Something somewhere is green. So if you propose an account of the world, reductive or otherwise, which purports to be about greenness, something in it had better actually be green.
What Alicorn said. Furthermore, the things which are green are things like the leaves on an evergreen, the modern John Deere tractors, and Mountain Dew cans—what we are talking about is the experience associated with seeing green things such as these, which is completely different. (See the comment comparing “blue” to “bluep”.)
Do you dispute in any significant way my assertion that the existing reductive accounts of color seek to reduce it either to causal properties or to configurational properties? Are you willing to defend any particular form of identity theory when it comes to color?
And see the discussion which followed. When you define greenness to mean physical greenness, and then say that the experience of green is not itself green in that sense, you are dodging the issue. In naive realism there is no distinction between experience and object of experience, and the only meaning of greenness is the original one. Once you depart from naive realism and distinguish between experience and physical reality, there is a new meaning of greenness which applies to physical reality, and the original meaning of greenness now applies to the experience. And it is greenness in the original sense—the obvious sense, the sense used by everyone when they are not being physicalists—that we are discussing.
I imagine color is perceived as a function of the visual response of the cones to the incident light, and the brain uses this input among others to form its internal model of the world—i.e. your subjective experience. Does that answer your question?
Maybe. Do you understand my distinction between the original meaning of greenness, and the derivative meaning of reflecting light at a certain wavelength? If you do understand that distinction, then how do you explain greenness in the original sense? Where is it, in your account of color?
I hope this discussion isn’t as frustrating for you as it is for me—I swear I’m nearly at the point of giving up on any communication with you at all. I feel as if nothing I’ve said has been understood.
Do you understand my distinction between the original meaning of greenness, and the derivative meaning of reflecting light at a certain wavelength? If you do understand that distinction, then how do you explain greenness in the original sense? Where is it, in your account of color?
I assume by “the original meaning of greenness” you describe a subjective experience (which I shall call greenp for convenience) and by light at a certain wavelength you describe an electromagnetic waveform of a particular sort (which I shall call greenw for convenience).
The usual cause of greenp is, naturally, the incidence of greenw on the color-sensing receptors in an eye. Said incidence causes certain behavior in the optic nerve influencing the operation of the remainder of the brain in a way not well understood (or at all understood, by me), but which through the methods of heterophenomenology may be deduced to cause certain effects in the mind which we refer to as greenp. Given what is known in the field of neuroscience, it is clear that the mind is to a large extent a product of the operation of the brain, much in the way that the videogame is to a large extent a product of the operation of the videogame console—the ambiguities lie purely in the extent to which I/O information should be included in the phenomenon. Thus, just as the appearance of a vehicle in the videogame is associated with certain patterns developing in the RAM of the videogame console, the appearance of greenp in the subjective experience of an observer is associated with certain patterns developing in the neural activations of the brain.
I apologize if I repeat myself, but I cannot reduce it any farther—I’m not a neuroscientist. Greenp is created by the operations of the brain, just as simulated vehicles are created by the operations of the videogame console.
What Alicorn said. Furthermore, the things which are green are things like the leaves on an evergreen, the modern John Deere tractors, and Mountain Dew cans—what we are talking about is the experience associated with seeing green things such as these, which is completely different. (See the comment comparing “blue” to “bluep”.)
Your use of technical terminology here is confusing. I imagine color is perceived as a function of the visual response of the cones to the incident light, and the brain uses this input among others to form its internal model of the world—i.e. your subjective experience. Does that answer your question?
And see the discussion which followed. When you define greenness to mean physical greenness, and then say that the experience of green is not itself green in that sense, you are dodging the issue. In naive realism there is no distinction between experience and object of experience, and the only meaning of greenness is the original one. Once you depart from naive realism and distinguish between experience and physical reality, there is a new meaning of greenness which applies to physical reality, and the original meaning of greenness now applies to the experience. And it is greenness in the original sense—the obvious sense, the sense used by everyone when they are not being physicalists—that we are discussing.
Maybe. Do you understand my distinction between the original meaning of greenness, and the derivative meaning of reflecting light at a certain wavelength? If you do understand that distinction, then how do you explain greenness in the original sense? Where is it, in your account of color?
I hope this discussion isn’t as frustrating for you as it is for me—I swear I’m nearly at the point of giving up on any communication with you at all. I feel as if nothing I’ve said has been understood.
I assume by “the original meaning of greenness” you describe a subjective experience (which I shall call greenp for convenience) and by light at a certain wavelength you describe an electromagnetic waveform of a particular sort (which I shall call greenw for convenience).
The usual cause of greenp is, naturally, the incidence of greenw on the color-sensing receptors in an eye. Said incidence causes certain behavior in the optic nerve influencing the operation of the remainder of the brain in a way not well understood (or at all understood, by me), but which through the methods of heterophenomenology may be deduced to cause certain effects in the mind which we refer to as greenp. Given what is known in the field of neuroscience, it is clear that the mind is to a large extent a product of the operation of the brain, much in the way that the videogame is to a large extent a product of the operation of the videogame console—the ambiguities lie purely in the extent to which I/O information should be included in the phenomenon. Thus, just as the appearance of a vehicle in the videogame is associated with certain patterns developing in the RAM of the videogame console, the appearance of greenp in the subjective experience of an observer is associated with certain patterns developing in the neural activations of the brain.
I apologize if I repeat myself, but I cannot reduce it any farther—I’m not a neuroscientist. Greenp is created by the operations of the brain, just as simulated vehicles are created by the operations of the videogame console.
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