Posted on 03/15/2005 2:41:19 PM PST by Michael_Michaelangelo
Give me a specific example of an animal that responds to color without being able to see it? My first impression is that you are making this scenerio up.
The point of a universal is that it exists - whether or not I or anyone else can perceive it is beside the point.
If one is a Nominalist then universals do not exist. There is no objective, universal "green" - it is a figment of a Normalist's imagination.
To an animal with different color pigments, there are colors which exist even though you can't see them. To a human with different color vision, there are also colors that exist even though you can't see them. In fact, by your definition, there are as many objective colors as there are possible visual pigments; which is close to an infinity of colors. Out of this infinitiy of objective colors people and most organisms can see only three, or two, or just one.
And ultimately, it all comes down to a function where we have intensity of light on one axis and frequency on the other. But even that function can be shifted, for example, by the Doppler effect.
It's not a very good example of a universal.
And what make human life "a good in itself?" You're going to have to appeal to something objective for your claim to have any meaning. Anything less than an objective basis will collapse into relativism, and most likely utilitarianism.
But suppose I were to make the counter-claim that "making 'better' children" was the highest good? The objective basis for my claim would be that I can see all around me, using the evidence in favor of evolution, that this is the objective definition of "good." It's straightforward to show how this claim leads to utilitarianism.
I would dispute that "green" is a qualia. . . I can however communicate a precise shade of green by pointing to it.
Which works only as long as the person to whom you're communicating it is experiencing it at the time you point. Be that as it may, we're not disagreeing about anything worth arguing over; you can feel free to rewrite my post substituting the phrase 'experienced quality' for 'quale' (that's the singular' 'qualia' is the plural').
I addressed that above somewhere, beginning with something like, "'the first line of defense' is the natural law..."
I can present you with two entirely different mixtures of frequencies which to your eyes look like emerald green. Which of the two mixtures is 'the color itself'?
How about "pi" or "threeness"? Did pi exist before it was named? Did threes exist before anyone learned to count?
No, of course not. I'm not an essentialist.
"I know what green is."
And for all the rest, you didn't show me.
Bad scientist! ::swats with a nespaper::
If you "know" you can demonstrate it.
All you can demonstrate is that the mind can be fooled. Those are called "illusions"
By spinning a top, it does not become "green" it is still black and white.
Green exists as a universal form, whether you percieve it that way or not is up to you.
It can be argued that if you and I were to swap brains, "green" would become some other color to both of us. This is due to "perception"
"Your" green is not de facto "my" green. HOWEVER: There is a "green" out there that we both percieve AND identify as such. There is a universal idea of "green" just as there is a universal idea of "chair"
Neither. Thanks for playing :)
I had been musing on the industry standard numbering for colors which printers and artists use and happened upon your post at that very moment...
I'll take that as a concession.
This is simply untrue. The pigments used for Pantone colors may have an objective reality, but the spectral characteristics of pigments is very complex, and many alternate mixes would produce the same match by humans.
Our perception of color is entirely subjective. People with differences in their retinal receptors see colors differently. There are people with "color blindness" in only one eye, and they are able to describe the perceived differences.
you: No, of course not. I'm not an essentialist.
If circles did not exist, then why pi?
Well, for one thing, if you wish to call "man" an animal, I will allow it for this discussion. (Seeing as I cannot know what an animal thinks)
I know a guy who is color-blind to blue. He knows a beautiful day when he sees it out his window though. He's reacting to the appearances without reacting to color. But how does he know its beautiful? It's gray to him!
Presumably it fails to communicate its unpleasantness to every conceivable predator.
This is a common anti-evolution argument that goes as follows, "Since adaption 'x' does not work in every situation faced by species 'y' evolution is a crock...". The argument misses the point that the benefit of the adaption is still apparent in other situations, and as long as the cost of the adaption is less than its overall probabilistic benefit natural selection will tend to preserve it. Nature doesn't insist on perfection, most of the time good-enough is good-enough.
I mention this based on long experience discussing theproblem of universals online and elsewhere.
Whatever scientists call "matter" isn't what Aristotle called "matter." Aristotle's "matter" can't be further reduced.
You have demonstrated that philosophers are capable of multiplying entities beyond necessity. Greenness probably corresponds to a behavior of the brain that can be mapped to a specific location. In that sense, and that sense alone, it is objective.
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