I agree with Magnus that color in the mind is different to color in the thing ~ that is, the light reflecting off a thing. Same with smell or anything that’s a representative of something out there I.e. sensory and memory information.
The photograph will only reveal physical tissue ~ the light reflecting off it. A deep scan would reveal something more psychedelic. …but we still have the fact that something is given color, or smells. Far simpler organisms still get the smells for example, so this is not a ‘lost in the complexity’ issue.
The qualia is most likely the reflection of a thing upon the observers eye. There is something about the act of observing which yields info about something. But more, that info makes the color happen ~ the quality of the thing exist. A quality must be ‘real’ such to be passed around by particles, that is how a photo and ‘you’ [an observer] can observe the properties of color. I don’t see how we can say the quality of red is one of mind, especially when it is also a property of light and photo-cells, which are not of mind.
Sounds like there must be observers in all things. You can probably build a human/oid from the ground up, switch it on, and there will be an experienced observing individual there, just like we are. No difference between the photo and the red flower, and the minds vision of that, nature is doing the same thing all round.
hmm, or maybe I just contradicted myself, lol. is there color in the given physical thing the same as in us, or is that property different in a brain somehow?
what is ‘the other thing’ to the physics occurring here?