# Are colors causally effacious in non-conscious interactions? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 18, 2006, 11:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-colors-causally-effacious-in-non-conscious-interactions/345077 "2006-02-18T11:39:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![II\_Gyan\_II](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/bbe5ce/32.png) [@II\_Gyan\_II](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/II_Gyan_II)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2006, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-colors-causally-effacious-in-non-conscious-interactions/345077/101 "2006-03-02T23:05:39Z")
> [@SentientMeat](#): > > If I argued that solipsism and idealism were just as silly, how would you rebut me? I wouldn’t, since the matter remains unresolved either way. > [@](#): > > Via the visual processing which correlates the wavelength configurations on my retina with past configurations in working memory labelled by language. There it is: ‘visual processing’ > [@](#): > > And since **Tev** and I are now in agreement given the fact that I never denied optical illusions, I’ll assume you are too. From Tevildo’s posts: * * * > [@](#): > > Your “in most cases” is really - as I see it - conceding the central point of my argument. > [@](#): > > My point is that “colour” and “holiness” are merely different examples of such areas, and “colour” is not something that exists in and of itself, outside consciousness. * * * > [@](#): > > I’m telling you _how_ it is necessary, referencing congentially blind who _cannot see_ **because** their wavelength receptors have never worked. That assumes that all congenitally blind are so because something’s wrong with their eye. > [@](#): > > And neurons are physical. _QED_. Establish supervenience first. > [@](#): > > How do you know you can’t hear bat sonar, even in dreams? I don’t. Certainly I haven’t associated any quale with the label “bat sonar experience” > [@](#): > > And an extra question: _How come it’s only ever with you that I seem to end up in these endless, inane games of one-liner tennis?_ Because you employ disingenuous tactics that don’t require a para to knock down, like the “neurons are physical” with the smug non-evident “QED” or an assertion of the definitive reason why the congenitally blind can’t see, except that’s what is under debate. You must be pretty familiar with Schopenhauer’s [Art of Controversy](http://coolhaus.de/art-of-controversy/). ---
**Author:** ![other-wise](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/4bbf92/32.png) [@other-wise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/other-wise)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2006, 12:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-colors-causally-effacious-in-non-conscious-interactions/345077/102 "2006-03-03T00:01:13Z")
> [@SentientMeat](#): > > Yes, that’s all I ever intended to demonstrate with this experiment. What it seeks to investigate is _precisely where_ those ranges fall, and why. Actually, no. You were attempting to demonstrate that utilizing solely the opinion of a single subject, and without any comparison to the opinions of others, the only causal factor (in seeing “green”) is light. Can’t be done. It makes no difference if the _label_ the experimenter creates for the subjects response is “green”, or “quoggle”, or “Response # 1”. The experimenter has no way of interpreting the response without some standard of reference for doing so; a standard that is _not supplied by subject’s response_. Hell, you can’t even _collect_ data from a subject without first referencing measurements that were established through the opinion of someone, somewhere. Light is necessary in order to see “green”. Neurons (or their functional equivalent) are necessary. Something akin to “working memory” seems necessary. Language is necessary. The proper sequence of opsin amino acids (or their functional equivalent) is necessary. But light alone doesn’t account for, explain, or _cause_ color, and neither does language, opsin, etc. There is no way to isolate _any_ single physical factor as causal, nor to isolate your subjects data without gutting it of informational content. Hence, “light” is not the only causal factor in seeing green. > [@](#): > > > [@other-wise](#): > > > > Yes, language (and speakers) are inaccurate, but that’s why we have things like clarification, metaphors, defining terms, etc. > > Each of which introduces _more_ inaccuracy, if anything. Again, if it’s “definitive” answers you’re after, I don’t think I (nor anyone else, for that matter) can _ever_ supply them, but I’ll continue to do my best and let you know when I think we’ve reached the point where one cannot do any better. Clarification introduces more inaccuracy? I really don’t know how to respond to that. > [@](#): > > Which is why I suggest that progress might be made by modifying our ‘normal’ way of thinking. Is a _cloud_, or a _heartbeat_, or a _computer game_ an “object” or a “process”? What about a _memory_, or a _word_? If we don’t limit the label “thing” only to _spatial_ arrangements of atoms (yielding a weight, volume, location and capacity for ‘ownership’) but also allow _temporal_ arrangements to be labelled so (yielding other measures such as a _rate, duration, **temporal** location ie. **time** _, or capacity for _‘observation’_), I think we could go a long way towards understanding _how_ “things” supervene on the physical. I’m all for modifying our “normal” way of thinking, but the justifications for modifying our thinking in a way that tends to support supervenience physicalism seem no better to me than the justifications that support other, competing “isms”. (YMMV, of course). > [@](#): > > Hmm, again I don’t see how that’s not tautological. All each of us can do is process our inputs (which can’t _not be_ our inputs, be they from memory, from ‘the world’ or from wherever) and produce an output, and all each of our outputs can _be_ is an input for someone else. The attribution aspect is all I _can_ investigate. There’s something about this I don’t understand. The inputs go into… what? The outputs are produced from… what? I can’t help but get a picture of a homunculus; a Cartesian Theatre where sensory input “culminates” in awareness and output is produced. That CAN’T be what you’re talking about, so I’ll ask you to elaborate. > [@](#): > > Then what is it about light of wavelength (L.O.W.) 575 nm which causes the answer “not green” even though it is only as different to LOW 570 nm (labelled “green”) as is LOW 565 nm (_also_ labelled “green”!). How is 575 fundamentally different to 570 in a way that 565 is not? Surely you are _arbitrarily thresholding a continuum_? Since “green” is not identical to the wavelength of light, no. Your response reinforces the idea that “green” is a _construct_: a wide range of wavelengths can strike my retina and (with other factors in place) I still end up with “green”. _I cannot see wavelengths of light shown through a prism as a continuum_. Seeing _some_ sort of green band is not arbitrary for me, but the introduction of a continuum into my experience of prism-light certainly is. Frankly, I can’t even see the justification for referring to light emanating from the business end of a prism as a “continuum”. > [@](#): > > Well, that is itself admirable, but I think you’re making the perfect an enemy of the good. Go ahead – do your best, and if someone thinks you’re misrepresenting them I’m sure they’ll let you know. It is still _surely_ better than no reply at all, given the SD’s motto? I have to disagree. You can’t fight ignorance by adding to it, and, I mean,… Rove? Michael Moore? The Internet? There is already _way_ too much misinformation in circulation. > [@](#): > > Oh, pish posh, I’m a layperson in philosophy and cognitive science myself – like I say, I strongly suspect _you’re_ better read than me, an acoustical physicist for crying out loud (continuous \>85dB, A-weighted at 1 kHz :)), but thanks for the kudos. And I tell you what I tell everyone else, and what I suspect you appreciate pretty well already: the physicalist preference is easily understood in terms of Ockham’s Razor – it is clearly _parsimonious_ in terms of what it tries to explain with what. I think one has to interpret OR pretty perversely, or even ditch it altogether like Kant, to deny that physicalism embraces both it and the methodology of science most closely out of all the alternatives. > > And that’s the crucial point. By saying you don’t understand why physicalism is dominant, you’re saying that the _alternatives seem just as reasonable_. I cannot see how a person of your intellect can consider ludicrous alternatives like solipsism or panpsychism so favourably (_ie._ not _un_favourably). After all, if this really _was_ the case, you’d be questioning **Gyan** , **mswas** or others just as much as me. Well, I can certainly appreciate Ockham’s Razor as a general guideline, but that’s about it. The necessity of an entity, is, after all, in the eye of the beholder, and physicalism hardly has a monopoly on the invocation of OR. Physicalism’s addition of scientific methodology doesn’t impress me much. Sure, science is extremely useful, but physicalism takes the seemingly unwarranted step of making scientific methodology the ultimate if not only arbiter of credibility. Unless there is scientific evidence that scientific evidence is the only credible form of evidence, physicalism, like some other “isms”, strikes me as being hoist by its own petard. In short, I’m not saying that the alternatives seem just as reasonable as physicalism, I’m saying that physicalism seems just as _un_reasonable as the alternatives. ---
**Author:** ![SentientMeat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/43a26b/32.png) [@SentientMeat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SentientMeat)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2006, 10:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-colors-causally-effacious-in-non-conscious-interactions/345077/103 "2006-03-03T10:23:51Z")
> [@other-wise](#): > > It makes no difference if the label the experimenter creates for the subjects response is “green”, or “quoggle”, or “Response # 1”. Surely it _does_ if a shift of the prism yields the label “_non_-green”, “_non_-quoggle” or “Response #2”? What _causes_ this difference in label? > [@](#): > > Hence, “light” is not the only causal factor in seeing green. In this instance, where all else is held equal, subject included, it is the wavelength of the light which is changed, **solely**. > [@](#): > > Clarification introduces more inaccuracy? I really don’t know how to respond to that. Well, _you’re_ the one who complained that so simple a phrase as “I see green light” is inaccurate. Given such an incredibly high benchmark, I must admit to being pessimistic about _further_ words of mine attaining it rather than them digging me deeper into a hole. Still, they are only words, so I’ll continue to put them on your screen as long as it’s useful. > [@](#): > > the justifications for modifying our thinking in a way that tends to support supervenience physicalism seem no better to me than the justifications that support other, competing “isms”. (YMMV, of course). OK, let’s go at it from the other direction (in another thread perhaps, since we’re way off colour here, so to speak). What is it about _spatial_ arrangements, compared to _temporal_ arrangements, which monopolises the word “thing” (or others like it)? Why **can’t** “things” be dynamic _as well as_ static? > [@](#): > > That CAN’T be what you’re talking about, so I’ll ask you to elaborate. Of course, I ditched the homunculus yeas ago. Your outputs are your speech or sentences on this message board. Your inputs are the effects the universe has on your sensoria (including the light from your monitor here). Since those effects can also be stored in memory, they can be considered _delayed, reactivated_ inputs. “To or from _what_?” Like the _silicon_ computer, that physical substrate where inputs become outputs via “processing”. (We need not get into the detail thereof just yet – I personally prefer a model including _both_ semantically driven “[computation proper](http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/computational-mind/)” _and_ [neural network](http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/connectionism/)-based alternatives. Whatever this brain thing is, it is monumentally complicated, so I don’t see how it can’t use _various_ mechanisms to “process”.) > [@](#): > > a wide range of wavelengths can strike my retina and (with other factors in place) I still end up with “green”. But _what is it_ about LOW 575 which is different to 570 **in a way that 565 is not**? Can you _demonstrate_ to me that LOW 575 is not green, while LOW 570 is? > [@](#): > > You can’t fight ignorance by adding to it Again, if your test of what constitues “ignorance” is so _incredibly_ difficult to pass, there’s arguably almost nothing _but_, even in this thread. I’d suggest that ignorance triumphs where those who could have fought it ultimately don’t for fear of making things worse. > [@](#): > > The necessity of an entity, is, after all, in the eye of the beholder And we both behold the universe and everything in it to be necessary, unless we become solipsists. Ockham’s Razor asks what **more** is necessary. Like I say, I suggest you are interpreting it rather perversely if you say that physical things _aren’t_ necessary to explain most (if not all) phenomena. > [@](#): > > Unless there is scientific evidence that scientific evidence is the only credible form of evidence, physicalism, like some other “isms”, strikes me as being hoist by its own petard. As you would be in a court of law, you realise, if the jury relied on faith, hearsay or other non-scientific evidence to convict you. When it really comes down to it, we _all_ consider scientific evidence as a cut above other kinds. You are throwing all kinds of babies out with that bathwater. > [@](#): > > I’m not saying that the alternatives seem just as reasonable as physicalism, I’m saying that physicalism seems just as _un_reasonable as the alternatives. What’s the difference? I think we’re nearing the end of useful dialogue here, questioning the utility of scientific evidence over other kinds and the like - heck, we might as well go right ahead and _debate_ solipsism or Descartes’ Devil since every philosophical argument can ultimately dissolve so. If you say “OK clever clogs, show me that physicalism’s better than solipsism”, I’m afraid I have no ‘definitive’ answer. Nevertheless, it would disappoint me that we’d yet again gone _backwards_ rather than forwards. ---
**Author:** ![SentientMeat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/43a26b/32.png) [@SentientMeat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SentientMeat)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2006, 10:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-colors-causally-effacious-in-non-conscious-interactions/345077/104 "2006-03-03T10:51:00Z")
> [@Gyan](#): > > I wouldn’t Good, that saved a lot of wasted time. > [@](#): > > There it is: ‘visual processing’ Yes, [correlation](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correlation) is a process, easily performed by physical circuitry. > [@](#): > > From Tevildo’s posts: **Tev** : I appreciate that you may regard the division of neural physiology as a whole into “visual” and “cognitive” as being arbitrary - if so, I don’t think I have any reason to disagree with you. > [@](#): > > That assumes that all congenitally blind are so because something’s wrong with their eye. People whose eyes have never worked at all are congenitally blind. > [@](#): > > Establish supervenience first. I don’t need to to say that neurons are physical, because they clearly _are_. > [@](#): > > I don’t. Certainly I haven’t associated any quale with the label “bat sonar experience” And congentially blind people haven’t associated any quale (whatever that is) with the label “colour”. > [@](#): > > Because you employ disingenuous tactics Funny, other people think I debate honestly and in good faith. Might it be that _your_ one-liner tactics are ultimately not conducive to a high standard of debate? Anyway, I’m not fond of tennis – cheerio. I leave the court open to you to smash home your ‘points’ without defence. ---
**Author:** ![other-wise](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/4bbf92/32.png) [@other-wise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/other-wise)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2006, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-colors-causally-effacious-in-non-conscious-interactions/345077/105 "2006-03-03T14:40:11Z")
> [@SentientMeat](#): > > Surely it _does_ if a shift of the prism yields the label “_non_-green”, “_non_-quoggle” or “Response #2”? What _causes_ this difference in label? What causes this difference in label? That’s the whole point: You _don’t_ know and _cannot_ know solely from the response of a single subject. If you’re not comparing the subject’s responses to some standard (or your own experience) all you know is that it’s different. You don’t know even know _how_ it’s different, let alone what causes the difference. And if your sole subject had protanopia you would have no response, and therefore no data, at all. You didn’t address the rest of my post, which contains the meat of my argument, so I’ll recast it as direct questions (and if you were wondering why I ask so many questions, well, that’s one of the main reasons): In order to see “green”, are neurons (or their functional equivalent) as necessary as light? Is language? Opsin (or it’s functional equivalent)? If not, why not? If so, what justification is there for singling out light as the directly causal factor? > [@](#): > > Well, _you’re_ the one who complained that so simple a phrase as “I see green light” is inaccurate. Given such an incredibly high benchmark, I must admit to being pessimistic about _further_ words of mine attaining it rather than them digging me deeper into a hole. Still, they are only words, so I’ll continue to put them on your screen as long as it’s useful. Bah. “The sun is setting”. “I’m flying down to Rio”. “Metal is colder than wood.” I’ve already said, several times, that statements like these are inaccurate, but everybody (including me) uses them freely and without further explanation in normal conversation. But the OP was a philosophical question concerning consciousness and _the very nature_ of color. Questioning the accuracy and meaning of the statement “I see green light” is perfectly justified. > [@](#): > > OK, let’s go at it from the other direction (in another thread perhaps, since we’re way off colour here, so to speak). What is it about _spatial_ arrangements, compared to _temporal_ arrangements, which monopolises the word “thing” (or others like it)? Why **can’t** “things” be dynamic _as well as_ static? > > _and_ > > Of course, I ditched the homunculus yeas ago. Your outputs are your speech or sentences on this message board. Your inputs are the effects the universe has on your sensoria (including the light from your monitor here). Since those effects can also be stored in memory, they can be considered _delayed, reactivated_ inputs. “To or from _what_?” Like the _silicon_ computer, that physical substrate where inputs become outputs via “processing”. (We need not get into the detail thereof just yet – I personally prefer a model including _both_ semantically driven “[computation proper](http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/computational-mind/)” _and_ [neural network](http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/connectionism/)-based alternatives. Whatever this brain thing is, it is monumentally complicated, so I don’t see how it can’t use _various_ mechanisms to “process”.) Yeah, these two are complex and they’re both probably off topic. Perhaps another thread. > [@](#): > > But _what is it_ about LOW 575 which is different to 570 **in a way that 565 is not**? What is about LOW 575 that’s different _to me_? To me, it’s _not green_. > [@](#): > > Can you _demonstrate_ to me that LOW 575 is not green, while LOW 570 is? If I understand your question, no, I sure can’t, at least not without evoking private, subjective experience. > [@](#): > > And we both behold the universe and everything in it to be necessary, unless we become solipsists. Ockham’s Razor asks what **more** is necessary. Like I say, I suggest you are interpreting it rather perversely if you say that physical things _aren’t_ necessary to explain most (if not all) phenomena. Well, yeah. As a card-carrying physicalist, I would expect you to find any non-physicalist interpretation rather perverse. > [@](#): > > As you would be in a court of law, you realise, if the jury relied on faith, hearsay or other non-scientific evidence to convict you. What’s with the strawman? I’ve _never_ said scientific evidence cannot be credible. > [@](#): > > When it really comes down to it, we _all_ consider scientific evidence as a cut above other kinds. For some (many, actually) applications? Yes, I would hope so. For _all_ applications, no, people don’t all accept scientific evidence as superior or even germane. > [@](#): > > You are throwing all kinds of babies out with that bathwater. If you think I’m throwing babies out with the bathwater with that statement, well, you’re just going to have to learn to live without them babies unless you can provide scientific evidence that scientific evidence is the only credible form of evidence. > [@](#): > > What’s the difference? > > I think we’re nearing the end of useful dialogue here, questioning the utility of scientific evidence over other kinds and the like - heck, we might as well go right ahead and _debate_ solipsism or Descartes’ Devil since every philosophical argument can ultimately dissolve so. If you say “OK clever clogs, show me that physicalism’s better than solipsism”, I’m afraid I have no ‘definitive’ answer. Nevertheless, it would disappoint me that we’d yet again gone _backwards_ rather than forwards. Perhaps we are nearing the end here. But to state plainly what I thought I’d made abundantly clear: I don’t question the utility of scientific evidence. I _do_ question the superiority of scientific evidence over all other forms of evidence in all circumstances. And that any claim that the only form of credible evidence is scientific evidence is self-negating. ---
**Author:** ![SentientMeat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/43a26b/32.png) [@SentientMeat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SentientMeat)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2006, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-colors-causally-effacious-in-non-conscious-interactions/345077/106 "2006-03-03T15:10:21Z")
Well, I think the strawmen are appearing all over the place actually, **o-w** , and we’re going round in circles. Indeed, I don’t think I can set forth my position with regard to “the physicalism of colour” any better than I did in my very first post in this thread. But one final point: it strikes me that the reason you find physicalism “as unreasonable as” alternatives like pansychism or pantheism might be because you _haven’t_ questioned them in anywhere near as much detail. You’ve questioned me for pages on end in the past, and I’d be happy if you did so again (correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t recall _ever_ seeing you write an OP of your own here - perhaps now’s the time?). But I’d also certainly be interested in seeing you subject _others_ here to similar treatment, and subsequently asking you whether they _really_ stacked up better or worse. Might this be skewing your view somewhat, do you think? ---
**Author:** ![II\_Gyan\_II](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/bbe5ce/32.png) [@II\_Gyan\_II](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/II_Gyan_II)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2006, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-colors-causally-effacious-in-non-conscious-interactions/345077/107 "2006-03-03T21:45:26Z")
> [@SentientMeat](#): > > **Tev** : I appreciate that you may regard the division of neural physiology as a whole into “visual” and “cognitive” as being arbitrary - if so, I don’t think I have any reason to disagree with you. And? The chief issue about this debate is whether colors are physical. Tev’s remark is unambigious: "_“colour” is not something that exists in and of itself, outside consciousness"_ > [@](#): > > People whose eyes have never worked at all are congenitally blind. This is the disingenuous tactic I’m talking about. Let’s rewind this debate tape a bit * * * **SM** : I’m telling you how it is necessary, referencing congentially blind who _cannot see_ **because** their wavelength receptors have never worked. **Gyan** : That assumes that all congenitally blind are so because something’s wrong with their eye. ## **SM** : People whose eyes have never worked at all are congenitally blind. We’re talking about the set of all congenitally blind (CB), not the set of all those with nonfunctional eyes (NE). All NE belong to CB, but the question is do all CB belong to NE. > [@](#): > > And congentially blind people haven’t associated any quale (whatever that is) with the label “colour”. Exactly. So we don’t know if they do experience color, but classify those qualia different than those with working vision. > [@](#): > > Funny, other people think I debate honestly and in good faith. Just look in this thread: **other-wise** : _Sentient, you say you’re honestly trying to understand my position, but I have a hard time believing you when you keep putting words into my mouth_ – & – _Of course it is, unless you take my answer out of context yet again._ [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-colors-causally-effacious-in-non-conscious-interactions/345077.md?page=5)