Consider the concept of green and the color green. Is it right to say that the concept of green is also green? I would think not, since the concept merely reports what the color green is like. It itself is not green. Concepts seem to be analogous to, say, a cardboard box that you put a piece of bread into with a list of facts about the bread on the front. You would never say that the box is like the bread; it only contains bread and describes the bread. This question could probably be expanded to any concept, including justice and the like.
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Good question. A hundred years later, we are on the course of re-discovering the Theory of Types. – George Chen Oct 29 '16 at 13:45
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A simpler model of a concept is that it is a pointer or a reference, the name John is not a person named John, but in a given context it constitutes a pointer to such an individual. (It is an improvement because eliminating the containing box, the bread could still be used, even eaten, and although now gone, it can still be pointed at. Concepts don't isolate their referents in the process of describing them. Imagining that they somehow do gives us a false security relative to changes in meaning.) – Oct 30 '16 at 03:07
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It's been said that "colorless green ideas sleep furiously" but this is nonsensical - possibly poetic.
Are Concepts Colorless?
Yes, concepts have no color. It would be a category mistake to describe them as so, else it is poetry. Unlike color, which is prismatic range, concepts do not exist - they are only to be found in language.
Is the list of all cats a cat? No. Is the list of all lists a list? Yes. Is the list of all lists that don't list themselves a list? That's a question worth answering in letters...
MmmHmm
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@mobileink not quite. Color is prismatic range. For example, perception of the color green - like the perception of heat from a stove - is the result of cause, not volition (conception). Big difference. – MmmHmm Oct 30 '16 at 21:26
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it's a fascinating question, which fortunately has been the subject of much research, both philosophical and empirical over the past few decades. philosophically: all precepts are already concepts. see Brandom and McDowell. Scientifically, there are no color universals with the possible exception of black and white, but even that is dubious. – Oct 31 '16 at 00:03
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iow just because you have a physical input like some wavelength of light does not mean you get the same concept across languages. green being a case in point: there are cultures that do not recognized any difference between what we (English speakers) designate as blue and green. – Oct 31 '16 at 00:06
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@mobileink non-sequitur does not change the case that prismatic range is found outside of language. – MmmHmm Oct 31 '16 at 00:43
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see for example https://newrepublic.com/article/121843/philosophy-color-perception – Oct 31 '16 at 01:45
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@mobileink the same way one discerns Wordsworths claim that a rainbow "is a little bridge from heaven that crying angels make" (what is to Wordsworth) and his remark "Confusion to the memory of Newton!" for the latter having reduced the beauty of a rainbow to a prism ("what is"), you need to discern the object referred to (what is, e.g. prismatic range) from your experience of it (what is to you, e.g. the non-distinction of two neighboring colors or the apparent dissimilarity of two identical colors). – MmmHmm Oct 31 '16 at 02:30
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sorry but I don't understand your response. wordsworth? really? can you cite some actual science? why not rimbaud: "A Black, E white, I red, U green, O blue : vowels, I shall tell, one day, of your mysterious origins..." – Oct 31 '16 at 02:52
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@mobileink, and yet this is neither a science nor a poetry forum. Again: the same way one discerns what is to [you;me;us;them] and "what is", you need to discern the object referred to (i.e. "what is") from the experience of the object referred to (i.e. what is to [you;me;us;them]). That one does not distinguish green and blue or sees the same grey square as if it were different shades does not change the ontological status of color existing outside of language, nor the epistemic verifiability of prismatic range. – MmmHmm Oct 31 '16 at 03:07
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ok but again: where is the non-sequitor? and what does "prismatic range" mesn? these are simple questions, I think. – Oct 31 '16 at 03:40
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@mobileink I'll leave you to re-read this commentary, otherwise: http://micro.magnet.fsu.edu/primer/java/scienceopticsu/newton/ – MmmHmm Oct 31 '16 at 03:49
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