On Fri, 8 Mar 1996 Gordon.Globus@psyche.zynet.co.uk wrote:
While some are happy to be rid of the qualia confusion (e.g. Pat Hayes, Greg Nixon, Jim Sheridan), a profound problem remains. There are no color qualia in the mind, but how about the colored surfaces of the world? How can we explain world qualities, which though correlating with scientific descriptions are yet incommensurate? I am driven, against common sense, to relinquish the world in common in favor of parallel world thrownnesses hoisted "within" sporadic brains (my post of 3/6). (In this monadic conception, I use Leibniz' term "monad" very loosely, BTW.) I pray that somebody can find a less existentially wrenching way of explaining the world and its qualities (without, of course, resorting to mental qualia).
Dear Globus,
I can understand your confusion. You want the qualities of the world to be in the world, not in the mind. That is, you don't want color (qualia) to be mental phenomena, but physical phenomena. That's fine.
In the world, colors, sounds, aromas, hardness, etc. exist as physically definable, or as you say, scientific descriptions. Colors are wavelengths of light. Sounds are vibrations in air. Aromas are chemical compounds floating in air. Hardness is repulsions among atomic fields. etc.
Unless, of course, you are thinking of qualia.
Or else, what you may be trying to say is that the physically definable qualities of the world are in the brain - as wavelengths, air vibrations, chemical compounds, repulsions among atoms. Which of course they are, as conceptual ideas of what the world out there is like.
But then I'm sure you don't mean that the conceptual ideas have color, sound, etc.
So, perhaps your confusion would disappear if you could clarify just what it is that has color? If the object in the world has color, do the wavelengths of light also have color, and how do these get into the brain, and how does the brain perceive the color of the wavelengths of light reflected from the object? Just for a start.
Roland Cook
jcs-online
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