[ExI] Red

[Ben Zaiboc]

On 30/06/2026 12:05, John K Clark wrote:

On Mon, Jun 29, 2026 at 6:54 AM Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

>>> Orange is also a bit of a puzzle. Is that a colour in itself, a variety of red, or a variety of yellow?

- Depending on the precise wavelength either English word could be used to describe the subjective color sensation. And brown is just dim orange.

- Yes, and if the strawberry was being illuminated by a bright blue light then it would look jet black.  A physicist would say there's no such thing as black light, but a philosopher would say there most certainly is such a thing as a black qualia, and both would be 100% correct.

- John K Clark

Which supports the view that what goes on in our heads, in terms of subjective processes, has no direct link to what goes on in the 'real world' of atoms and electromagnetic radiation, and sometimes even no direct correspondence to it. We create things in our minds that don't or even can't exist in the outside world, and generate our own private worlds on the basis of surprisingly little information from the outside.

The mechanics of our brains routinely give rise to patterns of information that are our subjective experiences. Some people call this the 'hard problem' of consciousness, although I never understood why it's supposed to be hard, nobody seems to talk about the 'hard problem' of interference patterns or gramophone records, or mexican waves. Just because brains are more complicated than those doesn't mean they are qualitatively any different. I think there's just a general reluctance to accept the idea "I am a pattern", even among philosophers, who seem to have just as hard a time keeping up with science as politicians do in keeping up with technology.

---
Ben

On Tuesday, 30 June 2026 at 12:05, John Clark <johnkclark at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Mon, Jun 29, 2026 at 6:54 AM Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>
>>> Orange is also a bit of a puzzle. Is that a colour in itself, a variety of red, or a variety of yellow?
>
> Depending on the precise wavelength either English word could be used to describe the subjective color sensation. And brown is just dim orange.
>
>>> I think that if you put a strawberry under a yellow lamp, without any red light shining on it, it would look yellow,
>
> Yes, and if the strawberry was being illuminated by a bright blue light then it would look jet black.  A physicist would say there's no such thing as black light, but a philosopher would say there most certainly is such a thing as a black qualia, and both would be 100% correct.
>
> John K Clark
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