From: Brent Allsop (allsop@swttools.fc.hp.com)
Date: Tue Nov 24 1998 - 16:20:57 MST
Michael Lorrey <retroman@together.net> commented:
> If Green did not exist, then there would be a gap in the spectrum
> which would be physically impossible for any matter in this universe
> to emit photons in. Since there is no such gap, then therefore green
> exists.
This "green" electromagnetic radiation of a certain frequency
you are talking about has nothing to do with this conversation. If
you put a person who has had his eyes surgically removed in a room
with absolutely no light of any frequency in it at all, and
electro/chemically stimulate his optic nerve identically to the way a
normal person's eyes would do to his optic nerve when outside that
dark room looking at a green light, the person with no eyes in a room
with no light of any frequency will have a "green" visual experience
indistinguishable from the person outside the room looking at the
light. Light of any wavelength has nothing to do with this
experience. We use red to represent 700 nm light. One is the
representee, the other is the representor. One is the initial cause
of the cause and effect chain of perception, the other is the final
result. They are two very different physical phenomenon. One is
beyond the eye, the other occurs in the primary visual cortex of the
brain and has nothing to do with light other than it is good at
intelligently representing it.
There is no color, smell, sound, warmth... or pain beyond our
senses; only the electromagnetic radiation, chemical content,
acoustical vibrations, kinetic energy of molecules... and bodily
damage our brains merely arbitrarily represent with such phenomenon.
Brent Allsop
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