MatthewB comments on Consciousness - Less Wrong

2 Post author: Mitchell_Porter 08 January 2010 12:18PM

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Comment author: thomblake 08 January 2010 03:33:18PM 3 points [-]

I don't understand where this perceived confusion comes from (despite, or because, I read much of the relevant literature).

If we have an electronic device that emits light at 450THz and another that detects light and reports what "color" it is (red), then we can build/execute all of that without accounting for "redness" (except of course in the step where it decides what to call the "color"). Is there a problem here?

Is color a special topic here? Do we have the same issues in phenomenology of sound?

If we have an electronic device that outputs sound at 264.298 Hz and another that detects sound and reports the "musical note" (middle C) then we can build/execute all of that without reference to "middle C -ness". Is this a problem?

Comment author: MatthewB 08 January 2010 03:57:26PM 1 point [-]

There is also the fact that what we describe as "redness" is purely by virtue or our anatomy and the ranges at which our eyes' structure receives the light that is then interpreted by our brain as red or blue.

Red, or Blue are just words that we used to describe a state that exists in the universe. What would happen to these colors if our eyes were made of a type of structure that picked up EM radiation all the way from gamma-rays to long-wavelength radio waves?

What "color" would we think something in the Microwave spectrum was? What about the X-Ray Colored objects?