Color's Intrinsic Nature: Light, Perception & Information

[Royce]

Color, like beauty, is intrinsic. IMO

The usual reductionist thinking is that color is assigned by our minds according to the frequency of the light sensed. Light does not contain or carry the property or value of color but rather has frequency, wavelength or energy level that we perceive and as the value of color to it. I, myself have long thought this and thought the same about sound. I was wrong. Having thought about this for some time I have come to the conclusion that color, sound and beauty are intrinsic and perceived as those values rather than assigned those values by our minds. Following are the reasons that I have changed my position and it has to do with information more than perception.
Light, photons are generated, emitted by bodies, in quantum.
The energy level of the quantum of light is determined by the energy level of the emitting body. This energy leveldetermines the frequency or wavelength of the light, photon, quantum. This wave length is information about the radiating body that we can and do perceive as color. If the light is reflected off of another body, the light then is altered. Its characteristic wavelength and intensity is changed by the reflecting body unless it is a perfect reflector or mirror. This is information about the reflecting body.
The medium through which the light travels may also change its characteristics and this is information about the medium also.

With our eyes and instruments we can detect these characteristics and deduce which characteristics are due to which process or body.
Light (and sound) of different frequencies or wavelenghts or energy levels have different properties of reflection, penetration etc. All of this is a function of its wavelength which is intrinsic to the light. We call these different characteristics color. Color is generated or radiated outside of us and comes to us with this information we call colors as an intrinsic characteristic. We may assign the name of the color and we may all perceive each color differently but it is still a perception of a characteristic of the light entering our eyes.

Life is an opportunist. It takes advantage of whatever is at hand. It uses it's environment any and every way it can. Vertually every form of life on Earth uses and responds to light in some way. Sight is a sense that was developed by life to gather information about its surroundings using light. Life did not invent light nor did it invent color but evolved to use light and its characteristic colors to gather information about its environment.

Again, we, life, do not invent or assign color but percieve color as an intrinsic characteristic of the light we sense and this color is information contained or carried by that light that is external to us.
I welcome any and all thoughts, ideas, and/or arguments for or against.

 

[Kal-Elvis]

"Having thought about this for some time I have come to the conclusion that color, sound and beauty are intrinsic and perceived as those values rather than assigned those values by our minds."

I don't understand your distinction between perceiving a value and the brain assigning a value. After all, even sensory information is processed by the brain.

I would also disagree with the lumping of beauty in with the likes of color and sound. Color and sound are sensory information; beauty is an intellectual construct like justice or truth.

"Light (and sound) of different frequencies or wavelenghts or energy levels have different properties of reflection, penetration etc. All of this is a function of its wavelength which is intrinsic to the light. We call these different characteristics color. Color is generated or radiated outside of us and comes to us with this information we call colors as an intrinsic characteristic."

This seems to be the crux of your argument, and I disagree with the distinction made. You seem to say that the reductionist view is that color is the mind's interpretation of wavelength, a characteristic among others of light. Yet, you say that we call these characteristics color, and that color is a characteristic of light. "We call these characteristics color," indicates that the mind's interpretation is happening, that the mind is interpreting wavelength.

 

[Royce]

The distinction is that color exists as an intrinsic characteristic of light, rather than our simply sensing the various frequencies of light and assigning a color value to that light that we sense. Does color exist or is it only a function of our brains, an assigned perception?
I am saying that color is intrinsic. It is external to us and is information carried by the light that we sense. The property of light that carries this information is wavelength. we measure it as frequency; but, it is color that we are actually measuring and perceiving.

I say that our senses and perceptions are passive. We receive via our senses information of our environment and this information is perceived and interpreted in our minds or by our brains as received.
Our brains do not assign values like color or tone, intensity or loudness. This information is what we are sensing not what we are making up in our own minds.
Again is color intrinsic, does it exist or is color merely a perception, a subjective property of our mind/brain?

As far a beauty is concerned, I argued some months ago here that beauty is intrinsic in the thread "VALUE THEORY, AH?" One of the questions concerned color. I was not able to address it at that time.
This post is partially in response to that question and partially in response to the various and numerous materialist and reductionists vs non-materialist threads. It is also to refute and correct my own posts on this subject including sound i.e. does a tree falling in the woulds make any sound if no one is there to hear it? I said no. Now I say yes, the information is still there whether there is anyone or anything there to hear it or not. The same thinking applies to light, color and beauty. I know others will disagree; but, I think now that I can better support this position after having thought about it for a while.

 

[selfAdjoint]

I believe the input side of color perception is well understood. The ambient visible radiation is sampled for intensity at three narrow, fixed frequency bands - this is done in the cones of our retinas - and the band-tagged intensity signal passed to the visual cortex at the back of the brain. It is from these band specific intensities (along with other non frequency specific data) that our color experiences are generated, and that happens in the brain. Of course we don't know how the color sensation - or qualia if you prefer - is generated, yet. But research is proceding.

 

[Royce]

Okay, SA, this is understood. The question is why should life in general and humans in specific evolve the means to sense these frequencies if not to gather information that is already present in this case color in the form of frequency of light or if you prefer wavelength? Why does life use color with such enthusiasm and abundance unless color itself is intrinsic and available at least here on earth. Again life did not invent or create color. Our, life's senses are passive, receiving only what is available. Yet life also uses color actively as in bioluminosity and active skin coloration. This, I think, is adoption and opportunism using properties already present and intrinsic, not generating stimuli for subjective color perception. I agree that it amounts to the same thing in the end but is color intrinsic in nature or purely subjective?

 

[Eh]

Actually, "color" doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the frequency of light at all. That's because the brain never deals directly with the light being percieved. When light strikes the retina, the data is converted into an electric signal and sent to the brain. This signal is then processed in the visual cortex where the final image ends up. As such, you don't need eyes to see colors. Stimulating the brain directly will produce vivid colors, and no outside light is required.

In that sense, we can see that color is most certainly not an intrinsic property of the light itself.

 

[Royce]

Stimulating the brain to see colors only proves what we already know, the brain is wired to perceive colors whether the stimulation comes from the optic nerve or an electric probe. There is only one reason for this and that is because our eyes have the ability to detect and discern color in the light that they pick up from the outside world.

Tell how and why our brains are wire to perceive that which does not exist; how and why our eyes, and those of countless other life forms on earth, evolved to detect and discern that which does not exist.
If color is not intrinsic, not information or intelligence contained in or carried by the light reaching our eyes, if color does not exist objectively, physically but is only a subjective perception of our minds then how and why did life evolved to detect and discern subjective perception?
How and why do plants like roses and other flowers which do no have a mind or perception have and use color a subjective assigned perception? How do insects and fish as well as simpler animals detect and use color? They do not have minds and only minimal brains, are not conscious according to most and only respond instinctively. How do they respond to a subjective perception which is beyond their abilities? Why is there such a thing as bio florescence?

 

[selfAdjoint]

Life evolved so as to respond to elecrochemical signals from light sensitive cells. Initially just a signal this side is lighter, that side is darker, but a big, big advantage to an organism when all the other organisms couldn't tell light from dark.

So it evolved, not according to any plan, but according to the momentary advantages that could be had, and eventually we got to eyes (about seven different basic designs of eyes), and mammal vision, and primate vision, and human vision, and our sensation of the frequency spectrum comes to us as color. It's still a bunch of electrochemical signals coming in, being processed into other patterns of neurochemical signals, and so on. Just how these bits of neurochemistry generate RED is unknown, but it's not a category problem, it's just a complicated contingency.

 

[Royce]

My point is that life responded to take advantage of what was already present. To life frequency is color. Life also uses color even if it does not have eyes to see it or a brain to perceive it.
With or without a plan, life is opportunistic and uses whatever is available. It does not invent or create it's environment but response to it. I do not see how life could evolve to see color unless it was already present and intrinsic to it's, life's surroundings.
Physically different colors have different characteristics and properties such as transmission, reflection and refraction. Color is information and carried as the frequency or wavelength of the light or photons. We seem to be confusing the signal or information with the medium of transmission just as the frequency of the carrier of a radio wave is not as important as the information carried by the modulation of the radio wave. However, the carrier is essential for the transmission to take place at all. Color is the important information carried by light. We measure and discern the color by measuring or discerning the frequency of the light. I would be just as easy if not easier to use colored filters or prisms to measure the color of the light without ever determining the frequency.

 

[Nereid]

sight or smell - not both?

Just to mention a recent report I read - apparently there is some observational data to support the hypothesis that colour vision evolved in humans at the expense of the sense of smell (colour vision is rare among mammals, and most mammals have a considerably more sensitive sense of smell than homo sap's). It's as if the relevant constructor kit for the brain has pieces that can be used for one or other sense, but not both.

If a person has defective vision from birth - cones that are non-functional, for example, or only rods plus one type of cone - can they perceive colour? What if such a person also had synesthesia?

 

[Eh]

Originally posted by Royce
Stimulating the brain to see colors only proves what we already know, the brain is wired to perceive colors whether the stimulation comes from the optic nerve or an electric probe. There is only one reason for this and that is because our eyes have the ability to detect and discern color in the light that they pick up from the outside world.

But that shows color is not an actual property of the light itself. Otherwise, there would be no color in the absence of light - which is clearly not the case.

Tell how and why our brains are wire to perceive that which does not exist; how and why our eyes, and those of countless other life forms on earth, evolved to detect and discern that which does not exist.

No one says color does not exist. It is merely not a property of light itself. Why the ability to perceive different colors evolved should be obvious. Vision is probably the most important survival tool we have. Without it, we are blind and vulnerable. You can be mystified by the experience of color all you want, but it is still certain that color is not a property of photons.

 

[Royce]

Originally posted by Eh
But that shows color is not an actual property of the light itself. Otherwise, there would be no color in the absence of light - which is clearly not the case.

What it shows is that the brain can be stimulated into perceiving color just as it can be stimulated to perceive oder or other sensations and memories as well as moving muscles. It has nothing to do with the subject at hand. We agree that the frequency of the light is detected and perceived as color in the brain of humans. That frequency is a property of the light entering our eyes and determined by a number of different things.

Scientist by studing light can determine the temperature of the emitting body, its chemical composition and the chemical composition of the medium through which the light passed. Science can also get an indication of the relative speed of the emitting body all by studying the frequency (color) of the light.

This is all information that is carried by the light and is intrinsic to that light. Our eyes are no different from the instruments of the scientists. Our eyes detect the intrinsic frequency (color) of the light and send this information to the brain where it is perceived to be what it in fact is, color.

No one says color does not exist. It is merely not a property of light itself. Why the ability to perceive different colors evolved should be obvious. Vision is probably the most important survival tool we have. Without it, we are blind and vulnerable. You can be mystified by the experience of color all you want, but it is still certain that color is not a property of photons.

If, as you and others say, color is not a propery of light but is only a perception within our minds, then color is subjective and thus does not exist in the objective material realm but in the mental subjective realm. It has then no physical reality.

You seem to be concerned about human perception only. What about the rest of life that uses and responds to color including life that has no central nervous system to perceive of anything. Where and how could it develope color without having any means of perceiving it unless color is a property of light, intrinsic or not, and a property of its environment?

It is certain, however, that color is determined by the frequency of photons and that is certainly an intrinsic propery of photons. The frequency of photons is determined by its intrinsic energy. The more energy a photon has the highter the frequency. The less energy the lower the frequency. I'm sure that you know this. All of this, however, is why I say color is intrinsic, because of the physics involved and that fact that life evolved to passively detect this physical value of light already present in its environment. I don't see how it could be any different. Life responds to it's physical enviroment. It does not assign values to it. We humans can and do assign values to vertually everything but that is a human trait and not necessarily a common trait of all of life on earth.

 

[Eh]

Originally posted by Royce
What it shows is that the brain can be stimulated into perceiving color just as it can be stimulated to perceive oder or other sensations and memories as well as moving muscles. It has nothing to do with the subject at hand. We agree that the frequency of the light is detected and perceived as color in the brain of humans. That frequency is a property of the light entering our eyes and determined by a number of different things.

No, the brain does not detect the frequency of light directly at all. By the time the image is processed (where color is perceived) the brain is dealing with information running through the visual cortex. The light is long gone, and doesn't even make it past the retina.

Scientist by studing light can determine the temperature of the emitting body, its chemical composition and the chemical composition of the medium through which the light passed. Science can also get an indication of the relative speed of the emitting body all by studying the frequency (color) of the light.

So? We already know there is a correlation between the frequency of light and perceived color, but there is no direct perception of that light. The light hits the retina and is gone. The data (spatial and frequencies) in the retina is then converted into an electrical signal and sent over to the brain for processing. As I said, the important thing here is that by the time color is perceieved, the light that hit the retina is long gone. Color cannot be a property of photons because they have nothing directly to do with the experience of it.

This is all information that is carried by the light and is intrinsic to that light. Our eyes are no different from the instruments of the scientists. Our eyes detect the intrinsic frequency (color) of the light and send this information to the brain where it is perceived to be what it in fact is, color.

As I said, the original light is gone. The experience of "color" has nothing directly to do with the light that strikes the retina.

What is real, is the frequency of the light and the retinal spatial pattern.

If, as you and others say, color is not a propery of light but is only a perception within our minds, then color is subjective and thus does not exist in the objective material realm but in the mental subjective realm. It has then no physical reality.

This is the same debate about all qualia in general. One approach argues that the physical brain state involved in the perception is equivalent to the experience itself. Others claim the experience is an emergent property of the brain state. But at any rate, that argument is irrelevant. The facts clearly show that color only exists in the mind, regardless of how one wants to explain conscious experiences.

You seem to be concerned about human perception only. What about the rest of life that uses and responds to color including life that has no central nervous system to perceive of anything.

They respond to light, not color. Plants will respond to light of various frequncies, but with no brain they do not perceive color. It's that simple.

Where and how could it develope color without having any means of perceiving it unless color is a property of light, intrinsic or not, and a property of its environment?

We've already established that light itself does not have color, so the question of how qualia works or evolved in the first place is not the point.

It is certain, however, that color is determined by the frequency of photons and that is certainly an intrinsic propery of photons.

That isn't even an intelligent position to hold. The fact that we can experience color without any light striking the retina demonstrates that it exists independently of light. As such, there is no reason at all to think that photons have "color" as a property. The same applies to all qualia. For example, the experience of smell can be generated without there actually being a nearby object to smell.

Suggesting color is a property of photons is just as silly as suggesting that particles posses "smell" as a real property.

 

[Twinbee]

It takes a light wavelength of 700 nanometres for us to see the colour red. Is there any evidence that other 'tri-color capable' mammals see a vastly different hue (say cyan) at 700 nm?

If it can see colour at all, it wouldn't surprise me if a fish sees the ocean very differently. It could be seeing red for all I know, and there's no way to ever find out for sure. I guess there's even the chance that other creatures could be experiencing new colours we've never seen before!

 

[Royce]

Well just call me silly then. Esters possesses odor or have the property of oder as do phermones etc. Wamt to discuss oder as being intrinsic, i.e. have physical properties which are perceived as odors?
Same arguments apply.

 

[Eh]

Originally posted by Royce
Well just call me silly then. Esters possesses odor or have the property of oder as do phermones etc. Wamt to discuss oder as being intrinsic, i.e. have physical properties which are perceived as odors?
Same arguments apply.

Yes, the same arguments apply. Like color, it can be demonstrated that other smell can be generated without any actual smelly object being present. This shows beyond a reasonable dount that it is all in the brain.

 

[Royce]

I'm going to try a different slant strictly from our human view.
We are mental beings. Everything we know and do starts in the mind/brain. our only contact with the physical world in which we live is through our senses, sight, sound, smell, taste and touch.
All the information that we receive from the world is through those senses and they are all passive. That is to say that they are receptors only not transmitters.

Assuming that the objective, physical world actually exists and that our senses give us a more or less real and accurate model of the real world then what our senses do is receive information about this world. This information is not perceptions nor mental constructs or fabrications of the world but an accurate model of the world in which we live, within the limits of our senses and our instruments.

This information is carried to us via light, chemicals etc. This information must be real and exist outside and independent of ourselves. The most obvious ways that this happens is through sight, sound and smell. One of the forms of information is color a property of light associated with wavelength. Light has other properties like intensity, purity that also give us information. This is intrinsic to the light our eyes receive or else it is an illusion of perception originating in our brains such as dreams or hallucinations. The same is true of sound and smell.

It either is information and thus intrinsic or it is illusion and is not information but garbage. Of course if one is an idealist none of this true as the world is only a mental construct anyway and the only reality is within the mind. So all of you idealist can just ignore all of this just as you ignore all of reality. If one i9s a materialist then all of this has to be true or information theory and all of science it bunk and illusion. If one is someone like me then your just confused about everything and must ponder endlessly about everything and wonder what the hell this is all about.

 

[Eh]

No need to post a lot of text, just deal with the facts. As I pointed out, it is a fact that qualia like color exist without light hitting the retina at all. This demonstrates beyond a doubt that the experience of color does not involve light directly at all. You have not provided an answer to this fact, and until you do you have no argument.

 

[Royce]

Eh, I have answered that claim three times in three different posts.
I even gave other examples of color perception without light being present.
Very simply put our eyes can and do detect color.
Our retina converts the light into electrochemical nerve impulses.
Our optic nerves carry this encoded information to our visual cortex where they are perceives as visual colored scenes, a perception model of the real world.
Our brains are wired to convert electrochemical nerve impulses into visual perception.
If we stimulate the visual cortex with an electric probe we are simpling substituting and artificial signal for a real signal and our brain has no choice but to "see" that input as a visual perception, color. It is the same way for dreams mental images and hallucinations whatever their cause.
Stimulating the brain only proves that the brain can do what it evolved to do. Given the proper signal or stimuli in the proper place simulates a signal input from the area or sense connected to that area of the brain. How else would you expect it to work?
If we couldn't stimulate the brain into such perception it would prove that our understanding of the how the brain works is all wrong.
If we were blind or color blind and stimulated the brain into seeing color then we would again have a problem with our theories.
None of this has anything to do with whether color is intrinsic or assigned.
I say simply that color is intrinsic, external and informational, that is a property of the light entering our eyes that eventually becomes a perceived model of reality in our minds.
Our minds do not create the color nor does it perform a paint by number routine creating a colored picture in our minds; but, replicates and models what our eyes see.

 

[Eh]

Originally posted by Royce
Eh, I have answered that claim three times in three different posts.
I even gave other examples of color perception without light being present.

But you haven't addressed that this fact demonstrates that the perception of color has nothing directly to do with light itself. As such, your claim that photons have color as a real property has no substance.

If we stimulate the visual cortex with an electric probe we are simpling substituting and artificial signal for a real signal and our brain has no choice but to "see" that input as a visual perception, color. It is the same way for dreams mental images and hallucinations whatever their cause.

Here is the crucial part you've missed: The signal the reaches the brain is not the light the strikes the retina! The light ends in the retina. What ends up in the brain to be processed is something else, and from that we can see color and the frequency of light are not the same thing. Address that point.

Stimulating the brain only proves that the brain can do what it evolved to do. Given the proper signal or stimuli in the proper place simulates a signal input from the area or sense connected to that area of the brain. How else would you expect it to work?
If we couldn't stimulate the brain into such perception it would prove that our understanding of the how the brain works is all wrong.
If we were blind or color blind and stimulated the brain into seeing color then we would again have a problem with our theories.
None of this has anything to do with whether color is intrinsic or assigned.

It has everything to do with it, because it clearly demonstrates the light has nothing directly to do with the perception of color. If you agree on that point, then I don't see any basis for claiming color exists outside the mind. You cannot argue that light causes color, because as I said numerous times, the light ends in the retina. The perception happens in the visual cortex (primarily)at which point the original photons no longer even exist. That is the point you are not addressing.

I say simply that color is intrinsic, external and informational, that is a property of the light entering our eyes that eventually becomes a perceived model of reality in our minds.
Our minds do not create the color nor does it perform a paint by number routine creating a colored picture in our minds; but, replicates and models what our eyes see.

Again, you're not addressing the fact that the brain never interacts with the light. The colorful images we percieve occur through processes that are a result of light hitting the retina, but light hitting the retina is not the same as the processes going on in the brain. Light has nothing to do with one.

 

[Royce]

The retina consists of two structures that sense light.
Rods sense the brightness of light and are more sensitive.
Cones sense the color of light striking the retina and are less sensitive than rods.
Different parts of the cones are stimulated by different wavelengths, color, of light.
As I understand it the longer wavelengths (reds) are detected and activate the sensor cells at the tip of the cones and send their impulses to different areas of the visual cortex associated with perceiving RED.
The shorter wavelengths, yellow, green etc. penetrate the retina further and stimulate and activate the sensors in the middle associated with those colors and via the optic nerve then stimulate the visual cortex associated with those colors,YELLOW and GREEN.
The shortest wavelengths, blue and violet colors, penetrate the retina the deepest and stimulate the cells near or at the base of the cones. Those cells send their impulses via the optic nerve to the area in the visual cortex associated with BLUE and VIOLET.
The cells on the cones on the retina are activated according the the wavelength of the light striking the retina and this information is sent to the visual cortex where it is processed depending on which area is activated by the impulse from the which sensors are activated by which color enters the eye and strikes the retina.
Thus the area, individual cells, that is activated or receive the nerve pulse is determined by which wavelength struck which area of the cones.
That is how we see color.
The color is a property of the light entering the eye and striking the retina.
If you want more detail and more precision than that, look it up yourself.

 

[Eh]

Everything you've posted seems correct enough, right up until the end. I don't know if there is some communication problem here, but let's try this again.

Everything goes well until this post:

The color is a property of the light entering the eye and striking the retina.

This is still the point you aren't getting. The light that strikes the retina does not exist by the time the image is processed in the visual cortex. When light strikes the surface of the retina, it cease to exist. The data in the cells of the retina is converted into an electric singnal and sent on to the brain. At this point, the light (which you claim has the property of color) has ceased to exist and so cannot have anything to do with the perception of color.

Clear now?

 

[Royce]

Originally posted by Eh

This is still the point you aren't getting. The light that strikes the retina does not exist by the time the image is processed in the visual cortex. When light strikes the surface of the retina, it cease to exist. The data in the cells of the retina is converted into an electric singnal and sent on to the brain. At this point, the light (which you claim has the property of color) has ceased to exist and so cannot have anything to do with the perception of color.

No the light that strikes the retina no longer exists. It is absorbed by the sense cells within the retina; however, the information carried by the light is also absorbed, color being part of that information, is, in essence, encoded onto the nerve impulses and carried to the brain for processing and perceiving. It is all about information, Eh. If information does not get to the brain to be processed then there is no intelligent, reality model, perception possible. If there is no informationfrom the objective, physical world getting to the brain to form these mental perceptions then what is the purpose of our senses?

The exact method of receiving and encoding then transfence to the brain for processing is not important. I'm no expert. The point is that information is gathered by our senses and processed in our brains so that we can be mentally aware and conscious of our surrounding and interact with it. Color is one type or value of information the we some how detect and discern and use to form our mental perception of reality.

 

[Eh]

Originally posted by Royce
No the light that strikes the retina no longer exists. It is absorbed by the sense cells within the retina; however, the information carried by the light is also absorbed, color being part of that information, is, in essence, encoded onto the nerve impulses and carried to the brain for processing and perceiving.

Frequency is part of the data, not color. The color aspect only exists when this data is processed in the brain. To clarify, are you are claiming that electrons, as well as photons have the property of color?

It is all about information, Eh. If information does not get to the brain to be processed then there is no intelligent, reality model, perception possible. If there is no informationfrom the objective, physical world getting to the brain to form these mental perceptions then what is the purpose of our senses?

The information carried in the electric signal to the brain contains the light frequency and spatial pattern. It isn't until this data ends up in the visual cortex that we perceive color. As such, there is absolutely no reason to believe color exists as properties of the individual particles.

Again, it's the same as claiming a quark smells bad. Or saying that electrons taste better than photons. Or, well...you get the idea.

 

[selfAdjoint]

The information that gets passed to the brain is of the form "In this section of the visual field the intensity^* of band 1 was I1, of band 3 I2, and of band 3 I3". The retina has already categorized the frequency spectrum available by means of the three types of cones. Everything the brain does to construct color has to be done from the three intensities. So some huge proportion of the information content of the incident radiation is just lost in translation.


^* Essentially the number of cones modified ~ number of photons detected.

 

[Sikz]

So you're saying that colour is intrinsic, a property of light, and not simply a matter of perception? Because wavelength IS colour, the brain perceives that but doesn't create it?

What would you say to the fact that some people are "colourblind", that they do not see colours the same way as everyone else?

An error, I'm sure you would respond- a computer that interprets keyboard presses incorrectly does not negate the existence of the correct keyboard configuration.


The problem with any discussion on this matter is that of seperating a "property" from a "perception". If I percieve a circle on paper, does that circle exist as a "circle", or is the "circle" an idea constructed by my brain while the actual mark on the paper is simply a set of different coloured particles at the same distance from a point?


Hmmm... What about this: Colour is only the visible wavelengths of light, while wavelengths extend beyond that. Is colour only a property of SOME light? If you would argue that we simply can't SEE the colour of the other wavelengths... Colour, by definition, is visual- how can there be a colour we can't see? If you agree that colour is only a property of SOME light, why would that be?

Howabout letters? A letter is a perception, the mark on paper is intrinsic but it is not a "letter" without proper perception. If you make an odd scribble in the dirt it is not a letter, even if some civilization somewhere in the future adopts it as one. Letters are concepts created by man- they are perceptions, and thus we can communicate by making intrinsic marks which are interpreted as letters.

Mathematics is next. Mathematics represents things in the universe, but is it a property of these things? How can it be, when there are things representable in mathematics that do not occur in reality? Mathematics is a way of percieving exterior phenomina but is not a property of those phenomina. We can say 2+1=3 without reference to an exterior object; likewise we can mentally mix the colours red and blue to get purple without reference to an exterior object.

The evidence against your conclusions:

Colours can be dealt with mentally in absence of objects of which that colour might be an intrinsic property. There are people who percieve colour in different ways that we percieve it. There is no proof that ordinary people percieve colours in the same way.


The problem is we are trying to see if colour is objective or subjective using only objective examples... We only have one subjective perspective to draw from, so we cannot compare subjective ideas- and are thus left with only objective. How can we every come out with a result in favour of the subjective based on objective data?

If a tree falls in the forest when no one is around to percieve it, does it make a sound or only make vibrations that WOULD produce sound if someone was around to hear them?

If a tree falls in the forest when no one is around to percieve it, does it even fall?

If there is a tree with no one around to percieve it, is there a tree?

 

[Royce]

The point that I am trying to make is that our perception of color is a mental model of the real world, a replication, if you will, of what is really out there. Like a photograph is a model. The color is there in the photo but in reality its just a bunch of chemicals on a piece of paper. Those chemical however are arranged to replicate or symbolize that which the camera saw when the shutter was released.
The camera did not nor did the film make up or invent those colors, shapes or intensities. It modeled them in an intelligent way that so that it represents reality.
Light is the carrier of information, in this case color. Frequency is the modulation of light which is the means that light carries this information. The actual color that we see is determined by the wavelength or frequency band that the light carries, to compare it with a radio signal. The receiver simple receives, demodulates and detects the information carried to it by the radio wave. The receiver, us, does not create or make up what it detects but simply put it in a form that we can use.
We do not make up or create or invent color. The color we see is actually out there in reality and somehow represented in our minds when we perceive it. Our eyes as well as our other senses are limited. We see only a narrow bandwidth. That does not mean that that which we can't see does not exist. If we can't see it we don't call it color but something else like ultraviolet or infrared. Dogs see a much wider band with than we and pit viper "see" in infrared.
Do they make up what they see or do they actually see it? Is it color to them? I don't know.

 

[Sikz]

Understood... The fact that it is a representation of reality, however, does not indicate objectivity- you have no way of knowing if others "see" colour the same way you do. Any way of percieving in which the colours were differentiated from each other somehow and seemed to naturally flow from one to the other would work as well as the one you use. Other people might not even see "colour" as you understand it- perhaps to them colours appear as some indescribable quality of objects that you would not recognize as colour if you perceived it that way. The same holds true for shapes- any way of percieving shapes in which the laws of geometry hold relative to each other is valid. So what's to say others don't percieve shapes in entirely different ways?

The question is not that of whether perceptions are models of objectively existing things. The question is whether the perceptions are the same. Think about this:

We have a sphere we are attempting to model. How many ways are there to model it that are UTTERLY different? Well, there's a mathematical model, numbers and variables only... There's a geometric model, lines angles and the like... We have a visual model, a visual representation of a sphere.

Those are just ways WE represent spheres- we could develop other ways if we needed to as well. Now perhaps LIGHT is like that- your perception of light is one kind of model, while another's perception is another model. They both undoubtably stem from an objective thing, namely light of a given wavelength. The models themselves, however, may be different- in fact your own model for "red" may be a different form of model than the one you use for "green".

Just some stuff to think about...

 

[Royce]

I would and do agree to a point; however, when very young we are taught that the names of the colors. There are also scientific and technical specification that say that this is blue and that is red. We learn as we develop more that there are various shades of blue but this color is true blue etc. Our individual perception probably do vary but that is something that we will never know. This changes nothing as what we sense is coming from the outside I we cannot change that. How our eyes, nerves and brain work and form our perceptions is merely the limitations of our senses and perceptions. Our perceptions change as the inputs change and our brains compensate and interpret the inputs differently for each scene depending on the color combinations we see.
Still it is information received from external sources and is a property of the light striking our eyes not something we made up.
Color is a value and in the way that I am thinking of it it is intrinsic.

 

[hypnagogue]

Think about information written in a book. There is a pattern of ink on the pages, and we can say this manner of information storage is qualitatively intrinsic to the book itself.

Now imagine someone reading a passage from the book to an audience. The speaker can read it in a virtual infinity of tones, volumes, and so on; or the speaker could communicate it in a manner altogether different, such as using sign language or gesturing. In this case, the speaker is passing on the informational content of the book, but the nature of his communication/representation of that information is nonetheless qualitatively distinct from the nature of the information as it exists in the book. The speaker's voice is not an intrinsic property of the book. Same message (informational content), different messangers.

Think of objectively existing light wavelengths as information codified intrinsically in the book, and color as that that same information as it is distinctly represented by the speaker. Color is the mind's way of 'reading' the information stored intrinsically in the light; it is not an intrinsic property of the light. Same message, different messangers. Just as the speaker can read the book to the audience in a wide array of methods (all of which are not intrinsic to the book itself), the brain could in principle read the wavelength information stored intrinsically in the light in a number of different ways. Wire up a person a little differently, and his perceptions of blue and red will be swapped; wire him radically differently, and he will hear the information stored in light instead of seeing it.

If you accept this statement about the brain's different possible ways of interpretting information stored in light (and I think you do), then what basis do we have for saying that color is an intrinsic property of light?

In the case of the rewired person who hears light, has it been revealed to him that sound too is an intrinsic property of light?

If not, why must it be the case that color as we see it is the correct way of perceiving this intrinsic property of light? Was it just some cosmic fluke that we happened to evolve the 'correct' way of perceiving this intrinsic property of light?

Or does perceiving the supposed 'true' intrinsic property of light through visual perception confer some sort of evolutionary advantage, and if so, what is it? (Why wouldn't a species that perceived light in a sophisticated manner using sounds do just as well?)

If two people see different shades of red for the same wavelength W, is one closer to the 'true' intrinsic color of W than the other? If so, why, and by what means do we determine the 'true' intrinsic color of W?

If not, then how can it be that wavelengths of light have a range of intrinsic colors, and is there any discernable range for these intrinsic colors beyond which we can say that the perceived color is no longer the intrinsic color? If not, then aren't you conceding that all perceived colors are intrinsic properties of all light wavelengths?

 

[Royce]

Originally posted by hypnagogue
Think about information written in a book. There is a pattern of ink on the pages, and we can say this manner of information storage is qualitatively intrinsic to the book itself.

Now imagine someone reading a passage from the book to an audience. The speaker can read it in a virtual infinity of tones, volumes, and so on; or the speaker could communicate it in a manner altogether different, such as using sign language or gesturing. In this case, the speaker is passing on the informational content of the book, but the nature of his communication/representation of that information is nonetheless qualitatively distinct from the nature of the information as it exists in the book. The speaker's voice is not an intrinsic property of the book. Same message (informational content), different messangers.

No the voice is not intrinsic to the book; however, the information is tranfered to the speaker's voice and becomes an intrinsic property of his voice. This must be so for him/her to communicate the information in the book to us. The method does not matter. Communicating information matters. If it were not intrinsic but perceived then it would not be communication of information.

Think of objectively existing light wavelengths as information codified intrinsically in the book, and color as that that same information as it is distinctly represented by the speaker. Color is the mind's way of 'reading' the information stored intrinsically in the light; it is not an intrinsic property of the light. Same message, different messangers. Just as the speaker can read the book to the audience in a wide array of methods (all of which are not intrinsic to the book itself), the brain could in principle read the wavelength information stored intrinsically in the light in a number of different ways. Wire up a person a little differently, and his perceptions of blue and red will be swapped; wire him radically differently, and he will hear the information stored in light instead of seeing it.

If you accept this statement about the brain's different possible ways of interpretting information stored in light (and I think you do), then what basis do we have for saying that color is an intrinsic property of light?

Color is information of the external objective reality carried by light. How it is perceived is immaterial as it does not originate within the perceiver but external to him/her/. It must be intrinsic to light in order for light to carry information to us that more or less accurately models our external environment. If color or tone or odor were not intrinsic properties of the media, but assigned values of our perceptions, then we would not be receiving information that is modeled from our external environment.

If not, why must it be the case that color as we see it is the correct way of perceiving this intrinsic property of light? Was it just some cosmic fluke that we happened to evolve the 'correct' way of perceiving this intrinsic property of light?

Or does perceiving the supposed 'true' intrinsic property of light through visual perception confer some sort of evolutionary advantage, and if so, what is it? (Why wouldn't a species that perceived light in a sophisticated manner using sounds do just as well?)

It isn't a cosmic fluke but an evolutionary development that takes advantage of the information of our immediate environment that is at hand and intrinsic to the environment and to the media which carries that information. A red rose is perceived as a red rose because the light reflected from rose is colored red. It is intrinsicly red and conveys that information to us through our senses and eventually our perceptions of rose and red which in our minds we understand that the red rose is really red because that is the color of the light reflected from it. I think that it is a distinct survial advantage if we can see that the color of the ring markings of a coral snake red, yellow, black are accurately conveyed to us rather than assigned in our head. We might get confused and think we are perceiving red, black yellow of a king snake.

If two people see different shades of red for the same wavelength W, is one closer to the 'true' intrinsic color of W than the other? If so, why, and by what means do we determine the 'true' intrinsic color of W?

There is know way we could know which was closer to true red because whatever their actual perception was they learned as toddlers that that was red. We determine true red by measuring with instruments or comparing it to a standard of true red. Technically the true color can be determined by mixing it with stardard primary colors and observing or measuring the results.

If not, then how can it be that wavelengths of light have a range of intrinsic colors, and is there any discernible range for these intrinsic colors beyond which we can say that the perceived color is no longer the intrinsic color? If not, then aren't you conceding that all perceived colors are intrinsic properties of all light wavelengths?

The visable spectrum is a continuum within the range of sight of man. We know the spectrum continues beyound the range of our vision. With in our range of vision different wavelengths have different properties and activate different parts of our retina and then different cells in our brains evoking different perceptions within our brain that we were taught to recognize as different colors. We can measure the wavelength of the light and compare it to our learned perception and determine the color of the light. One point is that the different colors have real different characteristics and properties and behave in different ways. This to me indicates that color is a real physical attribute of light and is thus intrinsic.
Shine a beam of white light through a prism and you will see the colors in the white light separated from one another and they will always be in the same ordered sequence. This is not accomplished by our perceptions but by the physical property of color, wavelength.

 

[M. Gaspar]

...to PM please.

 

[hypnagogue]

Originally posted by Royce
No the voice is not intrinsic to the book; however, the information is tranfered to the speaker's voice and becomes an intrinsic property of his voice. This must be so for him/her to communicate the information in the book to us. The method does not matter. Communicating information matters. If it were not intrinsic but perceived then it would not be communication of information.

Sure it would. Reading a book vs. hearing a speaker are two different methods of perception that nonetheless give us the same informational content. Likewise, perception of color is communication of information about light's wavelength through a means different from directly measuring the physical dimensions of the wavelength. Nonetheless, we receive the same information about light through both means.

Color is information of the external objective reality carried by light. How it is perceived is immaterial as it does not originate within the perceiver but external to him/her/. It must be intrinsic to light in order for light to carry information to us that more or less accurately models our external environment. If color or tone or odor were not intrinsic properties of the media, but assigned values of our perceptions, then we would not be receiving information that is modeled from our external environment.

You are confusing subjective qualities and objective information here. There is no reason to think that the kind of information that embodies a subjective perception is identical to the kind of information that embodies objective physical dimensions, as you are trying to assert. Rather, there is every reason to believe that the brain sets up an isomorphism between the two, so that it always associates light of wavelength X with color of subjective quality Y. In this way, the brain can keep track of informational content of the objective world without ever needing to invoke properties that are actually intrinsic to it.

Isomorphism does not an identity make. To establish an identity you need a much stronger argument, which you haven't been able to present yet. In fact, there is very good reason to think that there is not an exact identity here, but rather that the isomorphism is to some extent an arbitrary construction. It doesn't matter how I read a book to you (eg with my voice or with sign language, etc), as long as I get the information across. Likewise, it doesn't matter how the brain represents light of a certain wavelength (as this color, or this color, or as a certain sound); as long as the brain uses the same perceptual signs for the same physical input, the isomorphism is conserved and we receive reliable information about the objective world. (If I perceived light of wavelength 600nm as this color instead of this color, I still would act just as warily around snakes with bands that reflect 600nm light; in either case, I have to learn that 600nm reflecting snakes are bad news.) The fact that the brain can use different perceptions to represent the same physical stimulus is very strong evidence that the perceptual quality is generated by the brain, as opposed to being an intrinsic property of the stimulus itself.

Example. Suppose I construct an isomorphism on the counting numbers, such that for each number 0-9 I represent it with a letter A-J. Then saying 1 + 1 = 2 has the same informational content as saying B + B = C. Here the information content is the same, but the carriers or messangers of information are different. When you say that our subjective perception of the color red is an intrinsic property of light, it is like saying that the symbol "1" is an intrinsic property of the informational concept "one." But clearly this is not the case; the symbol "1" and the symbol "B" here are both arbitrary constructions used to represent the same informational concept of "one." Analogously, the symbol written as "600 nm" and the perceptual symbol "this color" are both arbitrary constructions used to represent the same informational concept.

 

[Royce]

Put very simply and succinctly;
Wavelength is color.
Color is intrinsic
we are able to 'see', perceive color because it is intrinsic, a property of our external environment.
Life did not and does not invent or create it's environment but responds to, adapts to and takes advantage of it's environment.
If color was not an intrinsic property of it's environment why would life evolve color vision?
Long before life developed central nervous systems and brains, life used and responded to color.
Unless we believe that a rose is conscious and perceptive enough to assign color to wavelength, a rose is red because it is a red rose.
The color of the rose is intrinsic to the rose and we perceive that color passively not by actively assigning it it's color.

 

[hypnagogue]

Originally posted by Royce
Put very simply and succinctly;
Wavelength is color.
Color is intrinsic
we are able to 'see', perceive color because it is intrinsic, a property of our external environment.

This is simply begging the question. You are not making an argument for your position, you are just stating outright that it is true. You are also ignoring all the objections I have previously brought up against your argument. This isn't a very good way to proceed in a discussion.

Life did not and does not invent or create it's environment but responds to, adapts to and takes advantage of it's environment.

This is not inconsistent with saying that perceptual color originates in the brain.

If color was not an intrinsic property of it's environment why would life evolve color vision?

Because it is one of several useful ways in which the brain can represent information from the physical world.

Long before life developed central nervous systems and brains, life used and responded to color.

This is not a problem even if we take the position that color originates in the brain. There is nothing in this statement that logically contradicts that position.

Unless we believe that a rose is conscious and perceptive enough to assign color to wavelength, a rose is red because it is a red rose.

We absolutely do not have to suppose that a rose is conscious of its own color in order to make sense of the fact that it is red. All we have to suppose is that reflecting light of 600nm conferred an evolutionary advantage to the rose. If this is the case, then the rose will have wound up red whether it knew it or not. And what is the evolutionary advantage? Just that insects are attracted to 600nm light and so are attracted to the rose, and when insects jump from rose to rose they help the roses to fertilize each other.

Well, why are insects attracted to 600nm light, you ask? Because they can see the intrinsic redness of 600nm light? That would be an entirely unfounded assumption. For all we know, insects see 600nm light as purple, or blue, or some color we are entirely unfamiliar with; or, perhaps, 600nm light striking their eyes induces a pleasant buzzing tactile sensation in them. We don't know exactly what kind of subjective perception 600nm light invokes in insects, and to say that it is precisely the same kind of subjective perception that 600nm light invokes in a human is a gigantic assumption, not a solid argument.

The color of the rose is intrinsic to the rose and we perceive that color passively not by actively assigning it it's color.

Don't just say it, prove it.