3 ms·
I don't really understand your point. "Green" is a label we apply to things which fall into a certain category: namely those which under ordinary circumstances
by Smaug123 10y ago
I don't really understand your point. "Green" is a label we apply to things which fall into a certain category: namely those which under ordinary circumstances emit or reflect light of a certain wavelength. The observer-dependent things here are:
- the definition of the category (which varies depending on what "ordinary circumstances" are for the observer: people draw the boundaries of light-wavelengths differently), and
- making the judgement "this object is in/is absent from the Green category" for any given object (since our information is imperfect, and [for instance] we may only ever see an object while it is bathed in blue light).
My post was mainly intended to say "there's no paradox involved if you experience green objects differently to me: the word 'green' corresponds to a quale which isn't an inherent property of things in the universe, but an artefact of our experience". Additionally, in this comment, I point out that 'green' can indicate different qualia to different people anyway.