Freethought & Rationalism Archive

excreationist · 01-02-2002, 09:56 PM

"...whether you are a pro-subjective anti-ontologist such as I, or a strict materialist."

NialScorva, could you explain what this means exactly? (Maybe there is a website about it or something) How is this different to strict materialism?

NialScorva · 01-02-2002, 10:03 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by excreationist:
"...whether you are a pro-subjective anti-ontologist such as I, or a strict materialist."

NialScorva, could you explain what this means exactly? (Maybe there is a website about it or something) How is this different to strict materialism?

Can't give you something off hand. Basically I just meant that I personally reject dependence upon an ontology such as materialism, and prefer to deal with philosophy on a purely onotology independent basis. I don't particularly see how *what* substrate language and knowledge uses when we are seemingly incapable of escaping language and knowledge for it to matter. I emphasising that my argument relies on representation and concepts that are independent of ontology and (supposedly) will work whether one assumes materialism or any other ontology. I was also trying to make my subjectivist bias and my bias against materialism as a foundational philosophy clear, though I do find materialism to be sufficient but not necessary.

[ January 02, 2002: Message edited by: NialScorva ]

Bill Snedden · 01-03-2002, 02:26 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by hedonologist:
I'm not sure what you are referring to as a physical "phenomenon". Maybe you are referring to yr as a "physical phenomenon", or wr, or maybe something more like a physical correlate of the consciousness of color in the brain, which has yet to be discovered.

Sorry for the delay in response.

By "physical phenomena", I was referring to the physical properties of matter that cause us to experience color. In the terms you used, I guess that would be wr.

Quote:

Originally posted by hedonologist:
Anything I would call physical, I would call objective. I am asking whether the perception (eg yr or mb) is objective or material IOW. You are saying I'm defining color as subjective. How can we have subjective experiences if only matter exists? How can we perceive such subjective things as yr?

Actually, what I meant was that the experience of color, as a perception (or qualia as Nialscorva mentions), is subjective by definition. All perceptions are subjective in the sense that they take place within the mind.

However, being subjective does not make them any less real, or any less dependent upon objective reality.

My analysis would take the same line as Nialscorva's in this regard. Materialism, being the position that all experience is ultimately reducible to or dependent upon matter, does not preclude the subjectivity.

Regards,

Bill Snedden

excreationist · 01-03-2002, 03:35 AM

Quote:

...I don't particularly see how *what* substrate language and knowledge uses when we are seemingly incapable of escaping language and knowledge for it to matter...

What do you mean by language? I mean does a photo of a forest involve language? Or a rock? I'm not sure what you mean by "seemingly incapable of escaping language"...

Laurentius · 01-03-2002, 06:51 AM

AVE

Posted by NialScorva:

Quote:

As to whether color is an intrinsic property of matter, the answer is yes (if you find scientific enquiry a satisfactory definition of objective). The color of an object can be determined from it composite materials using quantum electrodynamics and Maxwell's equations.

I still believe that color is the inner representation of the electromagnetic waves animals perceive, not an intrinsic property of matter/objects. But this may be a futile distinction of mine. The important thing here is that if color remains constant for the same type of receiver and the sight apparatus functions at the same parameters in all humans, red will always be red. Materialists will have to admit that the brain has the same structure and represents basic perceptions similarly in everyone (unless there is a supra-material thing to meddle with our perceptions). Therefore red is perceived quite the same by everyone.

NialScorva · 01-03-2002, 09:29 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Laurentius:
I still believe that color is the inner representation of the electromagnetic waves animals perceive, not an intrinsic property of matter/objects. But this may be a futile distinction of mine.

Not necessarily futile. I'll agree that your definition is a valid definition of "color", but the intrinsic property of matter that I described is also a valid description. Spin characteristics of quarks and leptons is another definition. We just have to make sure that we all know which of the definitions we're refering to, which is why I broke my response into external "objective" color and internal qualia representing color.

Quote:

Materialists will have to admit that the brain has the same structure and represents basic perceptions similarly in everyone (unless there is a supra-material thing to meddle with our perceptions).

To what end? I don't see where this would be difficult for a materialist. We know for a fact that brains don't have strictly the same structure, they have the same general structure, but a lot of the details change between people. The structure of the brain isn't required for the similarity of qualia anyway. You can quite easily have the latter without the former.

Laurentius · 01-03-2002, 02:50 PM

AVE

I was quite ignoring the fact that there are differences of the nervous system in different people. I remember that they materialize in the characteristics of each person’s nervous system (active/passive; stable/unstable; easily excitable or not), because every individual resembles a biochemical “soup” with more or less the same ingredients in more or less the same proportion. This is the reason why, for instance, if you are an amateur astronomer and report your records to certain observatories, they will ask for your temperament so that they can interpret your data more accurately (which means different temperaments may present different accounts for the same phenomenon).

What initially I meant is:
Color is a material phenomenon. The sight apparatus in different people functions similarly (even if it uses slightly different material; it’s like obtaining the same magnification rate in two telescopes by using two different sets of lenses, let’s say). The material brains in different individuals is the interpreter of the data received through the sight apparatuses, and I think it also functions similarly enough in different people to believe that a simple perception of color will be the same. Of course nobody has the power to actually be inside other people’s brains and receive the signals which could confirm them that red is the same for everyone, and this is why such problems are likely to foster endless speculations.

Maybe a definition of subjectivity would solve the problem, and studying how it cannot materially affect simple perception as a rule.

NialScorva · 01-03-2002, 04:03 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Laurentius:
Color is a material phenomenon. The sight apparatus in different people functions similarly (even if it uses slightly different material; it’s like obtaining the same magnification rate in two telescopes by using two different sets of lenses, let’s say). The material brains in different individuals is the interpreter of the data received through the sight apparatuses, and I think it also functions similarly enough in different people to believe that a simple perception of color will be the same. Of course nobody has the power to actually be inside other people’s brains and receive the signals which could confirm them that red is the same for everyone, and this is why such problems are likely to foster endless speculations.

Maybe a definition of subjectivity would solve the problem, and studying how it cannot materially affect simple perception as a rule.

I would be inclined to agree here. There's the material side, which appears consistent across observers, and there's the linguistic/nominative side, which also seems consistent. The only questionable part is the qualia in between, which by definition are not directly comparable, though we may consider them equivalent though not equal.

crocodile deathroll · 01-05-2002, 02:33 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by NialScorva:
Ok, two points. As to whether color is an intrinsic property of matter, the answer is yes (if you find scientific enquiry a satisfactory definition of objective). The color of an object can be determined from it composite materials using quantum electrodynamics and Maxwell's equations. It's non-trivial, and we can only calculate simple molecules, but the equations work. Except for synesthesia and color blindedness, human retinas have basically the same response curves to color frequencies:

OK Try this this [IMG]

crocodile deathroll · 01-05-2002, 03:28 PM

Has anyone tried the Benham's disc experimiment I feel they will be pleasantly surprised
<a href="http://www.swin.edu.au/bsee/mazzo/suitcase/kits/lop/lop1.htm" target="_blank">http://www.swin.edu.au/bsee/mazzo/suitcase/kits/lop/lop1.htm</a>

How does a Benham's disc work?
A Benham's disc is a flat disc half of which is black and the other half has three sets of lines like the groves on a record but more spaced out. If you spin it clockwise at a certain rate, the first set of lines appears bluish, the second appear greenish and the third appears reddish. If you spin it anticlockwise, the colouring is reversed.

It's not really clear quite how this works. The eye works by sending signals from light detectors called cones and rods on the back of the eye to the brain. Cones and rods collect light and convert it into electrical signals. Cones detect coloured light and rods detect black and white light. It's possible that the complex flickering of light and dark produces signals in the rods similar to the activity you get from cones which fools the brain into thinking there are colours there that don't really exist. But no one is 100% sure of the answer to this question.

Quote:

Originally posted by NialScorva:
Ok, two points. As to whether color is an intrinsic property of matter, the answer is yes (if you find scientific enquiry a satisfactory definition of objective). The color of an object can be determined from it composite materials using quantum electrodynamics and Maxwell's equations. It's non-trivial, and we can only calculate simple molecules, but the equations work. Except for synesthesia and color blindedness, human retinas have basically the same response curves to color frequencies:

From a <a href="http://www.handprint.com/HP/WCL/color1.html" target="_blank">pretty neat page</a> on color perception.

So, everything from the object to the brain is pretty much objective for our purposes. The real meat of the question is the internal representation of these objects.

To answer the original question, though I don't consider myself a materialist, I would say that color itself is both non-material and consistent with materialism. As I've already shown, the sensory half of color is a property of matter, as objective as anything in our limited ability to approach objectivity. Within the mind, the question is whether the subjective qualia are material. I contend that they are representational rather than objects in and of themself. I refer you to the no-private-language argument, which rather than draw a conclusion from your type of question, showed it's not even a valid question:

Use emotion as an example. I feel an emotion, and call it *foo*. How do I make others know what that word means? My only option seems to be to look at their behavior and compare it to my own reactions. Similarly, if I call something *baz*, then you can only associate what I say with some behavior. Over time, you can figure out to associate *baz* with the color brown, and associate my use of the word *foo* with you being angry. To form a private language, I cannot perform any error correction, I've merely replaced one inexpressible qualia for another. Language is representational of something.

Representations may or may not objects themself, they refer to some antecedent object, which may or may not be material. With color, we obviously are using the word "blue" to refer to the qualia generated by a specific wavelength of light. However, this qualia is inexpressible except through a public language, and thus cannot be directly compared, not matter whether you are a pro-subjective anti-ontologist such as I, or a strict materialist.

As another arguement, this qualia could be considered representitive of the sensory experience, and as such does not need to be the same across all observers, so long as there is a consistent mapping from one to another. We may have different ways of seeing the same objective color, but we can show trivially that each member of your color qualia can be mapped to the set of visible light, and at least a major subset of that can be mapped into my color qualia. We can do the samething using linguistic rather than visual elements as the bridge. There is a mapping, and regardless of whether the qualias are equal, they can be mapped to one another. Similarly, those colors can be expressed in terms of hz, wavelength, and various color scales, or by various number systems, measurement systems (mm wavelength vs inches), on paper, pixels, or voxels. In any of these cases, the representation doesn't strictly exist, rather it's a pattern of things that exist. To deny that things can be represented in such a way by materialism would be denying that things such as movement and acceleration can be accounted for by materialism.

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01-02-2002, 09:56 PM	#21
excreationist Veteran Member Join Date: Aug 2000 Location: Australia Posts: 4,886	"...whether you are a pro-subjective anti-ontologist such as I, or a strict materialist." NialScorva, could you explain what this means exactly? (Maybe there is a website about it or something) How is this different to strict materialism?

01-03-2002, 02:50 PM	#27
Laurentius Veteran Member Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: Lucky Bucky, Oz Posts: 5,645	AVE I was quite ignoring the fact that there are differences of the nervous system in different people. I remember that they materialize in the characteristics of each person’s nervous system (active/passive; stable/unstable; easily excitable or not), because every individual resembles a biochemical “soup” with more or less the same ingredients in more or less the same proportion. This is the reason why, for instance, if you are an amateur astronomer and report your records to certain observatories, they will ask for your temperament so that they can interpret your data more accurately (which means different temperaments may present different accounts for the same phenomenon). What initially I meant is: Color is a material phenomenon. The sight apparatus in different people functions similarly (even if it uses slightly different material; it’s like obtaining the same magnification rate in two telescopes by using two different sets of lenses, let’s say). The material brains in different individuals is the interpreter of the data received through the sight apparatuses, and I think it also functions similarly enough in different people to believe that a simple perception of color will be the same. Of course nobody has the power to actually be inside other people’s brains and receive the signals which could confirm them that red is the same for everyone, and this is why such problems are likely to foster endless speculations. Maybe a definition of subjectivity would solve the problem, and studying how it cannot materially affect simple perception as a rule.

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