Colour and self-reference

There are 2 ways to get orange. The colour with frequency between 585 – 620 nm and a mixture of red and yellow pigments which averages to that frequency.

The reason that this works is that the eye has a limited resolution. There are 3 types of retina cell: red, green and blue. A mozaic of tiny red and yellow particles activates the red and green cells exactly the same as particles in the orange frequency range above. (Yellow itself lies between the red and green).

We can study a subjects neuron excitement to watch how this occurs. Clearly the red, green and blue neuron pathways must be distinct for were they to cross before colour processing had ocurred the distinction would be lost.

It remains though that there is nothing different between red, green and blue colour pathways other than the frequency at which the end receptor activates. All the brain - so to speak - knows of the end receptors colour preference is whether it has fired or not.

Structuralists have a good way of explaining how the brain comes to "know" what it is looking at. Knowledge is held in language. We learn our language in association with all the brain activity. Naturally then we use the words for red, orange and whatever in the situations in which they are properly used and so it is a circular argument that we "see" red when our "red" neurons fire because that is the situation in which we use the word red.

Given the huge range of neuron states in our colour system this analysis also suggests we could have many more colours were our language and culture to demand it. Indigo i understand is recent colour. To "see" a new colour just find a situation in which is occurs and give that a name. Soon enough there will be a new colour!

That seems to be the brain all wrapped up, and the old issue of "conscious experience" evaporates in a simple explanation of culture and word use. We "see" what is established by our normative environment.

However can we really use this explanation to refer to our "own" experience. It is not a simple matter of taking what is objectivel known and just imagining it applies to us.

At any moment as we try to explain what is happening in our minds we are also changing what is happening in our minds. It is impossible to actually pick out a moment of experience and at the same time, think what that is (objectively) without changing it.

We do an experiment to see what neurons are activated when we look at the colour red. But to see the MRI scan we obviously can't look at the colour red. Maybe we can record the MRI scan and press a button to say when we are looking at the colour. But then we need to record our own experience to compare with the MRI later.

If we focus on red, then we are focused on red and it is no-longer and objective process of knowledge and language, but rather a state of mind called "looking". To be able to look, the actual experience of being a mind, is not like the knowledge we might have of it. The knowledge does not capture the experience of being a mind.

This becomes more obvious if we "think" about the neuron processes behind thinking itself. The familiar hall of mirrors of self-reference open up.

If we are "truely" a collection of activating neurons, then is this the "thought" created by a collection of activating neurons or the "real" collection of activating neurons.

Saying that thoughts are identical with neuron systems, is then both a thought and a neuron system. So that statement is both a thought and a neuron system, and neither!