I too am making a semantic point: what we mean by ‘color’ cannot be torn away from its being a properties of an object, or in the case of LSD which quetzalcoatl brought up, areas of space or the visual field. It’s like the argument for matter: its essential character is extension. Well, color too seems to have to bear an ‘extended’ character. That it is a properties of an object, or an area of space, is possible because objects and space themselves are part of our perceptual world.
Then if you think it fundamental clearly you have to change the definition of sound and colour. This is analogous to claiming maths is discovered not invented.
If it is part of our perceptual world, on LSD or not, colour and sound need an observer with some discretion to make the identities coherent. There is no colour without sight and no sound without hearing. Perception deals in qualia, and qualia do not exist outside of the mind, as subjective as that may and necessarily has to be.
Why? I’m drawing on how we already do define these terms (at least, how the layperson does).
How so?
Correct. Now what of it?
No even the lay person knows sound is something they percieve, colour likewise there’s no fundamental there.
Because you are assuming that “maths” is fundamentally in existence, something that must therefore be discovered not invented.
I think you’re just ignoring the definitions of what sound and colour are, to you they are something that is pre existing, fundamental, this is not the case. I’m not sure how much more clearly I can put it, but sound does not intrinsically exist any more than colour does, they are filtered by an intelligent mind. There is no colour without observation. There is no God without intelligences that can comprehend such a thing. Maybe we are at logger heads because you have not explained your position well enough, but if you keep on saying such a thing as sound and colour are fundamental, you just have to redefine both, not an easy thing to do.
True but these are not properties of an object until they have been filtered by perception. Hence they are not intrinsic properties of anything, all they are is things that we perceive after being filtered by our minds, entirely subjective in our case, there is no objective colour. It’s not an objective on an object because it relies on a perception, some aliens may well not agree that blue is blue, and some animals likewise, because their perceptions differ from ours. Some aliens may well see into the infra red and ultra violet and beyond, and hence colour to them is a far broader spectrum. Colour is not inherent to any object, it is only inherent in a range to some observers, and in that range perceptions may be wider or smaller than others notions of them. Are we talking about properties that are exact, or properties that are variable, if the latter then there is no such thing as absolute colour.
Hell it’s awfully semantic but colour is subjective, it does not exactly represent any wave of light for all observers.
Yes, they know it’s something they perceive. That it is fundamental in that respect is not something they know or assume, but that has nothing to do with the fact that we define color as a property of an object or sound as something eminating from an event.
It is both discovered and invented.
Fundamental, yes. Pre-existing, no. Would it help if I told you I was an idealist?
Oh, how we’re still caught in the grips of Cartesian skepticism.
Already?
No, explaining that they are fundamental is not the same as redefining what they are. Color is still a properties of an object whether or not it is fundamental or a product of neurochemical actions.
Descartes has us convinced that if it is perceptual it has no reality. As I said, my thinking is more on idealist lines, and so I go with the motto that if it is perceived, it is real (i.e. reality is something inherent in our perceptions and experiences, not outside). You can take that or leave it, but at least I hope that clarifies where I’m coming from.
The idealism thing makes sense and explains what you mean I think. Thanks for taking the time to explain it.
I think Descartes should of stuck to maths personally, so we can agree at least that his form of arm waving dualism is not really very informative about reality, in fact it tends to leave us in all sorts of dead ends.
Ok firstly we can agree that colour and sound etc are perceptual, but I’d say there is colour without sight or sound without hearing. This is because the perception of them derives imho from electrical signals rather than the original frequencies, this is why we can see something that is different to what light-waves determine. Examples can be found not only with what drugs do I.e. create false or otherwise imaginary inputs and present them to the perception, but also in optical illusions [inner and outer false correlation of perception to inputs].
It would be wrong to omit further rigour in our logic here; just as colour is not a property of light-waves, in the same way it cannot be said to be a property of neuronal electrical signals. In both cases we have an object forming a wavelength, then that gives [contains?] information from which the mind may perceive meaning about its environment. Electrical signals also may derive from other neuronal sources e.g. the memory and the imagination, which again presents information to the perceiver.
Crucially then, surely we must state that colour properly derives from information, as it is not a property of the signals as mentioned.
That both information and colour are not physical objects, they occur [in the least] as respective agents derived of them.
Additional; Weather or not that too is always the case is quite another question, when we consider fundamentals and origins it seems to me that we have to go beyond objects, then to background information and perhaps beyond that. So it would appear to be like this; I [1] {info} ≡ O {objects} ≡
I [2], where O changes the language of I [2].
Does all this mean that there is a fabric of reality - so to speak, whereby colour and info as consciousness or mind, are brought into being as requested? E.g. if the perceiver gets a signal where its information tells the perceiver that the colour ‘red’ is to be observed ~ either in the mind or as observed in the world, then the colour ‘red’ occurs?
Or rather than a fabric of reality, colour and info are mental/perceptual and we call that a quality of mind? Surely info is out there in the world and it seems equally strange to refer to a thing as mental qualia ~ there are only thing-ness’s, what does mental object or qualia even mean.
_
My older brother is red-green color blind. People with him, who aren’t so impaired can ‘see’ the colors, while he sees only various shades of gray. Does this mean that color is always present, but that its perception depends on the brain chemistry of the perceiver?
It means that your brother’s brain doesn’t analyze some of the rays that bounce off of red and green things in the same way as most humans. The object is the same, the characteristics are the results of interactions between perciever and object. If the object or the perciever change, the characteristics of the object change.
This “of the object” is what causes all the confusion. It doesn’t mean that the characteristic is intrinsic to the object, it just means that it can only happen in the presence of that object, or that it is associated with the object,
Pezer, may I ask if there was anything wrong with the logic in my last post? 
Liz, your brothers colour cones in the back of the eye arent giving the right info/signals I’d expect, either way the signals his brain is getting contains the wrong info. Get the info right and he’ll see colour.
I have seen experiments where hearing and even the tongue is used for sight, although such science is at a rudimentary level at the moment, I doubt it will be long before there’s a way to give the optical cortex the correct signals/info.