why fromderinside has decided to rail against non-empirical philosophy I have no idea. It's basically a straw man.

Fromderinside argues that blueness for example is in the EM radiation or the photons of themselves, just as he seems to argue that pain is in electricity of itself, which makes no sense to me, and would seem to be on a par with saying that either feathers themselves, or the physical forces involved when they are dragged across skin, such as friction for example, contain tickles, rather than merely causing the brain sensation we call tickles.

Steve bank, judging by his description of the process, seems to implicitly assume the blueness is in the EM radiation or the photons.

I think they're both wrong. That is my understanding, and it's not an unusual one among the relevant experts. Unfortunately, I rather think the issue is unresolved at this time, but I would argue that the indicators are that for example blueness is most likely a private brain experience only and that there is nothing to indicate otherwise.

 

[fromderinside]

Oh come on. What the individual sees is what radiation gets to her sensors. Geez. Back to inherent properties of the source I see. Anything to get in a snide. You don't see what comes between unfortunately. What comes in between are called intervening variables. Something steve banks and I worked with and around all our aerospace careers. And yes, we're fuming you don't take that in to account when you chant. Find a wedge and hammer it. Go for it. You gain nothing but our disrespect.

Let me put it to you so you can chew on it again. We see what light arrives at our receptors. We call the plant green because the energy getting to our sensors is what is not absorbed by the object we see within our range of perception. It matters not what are the inherent colors of the plant are since all that is important to us is what gets to our sensors. We know that because we are here as living beings. I'm pretty sure that if the inherent color of the objects we 'see' were critical to our being here we would have so evolved to perceive them. It's just a matter of having a sense of radiation range and adapting to report rest of range when A is seen. We didn't so it isn't.

Actually I argue that whatever wavelengths excite particular receptor elements reflect what those elements absorb and that remains excitation constant for all like receptor elements. So if we label that excitation as red it will always excite like receptors under identical conditions as red. That would be an example of psycho-physical constancy, something we strive to control in the lab. We build color wheels and cubes based on those criteria as we do musical scales around consistent identifications of acoustic signals at particular frequencies and amplitudes.

 

[steve_bank]

Quote Originally Posted by Politesse View Post


Wavelengths are objective facts. "Color" is a filing system, which is applied inconsistently between individuals, cultures, and languages. "The chair is blue" has meaning in the same way that "the man is tall" has meaning. In that it describes an empirical fact with subjective and variable language.

Well all right, something that makes sense. I agree somewhat.

Tall is subjective and relative and is not quantified unless you create specific categories of height.

Blue refers to a spectrum with a center wavelength..

The acoustic audio spectrum is usually taken as 20 kilohertz as the upper bound. Audio is a label for a frequency spectrum as is the word blue.

Subjective perceptions of audio and light come under aesthetics under philosophy, probably cognitive psychology on the science side. What sensations and emotions do colors and sounds evoke and why.

In the west black is generally associated with death, mourning, and funerals. In China I think it is white. There is an old monk in my building who long ago converted to Tibetan Buddhism. He wears traditional Tibetan clothes and colors. Very bright colors, almost garish. The cultural aspects of color. That would be a good debate under philosophy. I expect there is plenty of association of color with ideas and philosophy in history.

When I look at traditional Tibetan and Indian colors I get a sense of the emotions of the culture. Same with music.

 

[steve_bank]

Wavelengths are objective facts. "Color" is a filing system, which is applied inconsistently between individuals, cultures, and languages. "The chair is blue" has meaning in the same way that "the man is tall" has meaning. In that it describes an empirical fact with subjective and variable language.

But the chair is not actually blue (or any colour) though.

The surface of the chair absorbs EM radiation of most wavelengths except those of 650 nanometers. These bounce off instead. If and when some of the bounced 650 nm radiation hits a human retina, a particular set of retinal cone cells which respond to radiation of that wavelength (and only that wavelength, or thereabouts) are triggered to send electro-chemical signals into the brain. The other types of cone cell aren't triggered. If the amplitude of the 650 nanometer radiation is large enough and the radiation hits the retinal cone cells for a long enough time, a conscious sensation is created in the brain, otherwise it isn't, although the brain system can still respond to the electro-chemical inputs without the associated conscious experience.

We could equally talk of oscillating photons instead of wavelengths but the upshot would be much the same.

Apologies if you knew that already.

Point being the chair is not blue. Or at least this is generally agreed to have been established by science.

Whether the 650 nanometer EM radiation (or the photons oscillating at 650 trillion cycles per second), which is what is/are actually being detected by the retina, is/are blue, is another question. I tend to think that just as it's a misconception to say the chair is blue, it is another misconception to say the EM radiation or photons are blue. I, and many cognitive scientists, neurobiologists, physicists, psychologists and others, tend towards saying that the blueness is the private conscious experience and is not a property of the EM radiation/photons, or of the chair. Just as pain is not actually a property of anything entering the body (or brain) and is a private conscious experience that is merely caused by that stimulus entering the body (or brain). As with a colour-causing stimulus, if the pain-causing stimulus is not strong enough or does not last for a long enough duration, there is no pain experience.

Your point about the variance in the use of descriptors for the experience still stands (and would likely apply to pain as well as colour). And it also seems very likely that the quality of the actual experience itself varies between individuals, at least somewhat, though not very much. Even when there is no variance, there can be experience errors that every normal brain makes (eg experiencing two colours when there is only one EM radiation input). This illuson seems to occur because it's pragmatically useful for navigating the world.

Almost all of the above has come from fairly recent science of one form or another. Philosophy, as far as I know, has been hanging onto the coat-tails of science about this and many other things, for quite a long time. Why fromderinside has decided to rail against non-empirical philosophy I have no idea. It's basically a straw man.

Fromderinside argues that blueness for example is in the EM radiation or the photons of themselves, just as he seems to argue that pain is in electricity of itself, which makes no sense to me, and would seem to be on a par with saying that either feathers themselves, or the physical forces involved when they are dragged across skin, such as friction for example, contain tickles, rather than merely causing the brain sensation we call tickles.

Steve bank, judging by his description of the process, seems to implicitly assume the blueness is in the EM radiation or the photons.

I think they're both wrong. That is my understanding, and it's not an unusual one among the relevant experts. Unfortunately, I rather think the issue is unresolved at this time, but I would argue that the indicators are that for example blueness is most likely a private brain experience only and that there is nothing to indicate otherwise.

! A very good point I missed. Blue is a high level abstraction for a process of absorption and reflection.