A philosophy/psychology "test"

[mythmonster2]

Spoiler :

According to the test-takers, yes. According to normal people, no.

 

[ShannonCT]

I doubt your post was much more than a typical teenage masturbatory troll, but in the hope that you'll awaken from your dogmatic slumber, I offer you the following question to think about (and do please just think about it, I'm not interested in having a dialogue with you):

Can you justify any of the results of physics, biology, or psychology without appealing to substantive philosophical theses?

Yes.

There's no hiding your ignorance of Physics behind the steaming pile we call Fifty's knowledge of Philosophy.

 

[Perfection]

Do it, please!

 

[ShannonCT]

Do it, please!

We do it all the time, to the subset of people that includes everyone except philosophers, that is, everyone that matters.

 

[Gooblah]

Spoiler :

No, nothing in reality was red, however, their perception was. So no, nothing "tangible" was red. If the question is truly "Anything", then yes, the fish were red..at least to these two individuals.

 

[Perfection]

We do it all the time, to the subset of people that includes everyone except philosophers, that is, everyone that matters.

WRONG! I'm not a philosopher and that set doesn't include me.

 

[ShannonCT]

WRONG! I'm not a philosopher and that set doesn't include me.

OK, you're welcome to exclude yourself from the set of people who matter.

 

[scy12]

Question from an ignorant. (Spoiler free). Are there any colours (or maybe something else of the visual spectrum) that human visual perception can not see ?

 

[holy king]

Question from an ignorant. (Spoiler free). Are there any colours (or maybe something else of the visual spectrum) that human visual perception can not see ?

like infra-red or ultra-violett?

 

[Miles Teg]

Spoiler :

Ermm... No?

 

[holy king]

Spoiler :

Ermm... No?

Spoiler :

really not?

 

[pau17]

Question from an ignorant. (Spoiler free). Are there any colours (or maybe something else of the visual spectrum) that human visual perception can not see ?

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped..._electromagnetic_transmittance_or_opacity.jpg

Many animals, including some birds and insects, can see into the ultraviolet part.

 

[Fifty]

We do it all the time, to the subset of people that includes everyone except philosophers, that is, everyone that matters.

Well, I mean to include implicit usage too. Its not the case that one actually thinks about philosophy every time they make a claim in the sciences. But it is the case that some substantive philosophical thesis lies hidden somewhere in the justificatory history of the claim. So it doesn't really matter that they don't consciously think about it (or even that they may not even be capable of thinking about it, as is likely the case with kids like you).

Anyways, I won't threadjack Ayatollah's thread... maybe I'll open up a new one sometime if I feel like humbling a physics kid lol. (shannon is a kid right? please don't tell me he's over 16...)

Interestingly, its almost never the good math and science students who are so hilariously dumb with respect to philosophy. It's usually just high school kids who read The Elegant Universe and got an A in AP Physics.

Go ahead and have the last word, Mr. Shannon, I know you's dyin' to!

 

[Kennigit]

Spoiler :

blue tenchar. now time to read the thread.

edit- I do enjoy how I answered a yes or no question with blue...

 

[Mise]

I dunno if Aya wants it open for discussion yet, so I'll put this in Spoiler tags.

Spoiler :

Because the philosophical approach is the correct one. Not only is it perfectly consistent with the relevant physics, but it gets to the heart of the issue, whereas the attempted "physicsy" explanations often just talk about something basically irrelevant (or at least, irrelevant on the most plausible reading of the thought experiment). Couching the answer in terms of wavelengths is at best irrelevant (i.e. you say basically the same thing I said, except you throw in some physics terms to prove you're hella scientific), and at worst wrong (i.e. saying a grey wall is partially red because white light contains red light as a constituent part).

I will admit, though, that being able to cite wavelengths does make one look hella smart and logical and scientific, something my approach does not do.

The idea of the thought experiment, presumably, is to examine our notion of color. What is it for something x to have some color property y? In particular, it is about the relationship between color qualia and "actual" color. It also highlight's questions about whether color is an intrinsic property or an extrinsic property of the things that have it, and other such things.

Spoiler :

The reason we refer to wavelengths is that it's something that can be independently measured, and that we can all agree on. We all agree that light originating from source X has a wavelength of Y, under "normal" conditions. We then agree that all objects that have wavelength Y are colour A. Thus we can all agree that source X is coloured A, irrespective of how we actually perceive wavelength Y (i.e. if I see orange wherever you see green, we can still agree that what we are seeing is wavelength Y, and thus assign it a common name: A).

In the scenario AS presented, Timmy and Jimmy were not subject to "normal" conditions, and thus would not agree with us on what colour X was. The "actual" colour of X is A, because X is A under "normal" conditions, and this is how we define the "actual" colour of something.

What I wanted to know from you (or AS) was: what does the philosophical account add, that isn't already obvious? It seems obvious, for example, that the fish are blue. It seems equally obvious that Timmy and/or Jimmy experienced the same sensations that, under "normal" conditions, they would experience when seeing something red. So what does the philosophical account actually add?

 

[scy12]

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped..._electromagnetic_transmittance_or_opacity.jpg

Many animals, including some birds and insects, can see into the ultraviolet part.

If we had that ultraviolet ability would the colour of an object (the fish ) change to us ?

 

[Elponitnatsnoc]

Spoiler :

It obviously depends on whether you follow rationalist or empiricist epistemology. To Jimmy/Timmy, the fish were red because that is how they perceived them. To an onlooker, the fish are blue because that is how they perceive them. If I'm looking at this through a God-like lens, the fish are blue. Is anything in the experiment red? Most likely. There isn't enough detail, but red is present in many colors and stands alone in many objects seen in the everyday world. Perhaps, Jimmy the robot has bits of red on him, perhaps Timmy has red hair. We don't have enough information to know.

Obligatory David Hume answer: We don't have enough information to know.

 

[lovett]

Question from an ignorant. (Spoiler free). Are there any colours (or maybe something else of the visual spectrum) that human visual perception can not see ?

Well, the rest of the electromagnetic spectrum perhaps?

I don't think there's really any such thing as the 'visual spectrum'. One could define it as 'visible by all kinds of life' but this seems somewhat futile, given that we haven't classified every kind of life. And going for a 'what humans can see' definition is just a bit silly, because it answers your own question through tautology!

 

[pau17]

If we had that ultraviolet ability would the colour of an object (the fish ) change to us ?

From wikipedia:

Scorpions glow or take on a yellow to green color under UV illumination. Many birds have patterns in their plumage that are invisible at usual wavelengths but observable in ultraviolet, and the urine and other secretions of some animals, including dogs, cats, and human beings, is much easier to spot with ultraviolet.

So simply exposing something to ultraviolet already changes the colors that we can see from it in the normal spectrum, while being able to actually see ultraviolet light would probably be like a new color...

 

[Elponitnatsnoc]

It says "philosophy/psychology" test so should this science be considered? I think it's more a matter of how the brain interprets the color.

More scandalous answer:

Spoiler :

Could they be colorblind?