The concept is about the sort of abstract perception, like the actual final form that gets perceived by the mind, but the whole thing is just one of those pointless philosophical cognitohazards that are like the equivalent of XKCD's "nerd sniping" bit, just shit that's weird and pointless and unsolvable.
Like does the final processing step that is the mind's perception consistently ascribe the exact same perceptive values to a given color or sound that other people do? Maybe, maybe not, because we don't know what mechanically is happening to create that phenomenon, we don't know how consistent the processing in the visual neurons is across individuals, we don't even know what that perception is. So maybe for one person the color blue gets coded as a certain specific voltage or whatever when it transitions from the image processing bit to the consciousness bit (if that's even a distinction that can be made at all), and for another it's 1% different or a different frequency or whatever, but would that even change anything? It's still remaining consistent before that, and it goes along with all the cultural stuff attached to the color, and it clearly works consistently, so it's kind of just a nonsense question that's trying to sound deep.
Like we're talking about possible unknowable differences in systems that developed to sort of chaotically brute force their way into consistency and adaptability. So maybe "blue" gets stored and processed slightly differently between individuals, but we can also see that in every perceivable way it ends up with the same result. So the answer to the question is that it's the wrong question to ask in the first place: blue is always blue because it will always have the properties and associations of blue and those are consistent across people because they're the product of systems that plastically shape themselves to be consistent, and any differences are clearly not materially noticeable if they even exist at all.
I could just as easily ask "what if we all actually have the same favorite color internally, but due to differences in perception ascribe it to different frequencies of light?" and it would be just as valid a question, but even more nonsensical on its face.
blue is always blue because it will always have the properties and associations of blue and those are consistent across people because they're the product of systems that plastically shape themselves to be consistent, and any differences are clearly not materially noticeable if they even exist at all.
Good points, though people do not perceive blue the same in the sense of same properties and associations. Humans are no idealized platonic digitalized humans. Being human is concrete materiality and that means that we are each different and bring our own upbringing and past with us.
The concept is about the sort of abstract perception, like the actual final form that gets perceived by the mind, but the whole thing is just one of those pointless philosophical cognitohazards that are like the equivalent of XKCD's "nerd sniping" bit, just shit that's weird and pointless and unsolvable.
Like does the final processing step that is the mind's perception consistently ascribe the exact same perceptive values to a given color or sound that other people do? Maybe, maybe not, because we don't know what mechanically is happening to create that phenomenon, we don't know how consistent the processing in the visual neurons is across individuals, we don't even know what that perception is. So maybe for one person the color blue gets coded as a certain specific voltage or whatever when it transitions from the image processing bit to the consciousness bit (if that's even a distinction that can be made at all), and for another it's 1% different or a different frequency or whatever, but would that even change anything? It's still remaining consistent before that, and it goes along with all the cultural stuff attached to the color, and it clearly works consistently, so it's kind of just a nonsense question that's trying to sound deep.
Like we're talking about possible unknowable differences in systems that developed to sort of chaotically brute force their way into consistency and adaptability. So maybe "blue" gets stored and processed slightly differently between individuals, but we can also see that in every perceivable way it ends up with the same result. So the answer to the question is that it's the wrong question to ask in the first place: blue is always blue because it will always have the properties and associations of blue and those are consistent across people because they're the product of systems that plastically shape themselves to be consistent, and any differences are clearly not materially noticeable if they even exist at all.
I could just as easily ask "what if we all actually have the same favorite color internally, but due to differences in perception ascribe it to different frequencies of light?" and it would be just as valid a question, but even more nonsensical on its face.
Good points, though people do not perceive blue the same in the sense of same properties and associations. Humans are no idealized platonic digitalized humans. Being human is concrete materiality and that means that we are each different and bring our own upbringing and past with us.