Mike82ARP

without engaging in circular reasoning? Or any other epistemological tenet, for that matter.

It seems that once one backs up as far as one can go on the trail to epistemological origins, ultimate authorities must become self attesting.

I'm not sure what you mean by "self-attesting," since reason is not an "authority." Yes, reason can justify its own foundations, but if some method other than reason is proposed, then how could it be evaluated without the use of reason itself? What possible competitors could there be?

Ghs

By “authority” I meant the primary basis for your belief.

You wrote, "how could [reason] be evaluated without the use of reason itself?” That was my question. Using reason to evaluate reason is technically circular reasoning, but it seems that at point that becomes necessary.

without engaging in circular reasoning? Or any other epistemological tenet, for that matter.

It seems that once one backs up as far as one can go on the trail to epistemological origins, ultimate authorities must become self attesting.

I used to think atheism was critical to Objectivism. But over the years, I've only seen this stance used as a litmus test to demarcate territory--them over there as opposed to us over here.

The takeaway here is that, in my experience, when a person adopts Objectivism, atheism, Christianity, Islam, Judaism, or any of it, this is not a guarantee of good (or bad) character. Often, it is not even a good rule-of-thumb indicator. I. at least, need to know more about the person to make an evaluation I feel comfortable with.

So I've gone back to my roots on this one, a lesson I was taught as a kid: Compare a person's words with his or her actions. When they don't align, the deeds are a far better indicator of character than the words.

Michael

Thanks for your comments. In the many discussion I’ve had with Objectivists elsewhere I’ve made it clear that I understand their atheism on the basis of the “supernatural” realm ascribed to it , however I do not accept their objections based on their attitudes toward altruism and mysticism which are not universal practices. Heck, even I don’t accept those as integral to Christianity and view professing Christians who espouse those behaviors as self righteous ascetics.

For Rand was clear as a bell when she said "No supernatural dimension exists."

With such a clear position, how can the Jesus character (the product of a supernatural being) be integrated into Objectivist thought without arriving at a substantial contradiction?

Not to mention that the Jesus figure is also the classic case of the 'sacrificial lamb', in a type of sacrifice which Rand spent a lifetime in attacking as 'irrational' and therefore 'immoral'.

It doesn’t matter whether Rand was “clear as a bell” when she made her proclamation “ex cathedra". What matters is, “was she correct?” How can one say with certainty that something which cannot be proven one way or the other is in fact, true?

Rand had at best a sophomoric understanding of Christianity as do the ARI and TOS gang. Her comments on the ‘sacrificial lamb” makes that clear.

David Kelley’s excellent (longish) essay, Truth and Toleration is a worthwhile read. IMO, Kelley effectively critiques Peikoff”s parochialist view of Objectivism and shows that attitude is really anti-intellectual. Here is a link to the essay:

http://www.atlassociety.org/sites/default/files/The_Contested_Legacy_of_Ayn_Rand.pdf

There are some other excellent articles and videos at The Atlas Society website.

http://www.atlassociety.org/objectivist-movement

The video Truth and Toleration: 20 years later is also a quick introduction to the schism.

That's it. Thanks.

Methinks you came just for the boilerplate arguments as you have offered nothing positive of your own so far. In this case, you lack facts.

Let me ask you, 82ARP, if a rainbow falls in a forest and no one is around to see it, does it make a noise? Many posts back, Ba'al said all that needs to be said on this: we manipulate entities such as electrons that we cannot perceive, because we know that they exist, even if we do not know everything (or very much at all, perhaps) about them.

You are correct in saying that I have offered nothing positive of my own. As I noted earlier, I am examining my own epistemology and not seeking to make a positive statement about anything. As fellow OLers posted comments, I remarked on the posts. I'm here to learn, not proselytize.

My simplified use of Semmelweis was for the purpose of portraying what he had to deal with when he approached the medical deities, not a explanation of the research of the time. Sheesh!

RE: electrons. Yes, we currently have the Quantum model of the atom and do manipulate electrons, but the nature of the "model" is one that allows for change as further investigation and discoveries are made. I would say the same goes for open Objectivism.

Sorry, but I'm new here. Is PAR the same book as OPAR?

The companion to this question is, "Do sighted people all percieve the same thing when regarding color?" As we only know by comparison with agreed upon objects ("That is blue...yes, that is blue.") there is no way of telling if sighted people all perceive the same thing.

For all I know, my blue is your green -- or something else I've never even imagined. But as long as we agree that green beans are green, then no problem -- no matter what each of us is perceiving.

How would we ever devise an experiment to prove that we all percieve the same actual color when regaring an object that we both agreed to call 'blue?'

We could prove that each of us was consistant in our perceptions ("Yup--- the sky is still blue.") But not that each of us perceived the same sensation.

That we perceived a sensation, yes. But how could we ever prove to each other that we each see the same sensation when regarding 'blue?'

And that fact should be of interest to objectivists; it is another nail in the coffin of collectivist thought...

What else would have no consequence in a pluralistic tribe where there wasn't just one answer to the questions "Why am I here/what is the purpose of my life in this existence?"

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

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?

Yes, the concept of color can exist for that person. As has been pointed out by others, we need not directly perceive something to be aware of its existence and to determine its characteristics. There are all sorts of things that we can conceptualize despite not being able to perceive them directly.

We'd prove it by the means already suggested by others. We'd set up equipment which measures colors (and converts the information to, say, numerical values) in a controlled environment in which the blind person could witness us accurately detecting the colors without such equipment.

J

"There are all sorts of things that we can conceptualize despite not being able to perceive them directly."

Could the same be said about God?

The rest I agree with. i.e., an analogue could be constructed to attempt to identify color, but the person would still never experience color.

Sorry for the lousy use of the quote fxn.

LOL! Very neat, Mike. I was wondering if you'd go there...

"Could the same be said for God?" ha!

Color is one characteristic of an entity, I believe. White light on it absorbs certain wavelengths, and reflects others.

Therefore, color exists independently of the viewer. The (green) tree does indeed make a sound when it falls in the forest.

For the concept "color", one has to have a referent in reality - sensory and perceptual. A 'concept' that by-passes these - must be rationalistic. i.e, It's a floating abstraction, with no pertinence to reality, for a blind person.

Ba'al's "device" creates another concept entirely, stemming from the aural cortex - not the visual. (Same for Braille, and touch.) One could probably describe the form of a tree to a blind man; but describe a color? No way.

Could just as well be describing Beethoven's Fifth to a deaf man.

I thought I’d throw that in and see what response I’d get. The boilerplate arguments I get are analogous to those the medical community gave to a physician named Semmelweis who proposed the idea that bacteria might be responsible to hospital infections. 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.

MSK did not reject the idea that there may be realities for which the human has yet to develop a sense. Might God exist in that reality? To categorically say “no possibility" is being as anti-intellectual and dogmatic as some fundamentalist Christians are when it comes to science.

Just sayin'

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?

Yes, the concept of color can exist for that person. As has been pointed out by others, we need not directly perceive something to be aware of its existence and to determine its characteristics. There are all sorts of things that we can conceptualize despite not being able to perceive them directly.

We'd prove it by the means already suggested by others. We'd set up equipment which measures colors (and converts the information to, say, numerical values) in a controlled environment in which the blind person could witness us accurately detecting the colors without such equipment.

J

"There are all sorts of things that we can conceptualize despite not being able to perceive them directly."

Could the same be said about God?

The rest I agree with. i.e., an analogue could be constructed to attempt to identify color, but the person would still never experience color.

Sorry for the lousy use of the quote fxn.

Leonid wrote, "Metaphysically speaking color doesn't exists at all. It has no existence outside of the realm of consciousness. It is an epistemic, not a metaphysical concept. So to speak about existence of color as independent entity is indeed wrong, irrational since color doesn't have a metaphysical status. However we perceive different colors because things have different properties. These properties could be perceived even by blind person by using different senses-as in Peter's example. We can explain then to the blind person that what he perceives in such a case as warm we perceive as white. The bottom line is that percepts belong to the realm of consciousness, not existence."

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?"

None of the answers presented so far have shown that color can be known to exist to a blind person. He simply lacks the apparatus to experience sight and color and must trust what others tell him. Yes, you could use heat, taste, touch, or sound as analogues to color and their differences, but 'color' still remains an unknown.

As MSK noted above, correctly in my opinion, there may be aspects of reality that we do not possess the sense organs to detect. We have to admit that "we don't know what we don't know" and therefore should not be dogmatic in those areas.

Consider this. Suppose we have an electronic deice that transduces color to sound. The bluer the color, the higher the pitch. The redder the color the lower the pitch. What we have is a sensory analog to color. This might suffice to give a blind person some idea of what color an object is.

We already do this with electromagnetic frequencies higher than the visible. We use what is called "color coding" or "false color" in which a visible color stand as s surrogate for a higher frequency electromagnetic radiation.

It might be of limited use to a blind person.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Where would he 'aim' the device? What objects is he 'viewing'?

It's still a transposition of color to another medium, giving him 'blue', 'orange' -etc.

The pitch of sound differentiates colors and names them, but does color "exist" for him,

conceptually?

No, he wouldn’t. Color would be a construct of varying loudnesses of sound, but the individual would never understand “red”, etc., and how would a variety of colors sound?

Ken Wilber has a very similar approach on subjective experiences.

Here is the passage I was thinking about. I'll leave it to each reader to find the epistemological connections with the color-blind problem:

>

There is a fascinating passage in his [Nathaniel Branden's] book, The Art of Living Consciously where he presents an idea by Ken Wilber that deals with precisely the kind of thing that is necessary to back up Rand's statements. (The book by Wilber he mentioned is Eye to Eye.) Branden was discussing mysticism and Wilber's idea of "eyes" of knowledge, but the following creeped in bearing a form that can be standalone. I believe it deserves more exposure and exploration. It actually comes from Wilber, but NB said he chose it because, "I regard it as the most ingenious [argument] I have encountered."

I don't want to deal here with NB's comments on Wilber's defense of mysticism. The idea below, or at least the way NB phrased it, is the golden nugget. It cuts to the very core of what knowledge is on a fundamental level. From pp 203-204

... Wilber argues, the principles by which knowledge is validated in the three domains [flesh, reason and contemplation] are ultimately the same--this is his key point. Three steps are always involved in the verifying of knowledge. First, there is the instrumental injunction--"if you want to know this, do this." If you want to know if it's raining, go look. If you want to know how much is 36 times 36, go do the calculation. Then there is the cognitive grasp--the mind's appreciation of the data and its meaning. I see water falling; it is raining. I see that 36 time 36 equals 1296. Then there is the communal confirmation--checking the objectivity (the "intersubjectivity" would be Wilber's preferred term) of our knowledge by determining that others who traced our steps see the same things and arrive at the same conclusions.

All scientific conclusions reflect these three steps: we take actions of one kind or another that bring us into contact with certain data; we apprehend the meaning of the data; we ascertain that colleagues trained to reproduce our experiences--do the experiments, do the math, or whatever--arrive at the same final point. And thus is our knowledge confirmed. (And thus may it be disconfirmed--or at least put into question--if others who are qualified to reproduce our actions do so and find a different result.)

However--and here is a central point for the thesis--a person who is unable or unwilling to trace the scientist's steps is unqualified to pronounce judgment on the scientist's conclusions. Or, on a more primitive level, if I look out the window and say it's raining, and you refuse to look out the window while insisting it is not raining--your qualification to hold an opinion in this matter is not equal to mine.

Note that he says scientist, but this also applies to philosopher. (Or mystic for Wilber.)

Michael

Thank you for the informative post. I should probably put Branden on my reading list. Would this be the one book you would recommend? Mind you I have little free time with 4 kids, 13 and under including 2 Russian sisters who arrived here 6 weeks ago and a corporate exec wife who works 60+hour weeks. Hence my cooking duties.

Mike,

I think I know where you are going with this.

Ken Wilber has a very similar approach on subjective experiences. I, also, argue that there might be parts of reality humans do not have sense organs for, or have very imperfect, inconsistent and partially developed ones that are still evolving in the species. This, to me, explains why so many reported subjective experiences across so many different cultures and times are similar.

But to answer your question, the only commonsense answer I know to be 100% accurate is the following:

1. If a color-blind person lives in a society where others tell him about color, he can get a notion of color second-hand from them.

2. If he cannot perceive color and has no contact with those who do, he won't even think about it.

3. If he does think about color, but has no no contact with those who can perceive it, he will deny that color exists in reality--or, going creative, he could (and most likely would) imagine the existence of color in a science fiction of fantasy story way. In other words, color would not be real to him, but as fiction, it would be conceivable if reality were different.

Michael

I’m pleased to see you acknowledge reality may contain things that that humans may have not adequate sense organs to perceive.

I’m sure about #1. What kind of “notion” of color could a totally blind person conceive? I’ve heard theoretical physicists speak of other dimensions. Can you conceive what these might be like?

The Country of the Blind by H. G. Wells.

http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/11870/pg11870.html

We say that in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king, but Wells showed that in the land of the blind, he is considered insane. Eventually, the blind people figure out that the guy has "organs" that cause this unsettling problem and they offer to remove them.

Just sayin'...

I have stories about blind men, too. Just stories, like Wells’.

So are we then to base a belief in something we cannot perceive on the testimony of others? How can we know it to be true and not just propaganda by the masses?

You bet! Most of what we "know" is second hand. Have you been to the Antarctic in person? Probably not, but you have no doubt it exists as a continent at the south pole.

Ba'al Chatzaf

But I can actually go to the Antarctica and verify its existence and there is sufficient evidence to support its existence. Not so with the blind person who cannot conceive of color. If he can't even conceive sight, he surely can't conceive color.

Yes you could. But you have already accepted the existence of the place based on the testimony of a witness you trust. Much of what we "know" is of that nature. Very little of what we claim to know is gotten first from experience. And even first hand experience sometimes has to be "sanity checked" by other witnesses. That is how science works.

Ba'al Chatzaf

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?

I agree. Then the question becomes whether the blind person can think a seeing person irrational if he speaks of either sight or color.

And why not? We don't directly perceive X-rays but talk about them all the time. We function on conceptual, not perceptual level. Blind person could perceive visual information by using other senses. He cannot see letters but could read braille prints.

OK. I accept that a blind person can conceptualize information by other senses. in your case Braille prints as a form of written language, but my OP was about whether color can exist to a blind person.

Suppose, you are blind but you have two cats, one black and one white. You know from science that the color black more readily absorbs heat from the sun. As you sit in your sunlit lawn chair, your two cats rub against your legs. You reach down and pet each of them. Tying the conceptual and perceptual levels together you know which color each cat is. One cat is hotter, and therefore darker in color.

Hearing. I imagine different colors reflect sound differently. You might be able to discern a rooms color my making a sound like yodeling, or simply by yelling, "Hey!"

A trusted machine could also inform you of colors.

This example doesn’t work. From your example, all a blind person could say is that dark colors absorb more heat, but it doesn’t let him understand what "dark" is. It only lets him know what warm and less warm are.

Colors do not reflect sound differently.

RE: Your “trusted” machine. Are you saying that “trust” in a person or machine is a valid reason for believing something?

I agree. Then the question becomes whether the blind person can think a seeing person irrational if he speaks of either sight or color.

And why not? We don't directly perceive X-rays but talk about them all the time. We function on conceptual, not perceptual level. Blind person could perceive visual information by using other senses. He cannot see letters but could read braille prints.

OK. I accept that a blind person can conceptualize information by other senses. in your case Braille prints as a form of written language, but my OP was about whether color can exist to a blind person.

Mike,

I think I know where you are going with this.

Mike

Thanks for the comments. I will respond to the previous posts a little later. I’m cooking dinner right now.

Michael: Where I’m going with this is to examine my own epistemology.

Mike:

We could insert a probe into the section of the brain that reacts to the stimulation of the areas that are normally stimulated by the optic nerve and stimulate that area.

A...

I'm nor sure your example would work as color perception/differentiation is determined by the cones and barring these, any signal transmission would be incomprehensible, but accepting your example, what might one have said 100 years ago?

It's like to insert probe inside your TV set when it runs " Gone with the wind" and learn about the movie plot and performance of actors. Perception and neurophysiological processes are connected but not identical. Perception is rather an awareness of these processes. If person is totally blind then by definition no visual perception exists for him.

So are we then to base a belief in something we cannot perceive on the testimony of others? How can we know it to be true and not just propaganda by the masses?

You bet! Most of what we "know" is second hand. Have you been to the Antarctic in person? Probably not, but you have no doubt it exists as a continent at the south pole.

Ba'al Chatzaf

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?

I don't mean simply a definition of color as reflection of light, or a description of light as a measurement of wavelength along the electromagentic spectrum, etc. 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?

A rational born-blind person hearing from the sighted about color would realize that there is something that he cannot sense and he will rationally accept any analogy within his grasp that approximates the perception he cannot experience.

For example: I know that I cannot see ultra violet. But I have no problem in conceiving ultra violet as a color which is analogous to the colors I -can- see. Likewise I accept the strong and weak force interactions even though all I can experience are the electromagnetic and gravitational interactions.

Absence of perception is not absence of the thing not perceived.

Ba'al Chatzaf

You then wrote, "A rational born-blind person hearing from the sighted about color would realize that there is something that he cannot sense and he will rationally accept any analogy within his grasp that approximates the perception he cannot experience."

So are we then to base a belief in something we cannot perceive on the testimony of others? How can we know it to be true and not just propaganda by the masses?

Mike:

We could insert a probe into the section of the brain that reacts to the stimulation of the areas that are normally stimulated by the optic nerve and stimulate that area.

A...

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?

I don't mean simply a definition of color as reflection of light, or a description of light as a measurement of wavelength along the electromagentic spectrum, etc. 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?