You're confusing the qualia of colour("what it's like" to perceive colour) with the property of colour. Both can be referred to by the word "colour".
You're essentially just arguing that one definition of a noun is "more valid" than another, which is completely arbitrary.
And of course the qualia of colour is entirely subjective and only in the mind. That's literally the definition of qualia. That doesn't mean the property of colour is also subjective, just because it's referred to by the same noun. And besides, qualia is a philosophically controversial term in the first place.
If you were trying to cross a river and someone told you walk over that bridge over there, you wouldn't respond that it's impossible because a bridge is a device that links two computer networks together at the link layer, and couldn't possibly be used a cross a river, would you?
you're right, I'm just arguing that when we talk about colors we talk about the subjective perception of it, the thing that we see, which is what is usually referred to as color in any normal conversation. I didn't know there was a different definition of color which was a synonym of wavelength, in that case you're right. So as you say, the debate is arbitrary because it's about different definitions of color.
However, both measurements of wavelengths, the qualia or subjective one and the numerical wavelength or objective one, both exist only in our minds. There exists a measurement if and only if there exists someone that measures, even if it is an objective measure
Agreed. It's simply philosophically sloppy to suggest that purple, brown, and really any other colour don't exist without qualifying what one means by existing in this context, and why that definition of the word is used.
In this case, it seems the "what" is that for a colour to "exist", it has to be a distinct, isolated frequency of light, and (for some reason) it needs to appear in a logical place in the frequency space in relation to other colours. They don't answer the "why" question, and I think if they tried, they would find it difficult, because it's completely arbitrary and in conflict with reality.
Just because some colours do in fact correspond to frequencies of light, that doesn't mean all colours have to. There's a reason we have the terms primary and secondary colour. Some colours are emergent from mixing other colours together. Does that mean they can't appear in the natural world, being discriminated by sensory systems? No. Does purple cause things to happen? I'm sure you could find myriad examples of this in the natural world.
Ironically, the only thing here that only exists in our brains, is the notion that purple doesn't exist.
Even better, I can tell you one I experienced literally today.
I was at a barbeque, and the people hosting put out one bowl of diced red onion, which despite the name was purple, as it tends to be, and a bowl of crispy fried onion, which was brown. I reached for the fried onion, and avoided the red(purple) onion, because I always hated red onion.
Now, if you want to be annoying, you could make all sorts of red(heh) herring arguments about the cause of me avoiding the red onions being their flavour and aroma in the past having caused me not to like onions, and that's all true. But effects can have multiple causes, and it's also true that the distribution of pigments in the onion leading to an emergent property we dub "purple" did in fact convey information to me that caused me to decide not to eat them. I didn't smell them or taste them. Information was transmitted from onion to mind, via the electromagnetic field. Clearly the emergent property of purple colour has a causal effect here.
As for other examples in the natural world of non-human plants an animals, I don't know, but feel free to use a search engine. But since the colour purple is found in all sorts of life forms(including humans, and all sorts of life forms(including) are able to perceive and discriminate it from other colours, it's fair to assume that the colour purple is out there having all sorts of causal effects.
The purple you saw in those onions is literally a neurological glitch. Your brain inventing a color that doesn’t exist in the spectrum. When red (long) and blue (short) wavelengths hit without green (mid), your visual cortex makes up purple as a placeholder. Your avoidance wasn’t caused by the color itself (a mental construct), but by the brain using this imaginary hue as a proxy for past onion trauma.
This mirrors how we treat UI error messages. A "404" doesn’t cause missing data, it’s just the system’s way of flagging underlying issues. The real causal chain was anthocyanins → wavelength reflection → neural pattern-matching → memory recall. Purple was the middleware, not the root process.
Fun twist. Those fried onions’ brown does have causal ties to flavor. Maillard reaction products directly interact with taste receptors. The universe trolls us with color semantics, but chemistry always wins.
It might not exist in the spectrum, does that mean it doesn't exist? You're arguing and conflating two different things here. On the one hand, you're implicitly arguing that a colour can't exist unless it corresponds to a singular frequency of light, which I've already argued against. This is no more meaningful than arguing that tables and chairs are mental constructs because it's all quarks and electrons at the end of the day. Emergent properties exist and can have causal effects, most philosophers and scientists are in agreement about this.
The other is that a qualia or the mental experience of seeing purple is the same thing as perceiving purple as distinct from other colours in a physical object. I'm not talking about the qualia. In fact, I hate the concept of qualia, because whenever it's introduced into philosophical discussions, the discussion devolves into epicycles of meaningsless discussion of definitions and nomenclature and ends up going nowhere.
No, the purple was there. You say all that was there was some chemicals that only reflects certain wavelengths. I say this is what defines the emergent physical property we call the colour purple. You say electrons and quarks, I say tables and chairs. Both are accurate, and certainly not in conflict.
You might say, so how is this distinct from qualia? Well, for the qualia of seeing purple, there is no way even in principle to decide whether my qualia is the same as your qualia. But I can still look at a red onion and tell you it's purple, and you likely would agree unless you're colour blind. So this property of purple is, unlike a qualia, objective, not subjective.
Your critique reveals a crucial conflation between structural emergence and perceptual categorization, a distinction that clarifies why "purple" (as a color category) lacks the causal efficacy you ascribe to it. If you gift me some of your valuable reading time, let's dissect this.
1. Two Types of Emergence
- Structural emergence (tables/chairs): Arises from physical interactions between components. A table's causal power (holding objects) derives from its atomic structure creating macroscopic rigidity. These properties are observer-independent. A laser would detect the table's structural integrity even with no humans present.
- Perceptual categorization (color): Emerges from evolved neurobiology + cultural reinforcement. The "purple" label applied to red onions is a compression algorithm for "reflects 400-450nm + 600-700nm with minimal 500-600nm". This categorization has no causal power beyond its role as an information tag.
2. The "Objective" Color Fallacy
Your intersubjective agreement about purple stems from:
- Shared cone cell biology: 94% of humans have L/M/S photopsins with peak sensitivities at ~560nm (red), ~530nm (green), ~420nm (blue)
- Cultural conditioning: Modern color lexicons standardized via Pantone systems and CIE charts
Yet this consensus doesn't make purple an emergent physical property.
Consider this.
The Himba tribe uses "zoozu" for dark colors (blue/purple/black) and doesn't distinguish purple as a category
Industrial paint manufacturers recognize 12,000+ color terms, far beyond basic spectral labels
Your "purple" onion would register as #6A1B9A in HEX, 17.3° hue in CIELAB, arbitrary numerical tags, not causal agents
Contains zero causal nodes requiring "purple" as an explanatory variable. Replace "purple" with "wavelength combo X" and the physics/neurology remains identical. Contrast with a table's causal power. Replace "table" with "carbon lattice configuration Y" and you lose the explanatory utility.
4. The Qualia Dodge
You're right to reject qualia-centric debates, but the alternative isn't reifying color categories. Instead, recognize that:
a) The onion's surface selectively reflects wavelengths
b) Your visual system detects this pattern
c) Your brain applies a culturally-learned label
d) The label activates memory associations
The causal oomph lives in the biochemical aversion pathways, not the color label. Change the label (call it "ploobalooba") while keeping wavelength data and aversion remains. Change the wavelengths while keeping the label, and behavior shifts.
5. The Real Emergent Culprit
What does have causal power here is pattern recognition heuristics. Your brain evolved to:
- Create color categories as survival shortcuts ("red" = blood/danger)
- Link these to outcomes via associative learning
These heuristics are genuine emergent properties with causal effects, but they're neural algorithms, not spectral properties. The purple label is their UI, not their codebase.
TL;DR
You're mistaking the map (color categories) for the territory (wavelength interactions). Tables derive causal power from structural emergence, "purple" derives consensus from neuro-cultural emergence. One explains why plates don't fall through surfaces, the other why we argue about onions at barbecues.
Not quite. Alexander Fleming was growing cultures of staph bacteria, went away for some time, and when he came back, found one petri dish had been contaminated with fungus, and that the fungus inhibited the growth of the bacteria. It seems to be unclear where the contamination came from, but the fungus itself was already known to science at the time.
Nasdaq composite is down 5.6% at the time of writing this comment.
I honestly think Trump is doing this just to enrich himself and his friends. Stock market crashes always end up transfering wealth from the poor to the rich.
It certainly could. Depends a lot on the specifics of how the UBI is implemented, and how UBI affects salary levels. If everything remained the same and everyone just got x more income each year, then yes, inflation is very likely. On the other hand, something more like no questions asked/no demands made social security, where the only requirement is being unemployed, could improve conditions for people who are unable to work while paying for itself in eliminating heaps of red tape, and also freeing up a lots of manpower towards helping people sort out their lives instead of pouring over disability pension applications, without paying out a bunch of money to people who don't need it because they earn plenty from work already.
One could also pay out ubi universally, but have a one time down-adjustment of salaries the first year.
That's why the better policy is not to subsidize the purchase price of the car, but the various taxes associated with owning one, as well as offering certain perks like being able to drive in the bus lane. This was a huge success in Norway. Though now the percentage of new car purchases that are electric is so large that the subsidies are being rolled back because they've gotten too expensive(and the bus lane thing no longer makes sense because if the majority of cars can drive in it, it's not really a bus lane anymore). But I think that's fine. You can make an argument that when subsidies were introduced, electric cars were still struggling to compete with combustion cars in numerous ways, like range, capacity, access to chargers and repair services, etc. Subsidies/perks acted as compensation for those downsides for early adopters. The playing field is obviously a lot more even now. Chargers(including home chargers) are generally widely available, range is improved via better battery tech, there's a lot more players in the market, meaning more choice, etc. Not really a car guy, but I assume the repair situation is also improved, though it may not be on par yet.
It's not a classic thinkpad, but my thinkpad from 7 years ago is still going strong.
Recently I decided to do a service on it for the first time, and I was absolutely stunned by how little dust had built up in the CPU fan and the interior in general, after 7 years of usage, often sitting on top of a couch or bed, near my long-haired Norwegian forest cat Rufus. All it needed was a litle puff of computer duster and it was good as new. That's very good design of the air intakes and is a huge factor in the machine's longevity.
I did computer repair professionally for a while, and one of the most common causes of irreparable death I saw in laptops was massive dust buildup in cpu fans and consequent heat damage to surrounding components. I'd sometimes see this in 2-3 year old laptops even.
Funny to think that something as simple as the shape of an air intake opening can have such a profound impact on the lifetime of a device.
The other thing that Thinkpads are unrivaled at is protection for the display. People like to say macbooks are sturdy, but they are quite prone to cracked displays because of Apple's obsession with smaller bezels. The thinkpad ofc has t34 style angled armor for its display. Can't remember ever seeing a Thinkpad with a cracked display. And I carry my Thinkpad around in just a backpack with no sleeve, often the Thinkpad is the only thing in there, and it regularly impacts the floor when the(thin-bottomed) backpack is put down while sitting down on the bus or getting home.
Hans Niemann almost certainly did not cheat against Carlsen. Carlsen just played that game rather poorly and ragequit the tournament because he's a baby who can't handle losing.
I do think Niemann may have cheated in OTB chess before. But not at the Sinquefield Cup, I just don't see it. And the only evidence is insinuations from a sore loser who's well known for throwing tantrums when he doesn't get his way.
The buttplug stuff was really just a joke from reddit, no one's seriously suggested anyone is actually cheating using a buttplug. Doesn't even make sense as a way of cheating, really. It would be extremely obvious.
He made a great move in the game, but completely mis-analyzed the reason it works during the post-game interview [1]. Several GMs found that suspicious, especially given revelations that he'd previously admitted to cheating.
Specifically, move 19. Qd3! [2], appears to hang the knight. When asked how he'd respond if his opponent simply took the knight (19... dxc4), he says he is "completely winning", then proceeds to give some moves that lead to a flat-out losing position. (Eg: Any GM or sufficiently strong engine agrees that r2q1rk1/1pbn1p2/2p1b1pB/p3P3/P1p2P2/2P3QP/1P4P1/3RRBK1 b - - 0 1 is lost for White.)
To be fair, he's been playing incredibly well recently, and no other evidence of cheating came out, so I'm inclined to believe it was just a "bad interview."
Hans Niemann almost certainly did cheat against Carlsen. Everyone who knows about chess found that game hugely suspicious (see Hikaru's comments on it).
The idea that Carlsen can't stand losing is a theory from people who don't know about chess. His lose rate is about 15%. All GMs lose games all the time. It's keeping the win rate as high as possible that makes them the best.
The notion that any GM would get so upset simply about losing a single game is just nonsense.
I've been playing tournament chess for 20 years. Not every game is created equal. Some losses are more upsetting than others. Carlsen has some narcissistic traits, which is unsurprising given that he's been showered in adulation from the chess world and general public since he was a small child(and this is common in these chess virtuosos. See Kasparov, Fischer, Kramnik, Nakamura). He might be able to handle losing to someone he considers his peer, but there are plenty of things about Niemann's personality rumours circulating about his online cheating during the game, and his rating at the time that made this loss particularly hard to handle.
And GMs have had plenty of bad reactions to losses throughout the history of chess. It definitely happens. Chess is an emotionally taxing game. You spend many hours of exhausting effort at the board only to lose due to a momentary brainfart. It's infuriating. GMs are humans too. Hell, fairly recently there was an incident when GM Christopher Yoo punched a photographer after losing a game at a tournament in St Louis.
You're essentially just arguing that one definition of a noun is "more valid" than another, which is completely arbitrary.
And of course the qualia of colour is entirely subjective and only in the mind. That's literally the definition of qualia. That doesn't mean the property of colour is also subjective, just because it's referred to by the same noun. And besides, qualia is a philosophically controversial term in the first place.
If you were trying to cross a river and someone told you walk over that bridge over there, you wouldn't respond that it's impossible because a bridge is a device that links two computer networks together at the link layer, and couldn't possibly be used a cross a river, would you?