Mind-Body Problem

[Aloysium]

No. But they also didn’t feel the need to argue or explain the trinity. Thank goodness the Council of Nicaea did. I think its something worth exploring.

The answer you got was in keeping with the OP that stated:

I don’t want one that just says: “this is what we believe” and does nothing but quote scripture, but instead gives evidence of the claim through philosophy and science.

It’s like saying, “Help me find my keys in my pocket, but I don’t want to hear anything about the drawer.” The drawer being where the keys are located.

We are a human souls, containing the mind/body structure that we are.
It is given life, consciousness if you like because we exist iand do so in the image of God.

It’s very simple; this is it, however you want to elaborate the models you use to describe it.
There is no problem other than that created by our finite understanding.

 

[KyrieEleison17]

I think ThinkingSapien has a good point.

The difficulties with materialism do not stem from the practical problems of knowing what is going on in a human brain, which is perhaps the most complex object in the universe. The difficulties stem from the possibility of doing so in principle. Objections to materialism should have nothing to do with “irreducible complexity.”

But why would it be “complex”? It’s as complex as knowing the difference between regard and regardless. It is just simply irreducible. Matter cannot be conscious of anything. Matter is passive.

With modern science, I will never forget a memorable exchange between Descartes and some inquirer worthy of note who was perplexed by Descartes’ claim to have “demonstrated” something in his personal science of optics. In reality today we know he was wrong even by inductive “scientific” methods; however, Descartes then tried to justify himself. In truth, Descartes failed to make an actual demonstration of anything at all. In fact, his entire philosophy is a fallacy and his “science” even worse.

Anyone familiar with the state of modern science and scientific theory knows how speculative and theoretical it is (and that is putting the whole circus joke most mildly). This is exactly why science has never been useful in helping to defend morals. As an historian, science was the worst enemy of democracy and human dignity in the first half of the 20th century; today, it is the enemy of the unborn.

This is science: We want to know how it works so we can use it to our ends. Truth matters nothing at all. It is purely in the aim of power. “We don’t care what it is,” is science. It is and always has been the rape of nature that of course results in the rape of Man. In fact, science is nothing more than dominating nature for purely subjective ends and that is the reason science has been the ally, in turn, of Communism and Nazism and now Transhumanism. Moral men and women must dominate science and not the other way around; otherwise, people die every time. That is a fact of history and the kind of fact modern “science” is incapable of reproducing. Like Descartes’ “science”, it is boastful and proves devoid of substance.

 

[KyrieEleison17]

I think you hit the nail right on the head with your analysis. Descartes’ separating of mind and matter in his dualist system has led many contemporary thinkers to believe that the mind, which previously had been brushed aside as something that is not able to be investigated, is really just an illusion that is produced by physical states in our brain. This ironically throws doubt over all scientific findings because we still have to make all of our observations through these mind experiences. It makes it impossible to be able to claim that your “knowledge” that materialism/naturalism is true is really anything insightful and not just a random consequence of your mental programming.

C.S. Lewis has some interesting thoughts on this problem in his discourse on the Cardinal Difficulty of Naturalism which the OP may be interested in.

I will say this: Mother Nature is not God; she is not merciful and she does not forgive sins.

The sin of science is its scepticism and presumption.

Science assumes colour (qua quality), for example, isn’t real. Therefore it seeks the explanation as to how we see it. So it absurdly imagines a world devoid of colour and sets out to find out where colour comes from. Anyone who is even an amateur of good philosophy will know exactly what this will result in; namely, the modern theories of colour, which deny that colour even exists*.

• Do not be deceived by the idea of colour originating in “pigments” found in cells around the eye. This is pure sophistry. You can’t assume colour doesn’t actually exist in anything and then set out to find out its explanation. If it doesn’t exist in anything, then it doesn’t exist; and all attempts to explain it will just be attempts to explain it away.

 

[Bob_Crowley]

Does anyone know where I can find a good read on the Christian view of human Consciousness? I don’t want one that just says: “this is what we believe” and does nothing but quote scripture, but instead gives evidence of the claim through philosophy and science.

I don’t know of any books dealing directly with the issue, although they probably do exist.

I go to a local Catholic psychiatrist a couple of times a year. He has written some books but they mainly explain psychiatry to the layman.

He has a few “spiritual publications” on his website, which you may find interesting, although I don’t think they’re quite what you’re after. I’ve put a link to one of them below, and his general link below that.

williamwilkie.com/downloads/SpiritualDimension.pdf

williamwilkie.com/contact.htm

To access the publications, just click on the tabs eg. “Spiritual Publications” and you’ll see a drop down list of PDF files.

 

[polytropos]

But why would it be “complex”? It’s as complex as knowing the difference between regard and regardless. It is just simply irreducible. Matter cannot be conscious of anything. Matter is passive.

I don’t quite understand the question. The brain is an immensely complex object. The number of possible synapse connections, I believe, exceeds the number of atoms in the universe.

But my point was that a defender of any sort of dualism should not be appealing to the complexity of the brain in order to defend dualism. What dualists ought to maintain is that, if we knew everything about the physical brain, we would not be able to explain certain mental phenomena, like rational thought. So I think we are in agreement.

 

[ThinkingSapien]

Science assumes colour (qua quality), for example, isn’t real.

Are you sure? My understanding is that color (in science) is an indication of the range or combination of wavelengths of photons (as far as light emitted).

I think you bring up a good analogy, but I don’t think that the question concerning how the brain works is really about whether it functions more like volatile main memory or non-volatile hard disk space.

It’s not. But I use that as an example as a parallel to show that failure to crack something open and show some piece of information that it is said to have is not a demonstration that the information wasn’t stored there. If I were trying to find something more similar to the brain I might have used a computational neural network as an example (though it may be cheating since it is also an example of biomimicry). But that may be way too esoteric for this forum.

To use your MP3 example, it may be possible to find “MP3 data” encoded in a human brain (even if the data were volatile and are lost upon death) but the experience of the song or the intention/meaning behind it would not be data that could reside wholly in the brain.

Quite right. We are not all wired identically. Additionally one’s perception and experiences are colored by their previous perceptions and experiences. So the experience of listening to a song may be specific to each individual.

 

[KyrieEleison17]

Are you sure? My understanding is that color (in science) is an indication of the range or combination of wavelengths of photons (as far as light emitted).

But a wavelength is not itself an actual colour. The wavelength is proposed as something that triggers the production of (in us at least) -or corresponds to- a certain colour.

When I speak of colours I mean their phenomenal reality. The problem with the present approach to colour is that it is presumed -contrary to reason and all evidence- to not really “be there” and, therefore, we have to find out where it really is and comes from*. So scientists go hunting for a source - a kind of colour manufacturing machine - and constantly find themselves baffled because everything they are trained to look at is necessarily something physical, but by that fact necessarily devoid of any colour. So now its colour needs a source, and round and round we not-so-merrily go in our colour hunting crusade, which is really just a colour concealing trap that couldn’t possibly succeed in “finding” colour. Now just think about that. How hard do you have to look, normally, to find colour in the world? In the modern account, you literally need a microscope coupled with cellular biology.

*And this is what I mean by sins against nature and nature not forgiving us it. That colour is real and exists is self-evident. Failing to acknowledge this reality is a kind of crime against our own nature (reason).

The closest to an actual appearance of phenomenal colour entering into our world in a scientific account I have seen is in the cells directly behind our eyes that produces colour via special “pigments” depending on the quantity of protons entering into the cell. However, this explanation just begs the question and these rather mysterious “pigments” are just, near as I can tell, red herrings. Even granting FTSOA that we finally have something that itself possesses colour(s) and can account for its phenomenal presence or appearance in the world, we are still left wondering why everything else couldn’t just likewise also have colour actually present in it.

Now these pigments, coupled with a “complex visual system” that is “associated with the brain” do a lot of heavy lifting in explaining colour; however, and rather interestingly, this is also where the explanatory power of the system collapses. The “pigments” aren’t defined and -notwithstanding their enormous privilege of being the manufacturers of all colour- don’t enjoy, e.g., their own article in wiki; whereas, one would expect these pigments to be of the keenest interest. They are simply described as a chemical molecule, unique amongst the rest as they somehow managed to be or have colour actually present in them (or perhaps only when connected to a brain).

To get an idea of how much work “pigments” are supposed to do, see the following articles:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photoreceptor_cell

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_vision

Here are some gems:

Nothing categorically distinguishes the visible spectrum of electromagnetic radiation from invisible portions of the broader spectrum. In this sense, color is not a property of electromagnetic radiation, but a feature of visual perception by an observer. Furthermore, there is an arbitrary mapping between wavelengths of light in the visual spectrum and human experiences of color.

Color derives from the spectrum of light (distribution of light power versus wavelength) interacting in the eye with the spectral sensitivities of the light receptors.

Photoreceptors do not signal color; they only signal the presence of light in the visual field.

Therefore, the response of a single photoreceptor is ambiguous when it comes to color.

Humans and other mammals[which?] have evolved trichromacy based partly on pigments inherited from early vertebrates.

Because perception of color stems from the varying spectral sensitivity of different types of cone cells in the retina to different parts of the spectrum, colors may be defined and quantified by the degree to which they stimulate these cells. These physical or physiological quantifications of color, however, do not fully explain the psychophysical perception of color appearance.

…indeed, a human’s perception of colors is a subjective process whereby the brain responds to the stimuli that are produced when incoming light reacts with the several types of cone photoreceptors in the eye.

You can read all the interconnected articles with the various authors’ Herculean attempts to somehow finally sneak colour into the world while contradicting themselves and each other with record breaking frequency.

 

[balto]

With modern science, I will never forget a memorable exchange between Descartes and some inquirer worthy of note who was perplexed by Descartes’ claim to have “demonstrated” something in his personal science of optics. In reality today we know he was wrong even by inductive “scientific” methods; however, Descartes then tried to justify himself. In truth, Descartes failed to make an actual demonstration of anything at all. In fact, his entire philosophy is a fallacy and his “science” even worse.

Anyone familiar with the state of modern science and scientific theory knows how speculative and theoretical it is (and that is putting the whole circus joke most mildly). This is exactly why science has never been useful in helping to defend morals. As an historian, science was the worst enemy of democracy and human dignity in the first half of the 20th century; today, it is the enemy of the unborn.

This is science: We want to know how it works so we can use it to our ends. Truth matters nothing at all. It is purely in the aim of power. “We don’t care what it is,” is science. It is and always has been the rape of nature that of course results in the rape of Man. In fact, science is nothing more than dominating nature for purely subjective ends and that is the reason science has been the ally, in turn, of Communism and Nazism and now Transhumanism. Moral men and women must dominate science and not the other way around; otherwise, people die every time. That is a fact of history and the kind of fact modern “science” is incapable of reproducing. Like Descartes’ “science”, it is boastful and proves devoid of substance.

While I agree with most of what you are saying, I think that it isn’t really science per se that is the problem. More accurately the issue is with naturalism, which I contend is the de facto religion of most of the contemporary West these days. Science is supposed to be agnostic about these philosophical worldviews. Divorcing science from naturalism is a great challenge indeed. Naturalism can be demonstrated to be incoherent, and any attempt to use scientific findings and bogus appeals to Ockham’s razor to justify naturalism only beg the question. This whole thread topic of mind vs. body is an excellent example of a case where naturalism fails to provide any satisfying answer at all and instead dismisses the question.

 

[ThinkingSapien]

When I speak of colours I mean their phenomenal reality.

Okay, well how people experience the same stimulus may differ. IOW the experiences may be unique to the person having the experience (subjective).

The problem with the present approach to colour is that it is presumed -contrary to reason and all evidence- to not really “be there” and, therefore,

Not sure that I follow you there. What do you mean when you say it is contrary to reason?

Nothing categorically distinguishes the visible spectrum of electromagnetic radiation from invisible portions of the broader spectrum. In this sense, color is not a property of electromagnetic radiation, but a feature of visual perception by an observer. Furthermore, there is an arbitrary mapping between wavelengths of light in the visual spectrum and human experiences of color.

No problems there. And not every one has quite the same mapping (for biological reasons).

You can read all the interconnected articles with the various authors’ Herculean attempts to somehow finally sneak colour into the world while contradicting themselves and each other with record breaking frequency.

I’m not sure what you mean by “sneak color into the world.” Especially since you are talking about subjective experiences.

 

[KyrieEleison17]

Okay, well how people experience the same stimulus may differ. IOW the experiences may be unique to the person having the experience (subjective).

Not sure that I follow you there. What do you mean when you say it is contrary to reason?

No problems there. And not every one has quite the same mapping (for biological reasons).

I’m not sure what you mean by “sneak color into the world.” Especially since you are talking about subjective experiences.

Actually I think you may want to consider what you mean by a “subjective experience”.

Since when was perceiving colour “subjective”? If I point to an apple and say that it is red; whereas, you know it is right now still and actually green, then what part of this is “subjective”? Either one of us is mistaken or extremely colour blind. Presumably we aren’t both. Regardless, at the end of the day, whether or not an apple 1) has colour and (if “1)”), then necessarily 2), it will also have a highly specific and certain colour (because all instantiations will be specific; for example, if something has length, then it will always have a certain or specific and precise length (e.g. 5 feet)), is not a “subjective” experience, anymore than whether or not something can be said to be “alive” is.

There is no good reason for thinking that different people will perceive colours differently, let alone contrarily. We are all human beings. Why would our eyes, which do not much differ from one set to another, sense a radically different phenomenon, such that one set of man’s eyes sees black while another sees white? Even assuming this were the case, then there would have to be some cause or reason for it. However, we have no cause or reason for thinking that it is the case.

Indeed, anyone who knows why certain fast-food chains use specific colour schemes (because studies have demonstrated that certain colours are associated with producing or heightening thirst or hunger) will know that, if a certain shade of red (e.g.) generally causes people to become hungry or hungrier; whereas, black has no such effect or relationship, then if people are seeing what I see as red as if it were black, it would not cause them to become hungry.

And again, walls painted in light colours (especially white) are known to give the illusion that the room is comparatively larger than the exact same space that is painted in a dark colour. Now this could not hold as a rule if people’s colour perception was so highly random and “subjective”. It is not.

 

[Aloysium]

These are the sorts of problems one runs into dividing reality into subjective-objective.
Everything is relational participation. I am a physical being relating (as a result of my being a person) to the material universe of which I am a part.
In this moment I am relating to other persons who share and coexist within a psychosocial world composed of words, ideas, and feeling.
Colour, as a component of a visual world, is what happens physically and mentally within the unity of the person engaged in perceiving the material reality in which he participates.

 

[KyrieEleison17]

These are the sorts of problems one runs into dividing reality into subjective-objective.

I have to agree. There does at least sometimes seem to be something of or like a false dichotomy here.

 

[GEddie]

Methinks we have been confused by such things as the famous color-blindness test forming a number with red and green dots, into thinking that color is subjective.

That’s a turnaround from the truth. Color-blindness, like other faults in our sensorium, is a deficiency. In fact, it is the fact that color is objective that makes that test possible.

ICXC NIKA

 

[yppop]

Methinks we have been confused by such things as the famous color-blindness test forming a number with red and green dots, into thinking that color is subjective.

That’s a turnaround from the truth. Color-blindness, like other faults in our sensorium, is a deficiency. In fact, it is the fact that color is objective that makes that test possible.

ICXC NIKA

GEddie
Hate to disagree but,
Consider the apple sitting on a table: We see a smooth, round, red object, a texture, a form, and a color. However, the apple consists of molecules and atoms; molecules and atoms are made up of protons, neutrons and electrons; and protons and neutrons are made up of quarks. But we don’t see that hierarchy of matter; we “see” a smooth three dimensional red form that we recognize as an apple. What we really see is the light that is reflected from the skin molecules of the apple in the form of photons of a particular energy (wavelength). When light from the apple enters our eyes the photons are focused by the lens on the retina at the back of the eye where neurons are excited and send electric impulses along peripheral nerves to the various parts of the brain. In the brain, specific groups of neuronal circuits are excited and we “see” an image of the smooth, three dimensional, red, form that we recognize as an apple. What is real, the configuration of molecules sitting on the table or the image of a red object formed in the mind? Of course, both aspects exist and are therefore real. It is evident that these two aspects of reality, although existing in different ways, are intimately connected. The ordered arrangement of photons is manifested as the form of the apple, but not the redness. Objective reality is essentially nothing but change and forms; and forms are nothing more than orderly configurations of quarks and electrons.

Redness doesn’t inhere in the apple; but rather is associated with the nature (wave length) of the photons reflected from the skin of the apple. However, we know that the photons are not red, nor does the redness arise in the eye, which brings us to the neurons in the brain. The redness of the apple is created somewhere in the brain. No one knows what the redness is; all we can say for certain is that redness is real, but real in a different sort of way than the configuration of molecules that occupies a specific segment of space outside our brain that we identify as the “form” of the apple. The redness, on the other hand, is formless and resides in the brain. The redness created in the brain is referred to as subjective reality. We conclude that both the molecular configuration and the redness it creates within the brain are real. In other words the apple exists at two levels of reality: the objective and the subjective. Since objective reality is nothing but form and change; it is subjective reality that creates the kaleidoscope of sensations that create the world as we experience it.

An important part of the recognition of the red object sitting on the table is the symbol, the word ‘apple’, that we associate with the apple’s image (form plus redness). Symbols consist of words and numbers (both written and spoken) along with their associated meaning. Symbols are stored in the material memory, the neuronal circuits of the brain that provide the language instinct in humans. Meanings are stored in perceptual memory, nous, the psychical component of the mind.The mind is the interface between the material and the perceptual memory. The use of symbols to communicate meaning forms another aspect of reality we can call rational reality. Rational reality is the global exchange of ideas, the universal growth of knowledge.

Finally, we recognize certain words to be associated with experiences that do not fit nicely with the three levels of reality already mentioned, words such as beauty, truth, and justice. Beauty exists! We cannot sense or measure beauty. We cannot feel beauty. We cannot imagine beauty. Oh yes, we can sense, measure, and feel things that are beautiful, but not the intrinsic beauty of the thing. Beauty is one of those uniquely human experiences that transcend the objective, subjective, and rational. It resides with other concepts such as truth and justice at a higher level of existence. Beauty, truth, and justice exist without form, outside the individual body and mind but evoke feelings within the mind. We say it exists in transcendental reality.

The four levels expand reality beyond what science is willing to address. Truth demands the existence of another aspect of reality, namely, a spiritual component. I believe in the existence of hylomorphic reality. I believe that the basis of reality is not just matter. I believe that the spiritual component is mostly manifested in the mind of man and forms a collective envelope around the earth that widens from the subjective in its lowest level to the sublimely transcendent in its highest. The presence of the transcendence of beauty, of justice, and of truth makes it hard to ignore this other kind of reality, the reality of the mind, of imagination, of the divine spirit.

Yppop

 

[KyrieEleison17]

GEddie
Hate to disagree but,
Consider the apple sitting on a table: We see a smooth, round, red object, a texture, a form, and a color.

You see smoothness? I get what you mean but smoothness is more associated with touch, I think, than sight. I think here you are associating a visual property with a tactile one - and we have plenty of good reasons to do so. But consider that it would sound rather odd for someone to say they “see” “softness”. We associate these things with touch; if you could not touch, you would not know what “smoothness” or “softness” is, though you could certainly know from knowledge that people who can touch and feel generally say things with the external appearance of an apple are also “smooth”.

However, the apple consists of molecules and atoms; molecules and atoms are made up of protons, neutrons and electrons; and protons and neutrons are made up of quarks. But we don’t see that hierarchy of matter;

We don’t really see hierarchies. We make them evident with signs or symbols but we don’t necessarily see it. A bishop who is younger than me and dressed, say, as a plumber is still an hierarch in the Church, even though a plumber wouldn’t be my superior ordinarily but only, presumably, more expert than me in a certain, specific field of knowledge.

we “see” a smooth three dimensional red form that we recognize as an apple. What we really see is the light that is reflected from the skin molecules of the apple in the form of photons of a particular energy (wavelength).

That isn’t correct. Photoreceptors do not explain the phenomenal appearance colour.

When light from the apple enters our eyes the photons are focused by the lens on the retina at the back of the eye where neurons are excited and send electric impulses along peripheral nerves to the various parts of the brain. In the brain, specific groups of neuronal circuits are excited and we “see” an image of the smooth,

Lattermost part is a non-sequitur.

The ordered arrangement of photons is manifested as the form of the apple,

This is deeply problematic; it is, at best, manifested visually in the form of a red apple.

but not the redness.

This can’t be true. Without colour differences we could not see a difference at all (a solid field of a single shade of colour would not allow you to discern a difference: you’d just see a single solid field of a single colour). Even when you imagine a triangle you necessarily employ colour differentiation; however, you might associate something with three sharp points as a triangle or three edges. Someone blind from birth would be a good person to ask about this as they obviously don’t imagine triangles the way people who have knowledge of colours would imagine a triangle. They would have to rely on tactile properties in this case or audial properties or any other sense rather than sight.

The redness of the apple is created somewhere in the brain.

This is just innate knowledge.

 

[polytropos]

Even some philosophers of a somewhat materialist bent view color as an intrinsic capacity, ie. as a relation between surfaces of a particular reflectance and light of a certain wavelength. The world is not genuinely “colorless.”

 

[ThinkingSapien]

Actually I think you may want to consider what you mean by a “subjective experience”.

Since when was perceiving colour “subjective”?..]

I was agreeing with one of the “gems” that you shared.

…]
Here are some gems:
…]

…indeed, a human’s perception of colors is a subjective process whereby the brain responds to the stimuli that are produced when incoming light reacts with the several types of cone photoreceptors in the eye.

 

[yppop]

You see smoothness? I get what you mean but smoothness is more associated with touch, I think, than sight. I think here you are associating a visual property with a tactile one - and we have plenty of good reasons to do so. But consider that it would sound rather odd for someone to say they “see” “softness”. We associate these things with touch; if you could not touch, you would not know what “smoothness” or “softness” is, though you could certainly know from knowledge that people who can touch and feel generally say things with the external appearance of an apple are also “smooth”.

We don’t really see hierarchies. We make them evident with signs or symbols but we don’t necessarily see it. A bishop who is younger than me and dressed, say, as a plumber is still an hierarch in the Church, even though a plumber wouldn’t be my superior ordinarily but only, presumably, more expert than me in a certain, specific field of knowledge.

That isn’t correct. Photoreceptors do not explain the phenomenal appearance colour.

Lattermost part is a non-sequitur.

This is deeply problematic; it is, at best, manifested visually in the form of a red apple.

This can’t be true. Without colour differences we could not see a difference at all (a solid field of a single shade of colour would not allow you to discern a difference: you’d just see a single solid field of a single colour). Even when you imagine a triangle you necessarily employ colour differentiation; however, you might associate something with three sharp points as a triangle or three edges. Someone blind from birth would be a good person to ask about this as they obviously don’t imagine triangles the way people who have knowledge of colours would imagine a triangle. They would have to rely on tactile properties in this case or audial properties or any other sense rather than sight.

Kyrie
I was responding to GEddie’s implication that color is objective and not subjective by arguing that reality can be viewed as a hierarchy (the kind without a bishop in plumber’s clothes) of modalities in which redness falls into to the “subjective” category.

Instead of responding to the tenor (not the singer) of my posting, you critiqued of my usage of words. I see your point. But I can’t see where you are going with it. Whoops! Did I misuse the little word ‘see’ again? Can’t see a point or where you’re going, can I? Unless, of course, the person I’m talking to (whoops I mean ‘communicating with’) understands idiomatic English.

Your comment about the latter part of a truncated quote of mine being a non sequitur seems itself to be a non sequitur. And while we are on the subject of non sequitur you wrote, “Without colour differences we could not see a difference at all (a solid field of a single shade of colour would not allow you to discern a difference: you’d just see a single solid field of a single colour).” More succinctly you mean, “if there is no difference, you can see no difference”. I can see that. Whoops there’ that pesky word ‘see’ again.

If you had bothered to grasp (mentally, not physically) what I wrote, you should have realized that I was basically saying (writing) in a less convoluted way what you meant in your post 47. A bit of advice: in order to improve your “interest quotient” (the number of views of your personal page divided by the number of your posts) stick to the meaning of a post your responding to and ignore the language.

I hope you don’t mind me “pulling your leg” a bit, but we here in Eastern Pennsylvania have been immersed in an ocean of frigid Canadian air for the last week or so and this is my payback.

Thank you for responding.

Yppop

 

[KyrieEleison17]

Kyrie
I was responding to GEddie’s implication that color is objective and not subjective by arguing that reality can be viewed as a hierarchy (the kind without a bishop in plumber’s clothes) of modalities in which redness falls into to the “subjective” category.

Instead of responding to the tenor (not the singer) of my posting, you critiqued of my usage of words. I see your point. But I can’t see where you are going with it. Whoops! Did I misuse the little word ‘see’ again? Can’t see a point or where you’re going, can I? Unless, of course, the person I’m talking to (whoops I mean ‘communicating with’) understands idiomatic English.

If you had bothered to grasp (mentally, not physically) what I wrote, you should have realized that I was basically saying (writing) in a less convoluted way what you meant in your post 47. A bit of advice: in order to improve your “interest quotient” (the number of views of your personal page divided by the number of your posts) stick to the meaning of a post your responding to and ignore the language.

I hope you don’t mind me “pulling your leg” a bit, but we here in Eastern Pennsylvania have been immersed in an ocean of frigid Canadian air for the last week or so and this is my payback.

Thank you for responding.

Yppop

The reason I took issue with your use of the word smooth was because it actually reflects the philosophical problem we are here discussing. It is therefore relevant. I am sorry if you thought I was being uncharitable; I was not trying to be uncharitable. But unfortunately it is exactly those kinds of mistakes that lead into many of the problems we are dealing with today.

Colours and tactile properties are known as qualia for a reason in philosophy. Qualia are deeply connected to the Mind-Body problem, which is the very topic we are discussing in this thread. That is why concepts like smoothness and their source or proper place can become relevant. Considering qualia carefully is in part how we can make progress in resolving the Mind-Problem or discovering the reason why it is considered a problem.

Moreover, collapsing perception into sensation is also a live philosophical issue because these things betray confusion in the mind and lead to serious errors, such as reducing colour against all reason and evidence into something supposedly “subjective” when it isn’t, at least certainly not in the sense “subjective” is usually meant. It is very weighty criticism of Rationalists to the philosophy of Objectivism.

But perhaps you are correct and I should rather have focused instead on something like your assertion that brains “create” colour, immediately after you had repeated the very problems of the modern account that result in that claim, which account I had already shown to be contradictory and problematic earlier above. I honestly do not understand how you can claim to have said anything in agreement to my post #47 because you can’t possibly assert that brains in any way create colour and have actually agreed with anything I actually wrote in post #47 :

The problem with the present approach to colour is that it is presumed -contrary to reason and all evidence- to not really “be there” and, therefore, we have to find out where it really is and comes from*. So scientists go hunting for a source - a kind of colour manufacturing machine - and constantly find themselves baffled** because everything they are trained to look at is necessarily something physical, but by that fact necessarily devoid of any colour**.

The brain is through and through physical. It can’t possess, hold or contain colour for the same reasons in modern science an apple can’t or doesn’t actually have colour.

I’m sorry yppop if my post and my approach upset you. But this is still a philosophy forum. I have demonstrated that such claims are problematic and result in problems for philosophy or errors in philosophy. If you don’t expect people here to take issue with problematic claims (like claiming smoothness is something we see and even using it as an example for trying to illustrate your point) then perhaps you should avoid this forum.

By standards I have seen in other philosophical debates, our discussion so far has been pre-eminently polite and civil. But misunderstandings are a serious hazard in philosophy given that philosophy deals with the most basic and primary things of reality, things of serious consequence. Hence a problematic conception can have serious consequences down the road.

As for this,

Your comment about the latter part of a truncated quote of mine being a non sequitur seems itself to be a non sequitur. And while we are on the subject of non sequitur you wrote, “Without colour differences we could not see a difference at all (a solid field of a single shade of colour would not allow you to discern a difference: you’d just see a single solid field of a single colour).” More succinctly you mean, “if there is no difference, you can see no difference”.

No that is simply not what I meant and you are just repeating the mistake I am concerned about. You can see a single colour and still see. You can be in a dark room and still have the capacity to see. I can just fine see two instantiations of human nature and still very much see plenty of differences. I can see the same book, one paperback and one hard cover, and again see plenty of differences. But there is no actual difference. The two men are both equally human and the two books are the same book, any real or apparent differences between them notwithstanding.

In short discriminating in sensation is by no means the same thing as discriminating between concepts. Can you see the difference between a concept and a colour?