"The Nature of Objective Reality" .... (according to me, obviously)

[Ichneumonwasp]

Ich, I'm not entirely clear on your point here. I think I agree with you in that "inter-subjective" does not equal "objective", and I'm not even sure from what you would build the argument that the two are the same. I'm also not sure what you mean by "objective experience" since the phrase seems completely oxymoronic.

Could you please clarify what different meanings of the word "objective" you are referring to (metaphysical, epistemological?), and how they relate to different uses of the word "blue" (as a pure perceptual experience vs. as a synonym for "having wavelength about 465nm").

The social construction that "blue" refers to things in the external world that all share a particular physical characteristic seems, to me, to be a fairly unproductive area of discussion. I just think that it's really trivial, our perceptual systems, when functioning properly give us roughly the same experience of the same thing if we see it on two different occasions. If it didn't then consciousness would be pretty counter productive, and language wouldn't be much use to describe things. In a vaguely anthropological sense it might be interesting: different cultures vary in the precision with which they apply certain terms e.g., Japanese people using one term for things that Western cultures might consider blue and green (anyone have a ref for this?).

Sorry, that was a rush job.

What I was trying to say is that when we use the word 'objective', we may mean one of three different things (there are pobably more meaning, but these are the three I see most frequently and try to parse out).

1. Objective may mean true independent of all observers, as in the earth revolves around the sun indpendent of us observing it or not.

2. Objective may mean intersubjective. I think it really should mean completely and utterly 100% intersubjective to meet the qualification for the way we use the word 'objective', but in arguments over ethics or beauty it frequently doesn't. Or people don't use it properly. So, in this sense 'objective' could only mean "that which we all agree upon and experience in the same way".

3. Objective may mean external to the subject such that others can view it -- and this sense is closely related to #2.

Does that make more sense?

When it comes to 'blue' we refer to the particular frequency of EM light as blue according to def. #1. It is an objective fact that light may be of that frequency. Since we define 'blue' sometimes to be that frequency of light, 'blue' can have an objective truth -- but only by this sort of definition that we all agree upon. So, of course, it is socially constructed and we cannot take this to mean that blue exists independently of us as observers in some greater metaphysical sense. By the way we use the word, though, there is a sense in which it does exist in this way.

As for the perception of blue, which starts the whole process, I'm not sure that we can use the word 'objective' properly because we do not all experience the same color in exactly the same way. There is not 100% concordance amongst us inter-subjectively. So, in that sense, I think we could say that something is 'blue' as a true statement inter-subjectivly for almost all of us, even though there are a few folks who cannot share that inter-subjective experience. The word 'objective' in this instance may not be the most precise. But I also think it is overly pedantic to make such fine distinctions. It's a philosopher's game. If it helps to stop the constant arguing, then fine.

Also, why is it always 'blue'? Why not lime-green for a change?

The social construction that "blue" refers to things in the external world that all share a particular physical characteristic seems, to me, to be a fairly unproductive area of discussion. I just think that it's really trivial, our perceptual systems, when functioning properly give us roughly the same experience of the same thing if we see it on two different occasions. If it didn't then consciousness would be pretty counter productive, and language wouldn't be much use to describe things. In a vaguely anthropological sense it might be interesting: different cultures vary in the precision with which they apply certain terms e.g., Japanese people using one term for things that Western cultures might consider blue and green (anyone have a ref for this?).

Couldn't agree more.

 

[drkitten]

, Japanese people using one term for things that Western cultures might consider blue and green (anyone have a ref for this?).

What's to refer? It exists. The word is 青, prounounded /ao/ (adjective /aoi/), and it's used in contexts that Westerners use the word "green" as well as "blue." For example, unripe fruit can be "aoi," as is the light that tells you it's acceptable to drive through the intersection.

There's another word used specificaly for "green" (緑 /midori/), but it's a relatively recent innovation. First attested in about 1000CE, it only really started to be used after the American Occupation, and has been generally considered to be a subshade of "aoi" in the same way that "lavender" is a subshade of "purple." (That's changing as well -- chalk it up to American influence, if you like.) Literally, "midori" is the color of honeydew melon, which means that it's not a "basic color term" in the sense of Berlin and Kay.

But part of the issue is exactly that "precision." Most languages have hundreds if not thousands of non-basic color terms, so if you want real "precision," you shouldn't be looking at the Berlin/Kay items anyway. English has 11 color words, but Crayola has no problem putting (and naming) 64 crayons in a box. Why should English be special in that regard?

 

[flimflam_machine]

Cheers Ich,

1. Objective may mean true independent of all observers, as in the earth revolves around the sun indpendent of us observing it or not.

2. Objective may mean intersubjective. I think it really should mean completely and utterly 100% intersubjective to meet the qualification for the way we use the word 'objective', but in arguments over ethics or beauty it frequently doesn't. Or people don't use it properly. So, in this sense 'objective' could only mean "that which we all agree upon and experience in the same way".

3. Objective may mean external to the subject such that others can view it -- and this sense is closely related to #2.

I'm happy with (1), and (3) seems like the grammatical definition (as in subject verb "object"). If it is not a grammatical term, then I'd say it's very closely linked to (1).

I'm still not sure about (2) and I doubt that it's something that will be resolved here. It still seems to me that intersubjectivity is still either completely trivial or completely unprovable: when you say "that which we all agree upon and experience in the same way", we can all agree that the sky is "blue" (we have a functional shared language), but my blue may not be the same as your blue; our experiences could be very different.

As for the perception of blue, which starts the whole process, I'm not sure that we can use the word 'objective' properly because we do not all experience the same color in exactly the same way.

Precisely.

Also, why is it always 'blue'? Why not lime-green for a change?

Red is quite often used, and the process by which 650nm wavelength light is transformed into our perception is known as "redding"!

 

[flimflam_machine]

Thanks drkitten, I was just checking that I hadn't hallucinated someone telling me that. Unless of course you're a hallucination... are you?

How is that "precision" part of the issue, does language shape our experience?

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

I'm still not sure about (2) and I doubt that it's something that will be resolved here. It still seems to me that intersubjectivity is still either completely trivial or completely unprovable: when you say "that which we all agree upon and experience in the same way", we can all agree that the sky is "blue" (we have a functional shared language), but my blue may not be the same as your blue; our experiences could be very different.

I only brought up #2 becuse it shows up in discussions of ethics and beauty and seems to fit some of what Gnu was on about. Yes, if we want to be absolutely precise, it is unprovable, but we can speak in general terms about it -- as in discussions of ethics where we can say that everyone agrees that murder is wrong. I mean, aside from the obvious issue that murder is defined as wrong from the outset. Or do we all agree? I've seen philosphers try to argue that meaning of the word 'objective' in ethics and it always irritates me a bit. I prefer the term inter-subjective for that instance because it is oh so easy to slip into definition number 1 once you have people agreeing to definition 2.

 

[drkitten]

How is that "precision" part of the issue, does language shape our experience?

Not to any significant and measurable extent.

The reason that precision is important is because there's generally far too much weight placed on the Berlin/Kay experiments when trying to figure out whether colours "look" alike to people. As I said, Crayola has no problem naming 64 different crayons -- in order to make their experiments work, Berlin and Kay were forced to make a very rigorous and exclusive definition of what constituted a "basic color term," essentialy throwing out all of the "shades" of meaning that lead to such interesting intersex discussions. Evidently pantyhose manufacturers have no problem distinguishing "tan" from "taupe" from "nude" --- but can you?

So the problem becomes when people say that "Japanese have one word for blue and for green." Well, yes, they do.... except that they rarely use that word when precision specification is important. You'll never see a Japanese housewife suggest that she wants to paint the kitchen "aoi," any more than you'll hear an American one say she wants to paint it "blue." That's not specific enough. "Sky-blue," "robin's egg," "aqua," "royal blue," "teal," .... now those you'll hear. When you need to specify an exact colour, to describe exactly how it appears, there are "non-basic" colour terms, generally metaphors ("robin's egg blue" -- "the blue of a robin's egg"). Most of the time you see basic terms used are to distinguish between choices -- the red T-shirt or the blue one? The fact that two T-shirts of different shades (perhaps "royal" and "teal") can both be called "blue" (when the other choice is "red") doesn't mean that anyonesee the T-shirts alike. And if I had three T-shirts, one royal, one teal, and one red, I'd probably not talk about the "blue" T-shirt.

 

[Dancing David]

No one knows yet how the subjective experience (the blueness of blue) arises out of the configuration of atoms and energy we call a "brain". We presume it does, and that there's a physics behind it (perhaps undiscovered, perhaps an addendum to our standard physics).

But no one knows, at this point, whether the "blueness" of blue is tied to the frequency in some way directly, or if it's just an arbitrary sensation the brain, via evolution, learned to associate with that frequency (as encoded by the optic nerve).

Are there other colors floating around in "perception space" that the brain never picked up on? Other sense kinds besides the "big 5"? As we don't know how this arises from the brain, we have no way of knowing yet.

Francis Crick, who got the Nobel Prize for co-discovering the helix nature of DNA, suggests the technology is ripe to begin exploring this in detail.

Hmm, the mechanism of senation is well studied, how the brain creates perception is not as well understood.

However it is crucial to the development of perception that the organism be exposed to stimuli. If we look at poor Mary who lives in the black and white room for most of her life and one day is exposed to the color red, it depends on her age if she will just see it as grey , or if later she will develop a perception of red.

There are colors that we don't percieve that insects and some critters do. UV and IR so yes there are colors beyond our sensation. Some birds appear to sense light through thier skulls and others detect magnatism as well.

But as for Crick's idea, wll time will tell.

 

[Dancing David]

To the Op, all humans words, thoughts and perceptions are limited by the boundary of a body.

The communication of a self referencing set of symbols can be valid or invalid to the 'objective reality'.

But there are answers to tehse questions.

If a tree falls in a forest and there is no creature which percieves it through air pressure waves, then there is no sound.

But there is a noise!

 

[drkitten]

Are there other colors floating around in "perception space" that the brain never picked up on?

Yes. We've proven this via direct neural stimulation. Given the right set of wires, I can cause you to percieve a color that is "universally" described by the subjects as "reddish green." And it's rather definitively not "yellow." Unfortunately, no one has yet managed to figure out how to get a retinal stimulation to produce the same effect.

 

[Gnu Ordure]

Gosh.

Twenty-odd replies.

My thread has run away from me. In various directions simultaneously.

Which is good, I'm glad it's interesting, and that it's being taken seriously.

Thanks for the various welcomes, and athon, thanks for the apology, no offense taken, and your advice is noted.

I didn't realize that this subject (or the nature of light bit, at least), was discussed so much. Personally, I've never talked about it before, so it's all new to me.

And I have already freely admitted that this far into the discussion, I am very nearly out of my depth, never having formally studied philosophy nor physics.

However, as you may have noticed, my lack of educational qualifications in no way impedes my ability to make authoritative statements about absolutely any subject under the sun.

And, I've belatedly realized that I have mis-named the thread; my starting-point is consensus-reality, rather than objective reality, though the argument necessarily covers the definition of both.

ichneumonwasp, hi.

I don't know if you read the pages on the other thread, but I quoted you in one of my posts there, because my definition of consensus reality seems to be identical to what you referred to elsewhere as inter-subjectivity.

Maybe you could read that one post, and confirm (or not) that I've understood you correctly ?

And all I'm doing is specify the range of the consensus, minimum 2, maximum 6 billion, to which a consensus reality then applies, which can then analysed statistically to provide information.

(And for those of you for whom life is also too short to read the whole 4 pages, this single short post happens to summarize my starting-point concisely).

Just popping over to bolster your self esteem.

Thanks, professor !!

Looks like I was worrying for nothing, doesn't it ?





I'm not sure how to respond to all the arguments, so I'm going to leave it for the moment.

One thought, though. I'm not trying to state beyond all doubt that all people with normal vision have a standard response to a particular stimulus, so I think that part of the discussion is a bit of a red herring.

Or a reddish herring, anyway.

I accept that there may be small variations in normal vision, as some of you said :

eg flim :

The human population has sufficiently standard visual physiology for us all to have a similar range of vision in the EM spectrum.

... as well as a small proportion of people who experience large variations because of genetic abnormality.

So if two people with normal vision look at the sky, isn't it valid to assume that they see the same colour, (with a small probabilty of a small variation ?

So, if we apply the whole battery of colour-blindness tests to the whole world, to find out how normal their eyes are, we'd end up with a set of probabilities as to how a random person would experience a particular colour.

So it's not necessary for my argument that two people with normal vision experience the same colour - similar will do.


And I'm pretty sure we do see colours similarly - otherwise I don't see how colour-blindness tests would work at all. The fact that they are used to identify abnormalities with precision, implies that they indentify normality as well, to the same degree of precision.... doesn't it ?




I have so much to learn.




Gnu.

 

[drkitten]

So if two people with normal vision look at the sky, isn't it valid to assume that they see the same colour, (with a small probabilty of a small variation ?

That's certainly consonant with our current best scientific evidence. Sure, I'll give you that as a working assumption.

So, if we apply the whole battery of colour-blindness tests to the whole world, to find out how normal their eyes are, we'd end up with a set of probabilities as to how a random person would experience a particular colour.

Yeah. And if we applied a whole battery of tests to a set of dice, we'd end up with a set of probabilities as to how a random person would experience the craps table.

I still don't see how either "consensus" or "reality" enters into this.

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

I don't know if you read the pages on the other thread, but I quoted you in one of my posts there, because my definition of consensus reality seems to be identical to what you referred to elsewhere as inter-subjectivity.

I'll try and get through them. I looked briefly, but that's going to take a while.

I think part of the problem may be in the term "consensus reality".

Eveyone has their own likes and dislikes about terms. I happen to like the "inter-subjectivity" idea, but that's just me. To me, it is just the degree to which our individual subjectivities mesh.

When I hear a term like "consensus reality" it makes me think more along the lines of the way we use money. The only reality to money, outside of our imput, is that it is made of stuff. But we create a new reality for it as a symbol by consensus. So, by convention, we all treat dollars and/or pounds/ and or euros, etc. as worth something. That, to me, would seem to be a consensus reality.

I don't know. What do you think?

 

[Gnu Ordure]

I still don't see how either "consensus" or "reality" enters into this.

Because a shared experience can only exist by assumption and agreement, Dr K.

Imagine that I am watching a sunset with my wife.

I am having an entirely subjective experience, aware that I am watching the sunset, and aware that my wife is beside me, also watching it.

Because of solipsism, I cannot be 100% certain that I am not a brain-in-a-vat, and that the entire experience is an illusion.

I can (have to?) choose whether to believe whether my experience is real, or an illusion.

An act of faith, in other words.

Personally, I choose believe to believe that the world is not an illusion. I think I might go mad if I didn't.

So I choose to believe that my dear wife is real and conscious, and that since, as far as we know, we both possess normal colour-vision, we are actually sharing this experience of the sunset. (Not exactly, obviously - but enough for it to be meaningful).



As a result of this assumption, my subjective experience of the sunset changes. It is still subjective (after all, my entire life is a succession of billions of subjective experiences), but it is no longer solitary, it is a consensus-reality experience as well.

It then becomes a real part of me, and a real part of my relationship with my wife. The experience becomes a memory for both of us, a memory we will be able to recall when we want to, and refer to, and talk about.

A memory recalled in different ways, no doubt; but still meaningful to both of us.

So....

... the concept/model of consensus-reality/inter-subjectivity rests on the assumption that other people's experiences are real; if we make that assumption, we can then analyse people's experiences statistically and make statements of greater or lesser certainty about the results.

The wider the analysis, (the bigger the sample), the more meaningful the consensus.

Consensus-reality is an instrument; choose your sample, ask your question, take a reading. Interpret your result.





Here's another example of consensus-reality.

The meanings of words are created by agreement, so they are part of consensus-reality.

I hope we agree that particular combinations of letters do not contain intrinsic meaning.

I hope we also agree that the meanings of words can change over time.

Not to mention that words can't exist without people (observers) to invent them.

So not objective, then, agreed ?



Can the meaning of words be entirely subjective (individual) ? I would say yes, and cite Lewis Carroll's Jabberwocky as an example...

And some couples invent their own private language, with the meanings known only to them. So words can mean what we want them to mean.





But these are exceptions. For most people, most of the time, words mean what we are agreed that they mean, and if we don't know the meaning of a particular word, we consult the results of the most recent consensus-reality reading...


.... otherwise known as a dictionary.



In order to create a perfect dictionary, we simply ask everyone in the world what they understand by every word there is (what is their experience of the word 'X', in all its variations), and collate the results.

A dictionary is a reading of consensus-reality, valid at the time it was taken, until superceded by the next reading, the next edition.

And a dictionary is useful and meaningful because it is created by consensus.




Gnu.

 

[fuelair]

Hi Hyparxis,

thanks, that's the kind of response I like ...

"rare clarity", eh ?

that's nice...

It's not just you, though. I asked my good wife Edith, and she confirmed that I am indeed rarely clear.




I'm daunted, however, by your referral to forum philosophers and such-like.

I'm a novice in this area, in the sense that I've never 'studied' philosophy, but I'm still aware of the underlying complexities of the arguments concerning consensus reality; and I'm aware I know very little about them.




I only started this thread here because it's the same category of the 'parent-thread', so it was more likely to be noticed by any interested parties.

So I'm happy to leave it here, if that's OK, but I don't mind if it 'ought' to be moved.



Gnu.

I do not have enough data to declare looney - where you run afowl of that call (pun intended) is we have several posters who come up with what they are pleased to call philosophy - in which they have developed their own procedures and definitions almost invariably at odds with those used by people who are actually philosophers in the normal sense and those (hand up) who have studied philosophy.

The problem (for me) is that philosophy may be quite interesting and even fun to play with - especially over good food and drink - but it does precious little (and should not) in the real world. This is where we come to your post.

Physics - a wonderful science - has in it the care and feeding of waves, etc. and the nice, bright, people who have studied them determined real properties of them such as their perception, measurement, detection, length, frequency, speed and such. Based on the measurement of these waves in the range we call visible light, we (they) have determined that a certain group of wavelengths will be interpreted by our eye/brain combo as the color blue, another group red and so forth between blue and red. These can be demonstrated in any number of ways (temperature/heat energy, effects on plant growth just for two). Now, we also know that light also has properties that make it like particles in certain ways/situations - possibly because light energy is transmitted as photons - which move at light speed. Nothing in any of this means that color is purely subjective - unless your eyes are flawed. If it did (in anything more than naming or minor physiological difference) life would be some different.

This is why some of us - even though we know philosophy - do respond poorly to those who develop philosophies that promote the idea that our minds are being played with and there is no reality (we are all Matrixed, we are all just random thoughts in the mind of an: alien, lower life form, animal, Dog, Krsna, FSM or whatever - or only one mind is real usually the OPers).

Do try philosophy section and good luck. Check me in some of the philosophy section to be sure I am being nice here - since you are new and trying to be so!!

 

[drkitten]

Because a shared experience can only exist by assumption and agreement

I don't buy that. By definition, "experience" is singular and happens to one person.

Imagine that I am watching a sunset with my wife.

I am having an entirely subjective experience, aware that I am watching the sunset, and aware that my wife is beside me, also watching it.

Because of solipsism, I cannot be 100% certain that I am not a brain-in-a-vat, and that the entire experience is an illusion.

I can (have to?) choose whether to believe whether my experience is real, or an illusion.

An act of faith, in other words.

Personally, I choose believe to believe that the world is not an illusion. I think I might go mad if I didn't.

So I choose to believe that my dear wife is real and conscious, and that since, as far as we know, we both possess normal colour-vision, we are actually sharing this experience of the sunset. (Not exactly, obviously - but enough for it to be meaningful).

Okay. So you've assumed not-solipsism. So what?

As a result of this assumption, my subjective experience of the sunset changes. It is still subjective (after all, my entire life is a succession of billions of subjective experiences), but it is no longer solitary, it is a consensus-reality experience as well.

No, it isn't. It's still solitary. Your solitary experience simply includes the fact that your wife saw it too.

... the concept/model of consensus-reality/inter-subjectivity

Gnu, I'm still waiting for you to explain what this "concept/model" is.

You have no concept.

You have no model.

You have no content.

[It]
rests on the assumption that other people's experiences are real; if we make that assumption, we can then analyse people's experiences statistically and make statements of greater or lesser certainty about the results.

And if we don't make that assumption, we can still do the math and make statements about the results.

Your "consensus reality" adds -- literally - nothing.

Consensus-reality is an instrument

No, it's not. It's a meaningless concatenation of otherwise meaningful words.

If you think there is meaning, then express ti.

Here's another example of consensus-reality.

The meanings of words are created by agreement, so they are part of consensus-reality.

No. They're part of a subjective reality.

I hope we agree that particular combinations of letters do not contain intrinsic meaning.

I hope we also agree that the meanings of words can change over time.

Not to mention that words can't exist without people (observers) to invent them.

So not objective, then, agreed ?

Obviously.

Can t]e meaning of words be entirely subjective (individual) ? I would say yes, and cite Lewis Carroll's Jabberwocky as an example.

Yes. Not only "can be," but "is."

For most people, most of the time, words mean what we are agreed that they mean,

Nope. For most people, most of the time, words mean what we individually and subjectively think they do. if it becomes obvious that my meaning of a word is different from yours, only then does a dictionary get consulted.

A dictionary is nothing more than a statistical summary of many different subjective uses of words. It has no "reality" except as summary statistics of a variety of diffferent subjective experiences.

And summary statistics, while useful, do not constitute a separate kind of "reality."

 

[Mercutio]

Yes. We've proven this via direct neural stimulation. Given the right set of wires, I can cause you to percieve a color that is "universally" described by the subjects as "reddish green." And it's rather definitively not "yellow." Unfortunately, no one has yet managed to figure out how to get a retinal stimulation to produce the same effect.

Could you lob a citation this direction? This is an area of much interest for me, and I am unaware of this finding.

Ich-Wasp--I actually posted intending to throw a spanner into your "blue" definition (while largely agreeing, of course). Yes, we can define a particular wavelength as "blue" (or rather, "unique blue"--one that has no perceptual hint of green or of red), and get tremendous agreement on it... but we can also mix two or more other wavelengths, neither of which is the one we found before, and also come up with that same color of blue. Color-matching experiments use this process to map spectral sensitivity.

Oh, and one thing we cannot do with normally-sighted individuals is present a single wavelength that will be perceived as "red" (or rather, "unique red"). On one end of the visible spectrum, red is orange-red up to the point of no longer perceiving, and on the other, it is purple-red up to the point of no longer perceiving. So any attempt to define "red" as a single wavelength will fail.

More to say, but I am heading home right now....

 

[Gnu Ordure]

I do not have enough data to declare looney - where you run afowl of that call (pun intended) is we have several posters who come up with what they are pleased to call philosophy - in which they have developed their own procedures and definitions almost invariably at odds with those used by people who are actually philosophers in the normal sense and those (hand up) who have studied philosophy.

I don't understand, fuelair.

I admitted I'm a novice in this area. I appreciate that you perceive my thoughts on this subject as naive and ill-informed.

Quite right. They are.

But I wish to learn. If you have studied philosophy yourself, please treat me as a enthousiastic first-year student and direct me towards further reading which you think might be helpful to me, given the current state of my ignorance. This is an Educational Forum, is it not ? Please teach me - but only if you want to, obviously.

Physics - a wonderful science - has in it the care and feeding of waves, etc. and the nice, bright, people who have studied them determined real properties of them such as their perception, measurement, detection, length, frequency, speed and such. Based on the measurement of these waves in the range we call visible light, we (they) have determined that a certain group of wavelengths will be interpreted by our eye/brain combo as the color blue, another group red and so forth between blue and red. These can be demonstrated in any number of ways (temperature/heat energy, effects on plant growth just for two). Now, we also know that light also has properties that make it like particles in certain ways/situations - possibly because light energy is transmitted as photons - which move at light speed. Nothing in any of this means that color is purely subjective - unless your eyes are flawed. If it did (in anything more than naming or minor physiological difference) life would be some different.

Agree entirely.

Using the definition of 'objective' we're all agreed on ("reality irrespective of observers"), the objective nature of 'blue' light is only concerned with what happens after it leaves its source, which may include bumping into objects.

And at this stage, in the absence of any eye, it makes no sense to attach the label 'blue' to it; it is merely light of a certain wave-length.

Imagine the universe 4 billion years ago. The Earth has formed, but life has not yet emerged.

Imagine some light shining with a wave-length of 465 wotsits.

In what sense can one describe it as 'blue' ?

Yes, one can say that, given 4 billion years of evolution, a certain life-form might evolve which might develop sense-organs which might experience this wave-length as : ( imagine blue here )....

but how can that be part of the 'objective' reality, 4 billion years ago ?

who knew what kind of sense-organs would develop ?

colour-vision might never have evolved at all. there are loads of life-forms with mono-chromatic vision, or no vision at all; if colour-vision hadn't evolved, what possible sense would it make to label light of 465 wotsits 'blue' ?

'Blue light' is light of a certain wavelength, that's all.

Except it isn't.

As fuelair agrees.

In my first post, I threw in wave-particle duality. No-one's referred to what I said, but I stand by it.

Light's a wave if you look for a wave; if you look for a particle you find a particle.

Entirely observer-dependant.

So therefore no part of an 'objective' definition.




So, all one can say about blue light, with any certainty, is that it is light of a certain kind.




Anything else requires an observer, hypothetical or otherwise, and so can't be objective ("irrespective of any observers").





Gnu.


(Edit plus :

fuelair said

This is why some of us - even though we know philosophy - do respond poorly to those who develop philosophies that promote the idea that our minds are being played with and there is no reality (we are all Matrixed, we are all just random thoughts in the mind of an: alien, lower life form, animal, Dog, Krsna, FSM or whatever - or only one mind is real usually the OPers).

I wasn't trying to 'promote' that idea at all, fuelair...

but I do regard it as a possibility, nonetheless...

 

[qayak]

Gayak, I think you've missed the point a bit, or I've completely missed your point. The fact that people can match colours doesn't prove anything about whether your experience of blue is the same as my experience of blue.

The point is that obviously they are all seeing the same blue and matching it. For those who do not know, painters often have to tint the paint to get a proper match. Obviously they are seeing the same colour with the same mismatch before they true it up.

That is to say, that given the same colour mix and the same vehicle to match, you will not hear one say "it needs a little blue" while another says "it needs a little yellow." They will both tell you the same thing. Obviously they are seeing the same thing in the colours.

I think your problem is not whether people are seeing the same colour but whether they call it the same thing. That is just a lack of standardization which has been pretty much taken care of. If you have ever seen a Munsel Colour Globe you will know what I mean. Someone had the brilliant idea to give colours dimensions so to speak so that everyone can be on the same page. Simply by giving numbers to value, hue and chroma, colours were standardized. It is still a strange concept until you get used to working with the system but with it any colour can be described.

It was done with weights and measures centuries ago, now it's been done with colour.

 

[fuelair]

I don't understand, fuelair.

I admitted I'm a novice in this area. I appreciate that you perceive my thoughts on this subject as naive and ill-informed.

Quite right. They are.

But I wish to learn. If you have studied philosophy yourself, please treat me as a enthousiastic first-year student and direct me towards further reading which you think might be helpful to me, given the current state of my ignorance. This is an Educational Forum, is it not ? Please teach me - but only if you want to, obviously.




Agree entirely.

Using the definition of 'objective' we're all agreed on ("reality irrespective of observers"), the objective nature of 'blue' light is only concerned with what happens after it leaves its source, which may include bumping into objects.

And at this stage, in the absence of any eye, it makes no sense to attach the label 'blue' to it; it is merely light of a certain wave-length.

Imagine the universe 4 billion years ago. The Earth has formed, but life has not yet emerged.

Imagine some light shining with a wave-length of 465 wotsits.

In what sense can one describe it as 'blue' ?

Yes, one can say that, given 4 billion years of evolution, a certain life-form might evolve which might develop sense-organs which might experience this wave-length as : ( imagine blue here )....

but how can that be part of the 'objective' reality, 4 billion years ago ?

who knew what kind of sense-organs would develop ?

colour-vision might never have evolved at all. there are loads of life-forms with mono-chromatic vision, or no vision at all; if colour-vision hadn't evolved, what possible sense would it make to label light of 465 wotsits 'blue' ?

'Blue light' is light of a certain wavelength, that's all.

Except it isn't.

As fuelair agrees.

In my first post, I threw in wave-particle duality. No-one's referred to what I said, but I stand by it.

Light's a wave if you look for a wave; if you look for a particle you find a particle.

Entirely observer-dependant.

So therefore no part of an 'objective' definition.




So, all one can say about blue light, with any certainty, is that it is light of a certain kind.




Anything else requires an observer, hypothetical or otherwise, and so can't be objective ("irrespective of any observers").





Gnu.


(Edit plus :

fuelair said

This is why some of us - even though we know philosophy - do respond poorly to those who develop philosophies that promote the idea that our minds are being played with and there is no reality (we are all Matrixed, we are all just random thoughts in the mind of an: alien, lower life form, animal, Dog, Krsna, FSM or whatever - or only one mind is real usually the OPers).

I wasn't trying to 'promote' that idea at all, fuelair...

but I do regard it as a possibility, nonetheless...

Just so you understand - I was NOT saying you were doing those things - I was saying that given what you had written it would be POSSIBLE that you would next develop more in that direction. That is why I started by saying there was not (yet) enough info for me to make a decision re:looney. Nothing you have said in response moves me in the direction of beginning to assume it - i.e. so far, so good!! We just tend to be touchey from the past - after awhile it gets harder not to attack first and ask questions later (look up light-is-life for a prime example). Oh, looneys do NOT get a smiley - from me anyway!!

 

[qayak]

I don't understand, fuelair.
Using the definition of 'objective' we're all agreed on ("reality irrespective of observers"), the objective nature of 'blue' light is only concerned with what happens after it leaves its source, which may include bumping into objects.

And at this stage, in the absence of any eye, it makes no sense to attach the label 'blue' to it; it is merely light of a certain wave-length.

You are mistaking a label for the actual colour. A label is used to easily identify a more complex concept. Humans are not equipped to measure the wavelength of light but we are equipped to identify its colour. That its colour is an indicator of wavelength just turned out to be a bonus for us.

Imagine the universe 4 billion years ago. The Earth has formed, but life has not yet emerged.

Imagine some light shining with a wave-length of 465 wotsits.

In what sense can one describe it as 'blue' ?

In the same sense that any light of that wavelength would be described as blue. The question you ask is superfluous.

In my first post, I threw in wave-particle duality. No-one's referred to what I said, but I stand by it.

Light's a wave if you look for a wave; if you look for a particle you find a particle.

Once again you make an error. The wave/particle duality of light is not what light is. It is a model that describes conflicting aspects of our perception of light. Your idea assumes that the model is correct which it isn't as we know. The model is just a way for us to understand things.