What is phenomenal red a property of?

[brent.allsop]

Things that reflect 650 NM light, such as a strawberry, enable us to have knowledge of them. Is such a red property a property of the strawberry or a property of our knowledge of such?

[Answerprancer]

Lasers maybe ? I have a couple of lasers that are on the 650nm wavelength.
It might be to do with penetration, eg that pure 650nm red can penetrate a couple of millimetres into the epidermis of human skin as visible to the human eye. 650nm red is close to the infra red end of the spectrum ie. one of the two ends of the spectrum close to where light becomes invisible to the human eye. Perhaps long wavelength pure red light shows up certain substances to our eyesight better than wavelengths of light further along the spectrum.
Could you be more detailed with your question ?

[vascop]

The colour that any object has when we see it, is due to the wavelength of the light it reflects which then reaches our eyes. So the colour is determined by the strawberry.

[rojash]

Someone with no eyes, or non-functioning eyes, or faulty eyes would not see the colour red, so the colour is determined by our eyes.

[Jonathan-Joe]

"Is the redness in the strawberry or in our brains?" I think this is often regarded as a question in the realm of philosophy, rather than science.

[heathfield]

If a wild red strawberry is growing in the middle of a forest, and no-one sees it, is it still red?

[jake-the-peg]

If there were no humans to see the strawberry it would still reflect light at the same wavelength

Red is just a name we give to that phenomina

The property is independant of our knowledge it is the interpreting of that phenomina that we call red

[brent.allsop]

Jonathan-Joe indicated this was a philosophy question. I believe this has clearly progressed into the realm of science. Our goal is to prove this with the consciousness survey project at canonizer.com. The theory being developed in the "Representational Qualia Theory" camp (see: http://canonizer.com/topic.asp/88/6 ) already seems to be indicating there is a real scientific consensus on the answer to this question. As ever more experts contribute to the survey, this theory continues to extend the amount of expert consensus it has compared to any other theory.

It predicts the term 'red' is an ambiguous term. There is 'causal red', as when things like a strawberry reflecting 650 nm light. And as Jake said we call this causal phenomenon "red". This causal property is a property of the initial cause of the perception process and is obviously independent of any experiencer.

However, at the other end of the perception process is something in our brain, that is our knowledge of the strawberry. An ineffable phenomenal property like the taste of salt or phenomenal redness, or a qualia, is predicted by the theory, to be a property of this knowledge in our brain. The predictions includes the very likely possibility of such things as inverted qualia (my red could be phenomenally the same as your green...).

Computers can represent the same information abstractly, and by design it doesn't matter what such abstract knowledge is represented with - only that the particular representation be interpreted correctly. Our phenomenal knowledge, on the other hand, what it is phenomenally like is all important and what 'consciousness' is all about.

With the consciousness survey project we intend to prove, definitively, (or possibly not) that there is already a clear scientific consensu

[brent.allsop]

With the consciousness survey project we intend to prove, definitively, (or possibly not) that there is already a clear scientific consensus amongst real experts in this still theoretical field. This revolution in science, that phenomenal red is a property of our knowledge of the strawberry, could be more significant than when the experts all realized, way before the general population, that the earth went around the sun instead of the other way around.

According to the scientific consensus amongst the expert participators so far (including world leaders like Lehar, Smythies, Chalmers...), this issue has already been resolved. The only remaining issue is, how are these phenomenal properties tied to the neural correlates responsible for them in our brain. Currently, Chalmer's "Functional Property Dualism" camp is the leading theory (see: http://canonizer.com/topic.asp/88/8 ) but the "Material Property Dualism" theory is about to surpass this theory in the amount of consensus it has, both popular and expert. Obviously these camps all make very testable prediction which science is surely about to validate which one is THE ONE true theory of consciousness.

Of course, this survey is only as good as the amount of people that participate. So if anyone feels differently, it would be good for everyone if you could participate in the survey. Especially since time is running out before all the experts finally are convinced by the science, and converge on the one true camp.

[jake-the-peg]

Oh for goodness sake Brent

Peddle your teenage pseudo scientific religious philosophy elsewhere

Just looked at your website

Consiousness as the 5th dimension of the brain?

I would report you for advertising but I think others on this site should visit your link

It's cold and grey over here at the moment and we all need a good laugh from time to time
Endogenious nexus light theory?

Give us a break - Inventing impeneterable jargon does not equate to insight

[jake-the-peg]

By the way is this the "commercial website" you were asking about a few years back?

http://www.theanswerb...s/Question550146.html

You must think we're all soft in the head!

[jake-the-peg]

And you might want to not link your home address to to your website registration

http://maps.google.co...0Xf85JjAHnXzQz_zDpBkA


Utah looks much as I remember it - skiing in Alta was very good you're lucky to live so close!

[bibblebub]

this thread is one of the downsides to the recent wake-up emails

[Khandro]

Heathfield/Jake, Sorry, but if it isn't observed, it isn't red.

[jake-the-peg]

Don't or I'll start on collapsing wave functions ;c)

[Khandro]

Jake, you need to brush-up your Berkeley - George, not Busby (ha-ha). I admit though, that you are good on waves!

[jake-the-peg]

I refute it thus!

Ouch!

[brent.allsop]

So is all that everyone's best and final 'answer'? Nobody is even going to provide the names of these naive theories, if you can call them that, which experts have been referring to them as for millennia? Let alone do more than just hurt and attack the methods and character of someone providing a different (well argued and supported by other experts) point of view (failing to see any of the possible motives for such methods)? Any other points of view out there? Anyone besides me interested in knowing, concisely and quantitatively, what anyone else besides themselves thinks?

[JonnyBoy12]

Does this apply to the 80s punk band Strawberry Switchblade as well? They were a bit strange to say the least. Anyone remember them?

[NazNomad]

Haven't listened to them Since Yesterday. ;-)