[ExI] Redness comes from Context?

Ben Zaiboc bbenzai at yahoo.com
Sun May 5 12:42:34 UTC 2013


Brent Allsop <brent.allsop at canonizer.com> wrote:

> I'm predicting there are elemental qualities, like redness

This is the heart of the matter.

You think there are such things as 'qualities', which exist independently of anything else.  I  don't.  I'm saying that the experience of a 'quality' like redness arises from combining many things together in the mind.  These are not mysterious abstract things, they are the patterns of information-processing out of which experience is built.

Note, I'm not saying "a huge amount of memories, emotions, us perceiving it, and other stuff /in with 'redness'/", I'm saying "a huge amount of memories, emotions, us perceiving it, and other stuff IS 'redness'".

Are you familiar with binaural beats, or moire patterns?  How about fluid vortices?  Or the patterns in a wheatfield when the wind blows?  These things all exist, but there is no way they could be described as 'elemental qualities'.  Or elemental anything.  Redness is like this, in my opinion.  *All* of our experiences are like this.

>It seems to me that Ben is
>pulling a similar trick, claiming qualitative properties come from
>complexities.  But if this is the case, then you should be able to tell
>me the nature of these complexities, and what or how is it that a simple
>elemental redness quality can come from such


This paragraph illustrates that you didn't understand what I meant.  Forget "a simple elemental redness quality", there is no such thing.  I know it /feels/ like there is, but that's no guide.  Einstein's special theory of relativity feels wrong, too.  So does quantum theory.  It's tough that our instincts have evolved to cope with living on the savannah, chasing antelopes and avoiding lions.  We have to rely on logic to guide us on these more recent concerns.

Ben Zaiboc




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