Can color exist to a blind person?

[BaalChatzaf]

People who lack ESP claim that it does not exist.

I have had my "ESP" moments, yet I still ask, what evidence is there that these were not mere coincidences.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[tmj]

Mike82ARP wrote: "Huh??? Are the trees really green if no one is there to look at them??? Color is objective and not dependent on consciousness to exist. Your statement reminds me of the question, "if a tree falls in the woods and no is there to hear it, does it make a sound?"

Definitely not. You cannot separate concepts of color, vision or sound from the concept of perception. That would make them stolen concepts. There are no percepts without perceiver. What trees do have is a physical qualities which make perception of green or sound possible. Color is objective epistemic, not metaphysical concept. It pertains to consciousness, not existence.

So strictly speaking it's ireland til you get there and then it's the Emerald Isle?

[anthony]

Transposing vision into sound, as with your device, avoids the problem by creating another concept.

If the question were "can the tune of a cello exist to a deaf man?" would a clever arrangement of

flashing, colored lights, indicating pitch and tone - make the sound exist for him? No, since he hasn't

conceived of sound qua sound.

Deaf people can sometimes feel sound vibrations with their fingers (which are sensitive). This is a much cruder sense for vibration than the ears but it works to some extent. What is sound? It is the vibration we "feel" with our ears?

Besides it is possible for two different concepts to be logically equivalent. Example. Equi-angular triangles are equi-lateral triangles. Angles are not sides and angle measurement is not length measurement but in Euclidean spaces they are equivalent.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Ba'al Chatzf

I'd think your equi-triangles are a single, integrated, concept. One aspect is a corollary

of the other. Therefore, an invalid analogy for hearing and sight which are distinct from each other.

[BaalChatzaf]

I'd think your equi-triangles are a single, integrated, concept. One aspect is a corollary

of the other. Therefore, an invalid analogy for hearing and sight which are distinct from each other.

Not so. Each implies the other logically. They are dead equivalent -- logically.

While we are at it, what is the difference between the Morning Star and the Evening Star. Answer: none. They are both the planet Venus. A is A.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Peter]

Mike82ARP wrote:

I again would say: do you believe that “trust” in a source is valid reason to believe in something? On what basis? What if the individual lacks adequate familiarity with whatever topic to discern what is being conveyed? Should he then doubt the information until he can adequately familiarize himself with the subject to discern whether it is truth or lies that are being conveyed?

end quote

Point taken. You are certainly a few steps beyond what I was thinking with my examples. I remember Rand’s discussion of “believing” in the composition of the far side of the moon even if it had never been seen. (By humans anyway - cue the spooky music.) Reason leads to correct observations of reality. However, *believing* through *authority* without personal observation is a leap of faith sometimes more justified than others. “You have just won a quarter of a million dollars from Publisher’s Clearinghouse. Let me just verify some of your information before we show up at your house with your check.” Obviously the authoritarian voice on the other end of the phone is a scam artist even if they are likeable and they sound truthful.

Mike82ARP wrote:

I’m pleased to see you acknowledge reality may contain things that that humans may have not adequate sense organs to perceive . . . . Since the microscope hadn’t been invented, the would be “Randians” (medical community) of the day laughed at him saying that these could not exist as they could not be seen (perceived) when, in fact, there was a "new dimension”, i.e., the microscopic, that humans could not objectively demonstrate at the time.

You sound like a shrink. Are you a psychiatrist “house husband?” (No slight or scoff intended. I see on a later post Michael E. Marotta, BS goes into more detail about the history of the microscope: "animicules” indeed!) I just had a discussion with a psychiatrist at the VA (so I could get sleeping pills for insomnia. He would not give me any.) That he was a big fan of Ayn Rand and Rand Paul I found out when he asked me about my interests. He and I discussed the evolutionary process and the universe and human’s inability to see “all the dimensions.”

tmj wrote making my jaw ache:

So strictly speaking it's ireland til you get there and then it's the Emerald Isle?

That is a quaint observation. Apropos of nothing, math terms that could be names: Constant. And an earlier American was called “Increase Mather.”

Peter

[Mike82ARP]

Peter wrote, "Reason leads to correct observations of reality."

I fully agree. This tenet is what attracted me to Rand’s philosophy.

You then wrote, "However, *believing* through *authority* without personal observation is a leap of faith sometimes more justified than others."

Agreed again....

[BaalChatzaf]

Peter wrote, "Reason leads to correct observations of reality."

I fully agree. This tenet is what attracted me to Rand’s philosophy.

You then wrote, "However, *believing* through *authority* without personal observation is a leap of faith sometimes more justified than others."

Agreed again....

Reason also leads to incorrect hypothesis. The expansion and contraction of metals heated or cooled was evidence for the theory of caloric which was ultimately falsified empirically. Reason is a good guide but coupled with so-called common sense often leads scientists astray.

[We Erred Rand]

>>If a person were totally blind, say born without eyes as one individual I knew years ago, can color or even the concept of color exist for that person?

Neither the subjective psychic experience of color, nor any sort of concept of color would exist for that person. He could, of course, have a concept of any non-visual physical correlative of the color experience, such as a mathematical grasp of wavelength (and certainly, he'd be able to sense differences in heat). Wavelength, however, is something that *correlates* with the subjective experience of color, but it is not, itself, color.

Sighted people do not experience "wavelength". The name of the percept they subjectively experience is "color."

>>I mean the redness of red or the brownness of brown, etc.? I would assume not, as this is outside of his nature (i.e., total blindness). If the blind person then stated that color doesn't exist and anyone who believes there is such a thing as color is irrational, would he be correct? If not, how would you prove he was incorrect?

There are experiments that could be devised based on the responses of a sighted person vs. an unsighted one that could persuade both parties that they were responding to different effects, even if the causes were identical.

For example, there are laboratory devices that can send a single photon pulse at a time of "white" light through a fine fiber-optic. When the pulse exits the other end of the fiber, it is still, of course (technically) "white"; but when it strikes the retina of a sighted person, it will randomly strike only one set of color-sensitive cones at a time — red-sensitive, green-sensitive, or blue-sensitive. Depending on which cones the minute pulse of white light strikes, the subject will experience a "sparkle" of red, green, or blue. If a pulse is emitted once per second, e.g., and each pulse strikes a set of cones randomly, the subject experiences a multi-colored sparkle effect (one spark per second) — this, despite the fact that objectively speaking, white light was sent into the fiber-optic, and white light was emitted from the fiber-optic.

If the blind person had some sort of sensing device that could detect the physical correlative of wavelength, it would tell him that it was simply pulses of "white" light. That would be completely correct and true, but it would be a clear difference between the sort of information about the world available to the two subjects.

[BaalChatzaf]

What if a purely artificial light activated retina (man made using an advanced technology we do not currently have) encode electrical pulse in exactly the same way as the natural retinal encodes neural pulses. If we interface the out put of this hypothetical device to the optic nerves of a blind person, could that blind person be said to be seeing?

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Leonid]

Mike82ARP wrote: "Huh??? Are the trees really green if no one is there to look at them??? Color is objective and not dependent on consciousness to exist. Your statement reminds me of the question, "if a tree falls in the woods and no is there to hear it, does it make a sound?"

Definitely not. You cannot separate concepts of color, vision or sound from the concept of perception. That would make them stolen concepts. There are no percepts without perceiver. What trees do have is a physical qualities which make perception of green or sound possible. Color is objective epistemic, not metaphysical concept. It pertains to consciousness, not existence.

So strictly speaking it's ireland til you get there and then it's the Emerald Isle?

Emerald Isle, Ireland, Eire, Airlann designate the same thing-an island to the north-west of continental Europe. Don't get what you exactly mean.

[We Erred Rand]

What if a purely artificial light activated retina (man made using an advanced technology we do not currently have) encode electrical pulse in exactly the same way as the natural retinal encodes neural pulses. If we interface the out put of this hypothetical device to the optic nerves of a blind person, could that blind person be said to be seeing?

Ba'al Chatzaf

Apparently, there are already devices like this. Google "Second Sight Medical Products" and research the company's first approved Bionic Eye for patients suffering from retinitis pigmentosa.

[We Erred Rand]

Mike82ARP wrote: "Huh??? Are the trees really green if no one is there to look at them??? Color is objective and not dependent on consciousness to exist. Your statement reminds me of the question, "if a tree falls in the woods and no is there to hear it, does it make a sound?"

Definitely not. You cannot separate concepts of color, vision or sound from the concept of perception. That would make them stolen concepts. There are no percepts without perceiver. What trees do have is a physical qualities which make perception of green or sound possible. Color is objective epistemic, not metaphysical concept. It pertains to consciousness, not existence.

>>>It pertains to consciousness, not existence.

But consciousness exists and is part of existence. It's more precise, I think, to say "it pertains to the strictly material side of existence."

And what you posted above would include all percepts, not just that class we call "color"; i.e., it includes the class of vibrations through air and other solid media we call "sound", which enters through our ears; it includes the class of percepts we call "scents" and "tastes"; and it includes the class of percepts integrated by consciousness that enters through our sense of touch — which itself includes textures (rough, smooth, hard, soft), and from which we actually derive(d) our concept of "materiality."

[tmj]

I had a two day conversation with a coworker recently on this very subject. I held the position that of course there is green in them ther' trees. Whether I look at the tree or not it will still have the physical properties that the make it appear green. But later that evening with cigar in hand casually leaning on my doorway, I was comtemplating my trees on the property line and because it was after sunset , it struck me they were no longer green, they were instead grey or without hue. Again being less than academic, I gained maybe a simplistic/implicit understanding of the idea articulated more betterly by Leonid. Color is objective epistemic.

[We Erred Rand]

>>>> Color is objective epistemic.

I have no idea what that means. Why not simply say that color is subjective?

Your visual experience with trees at dusk is known as the "Purkinje Effect." It has to do with the fact that human retinas have many more "rod" cells (which are sensitive only to the grayscale, giving us the experience of varying degrees of brightness) than we have "cones" (which give us the experience of hue, or color). The upshot of this difference is that ambient light levels have to reach a certain level before the cones become activated; below that threshold, we see only shades of gray.

More precisely, the Purkinje Effect occurs midway between environments (or times of day) in which we perceive mainly with "cone-based" vision (required for sharp acuity, such as when reading), and "rod-based" vision. There are situations when humans need to have both "cone-based" and "rod-based", such as when having to navigate through a very dark environment (e.g., night-driving; night-flying; submarine travel) but also having to read instrument panels, dials, etc. The idea is to raise the ambient level of light just enough so that the rods and the cones are both activated, but without "saturating" the rods, which would reduce acuity while looking into the darkened environment. The rods are easily overwhelmed with green or blue light but are very insensitive to red light. That's why submarines, aircraft cockpits, some research facilities, etc., are illuminated by red light.

In theory, of course, the dashboards of cars ought to be backlit with red light, since it would allow the driver to read the instruments clearly while not reducing acuity of the road during night-driving. Unfortunately for the drivers, almost all car dashes today are backlit by "sexy" blue or blue-green light. It provides great contrast, but actually interferes somewhat with seeing into the dark while driving at night.

[Frediano]

"What “fact” are you speaking of? You listed a bunch of hypotheticals and what ifs."

True enuf, I guess. The fact I'm referring to is the absence of any such ability to prove that you and I or anyone else percieve the same color when we see the color 'blue.' The fact is, you and I and anyone else on earth can only confirm that our individual perceptions are individually consistent, by comparison with an external entity. "The sky is blue....yes, the sky is blue." That says nothing about what you percieve and what I perceive as being identically the same perceived color inside of our head. For all you know, my blue sky is your yellow banana, or even, some color never percieved by you, or vice versa. You and I can only confirm that when you look at something that we agree is 'blue' that your perception is always consistant and my perception is always consistant and so of course we agree.

We can say things like 'we probably perceive the same color' -- but I won't hold my breath waiting for you to design a hypothetical experiment to actually prove that. We currently have no means of performing that experiment.(Can you or anyone actually see the colors inside my head, or vice versa?) We can query each other's perception engines through the filter of our voices/ears , and pass all of that to our perception engines, then try to describe what we 'see' --- but you and I will ultimately resort to comparisons with external entities. "The sky" "This book."

What is playing in the little movie theater somewhere behind your eyeballs? Only you can say, but only using words...which refer to external entities.

Yes, the sky is blue-- we agreed on that long ago. That is not the question.

Are you claiming it is a fact that we perceive the same sensation? What act of faith are you relying on?

When you look at the sky, you see the same color sensation. When I look at the same sky, I see the same color sensation. But I have no way of proving that you and I see the same color sensation; you and I only know that we are looking at the same sky, and then we assume.

But whether we do has absolutely no impact on our ability to interact. I don't know of any consequence at all, which is part of the problem of proving that we see the same sensation-- that what is playing on the screen inside your head is exactly the same ordered color palette that is playing inside of my head, or even, palettes that contain the same colors...

I'd love to hear the evidence that even sighted people all percieve color identically and how that is established without relying on external entities as reference.

The top light on a traffic light is 'red' the middle is 'yellow' and the bottom is 'green' We all agree. But if(I don't know of any means of presently doing this)you were magically able to see what I see when I look at a traffic light, -- stimulate your optic processing and perception engine with the same inputs -- how would you or I know that what you would suddenly see wouldn't look totally different in terms of colors? We don't, and beyond that we can't hypothesize a consequence of any difference.

An eye transplant proves nothing -- that is input processing, presenting stimulus to some perception engine buried deeper inside our brain.

A 'perception engine' transpant -- if such a thing existed-- might, but then again, there might no longer be a 'you' if you underwent any such hypotheritcal perception engine transpant.

My claim that absence is a fact is easily disproved; present the means of proving we actually perceive the same color.

Blue is 'cool'. For sure-- just like that body of water out there, the cool one.

And red is 'hot' -- just like fire.

But what color palette are we using? Do we imagine it?

Is that possible? It is when you dream. Where does the color come from when you dream in color?

Is it so hard to consider--because neither you nor I know for a fact where perceived color sensation actually comes from-- that what 'delivers' the color is a subjective bit of wetbits, and that what our brains are actually doing is 'false coloring' stimuli?

[BaalChatzaf]

"What “fact” are you speaking of? You listed a bunch of hypotheticals and what ifs."

True enuf, I guess. The fact I'm referring to is the absence of any such ability to prove that you and I or anyone else percieve the same color when we see the color 'blue.' The fact is, you and I and anyone else on earth can only confirm that our individual perceptions are individually consistent, by comparison with an external entity. "The sky is blue....yes, the sky is blue." That says nothing about what you percieve and what I perceive as being identically the same perceived color inside of our head. For all you know, my blue sky is your yellow banana, or even, some color never percieved by you, or vice versa. You and I can only confirm that when you look at something that we agree is 'blue' that your perception is always consistant and my perception is always consistant and so of course we agree.

We can say things like 'we probably perceive the same color' -- but I won't hold my breath waiting for you to design a hypothetical experiment to actually prove that. We currently have no means of performing that experiment.(Can you or anyone actually see the colors inside my head, or vice versa?) We can query each other's perception engines through the filter of our voices/ears , and pass all of that to our perception engines, then try to describe what we 'see' --- but you and I will ultimately resort to comparisons with external entities. "The sky" "This book."

What is playing in the little movie theater somewhere behind your eyeballs? Only you can say, but only using words...which refer to external entities.

Yes, the sky is blue-- we agreed on that long ago. That is not the question.

Are you claiming it is a fact that we perceive the same sensation? What act of faith are you relying on?

When you look at the sky, you see the same color sensation. When I look at the same sky, I see the same color sensation. But I have no way of proving that you and I see the same color sensation; you and I only know that we are looking at the same sky, and then we assume.

But whether we do has absolutely no impact on our ability to interact. I don't know of any consequence at all, which is part of the problem of proving that we see the same sensation-- that what is playing on the screen inside your head is exactly the same ordered color palette that is playing inside of my head, or even, palettes that contain the same colors...

I'd love to hear the evidence that even sighted people all percieve color identically and how that is established without relying on external entities as reference.

The top light on a traffic light is 'red' the middle is 'yellow' and the bottom is 'green' We all agree. But if(I don't know of any means of presently doing this)you were magically able to see what I see when I look at a traffic light, -- stimulate your optic processing and perception engine with the same inputs -- how would you or I know that what you would suddenly see wouldn't look totally different in terms of colors? We don't, and beyond that we can't hypothesize a consequence of any difference.

An eye transplant proves nothing -- that is input processing, presenting stimulus to some perception engine buried deeper inside our brain.

A 'perception engine' transpant -- if such a thing existed-- might, but then again, there might no longer be a 'you' if you underwent any such hypotheritcal perception engine transpant.

My claim that absence is a fact is easily disproved; present the means of proving we actually perceive the same color.

Blue is 'cool'. For sure-- just like that body of water out there, the cool one.

And red is 'hot' -- just like fire.

But what color palette are we using? Do we imagine it?

Is that possible? It is when you dream. Where does the color come from when you dream in color?

Is it so hard to consider--because neither you nor I know for a fact where perceived color sensation actually comes from-- that what 'delivers' the color is a subjective bit of wetbits, and that what our brains are actually doing is 'false coloring' stimuli?

Blue and Violet are the most energetic visible frequencies. So that that sense, they are the "hottest" colors.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[We Erred Rand]

>>>>Blue is 'cool'. For sure-- just like that body of water out there, the cool one. And red is 'hot' -- just like fire.

The division of colors into "warm" (red/orange/yellow) and "cool" (blue/green/violet) is, of course, subjective, though it does have perfectly legitimate application in things requiring the use of "subtractive" color: i.e., paint, pigment, dye, ink, glass filters, etc.; i.e., physical objects that do not emit their own light, but require an outside light source from which they absorb certain wavelengths, and reflect the rest. Those that are reflected are what enter our eyes and retinas and cause us to perceive the object in question as having color (e.g., a red beach-ball reflects the red element in white sunlight and absorbs the other elements).

With direct, incident light, however (the "additive system") photographers and lighting engineers (who provide lighting for large business spaces such as shopping malls, etc.) often use a scientific measurement called "color-temperature." This relates to an experiment done by Lord Kelvin, in which a piece of blackened iron was heated until it glowed: at first, red, then orange, then yellow, then white ("white hot"), then blue, as the temperature of the iron was increased. The color that the "black body" glowed was then correlated with the temperature (measured in degrees-Kelvin) at that point. This provides an objective measure of color-incandescence because any "black body" robust enough to withstand the heat will glow the same color at the same given temperature. Thus, at 3200K, a black-body (e.g., a tungsten filament) will glow orange-yellow. If you wish to reproduce that color at some other time and place, you merely need to heat a black-body to 3200K and you will have it. If you heat the black-body higher — say to 5500K — it will glow blue.

Interestingly, if we consider color-temperature, colors that we might ordinarily call "warm" (red, orange, yellow) correlate to fairly low temperatures on the Kelvin scale; while colors we ordinarily associate with ice, cold water, winter skies, etc. (blue, green, violet) correlate to very high ones. So by this measure, "red" is "cool" and "blue" is "hot."

[Jonathan]

The division of colors into "warm" (red/orange/yellow) and "cool" (blue/green/violet) is, of course, subjective...

No, it's not subjective, but contextual. The colors that we see in cool areas in nature, such as in shadows, water, snow and ice, are blues, violets and aquas, where the colors that we see in sources of heat, like the sun and fire, are reds, oranges and yellows. It is no less objective for people to associate those colors with those entities and their comparative termperatures than it is for Lord Kelvin to randomly choose a substance to heat while observing its colors. In fact, it is more objective/rational to associate colors with the entities and temperatures that we see in our everyday context than it is to associate them with scientific experiments that hardly anyone will ever perform.

J

[BaalChatzaf]

The division of colors into "warm" (red/orange/yellow) and "cool" (blue/green/violet) is, of course, subjective...

No, it's not subjective, but contextual. The colors that we see in cool areas in nature, such as in shadows, water, snow and ice, are blues, violets and aquas, where the colors that we see in sources of heat, like the sun and fire, are reds, oranges and yellows.

That is only medium warm. A very hot black body will glow white then blue.

ba'al Chatzaf

[Jonathan]

The division of colors into "warm" (red/orange/yellow) and "cool" (blue/green/violet) is, of course, subjective...

No, it's not subjective, but contextual. The colors that we see in cool areas in nature, such as in shadows, water, snow and ice, are blues, violets and aquas, where the colors that we see in sources of heat, like the sun and fire, are reds, oranges and yellows.

That is only medium warm. A very hot black body will glow white then blue.

ba'al Chatzaf

Fine. We're talking about "warm colors," not "very hot colors."

J

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

The division of colors into "warm" (red/orange/yellow) and "cool" (blue/green/violet) is, of course, subjective...

No, it's not subjective, but contextual. The colors that we see in cool areas in nature, such as in shadows, water, snow and ice, are blues, violets and aquas, where the colors that we see in sources of heat, like the sun and fire, are reds, oranges and yellows. It is no less objective for people to associate those colors with those entities and their comparative termperatures than it is for Lord Kelvin to randomly choose a substance to heat while observing its colors. In fact, it is more objective/rational to associate colors with the entities and temperatures that we see in our everyday context than it is to associate them with scientific experiments that hardly anyone will ever perform.

J

Jonathan,

That's a cool observation. Aqua blue and refreshing...

I made a quip, but I'm serious.

The whole purpose of science is to bring the different parts of reality to a size humans can work with, whether macro or micro. But in doing so, the specialists often look down on simple human-size human-context experience as a valid source of human knowledge.

In marketing, for example, marketers learn a great deal about the immediate market context by a process called split testing. Here's an example: they take two headlines on an online sales message, rig the sales page to show one headline when one person visits, then the other headline when the next person visits, and alternate like that. Then after a a certain number of visitors, they see which headline pulled better engagement (and sales) and run with that one.

Scientists often ip their noses at this testing process (not enough controls over the types of visitors, etc.), but it works, works well, and gives positive results, time after time. As the marketers who use it say, kaching!

This is merely testing a market within a specific context and relatively small time frame--i.e., bringing it to normal everyday human size--and placing it under control enough to enhance visitor engagement and profits. Will the enhancement last? Sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn't, but this almost always works short-term for a while.

If it stops working, the marketers split test some more as it is obvious that the market context changed.

I believe science is actually built on top of this kind of common sense approach (just look at all the technology that uses it), but some specialists for some reason insist on rejecting the human size knowledge approach outright and belittling it.

Anyway, there is no reason for anyone to be intimidated bu such people. The only thing the belittler has for real is snootiness. Vanity. And that's a toothless paper tiger once you've dealt with it a few times.

Michael

[Selene]

Seems someone does....http://scholarlyrepository.miami.edu/philosophy_articles/13/

>>>> Color is objective epistemic.

I have no idea what that means. Why not simply say that color is subjective?

[Selene]

Wow! This reference has formulae, math and other really "cool" intellectual "stuff!"

http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/0195143892.001.0001/acprof-9780195143898-chapter-5

[Peter]

Baal wrote:

Reason also leads to incorrect hypothesis.

end quote

I was watching The Science Channels Into the Wormhole narrated by Morgan Freeman last night and it was enlightening to see how in ten short years scientists have posited and proved the existence of the God Particle also termed the Higgs Boson (pronounce bo-zon) at the Cern collider and now they posit 5, count um, five types of Higgs Bosons and one additional scientist posited, with equations no less, some sort of anti boson, anti-equation, if I remember correctly. It sounded irrational. Obviously, I didnt understand the math.

Question everything is the slogan of the Science Channel. That is so much better than the Scifi Channels, ungrammatical slogan Imagine greater. I spoke to a young person who mentioned watching that channel and he said they were seeking a younger demographic with their slogan and programming changes. Ykk. Give me Star Trek The Next Generation and hard science fiction, any day.

Why not Imagine Greatest?

Peter

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Adam,

Your post made me think of a site I haven't visited in a long time: Less Wrong.

The reason I thought about it is that I first heard of the "Bayes rule" on it (the Bayesian theory of probability was mentioned in the article in your link, which was my memory trigger):

Bayes' rule =/= Bayesian inference

(sigh...)

That site is fascinating, but there goes my time down the wormhole again.

Michael