Yet more questions about light

[Magical Realist]

So however it is that our brains experience color, we can at least say that it is something we hallucinate in our own brains. We don't "see" color per se. We dream it!

 

[exchemist]

From above article:



I'm familiar with the category mistake argument against Cartesian dualism and the hard problem. The philosopher Gilbert Ryle proposed it originally, arguing that expecting physical or empirical processes to exhibit properties that are essentially mental or phenomenal in nature is to confuse the two. He uses the example of someone giving you a tour of the university-- the science bldg, the english bldg., the dormitories, the cafeteria, and so forth--and then you asking at the end, "But where is the university?" The mistake here is in confusing an example of the category of collective entities with an example of the category of individual discrete entities. Is that what is happening with the hard problem? Pigluicci continues:



That does make initial sense to me. But with an explanation of consciousness , of experience itself, we seem to have entered new territory. In this case we are trying to explain how the experience arises--as in the perception of color or any other qualia--from physical explanations. The explanation is expected to show how it is that the brain can have phenomenal experiences at all. It's a question not of confusing experience with explanation, but of how a categorical difference between the explanatory and the experiential comes about at all. IOW, if scientific explanations are by definition only accounts of physical third person events, and experiences are by definition only phenomenal first person events, how do we bridge that gap?

It's you that is inserting "third person" here, not Pigliucci. Since our thoughts are patterns of nerve impulses in the brain, so is our experience. That seems obvious to me. The "problem" only arises if one clings to Cartesian dualism and insists on separating "experience" from the physical phenomenon responsible.

 

[exchemist]

So however it is that our brains experience color, we can at least say that it is something we hallucinate in our own brains. We don't "see" color per se. We dream it!

What ballocks. I've seen this kind of thing before and it is strikes me as an extremely unhelpful idea, to put it mildly. You can't claim that experiences rationally derived from physical inputs are "hallucinations". That's just not what hallucination means. The point about hallucination is that it is either not related to a physical input, e.g the "voices" heard by schizophrenics, or is an irrational interpretation of an input, like seeing an alligator's face on a police officer because you have taken LSD.

In the case of colour, what the cones in your retina are doing is acting as a kind of spectrometer, converting certain frequency ranges of light into particular sensations. Bees do the same thing. Colour perception is perfectly rational - a daffodil in your garden is reproducibly the colour we all label yellow, to you and to everyone else. Bees are attracted to yellow, as I know to my own cost when they fly into my partly yellow kitchen through the open door.

 

[Magical Realist]

You can't claim that experiences rationally derived from physical inputs are "hallucinations". That's just not what hallucination means. The point about hallucination is that it is either not related to a physical input, e.g the "voices" heard by schizophrenics, or is an irrational interpretation of an input, like seeing an alligator's face on a police officer because you have taken LSD.

Even if color and other visual properties correlate to and are an accurate representation of the immediate physical environment, they are still hallucinated inside the brain. For example, let's say you hook up a video camera to your TV set. The images that appear on the screen are clearly an accurate representation of the room you are capturing live on your camera. Now say you unhook your TV from the video camera and activate the TV's own internal video function. This time images will appear on the screen that do not correlate to or represent the immediate environment. But in both cases the images that appear on your TV screen are still just images generated internally by the TV are they not?

Likewise, the colors that your brain is generating that accurately represent the immediate physical environment are still hallucinations in the sense that they are not being directly seen by your eyes. Just because the colors are about your immediate physical environment, unlike colors that are hallucinated without that input like say when you take LSD, does not mean they are being directly seen by the eyes. So that's why I call it a hallucination. An accurate and visually updated hallucination to be sure, but still a hallucination.

 

[Magical Realist]

It's you that is inserting "third person" here, not Pigliucci. Since our thoughts are patterns of nerve impulses in the brain, so is our experience. That seems obvious to me. The "problem" only arises if one clings to Cartesian dualism and insists on separating "experience" from the physical phenomenon responsible.

Third person descriptions of the world such as is the case with science in principle exclude any trace of a phenomenal experience. All the physical objects and events it endeavors to explain are happening as if without being experienced. They are just there and posited to be real in themselves without any need for phenomenal content. Color itself, along with a whole host of mental properties, are ascribed to physical objects/events de facto that lack any mental properties. The color red for instance generated inside our brains is explained by physical events like wavelength and frequency and electrical impulses that are not and never can be red. The explanation will never account for the experience of red simply because red, as an experienced sensation, is not a physical event caused by other physical events. Red is just there and given just as physical reality is just there and given. It's ironic because science is supposedly based on our experience of sensory derived information and perceptions but can only explain such a qualitatively experienced world with nonqualitatively-experienced conceptual abstractions like particles and waveforms and forces and fields and substances and quantities and mathematical equations.

 

[Pinball1970]

Just because the colors are about your immediate physical environment, unlike colors that are hallucinated without that input like say when you take LSD, does not mean they are being directly seen by the eyes. So that's why I call it a hallucination. An accurate and visually updated hallucination to be sure, but still a hallucination.

That is not what a hallucination is.

When someone is hallucinating it means whatever they are seeing or hearing is not there in reality.

Experiencing colour is a physiological phenomena interpretations of which take place in the brain as per all other senses.
It is as real as general vision, hearing and touch.

 

[Magical Realist]

When someone is hallucinating it means whatever they are seeing or hearing is not there in reality.

Color is not "there" and just being passively seen in any physical sense. The apple's redness is not an inherent physical property of some external object called an apple. It is a brain-generated sensation that is projected on the apple. All the other qualities derived from other senses, such as the tone of a musical instrument or the warmth of a nearby fire, are also sensations generated inside our brains. They are also not physically there independent of our brains.

 

[exchemist]

Even if color and other visual properties correlate to and are an accurate representation of the immediate physical environment, they are still hallucinated inside the brain. For example, let's say you hook up a video camera to your TV set. The images that appear on the screen are clearly an accurate representation of the room you are capturing live on your camera. Now say you unhook your TV from the video camera and activate the TV's own internal video function. This time images will appear on the screen that do not correlate to or represent the immediate environment. But in both cases the images that appear on your TV screen are still just images generated internally by the TV are they not?

Likewise, the colors that your brain is generating that accurately represent the immediate physical environment are still hallucinations in the sense that they are not being directly seen by your eyes. Just because the colors are about your immediate physical environment, unlike colors that are hallucinated without that input like say when you take LSD, does not mean they are being directly seen by the eyes. So that's why I call it a hallucination. An accurate and visually updated hallucination to be sure, but still a hallucination.

Cobblers.

 

[exchemist]

Color is not "there" and just being passively seen in any physical sense. The apple's redness is not an inherent physical property of some external object called an apple. It is a brain-generated sensation that is projected on the apple. All the other qualities derived from other senses, such as the tone of a musical instrument or the warmth of a nearby fire, are also sensations generated inside our brains. They are also not physically there independent of our brains.

This is silly. Next, you'll be telling us the smell of a banana is a hallucination, or the sensation of stubbing one's toe on a chair. Abusing terms like this deprives them of meaning and makes discussion pointless.

 

[Magical Realist]

This is silly. Next, you'll be telling us the smell of a banana is a hallucination, or the sensation of stubbing one's toe on a chair. Abusing terms like this deprives them of meaning and makes discussion pointless.

How does any sensation occur outside the body? Is that what you are proposing? That sensations somehow magically inhere inside physical objects themselves and aren't really being felt inside our brains? Think about pain. Wouldn't it be silly to ascribe that sensation to the physical objects stimulating it? That a knife is a painful object or fire is a painful incandescent gas?

“What if I told you that the world around you, with its rich colors, textures, sounds, and scents is an illusion, a show put on for you by your brain? If you could perceive reality as it is, you would be shocked by its colorless, odorless, tasteless silence. Outside your brain, there is just energy and matter.”
― David Eagleman, The Brain: The Story of You

 

[exchemist]

How does any sensation occur outside the body? Is that what you are proposing? That sensations somehow magically inhere inside physical objects themselves and aren't really being felt inside our brains? Think about pain. Wouldn't it be silly to ascribe that sensation to the physical objects causing it? That a knife is a painful object or fire is a painful incandescent gas?

It would indeed be deeply stupid to ascribe a sensation to the external object being sensed, but as nobody is suggesting any such thing, the point is entirely moot.

The sensation is the effect produced in the brain by the signal from the sensory nerves that detect the object.

Obviously.

 

[Magical Realist]

The sensation is the effect produced in the brain by the signal from the sensory nerves that detect the object.

There is no necessary connection between the sensation of color and the sensory nerves connecting the retina to the brain. This can be seen in cases where color is experienced by taking drugs or by rubbing your closed eyes really hard.

"Most of us have experienced it. You rub your closed eyes, or sneeze, and suddenly notice some flickers or sparks of light in your vision. But, by the time you open your eyes, they’re gone. These small lights are usually phosphenes, a visual phenomenon caused by mechanical stimuli resulting in pressure or tension on the eye when the eyelids are closed.

The internal lining of the eyeball is called the retina. The retina’s job is to take visual information entering your eye through the pupil and convert this information into an electrical signal. The electrical signal is then sent to the brain to provide us with the visual image we see of the world. Phosphenes are generated by the retina after there’s some sort of stimulation, even with the eye closed.

Some activities that stimulate the retina in this way include:

• sneezing
• standing up too quickly
• head trauma
• looking at the sky
• moving the eyes quickly

Usually, phosphenes are described as sparks, twinkling lights or pin-prick light shapes that can be brightly colored. Phosphenes will subside quickly, in less than a few seconds, and don’t cause any change to vision."--- https://wexnermedical.osu.edu/blog/why-do-you-see-colors-when-rubbing-your-eyes

 

[exchemist]

There is no necessary connection between the sensation of color and the sensory nerves connecting the retina to the brain. This can be seen in cases where color is experienced by taking drugs or by rubbing your closed eyes really hard.

"Most of us have experienced it. You rub your closed eyes, or sneeze, and suddenly notice some flickers or sparks of light in your vision. But, by the time you open your eyes, they’re gone. These small lights are usually phosphenes, a visual phenomenon caused by mechanical stimuli resulting in pressure or tension on the eye when the eyelids are closed.

The internal lining of the eyeball is called the retina. The retina’s job is to take visual information entering your eye through the pupil and convert this information into an electrical signal. The electrical signal is then sent to the brain to provide us with the visual image we see of the world. Phosphenes are generated by the retina after there’s some sort of stimulation, even with the eye closed.

Some activities that stimulate the retina in this way include:

• sneezing
• standing up too quickly
• head trauma
• looking at the sky
• moving the eyes quickly

Usually, phosphenes are described as sparks, twinkling lights or pin-prick light shapes that can be brightly colored. Phosphenes will subside quickly, in less than a few seconds, and don’t cause any change to vision."--- https://wexnermedical.osu.edu/blog/why-do-you-see-colors-when-rubbing-your-eyes

What's the point of quoting this stuff? Obviously both the sensory system and the interpreting system can give false signals under some circumstances. So what? That's not some profound mystery.

 

[Magical Realist]

What's the point of quoting this stuff?

I'm backing up my claims with facts and data. If you don't like it don't read it.

Obviously both the sensory system and the interpreting system can give false signals under some circumstances. So what? That's not some profound mystery.

It shows that color can be generated inside the brain without even being seen by the eyes. That color is hallucinated and not "seen". Was that not what we were debating?

 

[exchemist]

I'm backing up my claims with facts and data. If you don't like it don't read it.



It shows that color can be generated inside the brain without even being seen by the eyes. That color is hallucinated and not "seen". Was that not what we were debating?

No.

There can be hallucinations, under certain circumstances, sure. That obviously does not mean the sensation of colour is a hallucination, as you were claiming.

This is too stupid. I'm out.

 

[Magical Realist]

No.

There can be hallucinations, under certain circumstances, sure. That obviously does not mean the sensation of colour is a hallucination, as you were claiming.

This is too stupid. I'm out.

Good. At this point you are only repeating assertions and not making arguments. Gladly moving on.

 

[Sarkus]

That color is hallucinated and not "seen". Was that not what we were debating?

Just because colour can be hallucinated does not mean colour is therefore an hallucination.
An hallucination is a false perception. Experiencing the yellow from a banana is not false, but rather an accurate perception. Experiencing that banana as a bowl of grapes would be an hallucination.

What you seem to be arguing, and correct me if I'm wrong, is that the perception is not the thing itself. Colour, for example, is an interpretation by our brains of EM radiation with a certain wavelength hitting our eyes. We experience it as a colour. But that does not make it an hallucination, as the experience is correct, in as much as it is an experience that matches reality as closely as humans can.
Experiencing a banana as a singing snake would not be a correct perception.

The issue, therefore, is that you're using the term "hallucination" incorrectly, and it is causing confusion and disagreement where none may actually lie.

 

[Magical Realist]

Just because colour can be hallucinated does not mean colour is therefore an hallucination.
An hallucination is a false perception. Experiencing the yellow from a banana is not false, but rather an accurate perception. Experiencing that banana as a bowl of grapes would be an hallucination.

What you seem to be arguing, and correct me if I'm wrong, is that the perception is not the thing itself. Colour, for example, is an interpretation by our brains of EM radiation with a certain wavelength hitting our eyes. We experience it as a colour. But that does not make it an hallucination, as the experience is correct, in as much as it is an experience that matches reality as closely as humans can.
Experiencing a banana as a singing snake would not be a correct perception.

The issue, therefore, is that you're using the term "hallucination" incorrectly, and it is causing confusion and disagreement where none may actually lie.

I am defining hallucinated as any sensation generated internally by the brain. The stimulus of the hallucination is irrelevant. The content of the hallucination is irrelevant. And it IS actually false in the sense that the sensation is not really happening out in the physical world independently of the brain. This is basically the premise of common sense realism, that the banana IS yellow, or the flower IS fragrant, and that these attributes are wholly physical and not being generated by the brain at all. As a livable philosophy, this belief works and allows us to easily and quickly identify and distinguish objects. But as neurology and brain studies show, it is simply not true. As I said and illustrated in my TV analogy, the hallucination or image is a roughly accurate representation of reality that is constructed by the brain, not faithfully reproduced like a camera does with with light waves.

And even so it would be ridiculous to claim that the particular arbitrary set of colors we have evolved to see, a very narrow part of the EM spectrum, is somehow a necessary and inherent trait of the physical universe. Is my yellow even the same as other animals' yellow? Who could ever know that? Because color is a private subjective experience that doesn't exist out in the objective physical world.

So yeah...I'm sticking to the hallucination thesis of color. We don't technically see color. We see THRU color, much as the artist uses colored paints to create his painting.

 

[Sarkus]

I am defining hallucinated as any sensation generated internally by the brain.

Then you're not using the word as understood by everyine else. You're defining it in a manner that makes every sensory experience an hallucination, and thus makes it a rather meaningless word. To define it as such not only confuses people who think you mean something more akin to how hallucination is more commonly understood, but adds nothing to our understanding.
Rather than progress discussion it serves to disrupt, due to having to navigate your unusual usage.
Which is unfortunate.

 

[Magical Realist]

Then you're not using the word as understood by everyine else. You're defining it in a manner that makes every sensory experience an hallucination, and thus makes it a rather meaningless word. To define it as such not only confuses people who think you mean something more akin to how hallucination is more commonly understood, but adds nothing to our understanding.
Rather than progress discussion it serves to disrupt, due to having to navigate your unusual usage.
Which is unfortunate.

I told you how color is a hallucination. That it is generated by the brain and is a perception of something that is not really physically there. That means it is a hallucination. What else is required? If I see a pink elephant flying in the sky, I am seeing something generated by the brain and that is not really there. The same is true for color.

Rather than progress discussion it serves to disrupt, due to having to navigate your unusual usage.

Don't moralize. We are at post #40 in two and a half days in this thread and have been participating in an engaging and thoughtful conversation. Questions are honestly asked, then they are honestly answered, and I encouragingly like all their posts. Nothing is being disrupted here and nothing is unfortunate. Posters are free to leave or join in at any time. Compared to the many other threads littered with personal insults and admin power plays and intellectual chest pounding, this thread should stand as a shining example of what can be achieved.