"Ken Collins" <KPaulC at email.msn.com> wrote:
> the 'color blue' is precisely defined in terms of it's
> electromagnetic spectrum, and the correlated energy-flow.
Your problem is that you are confusing the cause
with its effect, wavelengths of light with the
corresponding effect they on the ***human*** brain.
EM is the common abbreviation for electromagnetic
radiation.
Color is not a physical phenomenon. We all call EM
of a certain frequency "blue," and we each know what
we experience when we encounter EM of this frequency.
But we may each be experiencing something different.
What blacks perceive as red, Asians may perceive
as blue, and another specie of animal might perceive
as some color never before experienced by man.
Perceived colors naturally form a wheel. EM radiation
is linear. The perceived color violet has a considerable about
of red in it, while violet light has no red componet. In our
perception, violet is exactly halfway between between red and
blue. Yet in terms of EM, violet is a shorter wavelength than
blue and not between red and blue at all. Remember blue is
at the short wavelength end of the visible spectrum and red is
at the long wavelength end of the spectrum. In terms of EM
radiation, green and yellow are all closer to red than violet
is to red. Yet, we percieve violet as being closer to red than
yellow and green. Colors are different from the wavelengths
of light that produce them. All frequencies of light are
inherently colorless.
You can be made to see color even when no EM is present.
And you can be made to see blue when are shown light which
you are used to calling red. You equate the color red with a
specific wavelength of light because in your life these two
phenomenon have a 100% correlation rate. In fact, a specific
wavelength of light does CAUSE you to experience a specific
color sensation. But there is a difference between the color
you are sensing and the EM radiation that is producing that
color in your brain.
The color blue only exists in the human brain. If Earth
were invaded by aliens who sensed different frequencies
of light as different sounds or other sensation we can't
imagine, and all life forms on Earth were destroyed, colors
such as red, blue and green would cease to exist in the
universe, unless there were another species somewhere
with brains nearly identical to ours.
Just because a computer is able to distinguish different
frequencies of light doesn't mean the computer is seeing
the colors red, blue and green. Green light is not green.
It is our brain's interaction with "green" light that produces
the color green in our brain. Another creature might see
"green" light as the color we perceive as yellow.
And so this is with all our perceptions of taste, sound,
feeling, self-awareness, and emotions. A computer can
be made self-aware in the same way it can be made
to see the color green. This is not true self-awareness.
This is not to say that computers will never be self-aware.
But this self-awareness will require something that we
don't quite understand how to generate or even dectect at
this point. Complex computers are no more conscious than
a simple calculator. It is a fallacy to believe that complexity
and intelligence will lead to consciousness. Consciousness
certainly requires a certain degree of complexity, but
complexity alone is not enough to cause consciousness.
And there is no indication at all that intelligence has anything
to do with consciousness. In fact, there is some indication
that the more intelligent a person is the more they are like
an unconscious computer, and the less they are like an
animal that experiences subjective emotions.
