Qualia and the Mystery of Colors

That would take it too far, I’m afraid. I don’t even know what “only subjective things exist” means. What is a subjective thing? How is it defined? Care to give some examples and counter-examples?

Mind isn’t mysterious. It’s simply a category, or a class, that includes certain events and excludes others. Feelings, for example, are in the mind. They are not in the brain. Their correlates – neurochemicals – are in the brain. There is a form of correlation that we call causation between physical events and mental events (e.g. neurochemicals causing feelings) but there is also, no doubt, such a correlation between mental events themselves (e.g. feelings causing other feelings.)

You have to understand that causation, and correlation in general, is established after-the-fact. It is not what is simply “out there”. It is a product of our judgment based on our need to fore-see, which is to say, to see before seeing.

Facts/particulars are fundamental/independent.

Interpretations/universals are not – they are built on top of, and are thus dependent on, the former.

That’s the age old question of whether classes and other abstract concepts are real (the position of realism) or not (the position of nominalism.)

What does “out there” mean?

More generally, what do words “inside” and “outside” mean?

Would you agree with the following:
“X is inside Y” simply means “element X is a member of set Y”.
“X is outside Y” simply means “element X is not a member of set Y”.

Basically, would you agree that these words indicate membership status of any given element in relation to any given set?

If so, you will agree that “out there” means nothing other than “not a member of some presumed set”. Possibly “within some set that is not the one that is presumed”.

It doesn’t say much, in other words. Not explicitly, at least. We need to know, to identify, what set we are speaking of.

Perhaps this set is three-dimensional space?
Is that what “out there” refers to?
Being a member of three-dimensional space?

I hope you will agree that three-dimensional space is a set. And nothing more than that. Other than perhaps an advanced type of set – perhaps we can say a structured set – because it has fixed slots, unlike plain sets that only have elements, into which elements can be inserted and because it can be addressed using three parameters (x, y, z.) Whatever slots are unused we call “void”, whatever slots are used we call “matter”.

Three-dimensional space is a mathematical structure – an abstraction – used to organize some preexisting information using certain set of rules. In other words, it’s not fundamental. It’s a high-level construct.

The set of raw (read: unorganized) information is what is fundamental. It is so because it precedes our sense of three-dimensional space. It is what is independent whereas our sense of three-dimensional space is what is dependent.

This set of raw (or unorganized) information is the set of all events we have experienced in the past and have memorized. Basically, it’s our memory.

The set that is 3D space is defined by some rules and these rules impose certain restrictions that determine what bits of raw information will be included within it and what bits will not. It generally does not include everything – it is not all-encompassing. This means that some raw information will be excluded. Some of it is simply outside of the scope of 3D space.

Most people have a strong attachment to the concept of three-dimensional space and most of them think that 3D space is what is fundamental. Thus, whenever some information falls outside of the scope of 3D space they deem it to be not real.

Qualities such as feelings cannot be included within the set that is 3D space without leading to Cartesian dualism and “ghost in the machine” situation that often leads to bizarre conclusions such as “everything is conscious”.

Do colours solely rely on light to exist?

Are colours a dormant entity… waiting for light to make them become what they are?

Does the universe work with us, or are we solely evolving to take advantage of what the universe has to offer?

Has anyone ever stayed long enough in a dark room/space to trigger their night vision, or when you close your eyes see colours/neon lights?

Amorphos,

But the mind is a mysterious thing, all facets of it, Amorphos.

Aside from that, the sensation (qualia) which we experience by viewing colors or particular colors, is ALSO brought on by the individual mind, in conjunction with the individual brain, I believe.
Any two people might experience color differently. I see qualia also as part of an emotional experience, so in this way we may even see and sense it differently, as a result of one’s mind’s perception in relation to how they view the world internally and have lived it externally.

If that were not the case, could we have favorite colors? Wouldn’t yours also be indigo like mine? Or wouldn’t mine also be yellow like Van Gogh’s?

Like Einstein said objects don’t exist, they are in relative positions which the act of measuring changes, that to me is akin to how in our minds we are subjective beings. Both things are in the detached perspective, and both things are not an object nor objective thing.
Or more simply; all existent things are observers.

I think emotions are entirely in the brain, it is not possible to think about something which is not information, everything that exists is information. There isn’t anything else happening in the brain but information being stored, transferred and compared.

  • what would you suggest thought is other than an experiencing of information? So is emotion not an experiencing of info? I’d say the emotion is more the experience than the info itself, I can agree there. Hmm I suppose there are kinds of holistic knowledge too [art, poetry, literature etc].

nope. Causation occurs where information informs, that’s what it is. I can’t see how that is after-the-fact. Neither can I agree that its a product of our judgment, us thinking about something doesn’t change causality? ‘our judgment’ is just us thinking and has nothing to do with causality except specifically the causality occuring in those thoughts [said judgment].

Inside and outside are nothing more than comparatives to me. By ‘out there’ I meant existent informations which are out there existing in the world.

I don’t see how the logic reasoning went there at all. ‘Out there’ existing in the world is all sets of all existent things. It is a representative abstract, for all info. I don’t wish to detract to much from qualia here, you are speaking of a more existential problem in philosophy [what is existence] and I don’t know how that help with our inquiry there. but to say…

Not being able to measure doesn’t mean there is nothing there, if there is anything that’s patently opaque about reality its that there is something there.

Arcturus

I think that reality is as marvelous as you are painting the mind to be, ~ I don’t see it at all like physicists do. Colour brought on in the mind is no different to a computer doing it, well it is obviously, but what I mean is that when something affects light to make its sine-wave into a colour, then you get the quality of colour.
Inside our brains as the above links show, there is tons of light and photons carry information and quantum entanglement also may occur. That’s what colour must be - I state. An imagined colour, if you are seeing it, surely is a faculty of light or some other magic???

Our emotional attachments are just that, added onto informations. How we feel about a colour is subjective yes, but what the colour quality itself is, is the same regardless. You may feel differently about red to me, but we could both be looking at the same picture, the same red.

_

You are rather unwilling to define your terms which is why we’re going in circles.

I don’t even know what “us thinking about something changes causality” means. This already presupposes that causality is “out there”. I certainly didn’t say there is a causal relation between our thoughts and this imaginary form of causality that is “out there”. The phrase “out there” to me refers to the raw information. There is no causality in raw information. As David Hume said, there is only a sequence of events, among them our own judgments of causality.

Causality is a property of formulas. It refers to the process of calculation, or determination, where the value of one variable changes (i.e. determines, causes, etc) the value of another.

Formulas can be created any way you want, but in order to be of practical use, the best and the most common way to create them is by grounding them in evidence (i.e. raw information) that we possess.

You have an idealized notion of causality. As you do of other concepts, such as existence.

David Hume too was an idealist. Then one day he decided to confront reality, and though he did rather successfully, his emotional response was negative. He was disappointed the world isn’t the way he expected it, wanted it, to be.

That doesn’t say anything.

You’re stuck in this simplistic way of thinking.

Universe (which is what “out there” apparently refers to) is a set of ideas of events that the one owning this set thinks have occurred in the past or will occur in the future.

This means that every person will have his own set that is universe. It also means that the content of this set, the elements included within it, will vary between people as their experience and method of judgment varies.

Idealists don’t like this. Instead, they will argue that there is only one universe to which everyone and everything existent belongs.

This set must be outside of the subject. Otherwise, it will no longer be singular. But this means we can’t speak of it. And yet, we do.

I call it mystery set because we can never know what it is. It is forever “out there” in the sense that it is forever outside of our knowledge.

We cannot speak of its content because that would be putting in it our opinions of what is in it and not what is truly in it.

Whoever asks “is color real?” meaning “does color belong to this set?” must be told that we can never know.

We quite simply don’t know the membership rules of this set. It’s an undefined set.

It’s a classic case of paranoia, of being afraid that your judgments will turn out to be incorrect in the future.

The only thing we know is that we know nothing.

Everything is possible. You can never be sure of anything. I might in fact be a dragon dreaming I’m a man. How can I know that I am not? I can’t.

So let’s give up on our judgments and worship this undefined set.

…an element, created by other elements as a by-product of their activity, that the eye has the ability to take advantage of… just like we have with water to quench our thirst, and produce to satiate our hunger.

We have come to rely on the sun for our main source of vitamin D, just like colour relies on the sun(light) for its creation.

Colours don’t exist outside of the physical, external stimulus that creates them. If they did, I would know what they look like, when in fact, I have no idea.

Define “colour”.

It’s the same as color.

Need not be the case. It could be that your brain is simply not producing them because the condition to initiate their production is lacking.

Well yes. That’s what I said, isn’t it?

You said there must be external stimulus, presumably light, in order to experience colors. I said not necessarily. You might be able to see colors without light and eyes and yet not see them because the corresponding events in the brain are not taking place.

Why would they not be taking place?

Because nothing is causing them to take place (e.g. light hitting the eyes.) But that does not mean that light hitting the eyes is the only thing that can cause them to take place. I think it was Amorphos who mentioned earlier an experiment in which man was made to see via his tongue.

I don’t have the details off hand but I’m willing to bet that the man had not been blind all his life, and/or had at least some light perception.

I’m not a neuroscientist. I do not study relations between what is in the brain (e.g. neurons) and what is in the mind (e.g. colors.) Thus, as far as I am concerned, it may or may not be the case that there are certain states in the brain that are necessary and sufficient condition for the experience of colors.

What I am saying is that if you’re blind and have no idea what colors are that does not mean the experience of colors is dependent upon the presence of light. It could be simply that these states in the brain that have 1-to-1 correspondence with visual states are simply not activated because there is no external cause, such as light, that would do so.

In the absence of evidence, we have no choice but to conclude that light is necessary for the experience of colors. But this absence of evidence shouldn’t stop us from acquiring further evidence. We want to open up the brain – well, not exactly me, I think that’s a bit dirty – and see if there are any connections between what’s in there and what’s elsewhere.

:laughing:

I expect better from you guys (although I can’t think of a good reason to).

Define “color”.