
An argument for a new definition of color - dnetesn
http://nautil.us/issue/56/perspective/the-reality-of-color-is-perception-rp
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mjburgess
Everything we interact with has an effect on us. We name the causal origin of
these effects, we do not name the effect.

When I say "the flag is white", I mean that it is causing a white-effect.
Whiteness is the property which causes the white-effect (ie., a perception of
white).

By communicating to you that it is so-causal, I am saying that it will cause
you to experience the same thing. "White" isnt just any part of the process we
want to choose it's the feature of the object which does the work.
Communication is incohrent and impossible if "white" is naming something
radically subjective like _my_ state which is private.

There is then the open question about whether what causes my white-perception
now is the same as what caused it earlier, and whether the defintion of the
kind "white" can therefore be performed by a physicist alone.

Probably, it cannot. Our sensation of colour is provoked by different stimuli.

That doesnt make colour relational, or physiological, or necessarily anything
of that kind. It simply makes it plural. There are several ways to be blue,
though we detect them all as-if they were the same.

~~~
tremendulo
_> By communicating to you that it is so-causal, I am saying that it will
cause you to experience the same thing._

It'll cause me to experience what I normally think of as white. Which isn't to
say that our experiences will match exactly because they include subtle
associations. Some we will have in common, say a blank sheet of paper. But if
I live near the equator then _snow_ may be one of many associations we do not
share.

~~~
mjburgess
I meant something narrower by "experience". Not that you will be in the same
mental state in every respect, but of the state you are in, it will have the
feature of "seeming-to-see-a-white-thing" which I also share.

Causes carve experience into pieces which we communicate.

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iainmerrick
This is very reminiscent of another article on the philosophy of color, from
last month:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15910332](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15910332)

In both cases, the most interesting thing about the article is the artwork
used to illustrate it!

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mrami
"My response is to say that colors are not properties of objects (like the
U.N. flag) or atmospheres (like the sky) but of perceptual
processes—interactions which involve psychological subjects and physical
objects."

I don't see a nod to Robert Pirsig in the article, but it reads like a
textbook example of Dynamic Quality.

"I don't know how much thought passed before he arrived at this, but
eventually he saw that Quality couldn't be independently related with either
the subject or the object but could be found only in the relationship of the
two with each other. It is the point at which subject and object meet."

Of course, he goes a little bit further after that. :)

