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@Feathercrown@lemmy.world

2026-10-23 02:58 UTC

If you don’t understand what I’m trying to explain about qualia or that there is a philosophical distinction between the physical world and your perception, just read the wikipedia article on qualia or any similar introductory material to the philosophy of the mind. It answers like 90% of your questions. Some specific answers though: RGB is measuring/defining proportions of different wavelengths of light, even if its goal is to describe that light in a way that is supposed to elicit a particular subjective experience in the viewer. Color spaces are a MASSIVE rabbit hole so I would suggest using the simpler example of how an individual photon has a wavelength that makes us percieve the subjective experience of red, rather than being red itself. Although actually, bringing up RGB gives me an idea for something to point out: qualia and the physical world can “desync”, which is evidence they are different. If you see light with a wavelength of ~600nm, such as that produced by a sodium lamp or banana, you will percieve it as yellow. But that subjective experience of yellow is also triggered by seeing both ~700nm and ~500nm wavelengths of light simultaneously, which you would individually percieve as red and green respectively. This is how your computer screen does it. ||I guess technically you could argue the cone activations in your eye end up the same, so this may be a bad example… regardless, the point is that something like a taste or smell or color has no physical meaning, they are experiences which are caused by physical phenomena rather than being the physical phenomena themselves.|| I am using “internal experience” to mean the subjective way that you percieve the world. If I just used “experience” you could use it more broadly in your sense of “X is happening to you”, which is not what I mean. I guess you could call those things happening in the physical world an “external experience” but I agree, that is a bit confusing and is not my intention. I am using “internal” to make a more specific compound term, not really to contrast it with “external”. But if you are using the word “experience” to mean “C is happening to you” then yes, the external experience is the thing that is physically happening and the internal experience is your perception of it happening to you.

Replies (1)

  • @bunchberry@lemmy.world 2026-10-23 03:00

    there is a philosophical distinction between the physical world and your perception Proof? RGB is measuring/defining proportions of different wavelengths of light We knew about colors long before anyone knew what a “wavelength of light” is. I can tell something is red without needing to measure its photons. There are correlations between red, green, and blue, but they are not exact. Monitors do a lot of weird things with colors and so it is just false to state that there is a direct equivalence to color values and wavelengths of light that the monitor will actually emit. I am using “internal experience” to mean the subjective way that you percieve the world. How do I perceive the world “subjectively”? What does that even mean? Is it possible to perceive the world “objectively”? But if you are using the word “experience” to mean “C is happening to you” then yes, the external experience is the thing that is physically happening and the internal experience is your perception of it happening to you. So all you mean by “subjective experience” is that the things are happening to me specifically? So, if thing happens to another thing, and one of those things is a subject, then it is subjective? That is a strange way to use the word “subjective.” If I eat a sandwich, is that subjective eating?

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