SAFETYPIN°ARCHIVES
N°2. Volume 2 Qualia Inversion 2009		  
  ALL COLORS ARE QUITE USELESS
Why is it that no science is able to explain, or predict, the phenomenal qualities of colors: what they look like, how they are related to one another, and then how they strike us, singly or in combination, in the aesthetic sphere? As the very existence of the Goethe propositions shows, we know these things, and can express in words what we know. But this knowledge will not belong to science.

Sir John Everett Millais. The Blind Girl. 1856

Any philosophical theory about mind should meet the following prima facie constraint: No hypothesis accepted or seriously considered in color vision science should be regarded according to a philosophical theory to be either incoherent or unstatable or false. A view that denies that red objects appear green to pseudonormals obviously violates this principle. The constraint just formulated is, however, only prima facie. Surely it may follow from a convincing philosophical theory that the terminology of some specific science is somehow confused and should be revised. However, the philosopher whose theory does not meet the above formulated constraint has the burden of proof on his side. In particular, he should be able to argue that the empirical theory at issue can be reformulated in a way compatible with the philosophers theory without change of its empirical content and without contradicting its most central assumptions. But, as we will see in a moment, this is not possible with respect to color vision sicence for a philosopher who denies that pseudonormal people are red-green-inverted



Is it possible to understand why certain physical properties of physical systems lead to the occurrence of consciousness at all?




We cannot coherently conceive of a creature whose visual system realizes Sf and yet does not have sensations of red, green, yellow and blue.

"Sf" for the actual functional structure of the physiological processes that underly our color experiences



Light spectrum, from Theory of Colours (Zur Farbenlehre)–Goethe observed that colour arises at the edges, and the spectrum occurs where these coloured edges overlap.


What kinds of explanation of phenomenal experience may we at best expect from the empirical sciences?

(1) We can of course expect what one might call single case explanations for the occurrence of a phenomenal experience of a specific kind in a given situation.

For example, why do you see a cherry as red?

Answer: The cherry produces a physiological state that is, in humans generally, correlated with sensations of red. A single case explanation of this kind presupposes psychophysical laws.

(2) We can expect explanations of phenomenal structure. Why is it impossible to see a surface as greenish and reddish in the same place?

Answer: the underlying physiological processes have causal properties that make it impossible for them to occur simultanously. Explanations of phenomenal structure of this kind again presuppose psychophysical laws.

(3) We may expect even explanations of psychophysical laws in the following sense: Any alternative psychophysical correlation would not be structure preserving. As we have seen, explaining psychophysical laws in this manner, presupposes the fact that we have sensations of the specific qualities red, green, yellow and blue, and does not explain this fact.

(4) Under the assumption that by law of nature the phenomenal structure Sp of visual experiences can only be found in individuals whose basic hue qualities are those known to us (red, green, yellow, and blue), we even may get an explanation of why we have sensations of this specific phenomenal character. This explanation, however, presupposes and does not explain why a specific phenomenal structure is nomologically associated with these concrete phenomenal qualities.-The possibility to explain phenomenal structure in the senses just sketched may be more of an explanation than some philosophers might have expected. But still it does not close the explanatory gap and we are left with our original puzzle about the occurrence of concrete phenomenal qualities.

One common feature of the four kinds of explanation just mentioned should be kept in mind: They all presuppose and do not explain the fact that the creature at issue is a sentient being, that is has a subjective perspective, that there is consciousness at all. This aspect of the explanatory gap debate certainly concerns the more fundamental and still more puzzling mystery about consciousness.