Buckner Clarifies his Terminology

Terminological fluidity is one of the banes of philosophy. What follows is an admirable exercise in terminological fixation by the Worthy Opponent.  My comments are in blue.

I have been discussing toothbrushes [mirror images] with David but it’s clear we are being held back by semantics. I am not clear what we respectively mean by “reflection” or “appearance”, or of the green colour of these things. So I will try to set out what I mean or understand by the different terms.

“Phenomenal green”, “green as we see it”, “green as it appears to us”, also David’s “sensation of green” I think all mean the same thing, namely what I mean by green(ness), but let me explain what I understand by “green”.

BV: So far, so good.

1) Greenness is a visible quality of certain objects such as leaves, avocados, algae, brussel sprouts, [some] toothbrushes etc.

BV: The point needs to be put more precisely. Green (greenness) is a determinable with a range of corresponding  determinates.  (See here for the distinction.) The latter are the specific shades of green. The determinable green is arguably not a visible quality; only the lowest determinates are, the infima species. 

2) It is extended. I mean that a green patch is composed of green patches, which are in turn composed of further green patches ad infinitum. i.e. The greenness is continuous, or consists of a set of green points.

BV: This is not quite right either. Yes, a visible green patch can be subdivided, but not to infinity, for soon enough we arrive at sub-patches that cannot be seen, and this long before we get to points. A point is dimensionless: it has a location but no extension. And surely it is true that no color-determinate is visible if unextended.

3) Only a surface, i.e. a two dimensional thing can be green. However the surface is extended in 3D space, because each point can be a different distance from me.

BV: This sounds right to me. Visible green is given only two-dimensionally, even if the 'green' thing in the external world is 'green' all the way through.

4) The green quality is mind-independent, for the following reasons. (i) It exists outside me, (ii) it is a quality of the object which is green, and not a quality of me. (iii) I can no longer see it when I shut my eyes, but it is still there.

BV: Here is where the going gets tough.  If 'exists outside me' just means 'mind-independent,' then the first reason begs the question, or is circular. If, however, 'exists outside me' means 'appears outside me,' then the visible need not be mind-independent. 

As for (ii), what is the object? 'Object' is notoriously ambiguous. The thing in the external world? But then it hasn't been shown that the visible quality is a property of the object. It might just be a property of the phenomenon in Kant's sense which, though empirically real, is transcendentally ideal.

As for (iii),  if the visible quality is still there when I close my eyes, then it would have to be part of the thing itself in the external world, right? But that seems to comport none too well with the visible quality's being a phenomenal item.

5) It is inert, namely unlike heat it has no causal power to affect my senses.

BV: Seem right.  The seen green has no causal power. But how can  the visible two-dimensional phenomenal quality be both causally inert, and yet still be there when I close my eyes, given that the latter implies that the quality is part and parcel of the thing itself in the external world?  

Unlike heat? But surely there is phenomenal heat in contradistinction to heat-scientifically-understood. The felt heat of the hot coffee when I take a sip is not the same as the mean molecular kinetic energy of the coffee-water molecules. 

6) Thus it is not equivalent to reflectance properties of leaves or algae, which are powers to affect my senses, as far as we know, but greenness is an inert, non-causal quality. The leaf just is green.

BV: Yes.  The reflectance properties are dispositional properties, but there is nothing dispositional about the seen green, the phenomenal sense quality (sensory quale).  It is wholly occurrent or actual. 

7) It follows that greenness cannot be a reflectance property of green objects, although there may be some unknown causal connection between the property and the quality.

BV: Seems so.  Seen green cannot be a reflectance property of 'green' things themselves in the external world, things we call 'green' because they have the power to cause in us sensory qualia that are phenomenally green.

If, as science suggests, the green quality ‘out there’ is caused by neural processes, the greenness of “green” objects is an illusion, for it cannot be a quality of the green object. The causation cannot work in reverse. There is no way that a neural process in the brain can change or affect the quality of any object outside the brain.

BV: So when I am outside looking at my green palo verde tree in the backyard I am under an illusion because the tree in nature (in the external world) cannot be phenomenally green: that visible quality cannot be a property of the tree itself. It is conjured up in my brain by neural processes.

Is there not something dubious in the view that our direct sensory perception (in optimal conditions of lighting, etc.) of things like trees is illusory? If the seen green is illusory, then so is the smelt scent of the blossoms (The Sonoran spring is in full swing.)  And so on for all the other so-called secondary qualities/properties.  Can we keep the illusoriness from spreading to the primary qualities?

Comments

[oz]

> This [continuousness] is not quite right either.

How then do we capture our sense that every (phenomenal) point on the surface of the object is coloured?

>But surely there is phenomenal heat in contradistinction to heat-scientifically-understood.

Agree. My hasty slip. There is heat as the movement of molecules, and there is “phenomenal” heat.

And yes, I think more work is needed on (4).

[BV]

'Green' can be used to refer to the phenomenal color, seen green which, as I said, is a lowest determinate (infima species) or to the property of a thing in the external world which, whether it is seen or not by someone, makes it reflect light (physical light, not phenomenal light) of so many angstroms in wavelength. Physical light is a portion of the electromagnetic spectrum. It is called the visible portion, but it is invisible in itself and called visible only in relation to subjects like us. (Compare the use of 'infrared' and 'ultraviolet.')

You are dubiously assuming that the phenomenal green is a physical part of the physical surface of the physical thing in the external world. You can think of this physical surface as consisting of an actual infinity of points. Not so with the phenomenally green surface. No visible color without extension!

[oz]

>You are dubiously assuming that the phenomenal green is a physical part of the physical surface of the physical thing in the external world.

There is something that I take to be a green cushion on the chair to my left. The ‘green’ is phenomenal green. Perhaps I am mistaken in so taking it, but there is a something there nonetheless.

>You can think of this physical surface as consisting of an actual infinity of points.

I can, but it is the phenomenal surface that I know is continuous.

>No visible color without extension!

I wholly disagree. The phenomenally green surface is extended, having part outside part, as the scholastics say. Indeed, how on earth could it be a surface, if not extended. “Non-extended surface” is a contradictio in adiecto. Then there are two possibilities. (1) Phenomenal qualities are spread out in physical space. Or (2) there is a “phenomenal space” containing phenomenal objects. I favour the latter. Long live nouvel idéalisme.

[Joe Odegaard]

Color is a grey area. (pun). Happy Friday.

[BV]

That a racist pun, Joe! You said that to avoid saying it's neither BLACK nor white (supremacist). Actually what you really wanted to say, but were afraid to, is that the present topic is a POC, a problem 'of color.'

Seriously, Happy Friday. I recommend you cook for the family this evening in Lent, pasta puttanesca, not to celebrate whores, but to avoid meat. Make it with sardines, 'meatier' than anchovies.

[Joe Odegaard]

Actually I am going to make some fresh pasta with the little hand-cranked pasta machine (it has rollers) & Annette is going to make some carrot sauce to go with it. I'll take a photo.

Oh, and on color: Color-blind people usually see red and green as the same color. This might complicate the discussion above.

[Joe Odegaard]

Jesus saith unto them, Verily I say unto you, That the publicans and the harlots go into the kingdom of God before you. For John came unto you in the way of righteousness, and ye believed him not: but the publicans and the harlots believed him: and ye, when ye had seen it, repented not afterward, that ye might believe him." Matthew 21:28-32, KJV.
• • • • • When I see the elite of this country strutting around in their self-importance, I think of the passage above. And heaven will be full of great stories. Happy Friday Brother Bill ! • • • • •

[BV]

Ed,

Either you are contradicting yourself or I have no idea what you are saying.

>> Or (2) there is a “phenomenal space” containing phenomenal objects. I favour the latter.<<

The following cannot both be true:

a) Visible green is seen as having a two-dimensional spread or extension in a phenomenal space.

b) A patch of seen green has parts outside of parts unto infinity each part visibly green.

(a) is true. (b) is false. The only way you could think that (b) is true is by confusing or identifying phenomenal space with physical space.

It is true, or it is at least reasonable to hold, that

c) Every portion of physical space is composed of an actual infinity of dimensionless points.

Can you see a dimensionless point? No you can't. Therefore you cannot see a visibly green, a phenomenally green, dimensionless point.

[oz]

I take it you agree that “Non-extended surface” is a contradictio in adiecto. Whatever is a surface must be extended, by definition.

Now we run into the problem of defining continuity, and philosophers and mathematicians have been pondering that one for millenia. First, the notion of potential infinity applies here, not actual. I am not conscious of dimensionless points in my visual space. (Hume argues that I am, see Treatise I.2.4, but I do not find his argument convincing).

I think the phenomenal green surface has no gaps, so is smooth or continuous in that sense. Does that work?

In any case, let’s not get sidetracked. Generations of philosophers (including Kant) have distinguished between intensive and extensive magnitude. Phenomenal space has the latter.

On “physical space” I see no distinction between it and phenomenal space. That which I take to the visible surface of my desk is a patchwork of phenomenal colour. That, for me, is physical space also. For example I can run my finger along the black surface. The surface that I feel is one with the surface that I see.

On the other subject, I like pasta dishes very much, but don't like sardines. We just cook pasta with some butter and sprinkle on parmesan, which is still cheap and all we can afford these days.

[Joe Odegaard]

The electro-magnetic field is continuous. Photons are discreet. Both "are" light.

[BV]

Let me read the Hume passage and then I'll get back to you.

[BV]

Joe,

I wouldn't associate with or reveal too much to any indiscreet photon.

Seriously, though, is there not still a question whether light is a wave phenomenon or consists of particles?

All EM radiation is light from the standpoint of physics, but not all such radiation is visible by critters of our constitution.

>>Examples of light include radio and infrared waves, visible light, ultraviolet radiation, and X-rays. << https://phys.libretexts.org/Bookshelves/University_Physics/Book%3A_University_Physics_(OpenStax)/University_Physics_III_-_Optics_and_Modern_Physics_(OpenStax)/01%3A_The_Nature_of_Light

[David Brightly]

Bill,

Is there not something dubious in the view that our direct sensory perception (in optimal conditions of lighting, etc.) of things like trees is illusory?

Suppose our sensations are are merely correlates of physical properties rather than the properties themselves. That would not mean they were illusory. They become illusory only when the correlation breaks down. Green leaves in autumnal New England, the scent of blossom in the absence of blossom, straight sticks looking bent when partly submerged in water, toothbrushes appearing through solid walls, and so on.

[oz]

Important qualification re (5): phenomenal qualities are given to us as mind-independent, even if in fact they aren't. Heat for example. I touch the radiator and I feel the warmth of it. The warmth belongs to the radiator, not to me, even though I can feel it.

David says
>Suppose our sensations ...

What are these sensations? You mean neural processes? Or are you not a physicalist?

[Joe Odegaaed]

Physics currently views light as both a wave AND a particle.

[Joe Odegard]

The wave-particle duality is explored in this book, which I have read, but not the second edition. I recommend it. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/100027.Quantum_Enigma#CommunityReviews

[Joe Odegaard]

And in fact, according to the current understanding of physics, all particles have a wave existence as well. That would include all the particles that make up yours truly, and also my pet cat.