Kevin's Watch

Unobserved photons behave like waves. Observed photons behave like particles. So, yes, they do change their innate qualities dramatically upon observation.

The problem with linking this to consciousness is that "observation" in physics can also mean, "measurement," or interaction with a measurement device. That does not necessarily mean consciousness itself. But the measurement problem is itself a paradoxical, ambiguous problem, and it's not at all clear where to draw the line between measurement device and the mind using it. It's possible that any interaction between a micro, quantum state (e.g. waves) and a macro object will collapse the wave function into a particle. But how do we know until we look? Paradox.

Since we have no idea what exactly consciousness *is,* and some theories are pointing to panpsychism, I don't think we can eliminate consciousness from this mysterious event (i.e. wave collapse). The quantum world exists in an indeterminate state prior to interaction with other determinate states (i.e. macro objects). It's as if the universe itself "knows" itself in this transformation from indeterminate to determinate. In fact, this could be precisely what knowledge is: transformation from indeterminate to determinate. Prior to the wave collapse, particles can only be described in terms of probabilities. They only acquire actual properties once they interact with the macro world. This seems to be the very dividing line between the possible and the actual. The known and the unknown, or at least the knowable and the unknowable.

So what is it about reality that interaction with macro objects is necessary for particles to become actualized, rather than waves of probability? These are some of the deepest mysteries of our existence, no closer to being solved than they were 100 years ago.

Fist and Faith wrote:And yet, blueness comes into being.

In our heads.

Zarathustra wrote:I don't think we can eliminate consciousness from this mysterious event (i.e. wave collapse).

Agreed really. It's all in our heads.

--A

Avatar wrote:

Fist and Faith wrote:And yet, blueness comes into being.

In our heads.

That's my point. It only happens because of our heads. That doesn't mean it doesn't actually happen. It blueness isn't real because it's only in our consciousness, then that means our consciousness isn't real? Arguably the most interesting thing in existence, and less arguably the thing with the greatest potential, isn't real? Or somehow doesn't count?

If blueness is real, then unicorns and Frodo are real.

But if they are only real as figments of imagination, then so is blue.

+JMJ+

I definitely lean toward neutral monism when it comes to mind and matter. But I'm also a bit of a Platonist when it comes to the Ideal. I think there is a level to reality that is distinct from the material or actual world, and yet real and objective. Our mind bridges that divide.

Blue is not a fiction. No one invented it. Just because Frodo and blue both occur in the mind as content of mental states does not mean they are both nothing more than a mental state. Blueness is related to an objective reality. Frodo is not. Blueness gives us information about the objective world. Frodo does not.

Yeah, I've never been a fan of the whole "Platonic Ideal" thing.

That's not necessarily to say that there are not other levels of reality / whatever, but I certainly don't think some perfect "ideal" version of everything exists there.

I've always been a fan of Leary's statement that "Whatever is believed true is true, within limits to be defined by experience and experiment."

But then, I'm a subjectivist.

--A

Objective reality is electromagnetic radiation falling within a certain range of frequencies.

But that's not what blue is. That's only what causes blue. Sugar is not sweetness. Nor is a needle it's sting.

Av, by "ideal objects" I mean things like numbers, logic, ideal relations, etc. I don't think there are perfect exemplars of every object existing somewhere (though I do think that the meanings of these objects transcend their particular manifestations).

WF, the point is that "objective reality" isn't the only reality. There is also a subjective reality. This reality cannot be dismissed merely because "it's only in our heads," precisely because it interacts with objective reality. Also, quantum mechanics has shown that "objective reality" itself may be suspect, depending on subjective reality for its nature. Furthermore, what we think of as objective reality is known only through our subjectivity. So what you're calling "real" is an extrapolation from the very thing you're calling "not real." The idea that we can easily divide all this has been thoroughly debunked 100s of years ago. You're describing indirect realism, in which the things we perceive aren't the real things in themselves, but merely perceptual representations of those things. The problem with this idea is how can we ever know that these representations actually correspond to those real things in themselves? It forces you into an inauthentic way of talking about the world. If someone asked, "What color is the sky?" and you said, "blue," then you'd be dishonest, because you don't think the sky has a color. So normal conversations about the world would revert into gibberish. You couldn't even talk about the sky itself, but instead only a representation of it in your mind. If someone asked you to point to the sky, you'd have to point to your head.

But this is not how we talk, and it's not what we mean. Insisting upon this clear-cut divide makes the world dualist and paradoxical.

Blue is a subjective reaction to and apprehension of certain wavelengths of light. But everything we perceive is a subjective reaction to and apprehension of the world. So the problem isn't just primary/secondary quality distinction (e.g. "certain wavelengths" vs "blue" ), but the entire world itself. If blue isn't real, then neither are certain wavelengths of light, because those wavelengths are measured/described with numbers, and you've already gone on record stating that numbers have no objective reality beyond our thinking. So in calling "blue" unreal, you're also calling the entire world unreal.

I "dismissed" nothing.

You compared blue to unicorns, a figment of imagination. I call that a dismissal, when we're talking about something being real or not. You dismissed its reality by comparing it to something silly and fictitious. Blue is not a figment of imagination. We don't invent it. It's part of our experience of the world.

Furthermore (bringing this back to the original point of the thread), if blue isn't real, then why did we evolve to experience this figment? What survival advantage does it confer to experience such illusions? Why would evolution supply us with unreal things? How does reality even do that, i.e. generate unreal things? Is reality a wizard? Seriously. The generation of illusions seems a weird magic trick for natural selection to have perpetrated.

Or . . . maybe it's not unreal after all.

If you think objects of imagination are silly, don't project that onto me. I find them greatly important. Also, I know what reductio ad absurdum is, and find it can be useful when it doesn't go over someone's head - or they pretend it does.

One person has a neuro-psycho-linguistic response to the blue wavelength that they call "blue." In fact -- and this is critical -- they were TAUGHT to name it blue. At great lengths. Another person will have their neuro-psycho-linguistic response to the blue wavelength that they call "blue." Which they were taught to name "blue" as well.

There is no need that these neuro-psycho-linguistic responses be the same. In fact, there is not one piece of evidence anywhere that they are they same. We cannot compare them. Nor is there one piece of evidence anywhere that suggests it's even more likely that they are similar.

The fact that we can talk about "blue" to each other doesn't arise from seeing blue the same way. It arises from the consistency of our response to the same stimulii, and from training.

So. Based on

• there is no evidence that "blue" is the same for everyone, and
• our common appellation for the phenomenon is learned, not naturally arising

The only reasonable conclusion is that "blue" is not objectively real, it is only a mental phenomenon. *

------
* This is not to say it is not real. Apparently, I need to say that.

Sorry, I honestly didn’t realize you were taking unicorns seriously. I can’t ever recall a philosophical discussion that did so. In this context, perhaps you can understand my mistake?

Anyway, it doesn’t matter that we can’t know if my blue looks like your blue, or that we learn this word from others. The quality that we experience when we look at the sky isn’t taught. It arises unbidden. So it’s not a fiction. It’s a particular relationship we enter with light of certain frequencies. It is knowledge of those particular wavelengths that arises in the absence of any explanation of the wavelengths. Experiential knowledge. I know that these frequencies are different from those arising from grass even before I know they are frequencies at all. This isn’t taught. It is evident. And from this evidence, we learned to pry apart light and separate it into its components—something that would have been impossible if we couldn’t have seen these differences in the first place.

So, our mental phenomena taught us objective truths of the real world. If you can explain that by referring to unicorns, be my guest. What is the connection between figments of imagination and objective truths of reality? How can there be such a bridge? Obviously, there is a big hole in your description of the situation, something you are leaving out. What is the bridge between the two?

Zarathustra wrote:Av, by "ideal objects" I mean things like numbers, logic, ideal relations, etc. I don't think there are perfect exemplars of every object existing somewhere (though I do think that the meanings of these objects transcend their particular manifestations).

I don't disagree with that last either, but I don't think we need other levels of reality to contain them. (Nor for numbers or logic (facts) for that matter.) They exist right here, (or could) but human perceptions are so subjective that they are rarely in effect.

This is why the whole question of "definition" is so critical as far as I'm concerned. If we can't establish a shared frame of reference, we are not talking about the same thing, even if we think we are.

--A

Is our common appellation for anything, regardless of its objectivity or verifiability, naturally arising, as opposed to learned?

Blueness is objectively real. Whether or not it is the same for everyone, everyone experiences it. It happens whenever photons of a certain frequency are intercepted by sensory apparatus connected to consciousness of a certain type/level. It's existence is verifiable, whether or not it is the same for everyone.

Can we objectively verify that any visual experience is the same for everyone? Can we verify, through non-visual means, that everyone experiences roundness the same way? Does the fact that one person feels an object, and another person sees the same object, and both call it round, prove this?

Fist and Faith wrote:Does the fact that one person feels an object, and another person sees the same object, and both call it round, prove this?

No. It doesn't.

Thought experiment. When Bob is near a unicorn, he feels a small shock in his toe. Bob learns that such a shock means that a unicorn is near him. When Anne is near a unicorn, she feels her nose being pinched. Anne learns that such a pinch means a unicorn is near. In summary, when Bob and Anne are near a unicorn, each of them know they are near a unicorn. However, how they perceive it internally differs. It need not be the same. (Not my best analogy. But it gets the point across.)

In the same way, two people knowing the same object is round, or that the same object is blue, does not mean that they perceive it the same way.

Perhaps you mean something I do not understand when you say "objectively real". When I say "objectively real", I mean it's present in the world whether or not we perceive it, and regardless of how we perceive it.

Clearly, the electromagnetic wavelengths associated with blue are objectively real. Just as clearly, the notion of blueness exists only within our minds - hence not objectively real. Real -- but not objectively real.

And the fact that blueness need not be perceived the same way in everyone is rather definitive proof that it is not objectively real.

And in case you STILL don't find that conclusive, you need to consider the people of the Himba tribe in Namibia.

Yes. Really. [link]

These people have many different words to describe many different kinds of green. But they have no word for blue.

Presented with several objects, they cannot pick out the one that is blue. But presented with several objects, they can easily pick out the one that is a shade of green so slightly different from the others that you or I couldn't tell them apart without difficulty.

LANGUAGE is a key component to how we perceive the world. Including how, and whether, we perceive blueness.

Can something be objectively real if it only exists because we have a word for it? I don't think so.

Your analogy is fine. I understand what you mean. Let me refine my question. There are people who can see but to not feel. There are people who can feel but not see. Do both, through different methods/experiences, understand the concept of shape the same way?

If they do, can we use that to verify that everyone experiences roundness the same way? Something we cannot do with blueness.

Wayfriend, serious question: do we ever see anything that is objectively real?

If I look up at a cloudless sky and see only an expanse of blue--and blue isn't objectively real--then does this mean I don't see the sky? Or even worse: that the sky I see isn't objectively real? If all I see is blue, then how do I see through this blue to see the sky beyond?

Wayfriend wrote:Clearly, the electromagnetic wavelengths associated with blue are objectively real.

How do you know this? All the evidence is presented in our senses, which you claim is shaped by our language, which means things perceived aren't objectively real. Maybe someone just invented the word "electromagnetic wavelengths" and then we became aware of them. How is this different from blue?

Wayfriend wrote:And the fact that blueness need not be perceived the same way in everyone is rather definitive proof that it is not objectively real.

Of course the qualia "blue" is not objectively real. But that's not the same as saying it's a fiction or a figment of imagination. If something corresponds to an objectively real thing (as you claim electromagnetic wavelengths are), then it's not a figment. Unicorns don't correspond to objectively real animals. They are fictions/figments. There is such a thing as blue light, just as there is such a thing as ultraviolet light and microwaves.

The fact that we can see blue light--but we never see unicorns--demonstrates a difference you stubbornly refuse to address/acknowledge (which amounts to a dismissal). Our experience with blue things demonstrates a relation with the objective world; our experience with the idea of unicorns does not. Therefore, there is something about blue that transcends subjective reality, despite the fact that it's not objectively real. Our words and categories and ontologies are failing us here. It's like there is a "middle" reality that we can't conceive yet because we don't have a word for it*.

Speaking of that:

Wayfriend wrote:And in case you STILL don't find that conclusive, you need to consider the people of the Himba tribe in Namibia.

Yes. Really. [link]

Tell me, why the hell would people invent words for colors they can't see?? This is no chicken/egg conundrum. The color-egg most certainly had to come before the word-chicken. People don't magically reverse a color-blindness simply because people invent a new word.

Want to test this claim? Here's an experiment: I've just invented a new word for a color. I call it, "unicorn." It's the color of your face when someone points out you've made a bad argument. Go look in the mirror and you'll totally see it! In fact, you'll see unicorns everywhere!



"But that's not fair!" you might object, " You just made up that color. It's not real!"

Exactly my point! There was something real that the Himba people weren't seeing, and we know this because we could see it.

Did the Himba tribe start seeing blue as easily as we do once the experimenters uttered this word? The article doesn't say. Strange. But the article does say this:

Your article wrote:This all suggests that, until they had a word from it, it's likely that our ancestors didn't actually see blue.

Or, more accurately, they probably saw it as we do now, but they never really noticed it. And that's pretty cool.

So it WAS already there, they just didn't notice it. That sounds almost like something "present in the world whether or not we perceive it." Or, by your definition, objectively real.

My TV looks better than a TV from 1995, in part because it can produce millions more colors. I don't have a name for all those colors, but I can tell it looks richer than the old TV. In other words, I can see them! If I couldn't see them, it would be a waste of money to upgrade to an HDR (high dynamic range) TV.

Wayfriend wrote:LANGUAGE is a key component to how we perceive the world. Including how, and whether, we perceive blueness.

Can something be objectively real if it only exists because we have a word for it? I don't think so.

As I've said, your own article explicitly contradicts this point, namely, that it *did* exist, only that they didn't notice it. That's the chief function of language with regard to how we perceive the world: it shapes our attention, rather than the world.

*(Here's a word: transcendent. As in transcendental phenomenology. Somehow we transcend our subjective experiences to perceive an objective world. Language/reason does have much to do with this, but that doesn't mean what we perceive is therefore merely subjective.)

Surprising that they easily saw that one green square as a different shade of green, but thought the blue was the same shade of green as all the others.

And, presumably, they are as surprised I don't see it their way.

Fist and Faith wrote:Surprising that they easily saw that one green square as a different shade of green, but thought the blue was the same shade of green as all the others.

And, presumably, they are as surprised I don't see it their way.

My fiance spotted the one green square immediately. Maybe it's a genetic thing. Or an environmental conditioning thing. But it's certainly not a word thing. My fiance didn't have a separate word for that square.

It's conceivable that a tribe of people, who live in a rain forest (?) and have more experience with the varieties of green while not coming across anything blue in their canopied environment, would develop a color blindness for blue [I'm just guessing here; I know nothing about this tribe's environment]. Eyes quickly become accustomed to their stimuli. And it's possible that humans in general didn't see blue until recently (relatively speaking). But the article didn't say that the absence of words for blue was the cause for not seeing blue. It was the effect. That's the evidence that researchers had for people in the past not seeing it, not the reason they didn't see it. WF's interpretation is just a misreading of the article. Not to mention, it makes no sense to invent words for colors you can't see, or the fact that we see millions of colors we don't name. Babies start seeing colors long before they learn to speak. There are so many reasons why his claim is wrong. But it's an interesting discussion nonetheless!