Consider the possibility that you are not being as clear as you think you are.
Fair enough.
are atoms colorless? No! Very no! They are colored in exactly the mundane way that everything is, which is rather the entire point.
Maybe it would help if I said that atoms are non-fundamentally colored, in exactly the same way that a chair, or grass, or the sky is non-fundamentally colored. The everyday meaning of “the grass is green” or “the sun is yellowish-white” extends nicely down to the atomic scale. Even a free electron (being a thing that scatters light) has a color.
When you make a reductionist explanation of color, it’s the explanation that lacks color, not the atoms.
Does the sun smell? Technically probably yes. But I’d call it a relative context error to be taking the question too seriously.
Does a “particle smaller than the wavelength of the visible light spectrum produce radiation in the visible light spectrum inherently?”—sounds like a very strange question to me.
“Is a chair a chair?”—“does this specific (central) example of the category chair represent the full global universal diversity of the category chair?”
If said like that, we’ve dissolved a confusion. There are still koan like questions designed for something else but these are not them.
I think this is becoming much too abstract. “Can an atom be a color?” was not supposed to be one of those troll questions like “Is a hotdog a sandwich?”
If you want to know whether an atom can have color, you can just look at one. Here. That’s an atom. As you can see, it is purple. If you wish to claim that this atom is not purple, because color depends on context, and if you encased a blade of grass in tungsten and threw it into the sun, would it still be green?, please jump in a lake whose color depends on context.
If you wish to claim that this atom is not purple because the objects invoked to explain the color of materials must themselves be colorless, please forward your mail to:
I really really don’t care. I still want to call out the use of formal credentials as an applause light conversation stopper. If you don’t want to be commenting on lesswrong it’s not because you have credentials, it’s because you don’t want to be here. I take no offence if you tap out or leave or stop commenting. I do take offence at the idea that a credential is a show stopping argument.
Your name and address is not evidence of atom colour. And it should not be displayed here.
Maybe it would help if I said that atoms are non-fundamentally colored, in exactly the same way that a chair, or grass, or the sky is non-fundamentally colored
That may be true, but it isn’t a refutation of the claim that “when the reductive explanation of property P hits its basic level, property P is no longer found”, because atoms are not “fundamental things”, not the basis of the reductive explanation of matter: electrons and photons are.
Even a free electron (being a thing that scatters light) has a color
What colour is an electron? There is no answer to the question “what is the colour of an electron”, because electrons are basic in the reductive explanation of colour. How an electron scatters photons is behaviour that depends on context.
If you cover a brown chair with blue paint, it becomes a blue chair. There is no answer to the question “What color is a chair?”, because how a chair scatters light depends on context.
Chairs are non-fundamentally colored, so the only question you can even try to answer is “What color is this chair?”
Y’all are trying to rely on a dichotomy between “Fundamental particles are fundamentally colored” and “Fundamental particles have no color.” That is a false dichotomy. The color of an electron depends on context—congrats, you have shown that it is not fundamentally colored, we agree.
Fair enough.
Maybe it would help if I said that atoms are non-fundamentally colored, in exactly the same way that a chair, or grass, or the sky is non-fundamentally colored. The everyday meaning of “the grass is green” or “the sun is yellowish-white” extends nicely down to the atomic scale. Even a free electron (being a thing that scatters light) has a color.
When you make a reductionist explanation of color, it’s the explanation that lacks color, not the atoms.
Does the sun smell? Technically probably yes. But I’d call it a relative context error to be taking the question too seriously.
Does a “particle smaller than the wavelength of the visible light spectrum produce radiation in the visible light spectrum inherently?”—sounds like a very strange question to me.
“Is a chair a chair?”—“does this specific (central) example of the category chair represent the full global universal diversity of the category chair?”
If said like that, we’ve dissolved a confusion. There are still koan like questions designed for something else but these are not them.
Let’s talk about standard temperature and pressure. Having an atmosphere would help to standardise colour.
Being embedded in a molten liquid sodium would change the way we ask this question. So would gaseous molecules.
How many assumptions underly the question. Earth based biological humanoid (as opposed to cat, bee, dog, squid) to define visible to human.
What are we trying to say with our categories and why?
I think this is becoming much too abstract. “Can an atom be a color?” was not supposed to be one of those troll questions like “Is a hotdog a sandwich?”
If you want to know whether an atom can have color, you can just look at one. Here. That’s an atom. As you can see, it is purple. If you wish to claim that this atom is not purple, because color depends on context, and if you encased a blade of grass in tungsten and threw it into the sun, would it still be green?, please jump in a lake whose color depends on context.
If you wish to claim that this atom is not purple because the objects invoked to explain the color of materials must themselves be colorless, please forward your mail to:
Robert Nozick
242 Emerson Hall
Harvard University
Cambridge
I really really don’t care. I still want to call out the use of formal credentials as an applause light conversation stopper. If you don’t want to be commenting on lesswrong it’s not because you have credentials, it’s because you don’t want to be here. I take no offence if you tap out or leave or stop commenting. I do take offence at the idea that a credential is a show stopping argument.
Your name and address is not evidence of atom colour. And it should not be displayed here.
(it’s not his credentials or address, it’s the credentials of the person who originally made the claim in a book that sparked this thread)
Ah. I would still object to argument by credentials.
That may be true, but it isn’t a refutation of the claim that “when the reductive explanation of property P hits its basic level, property P is no longer found”, because atoms are not “fundamental things”, not the basis of the reductive explanation of matter: electrons and photons are.
What colour is an electron? There is no answer to the question “what is the colour of an electron”, because electrons are basic in the reductive explanation of colour. How an electron scatters photons is behaviour that depends on context.
If you cover a brown chair with blue paint, it becomes a blue chair. There is no answer to the question “What color is a chair?”, because how a chair scatters light depends on context.
Chairs are non-fundamentally colored, so the only question you can even try to answer is “What color is this chair?”
Y’all are trying to rely on a dichotomy between “Fundamental particles are fundamentally colored” and “Fundamental particles have no color.” That is a false dichotomy. The color of an electron depends on context—congrats, you have shown that it is not fundamentally colored, we agree.
Who are you arguing against? Do Nozick or Hanson say that anything is fundamentally coloured?