At some point one (probably as a very young child) has to be told that a certain optical cognitive activity is the sensation of redness. No one knows redness intuitively. wc
----- Original Message ---- From: "[email protected]" <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Sun, April 4, 2010 12:31:26 PM Subject: Re: "What is happening during an 'a.e.'?" Michael writes: "words, artifacts, and utterances contain formal configurations that persist and convey their "meaning." The tube of paint contains stuff that conveys "redness" to the viewer." I'm not at all sure I get what's on Michael's mind here, but here's what comes to my mind as I read those lines. To go to the second line first: I don't question that a tube of red paint contains chemical stuff ("formal configurations"?) such that, when it is looked at through the eyes of normally-sighted people, light rays impinge on the retina and the retina sends nerve impulses deeper into the brain where they are processed by the brain in such a way that the raw sensation that we call "red" arises in the minds of those "normal" observers. (I go along with Michael in ignoring the responses of "abnormal" people. I grant much of philosophical interest may be said about the responses of blind or color-blind people, but I think we can propound some implications of the reaction of normal eyes that are not disproven or rendered vacuous by the responses of abnormal eyes.) But I myself would not call that red sensation the "meaning" of the paint, any more than I'd call pain the "meaning" of a touched flame, or the taste of chocolate the "meaning" of that brown candy on my desk. Perhaps Michael would say that the more pertinent comparison to sight is sound. On the other hand, though the word 'meaning' is used repeatedly on the forum I haven't seen any successful effort to describe the notion a lister has in mind as he uses that word. In my next posting I'll try my unsure hand at that - and I'll bring sound into it.
