Language describes experience, language does not create experience.
I can see red but I may not know the word red? In that instance does my linguistic inability to describe red hinder my understanding of the concept of red?
it does, but not very much. Studies have shown that if you have a word for the colour you can remember it easier and are quicker in identifying it, but it does not actually stop people remembering or identifying it in terms they know (blue-green rather than tourquoise).
Pinnacle, you linguisitic inability does not hinder the ability of the concept. Because the words are the concept. We think in language, therefore our thoughts form the concepts. The word red to you is simply an idea, a symbol, or a marker for that color. The only way this thinking of naming colors can hinder your ability, is if you’re always identifying the colors, instead of purely witnessing them. But again, this identification is the concept. The colors without concept are viewed non-conceptually.
ironically there’s specifically been a study where peolpe are told to group colors according to similarity. they group differently depending on how the colors are distinguished in their language.
oreso
in that case the word becomes a signifier of red which is the signified. what i am saying is whether you can see red without knowing the word RED
torrentfields
good you agree
inhahe
how colors are distinguished??? what do you mean
Im troubling what you mean. Of course, we will see a colour if we are equipped to, even if we do not realise it as a distinct colour. Lacking any current descripters, if asked about it we will assign some, if not asked about it, we will only treat it as distinct if its advantageous to do so (red fruits are nicer or something).
This would be regarded as an extremely naive proposiiton. Except at the very most basic sensation level, language – or the language function at any rate – does in fact create experience, in the sense that it tellsyou what what features of the experience are significant for you to notice. Humans have experiences of a very different kind than the pure-sensation experiences of a paramecium in a drop of pond water, and the difference is very largely language-driven.
Bill Patterson
what experience is created if I say ‘dafsdfasdfasdfadsf’
you are only saying language alert to experience, not that it CREATES THEM. think before you speak.
oreso
you are speaking in tougnss
lol. better than speaking in rectums i guess. 
i think you’re searching too hard here, its pretty simple.
'…whether you can see red without knowing the word RED"
I get what you are saying but you’re being too subtle. Short answer is yes you do see the color red. Colors are a part of the nomenal world, the reflection of light-rays off of surfaces which are perceived by subjects capable receiving the color data. In the consciousness of the human subjects color first occurs as sense-data, but what you are discussing is color after initial perception. Clearly our understanding of color goes beyond simple sense-data otherwise science would be able to explain, predict, and codify not only casual information but the meaning of colors, for example, what red looks like.
I think what you are suggesting is that we can’t even describe red without the word Red. In my opinion I would say you are correct, but as correct as anyone can be in regards to a subject as slippery as this one.
Wittgenstein spent a great deal of time contemplating color, in his book Remarks on Colour he talks about the privileged status the names used to describe colors have in the Latin languages. Looking at the colors in nature does not teach us anything about the concept of colors. The reason is that our color concepts are not mental copies of sense-data but results of procedures according to rules in agreement with other people based on language. The words we use to describe color do indeed have an impact on how we understand our perceptions of colors.
So in short red is Red because language lets me know its Red and Red is red because it really is red.
I think that it is important to recognize a distinction here between the materialist interpretation of an experience and the textual interpertation experience. In a materialist investigation, we start with the presumption that broad and comfortable descriptors like red are innaccurate description for a material or biological interaction. In a semiotic investigation, we presume that discourse is limited to our set of signs. In as far as we can discuss, textually, your ability to see “red” we are unable to discuss that ability with out the word “red”, or some comparable signifiar.
Consider diference would be between these two sataements:
- Can I see red without the word “red”.
and - Can I see () without the word “()”.
In a materialist investigation, we could give you a series of color test which test a your response to the spectrum, we could disect your eye (well I couldn’t I’ve never take a bio class in my life) we could check you for brain damage. We could do a number of physical tests that could indicate whether or not you are physically able to [see red]. But then how would we describe these tests without the word “red”.
There is, furthermore, an interplay between the semiotic interpertation and the physical interpertaion. A linguist would say that, in so far as discourse can happen in the debate over your vision, the determination by the materialist is dependent on his linguistic system. But the materialist would argue that the linguist was not debating your ability to [see red] but rather our ability to understand it…
…And suddenly I realize that I’ve actually not contributed anything to the conversation, because I’m right back at the begining.
Oh, well, sorry for wasting your time.
There is the ability to see colours, and the experience of actually seeing them. They are ‘outside’ language and remain unaffected by it.
There are the words we use to denote and describe colours.
There is the discourse of trying to understand the relation between the first two.
We must take care to try and separate these three, even though it is essentially impossible for me to describe how to go about doing that.
I told you rbarghouti that you wouldn’t be able to stay away from ILP. It’s too much fun to stay away from. As far as this topic goes, I think we’ve put ourselves in a corner and wont come out of it until some brilliant poster figures out the problem for all of philosophy. So get to it someoneisatthedoor.
is anyone saying anything more than what I have said? if you agree why bother reposting?
Pinnacle:
It must be very frustrating to have such redundant replys and meaningless rhetoric in response to such an articulate, applicable and not to mention easly resolvable question like:
I suppose that we really should have waited for your reply to your question before we posted our congratulations to you for having solved one of the crucial questions of philosophy.
Thank you, You truely have inlightened me to my own ignorance.
HAD ONLY I REALIZED it before I spent HOURS laboring over my post, I could have spent that time more wizely reading more of the posts that you have placed for our benifit here at ILP. I’m sure that I would have found myself more profoundly moved. Certainly, it was my own VAINITY that had forced me to be so bold as to attempt to phrase your question into an understanding uniquely my own. I surely will know better in the future.
Years from now, my grandchildren will sit on my lap, look up at me and I will look down on them, probably a christmas season much like this one, and I will say to them, “children, be sure that you never say anything stupid on an internet message board” … “Why’s that Grandpa?” “Well,” I’d say, "you wouldn’t want people to think that just by rephrasing a purely rhetorical question that they could get closer to understanding the elusive nature of the answer.
Pinnacle, I am in your debt.
Well its hard to say anything after Ramsey gave you such bad third degree burns with his scathing reply. I would suggest some ointment and a couple days bed rest before doing anymore posting.
In defense of my post I do believe that I said something important. I pointed you in the direction of a book that I feel is an outstanding resource related to the question at hand. Even if you have already read “Remarks on Color†maybe someone reading the post would find it an interesting book to read. But why bother!? Clearly you have already figured out the philosophy of color and just posted such an articulate and easy to understand question just to toy with us lesser students of philosophy. I wait in glib delight for the genius book you’re obviously going to write; it is about time someone put this problem to bed.
Just incase you need a little more research before you solve it for us all here is a list of additional titles I feel are worthy of such a great mind.
Westphal, J. 1991. Colour: A Philosophical Introduction (For those who are not geniuses like POR)
Clark, A. 1993. Sensory Qualities
Wittgenstein, L. 1977. Remarks on Colour (Obviously)
Gage, J. 1993. Color and Culture: Practice and Meaning from Antiquity to Abstraction
McGinn, C. 1983. The Subjective View: Secondary Qualities and Indexical Thoughts
Landesman, C. 1989. Color and Consciousness: An Essay in Metaphysics
Mundle, C. W. K. 1971. Perception: Facts and Theories
Hilbert, D. R. 1987. Color and Color Perception: A Study in Anthropocentric Realism
Goethe, J. W. von. 1840/1970. Theory of Colours, trans (started color theory after Newton’s Optics)
How about an online paper regarding the subject its only 11 pages and you can email the author and let him know that he was being redundant because you already figured it out.
jtb-forum.pl/jtb/papers/rp_cnatcoc.pdf
Just incase you didn’t get the picture, what you said is a jerk-ass thing say.
rbarghouti
not only frustrating, but also extremely irratating when I stumble upon persons of jacka*s such as your self. whom blindly worships the philosophers, not because they said anything profound but they are famous and that their sayings are like the riddles and parables of jesus.
no it is common curtesy to respond and not to rephrase what has been said, for it is stealing. which makes you a theif. as I said earlier, philosophy is theology. it can not be understood. the question of color is not a question at all, but a manefestation of the ignorance and word playing of humanity, exemplified by your rudness.
I may have downed your ignorance, I certainty have not managed to calm your arrogance.
I didn’t know you spend HOURS on your post, for I spend a maximum of 5 min.
reading your post is like reading Hegel while he’s on pot. what a way to conclude your post. by saying, ‘I suddenly woke up and realised it was all a dream, the end’. what a climax!
you are arrogant and rude. I’ll refrain from speaking to you in the future, unless your arrogance gets out of hand and need to be tamed again.
someemofag
third degree burns??? hahha, you’ve seen nothing yet. you sure are a good a** li***r
I don’t have to read a book to think. I am an independant thinker, everything I say on this forum is mine and mine orginally. stop listening and worshipping books and start thinking yourself. I am not reliant on others to think for me. I can think for myself. I am nearly finished with mybook with over 200 pages. 70,000 words.
I do not read introductions by some academic. god. get a life guys. this whole conversation is making me lose faith in humanity again. I don’t have to read a book to understand color. I am not stupid.
you are as rude as that… forget it. people like yourself deserve to be lead by the nose, by whitehead. mundle, some one from 1700. Jesus. you guys are scaring me. good bye! leave me alone
by the way, I read your link to that academic paper. oh my, what monstrosity!
the paper proves my point. academics can’t think for themselves, they like the priests have to constantly go back and refer to Wittegenstein this, Jesus said that. why can’t they think for themselves. Wittegenstein was a man like any other. this whole cult built around him because he’s got an amusing name like enstein whom’s understanding of Time as I have proven is wrong.
the guy who wrote the paper, is mixing all sorts of mumbo jumbo together. his elementary understanding of the physics of color, explained rather difficult when the concept is so simple. It is amazing how people explain simple things complicatedly, does that mean they don’t understand it? so in their writing they try to work it out. if they don’t know it, how can the reader know what they don’t know.
the whole paper is confusing, tangled up, with no theme, with the customary points which said nothing that can’t be said simpler. apply Ockam’s razor for God’s sake and reduce the drivel. a total waste of time, on top of that he wrote in first person. what an idiot. thanks for giving me the link, now I know what sort of people you look up and sck up to. and lik up to. YUKKKK!!!
I once heard that the surest sign of a crack pot is that they will inevitable make favorable comparison between themselves and Einstein.
Edit:
I started and edit here but I was wrong, never mind.
i was reading the posts and thought maybe it was being approached the wrong way. language is a physical representation of a thought. the median which an idea has to cross to be comprehended. i’m red-green color blind but when i see a red car, a red hat , red paint i know its red, even though i dont see the same color red as people who have full color vision. what do you think is responsible for my ability to distinguish this color from others?
process of elimination? familiarity? if you look at 2 paint jobs on cars. 1 cost $200 at a bargain basement low quality shop. and 2 cost $2000 at a high end shop. most people could tell the difference. i think since i have a color diffeciancy in my vision red would be dull. but this has nothing to do with philosophy so ill can it.