Theos-Talk Archives (November 2002 Message tt00895)

In a message dated 11/23/02 11:50:53 PM, bartl@sprynet.com writes:

>Steve Stubbs wrote:
>> Not really. It is a scientific fact, for example, that the color red
>> does not exist in nature, but only in our consciousness. 
>
> It is a frequency of electromagnetic waves.

Not so. The frequency of an electric wave is not the "color Red" that we 
Experience. A measurement of frequency can have no "color" until we see it -- 
just as the frequency of a compressive wave traveling through air can have no 
"sound" until we hear it. The experience of seeing and hearing, or awareness 
of the qualia of a color or sound are subjective activities that cannot be 
objectively measured or explained scientifically. We can only infer from our 
own experience that anyone else experiences something the same way that we do 
-- or is even conscious to the same degree. The frequency of the 
electromagnetic or sonic wave only correlates with the experience -- like the 
resulting neural activities of the brain correlates with consciousness, but 
does not define it.

LHM