Does Color Exist Without Light

Thanks, Cyracuz.

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Cyracuz wrote:

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what about blue light, that doesn't have all the colors

Blue light is fractured light. As is light of any color. The atmosphere fractures the light from the sun before it reaches us. No one except astronauts have seen unfractured sunlight.

Of course you can put a blue filter on a blank lightbulb, and you'd get blue illumination. But it would still be because the light is filtered through something to give it that color.

wrong blue light is light too it just doesn't have the same set of colors as white light.

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If that were so, Xgunner, I would be very surprised. It seems to me that (pure) light is (pure) light, and that variations in color have to do with some kind of "fracturing," as we see with a prism or with color filters. Can you show me why this is not so?

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Unfractured.

That is what I would like to be.
Someday.

No prisms or women or captured images of successful impermanent enlightenment.
Just light. So I can swim.

Green light, for the wholesomeness and family values that does a body good.
Purchase this idea now!
for half off while supplies last.

------
This message has been sponsored in part by the
Association for a Free Mind and America in it's Hypothetical State.
"Don't you WANT the things that you want?"

It's green.

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JLNobody wrote:

If that were so, Xgunner, I would be very surprised. It seems to me that (pure) light is (pure) light, and that variations in color have to do with some kind of "fracturing," as we see with a prism or with color filters. Can you show me why this is not so?

no there is no "pure" light its just what you define the frequency to be, pure light could be "fractured" from some other type of energy.

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wrong blue light is light too it just doesn't have the same set of colors as white light.

White light is blue also. And it is red and green and just about every color you can think of.

It's probably been stated many times in this thread already, but I can say it again: When you see a colored surface, say blue, it is because the surface absorbs light of every frequency but blue. The rays that hit the surface are of all colors, and if an object is blue, it can be said to be every color but blue, since blue is the only type of light it rejects.

A rainbow is sunlight fractured by tiny particles of moisture in the air. The different colors vary from the angle of the sun, to the moisture, to your eye. The position of the rainbow in the sky is directly related to where you stand. If you move, so will the rainbow.

BTW: A rainbow is just an illution. Have you noticed that when you see a rainbow, your back is always to the sun? There is in reality no set of colors in the sky, it is only what you see from your vantagepoint. If the sun was in the south, the rainbow would be in the north, but a person who was standing north of your rainbow would not see it. Instead he would see a different rainbow, his personal one, even further north.

On this basis I have come to think of rainbows as teachers in a sense. They appear in the sky when you have your back to the light, to remind you to turn around an see the it.

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I think Kant or Locke noted that the perception of colour is a phenomena that might differ from one person to another whereas reason is a noumenal characteristic. Anyhow, what one is sensing is the same thing, but the direct sense of the colour might be different.

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I don't know why some people are babbling about perception here; scoates question (with the professor) certainly didn't seem to me to be about perception at all. It was about who should be viewed as mainly responsible for the color: the object or the light?

And why can't you just say that both of them are? The surface and other qualities (temperature, etc) of the object, along with the action of light upon the object, produce color. So I think you could say that the car is green, because the kind of paint it has reflects a particular wavelength.

So if you are to question whether color exists without light or not, I'd say no, because you need both light and the object for there to be color. Asking whether color exists without light is the same as asking whether color exists without and object/host, and I don't know of any possibilities where that would be true.

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I don't know why some people are babbling about perception here; scoates question (with the professor) certainly didn't seem to me to be about perception at all. It was about who should be viewed as mainly responsible for the color: the object or the light?

Sorry.

Anyhow, perception is a major part of the question isn't it? Since colour arises from a sense of wavelengths? Only by this realization can we ascern that the one responsible for colour is as equally our sensory receptors as light and the objects themselves. The object gives certain wavelengths which is also photons acting in particle/wavelength form, and our sensory receptors gives us this perception of colour. Who is more responsible? Colour can not exist without any of them, so why are we even asking this question?

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Ray, are you saying that if there's no one to see the fractured light then it does not qualify as color?

There are variations of light that are invisible to us. We can only pick it up with machines that translate the images into light that we can see. Other creatures see this light.

Do you believe in the quote: "esse est percipi"? I for one find the notion to be ridiculous.

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There are wavelengths and photons + matter interacting, but the sense of colour would be void since colour is a phenomena. However, that does not mean that the universe isn't there and that the property of colour isn't there. It's just that the phenomenal experience of colour would be void.

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There are variations of light that are invisible to us. We can only pick it up with machines that translate the images into light that we can see. Other creatures see this light.

Yes, and we do not know what this colour looks like. We do know that this property is there.

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Do you believe in the quote: "esse est percipi"? I for one find the notion to be ridiculous.

Hmm, my French isn't that good... Is it, "something is perception"? Embarrassed

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Ray, I recall its meaning as "To be is to be perceived" (Bishop Berkeley?). It may be untrue, but I don't consider it "ridiculous": I would argue that the position that all things exist only as phenomena is debatable. What about the reverse: "To be perceived is to be"? That would suggest that a mirage of a lake can exist as a mirage but not as a lake. Esse est percipi suggests the phenomenologist's extreme position, i.e., that all is mere experience or phenomena. How does this fit with Kant's notion of noumena, that which stands behind, i.e., the ground of, phenomena? If a noumenal reality is not seen--if its phenomenal counterpart is not realized--does it exist nevetheless?
Perhaps we can say that phenomena exist for their perceivers in the sense that THEIR CHARACTER OR MEANINGFULNESS exist only for their perceivers. Therefore a pile of sh*t is different for its perceiver-fly than it is for its perceiver-human being. In this case, "to perceive" necessarily includes "to conceive".

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Thanks for the translation. Berkeley, the radical empiricist...

Jl, I think that the phenomena is a reflection of a certain portion of the noumena. Locke said, our mind at birth is an empty slate, and kant said that there is however a precondition in our mind, that is of reason and of perception. A person experiencing a mirage is nevertheless reforming ideas in his mind of something that he has seen before. The lake is not "real", but is perceived falsely to be real. The lake isn't there, but the image of the lake is reconstructed in the person's mind, but that's just what it is, a mental constructed image, and nothing of noumenal truth.

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If a noumenal reality is not seen--if its phenomenal counterpart is not realized--does it exist nevetheless?

Yes, that's my best answer, for I think logically that it is highly improbable that something arises out of nothing, though of course I could be wrong. I don't think that the question you posed can provide any better answer thatn what had just been given because it is impossible to conceive of what it would be like had our phenomena not been there, because it is there, and we are talking about the subject as of now...

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Perhaps we can say that phenomena exist for their perceivers in the sense that THEIR CHARACTER OR MEANINGFULNESS exist only for their perceivers. Therefore a pile of sh*t is different for its perceiver-fly than it is for its perceiver-human being. In this case, "to perceive" necessarily includes "to conceive".

I think there is a difference between to perceive and to conceive. Perception provides the noumenal-based-phenomena (lol there's a new term!), that may differ in how it is viewed by our senses, while conception, may be affected by emotions.
I don't know. Maybe you can offer more thoughts on this Jl.

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Pardon for not explaining the terms I dig up. I just assumed you knew. Sorry.

JLNobody, the way I see it "Esse est percipi" begates the existence of everything that does not have an eye locked on it, or some other tool of perception. The part about it I find ridiculous is the philosophers ego at stating that "you're not real until I see you." It's like Bill Hicks, an american comedian, saying "you're not human until you're in my phonebook".

The reverse, as you say would suggest that hallucinations are as real as stones, and come to think of it they are. A mirage of a lake appears where there is no lake. It is a thing entirely on its own with no relation to the lake other than that you desire to see it.
So a mirage has no reality as a lake, but it is entirely real as a mirage. It's a totally different thing from a lake.
Similarly, a hallucination of an extra terestial is not an extra terestial, so it is not proof that life exists other places. It is, however, an experience wich has its entire reality as a hallucination, and even though the alien was just a dream, the dream itself was real.

I think what makes us confused is the idea that the mirage of the lake has anything to do with an actual lake. It doesn't. It doesn't even come close. We know it to be true that the sunlight comes from the sun. It is the sun's energy, but it is not the sun. Without the sun it would have no existence. This is not true of the lake and the mirage. To assume that the mirage is the lake's energy is wrong. A mirage is a manifestation of your needs. It can exist without a lake. It can't exist without you.
So I maintain that "esse est percipi" is the motto of the ostrich, hiding it's head in the sand.

BTW, rainbows are mirages.

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Cyracuz, good points. But let me add the frivolity: You said that as you "...see it 'Esse est percipi' negates the existence of everything that does not have an eye locked on it, or some other tool of perception. The part about it I find ridiculous is the philosophers ego at stating that "you're not real until I see you."
Do note that unlike the arrogance of Hicks' phonebook, the philosopher is also saying that HE does not exist until you see him." Pretty humble if you ask me.

You also stated that "So a mirage has no reality as a lake, but it is entirely real as a mirage." Isn't that what I said?

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Do note that unlike the arrogance of Hicks' phonebook, the philosopher is also saying that HE does not exist until you see him." Pretty humble if you ask me.

You are right. That is pretty humble. But I still fail to see how that makes sense. Maybe it doesn't until you understand the entire trail behind this thought. I am quick to judge at times, but I do not think I am relentless in upholdong my judgement. I hope not.

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You also stated that "So a mirage has no reality as a lake, but it is entirely real as a mirage." Isn't that what I said?

That is exactly what you said. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to be your ecco, although that's not the worst mistake one can make for himself.

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Cryacuz, I, too, am not so sure of the validity of Berkeley's "radical empiricism" (that nothing exists unless it is perceived). I think he devised this principle primarily as a "proof" for the existence of God. If there is no one present to hear the sound of the falling tree, the sound still exists as an objective fact because God perceives it.
Very clever. Just shows that logic is not sufficient to describe reality.

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Cyracuz

I think that Berkeley's theory is the logical sequence of all empiricism.
If I ask you how do you know there is a keyboard in front of you, your answer would be: because I see it, I touch it.
To empiricists what we have is the sensation, visual or tactile or any other. You have nothing but the visual sensation of the keyboard or the lake.
About your example of the mirage, any empiricist would answer that in fact you say it is an hallucination because, from a distant point, you see a lake and, when you go there you only feel sand, not water. Hallucination being a conflict between senses. Imagine this: you see the lake, then you go there and your body feels water. You say: the lake is real. But if you go there and your body feels only sand, you say: it was a mirage.
As you see, the problem stays always in your senses.

So, "esse es percipi" is not absurd or arrogant. It is the logical conclusion to anybody who believes that only our senses can give us access to the reality.
I am not an empiricist. But I believe you are. So, rejoin Berkeley! Smile

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Well val, I do not know if I fit the description of an empiricist, because I do not think of my senses as empirical. This is a matter of deciding and defining, but the label strikes me as inadequate. What are my senses?

I must admit, it has been a long time since I read the philosophers, so I am a bit rusty. But I seem to remember the division between what is exterior sensorial material analytical truth) and knowledge that is obtained by other means than the senses (apriori truth). I have trouble seeing the validity of this division. The division assumes that man is something else than the world, that he was not created in in, but rather put in it after. It assumes that all things human trancend the rest of the world, and that we are not subjected to evolution. That is wrongheaded. (But I might be the one in the wrong, if I have misunderstood or misremembered the books).

Anyway, my point is that it doesn't matter wether the knowledge comes by way of sense or intelligence. It comes from the same place either way. The world.

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cyracuz

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Anyway, my point is that it doesn't matter wether the knowledge comes by way of sense or intelligence. It comes from the same place either way. The world.

Sure. But how do you reach that world?

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Does Color Exist Without Light

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