Granting this, why do we all see the same colors, if we do?
I can quickly and easily prove that some people see colours in a different way to the way that I do.
To my eyes, red and green are visibly and obviously distinct. I cannot look at one and consider it to be the other. Yet, red-green colour blindness is the most common version of colourblindness; these people must see either red, or green, or both in some way differently to the way that I see these colours.
I think you are confusing the word “color” that identifies a certain type of visual experience, with the word “color” that identifies a certain set of light-frequencies.
This is much like confusing the word “sound” which means “auditory experience”, with the word “sound” which means “acoustic vibrations”.
You see certain frequencies in a different way than people with red-green colour blindness; in short these frequencies lead to different qualia, different visual experiences. That’s rather obvious and rather useless in discussing the deeper philosophical point.
But to say that you experience certain visual experiences differently than others experience them, may even be a contradiction in terms—unless it’s meant that the atomic qualia trigger in turn different qualia (e.g. different memories or feelings) in each person. Which is probably also trivially true...
Your second paragraph encapsulates the point I intended to convey; that given frequencies of light create in my mind qualia that differ from the qualia created by the same frequency of light in the mind of a red-green colourblind person.
On the common sense view that qualia are the kolors generated by our minds, which do so based on sensory input about the colors in the world, it makes sense that color-to-kolor conversion (if you will) should be imperfect even among people with properly functioning sight.
Its possible my writing wasn’t clear enough to convey this point (or that you were objecting to CCC, not me), but I was getting at the idea that we probably do experience slightly different kolors. It was never my intention to be philosophically “rigorous” about that, just to raise the point.
You’ll notice that the next few sentences of my post address this same idea for fully functional members of different species. But it doesn’t technically refute the claim for qualia, only that we’re not all equally responsive to the same stimuli.
It is, for example, technically possible (in the broadest sense) that color-blind people experience the same qualia we do, but they are unable to act on them, much in the same way that a friend with ADD might experience the same auditory stimuli I do, but then is too distracted to actually notice or make sense of it.
I note, however, that the physical differences in color-blindness (or different species’ eyes) are enough reason to lend little credibility to this idea.
I can quickly and easily prove that some people see colours in a different way to the way that I do.
To my eyes, red and green are visibly and obviously distinct. I cannot look at one and consider it to be the other. Yet, red-green colour blindness is the most common version of colourblindness; these people must see either red, or green, or both in some way differently to the way that I see these colours.
I think you are confusing the word “color” that identifies a certain type of visual experience, with the word “color” that identifies a certain set of light-frequencies. This is much like confusing the word “sound” which means “auditory experience”, with the word “sound” which means “acoustic vibrations”.
You see certain frequencies in a different way than people with red-green colour blindness; in short these frequencies lead to different qualia, different visual experiences. That’s rather obvious and rather useless in discussing the deeper philosophical point.
But to say that you experience certain visual experiences differently than others experience them, may even be a contradiction in terms—unless it’s meant that the atomic qualia trigger in turn different qualia (e.g. different memories or feelings) in each person. Which is probably also trivially true...
Apologies for the confusion.
Your second paragraph encapsulates the point I intended to convey; that given frequencies of light create in my mind qualia that differ from the qualia created by the same frequency of light in the mind of a red-green colourblind person.
On the common sense view that qualia are the kolors generated by our minds, which do so based on sensory input about the colors in the world, it makes sense that color-to-kolor conversion (if you will) should be imperfect even among people with properly functioning sight.
Its possible my writing wasn’t clear enough to convey this point (or that you were objecting to CCC, not me), but I was getting at the idea that we probably do experience slightly different kolors. It was never my intention to be philosophically “rigorous” about that, just to raise the point.
You’ll notice that the next few sentences of my post address this same idea for fully functional members of different species. But it doesn’t technically refute the claim for qualia, only that we’re not all equally responsive to the same stimuli.
It is, for example, technically possible (in the broadest sense) that color-blind people experience the same qualia we do, but they are unable to act on them, much in the same way that a friend with ADD might experience the same auditory stimuli I do, but then is too distracted to actually notice or make sense of it.
I note, however, that the physical differences in color-blindness (or different species’ eyes) are enough reason to lend little credibility to this idea.